PLATÆA, or PLATÆA, an ancient city of Boeotia, stood on the southern bank of the Asopus, under the northern declivity of Mount Citheron. Its early history is characterized by a determined resistance to the domineering power of Thebes, and a steady alliance with Athens. Its later annals are rendered remarkable by two very important events. The one is the famous battle of Platæa, which took place in 479 B.C., between the Persians and confederate Greeks. In that year the Grecian troops under Pausanias took up their position near the walls of the city, on a level meadow between two branches of the river Erôë. Up from the banks of the Asopus, in pursuit of them, came the invaders, led on by Mardonius. A scattered fight ensued. The Greeks drove their enemies back, stormed their camp, and routed them over the country, till only a few were left to carry the news of the disaster to the East. In the full flush of success, the confederates returned to honour the scene of the battle. Assembled round a sacrifice in the market-place, they took an oath to defend and maintain for ever the independence of the town. Out of their spoils they contributed eighty talents for the erection of a temple to Minerva in the place. The privilege was also conferred by them upon the citizens of paying religious honours every year at the graves of the illustrious slain, and of celebrating, at the end of every five years, the feast of the Eleutheria, in commemoration of the deliverance of Greece. Equally notable with this victory was another event,—the siege of Platæa by the Peloponnesians under Archidamus in 429 B.C. In anticipation of the approach of the enemy, the children, the old men, and the mass of the women, had been sent away and consigned to the protection of Athens. There were only left 400 citizens and 80 Athenian allies to hold the town, and 110 women to take charge of the household affairs. To wrest the city from this devoted band, the invaders set themselves with sanguine determination. At first they tried to storm the place. A mound was thrown up, the battering-ram was piled, and a pile of brushwood was set on fire close to the wall. After all these attempts had been foiled by the ceaseless activity of those within, they turned the assault into a blockade, and casting up two lines of circumvallation, sat down in the shelter of the intermediate space. The besieged were now doomed to wait, and to continue to wait.