Plataea - Plataeae was an ancient city, located in Greece in southeastern Boeotia, south of Thebes1 . According to Pausanias The Plataeans were originally, in my opinion, sprung from the soil; their name comes from Plataea, whom they consider to be a daughter of the river Asopus. It is clear that the Plataeans too were of old ruled by kings; for everywhere in Greece in ancient times, kingship and not democracy was the established form of government. But the Plataeans know of no king except Asopus and Cithaeron before him, holding that the latter gave his name to the mountain, the former to the river. I think that Plataea also, after whom the city is named, was a daughter of King Asopus, and not of the river 2. Plataea was destroyed in the Peloponnesian War by Thebes and Sparta in 427 BC and rebuilt in 386 BC 3.
See:
- Pausanias Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918, Book IX
References
- ↑Boeotia borders on Attica at several places, one of which is where Plataea touches Eleutherae
- ↑Pausanias IX.2
- ↑ For in the war between the Peloponnesians and Athens, the Lacedaemonians reduced Plataea by siege, but it was restored during the peace made by the Spartan Antalcidas between the Persians and the Greeks, and the Plataeans returned from Athens. But a second disaster was destined to befall them. There was no open war between Plataea and Thebes; in fact the Plataeans declared that the peace with them still held, because when the Lacedaemonians seized the Cadmeia they had no part either in the plan or in the performance.