The Campaign Of The Battle Of Plataea PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II (I) The Pre-Periclean Vulgate (A) Historical Features of the Period The Campaign of Plataea took place during the archonship at Athens of Xanthippus, which began on the 19th of July, 479 B.C. The traditional date of the decisive engagement is the 19th of September of the same year; but this, though probable, is not established. No new evidence is at hand beyond that given in Busolt's elaborate chronological note (p. 725 n. 4). The thirty years which followed the expulsion of the Persians from Greece is known as the age of Cimon. Shortly before the Campaign of Plataea, Cimon, the son of Miltiades, had been sent from Athens to Sparta at the head of an embassy to effect active co-operation between the two leading states of Greece in the war against Persia. His success on this occasion seems to have influenced his future measures as a statesman, for during the years following the battle, when he was the leading spirit at Athens, the policy of the state was a definite one--alliance with Sparta and offensive warfare against Persia. The age of Cimon was one of harmony between states in Greece. It was not until nearly twenty years after Plataea that Sparta had her first open quarrel with Athens.1 The friendly relations between the two states were then ruptured for a short time, but after the battle of Tanagra, in which the Athenians were defeated by the Lacedaemonians, Cimon's policy of a united front against the common enemy of Greece again prevailed. His death in 449 B.C., however, marked the ascendency of views diametrically opposed to those which he had championed. The writers who preserved the records of Plataea during the age of Cimon were men thoroughly imbued with the 'Thuc. 1. 102. 3. broad pan-Hellenic policy. Simonides...