Plataea

View of Plataea, and the battlefield of the Battle of Plataea
Plataies and Plataea
Modern Plataies and ruins of the city of Plataea
Topographical map of the ruins of Plataea
Part of the wall of Plataea

Plataea (/pləˈtə/; Ancient Greek: Πλάταια, Plátaia) was an ancient Greek city-state situated in Boeotia near the frontier with Attica at the foot of Mt. Cithaeron, between the mountain and the river Asopus, which divided its territory from that of Thebes.[1] Its inhabitants were known as the Plataeans (Πλαταιαί; Plataiaí, Latin: Plataeae).

It was the location of the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC, in which an alliance of Greek city-states defeated the Persians.

Plataea was destroyed and rebuilt several times during the Classical period of ancient Greece. The modern Greek town of Plataies is adjacent to its ruins.

  1. ^ Strabo, Geography, ix. p.411. This page is an edited and updated version of an article in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography of 1870, p. 637.