In the region of Plataea,
around 479 BCE, the combined forces of the Greek coalition crossed their spears
and swords against an army of Persians that was led by Mardonius. The king of
Persia, Xerxes I, was already long gone from Greece—he, personally, abandoned
the campaign after his disastrous defeat at the naval Battle of Salamis in 480
BCE and decided to leave the administration of the war to his generals. When
Xerxes left, he understandably took with him an escort made up of a substantial
portion of his invasion army. Yet, the manpower that remained behind with the Persian
commander, Mardonius, was still impressive. There is very little certainty as to
exactly how many men were present at the Battle of Plataea, but a common
statistic is that Mardonius had around 100,000 men and faced an army of
approximately 40,000 Greeks. For several days, these two sides maneuvered and
fought, with the Greeks eventually emerging with a decisive victory. Mardonius
was among the estimated tens-of-thousands of Persians who were slaughtered
during the battle. Although conflict continued between Persia and the Greek
cities, the Battle of Plataea was an irrecoverable deathblow to the Persian
invasion of mainland Greece.
In the aftermath of the
battle, the Greek forces captured the Mardonius’ supplies and treasury. In the
camp of the Persians, there was an enormous quantity of rich food, gold, silver
and artwork, which the Greeks divided among themselves. Yet, also left behind
were the remains of thousands of slain Persians. The historian, Herodotus (c.
490-425/420 BCE), wrote that while the various Greek dead were respectfully
cared for by their own respective comrades, the Persian corpses from the Battle
of Plataea were left to rot.
Herodotus went on to say that
Greek treasure hunters, who were scavenging for overlooked valuables, began to
notice strange things about the Persian corpses. Odd skeletal remains were
found on the battlefield—the Greek observers believed the remains were former
Persian soldiers, but some of the discoveries seemed to be anything but human. A
peculiar skull and jawbone were supposedly discovered. Herodotus claimed that
there were no joins or joints in the different sections of the skull.
Similarly, the jaw supposedly did not have individual teeth, but a single, solid
horseshoe-shaped mass of tooth material. The ancient historian also claimed
that a skeleton was found of a Persian soldier who, when alive, would have
stood between seven and eight feet tall.
What exactly these ancient
Greek scavengers discovered on the battlefield of Plataea still remains a
mystery. Did these ancients misidentify the bones? Did they unearth some sort
of fossil? Did an ancient Persian soldier of seven feet in height really die at
the Battle of Plataea? Either way, it is a characteristically odd, but
interesting, story that you can expect from The
Histories of Herodotus.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Top picture attribution: (Greek hoplite and Persian warrior fighting each
other. Depiction in ancient kylix. 5th c. BCE National Archaeological Museum of
Athens, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
- From The Histories by Herodotus (Book IX), translated by Aubrey De Sélincourt and revised by John Marincola (Penguin Classics, 2002).
- https://www.ancient.eu/Plataea/
- https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Plataea
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