PLATÆÆ (anc. geogr.), a very strong town of Bœotia, in its situation exposed to the north wind (Theophratus); burnt to the ground by Xerxes (Herodotus, Justinus); mentioned much in the course of the Persian war; famous for the defeat of Mardonius, the Persian general; and for the most signal victory of the Lacedemonians and other Greeks under Pausanias, the Lacedemonian, and Arisides an Athenian general (Nepos, Diodorus, Plutarch); in memory of which the Greeks erected a temple to Jupiter Eleutherinus, and instituted games which they called Eleutheria; and there they show the tombs of those who fell in that battle (Strabo). It stood at the foot of mount Cithæron, between that and Thebes to the north, on the road to Athens and Megara, and on the confines of Attica and Megaris. Now in ruins.