Plataea

We learn how, in fifth-century bc Greece, Persian troops crumbled when a coalition of Athenians and Spartans forced them into marshlands before the Battle of Plataea.

In the Daedala, as the festival was called at Plataea, an effigy was made from an oak-tree, dressed in bridal attire, and carried in a cart with a woman who acted as bridesmaid.

Pausanias, the victor of Plataea, soon showed himself destitute of the high qualities which the situation demanded.

The great battles, Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea, present a series of problems.

By his counsel the god celebrated a sham marriage with a wooden image, dressed up to personate Plataea, daughter of Asopus.