The Battle of Plataea is the final land battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece.

It taes place in 479 BCE near the city of Plataea in Boeotia, and is fought between an alliance of the Greek city-states, including Sparta, Athens, Corinth and Megara, and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I.The previous year the Persian invasion force, led by the Persian king in person, had scored victories at the battles of Thermopylae and Artemisium and conquered Thessaly, Boeotia, Euboea and Attica.

However, at the ensuing Battle of Salamis, the Allied Greek navy had won an unlikely but decisive victory, preventing the conquest of the Peloponnesus.

Xerxes then retreated with much of his army, leaving his general Mardonius to finish off the Greeks the following year.In the summer of 479 BCE, the Greeks assemble a huge (by contemporary standards) army and marc out of the Peloponnesus.

The Persians retreat to Boeotia and build a fortified camp near Plataea.

The Greeks, however, refuse to be drawn into the prime cavalry terrain around the Persian camp, resulting in a stalemate that lasts eleven days.

While attempting a retreat after their supply lines are disrupted, the Greek battle line fragments.

Thinking the Greeks in full retreat, Mardonius orders his forces to pursue them, but the Greeks (particularly the Spartans, Tegeans and Athenians) halt and give battle, routing the lightly armed Persian infantry and killing Mardonius.A large portion of the Persian army is trapped in its camp and slaughtered.

The destruction of this army, and the remnants of the Persian navy allegedly on the same day at the Battle of Mycale, decisively end the invasion.

After Plataea and Mycale the Greek allies will take the offensive against the Persians, marking a new phase of the Greco-Persian Wars.

Although Plataea is in every sense a resounding victory, it does not seem to have been attributed the same significance (even at the time) as, for example, the Athenian victory at the Battle of Marathon or the Spartan defeat at Thermopylae.