THE DEFENCE OF PLATA.

At the foot of Mount Citheron, one of the most
beautiful of the mountains of Greece, winds the
small river Asopus, and between, on a slope of the
mountain, may to-day be seen the ruins of Plata,
one of the most memorable of the cities of ancient
Greece. This city had its day of glory and its day
of woe. Here, in the year 479 B.c., was fought that
famous battle which drove the Persians forever from
Greece. And here Pausanias declared that the terri-
tory on which the battle was fought should forever
be sacred ground to all of Grecian birth. Forever
is seldom a very long word in human history. In
this case it lasted just fifty years.

War had broken out between Sparta and its allies
and Athens and its dominion, and all Greece was in
turmoil. Of the two leading cities of Boeotia, The-
bes was an ally of the Lacedemonians, Platwa of
the Athenians. The war broke out by an attack of
the Thebans upon Platea. Two years afterwards,
in the year 429 s.c., Archidamus, the Spartan king,
led his whole force against this ally of Athens. In
his army marched the Thebans, men of a city but
two hours’ journey from Plata, and citizens of the
same state, yct its bitterest foes. The Plateans were
summoned to surrender, to consent to remain neutral,

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