A view of the Ruins of Plataea in 429 BC; the fort is just beyond the foot of the hill
Plataea was an ancient city located in the Boeotia region of Ancient Greece, located in the southeast of the region and south of Thebes. The Plataeans fought alongside the Athenians at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, but Plataea itself was the site of the 479 BC Battle of Plataea, one of the decisive final battles of the Greco-Persian Wars. In 431 BC, the Thebans launched a failed surprise attack on Plataea, which had been an ally of Athens since Marathon, and, in 429 BC, King Archidamus II of Sparta besieged Plataea. Plataea fell in 428 BC, and the city was then razed by the Thebans. The Thebans occupied the site of Plataea until 387 BC, when the Boeotian League was disbanded at the end of the Corinthian War. Plataea was rebuilt in 386 BC, but it was again destroyed by the Thebans in 373 BC during the Theban hegemony wars. In 338 BC, King Philip II of Macedon refounded Plataea, and the rebuilt Plataea shared in the division of the destroyed city of Thebes' territories by Alexander the Great in 335 BC.
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