Plataies and Plataea
Modern Plataies and ruins of the city of Plataea
Topographical map of the ruins of Plataea
Plataea (/pləˈtiːə/; 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.
- ^ 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.