429–427 BC · Plataea, Boeotia Theater
429–427 BC
Plataea — the city whose heroism at the 479 BC battle bore its name — was besieged by a Spartan and Boeotian army for two years. The Spartans built elaborate circumvallation walls around the city. Most of the garrison escaped through the Spartan lines on a dark winter night by a brilliant ruse, counting the courses of bricks in the siege wall and manufacturing ladders of precisely the right height. The remaining 200 Plataeans and 25 Athenians held out until starvation forced surrender. Their fate was brutal: tried before a Spartan court that asked only whether they had helped Sparta during the current war, all were executed.
Commanders