Each general wrote on a tablet the names of two whom he believed to be worthy of a prize. They were not very modest, these brave soldiers of Greece, for each general wrote his own name first, though nearly all added beneath, the name of Themistocles. The Spartans gave their meed of honour to the great Athenian, for a crown of olive was placed upon his head and he was presented with the most magnificent chariot that Sparta had ever produced. Æschylus, one of the great Greek poets, wrote a tragedy on the fall of Xerxes, called _The Persians_, which was acted in 472 B.C., eight years after the battle of Salamis. Sculptors too wrought statues to commemorate the war, which were placed in the temple of Athene. CHAPTER LII THE BATTLE OF PLATAEA Mardonius stayed with his troops in Thessaly during the winter months. But in the spring of 479 B.C. he determined to win Athens from the league which she had formed with the other Greek states, or if he failed to do this, to drive the citizens once again away from their city and occupy it himself. So he sent an ambassador to the Athenians to offer, in the name of Xerxes, not only to repair all the harm that the Persians had done to Athens and to the country round about the city, but to give them new lands and to treat them as independent allies, if they would make a treaty with the great king. The Spartans were afraid that the Athenians would accept so generous an offer, and they knew that alone they could not hope to conquer the large Persian army which Mardonius commanded. So they sent to the Athenians to beg them to be true to the league, promising that if they were so, Spartan soldiers would be sent to help them against the attacks of the enemy. But the Athenians did not need to be entreated to refuse the offer of the great king, for they loved their city and their liberty. ‘Tell Mardonius,’ they said to the ambassador whom the Persian general had sent, ‘so long as the sun moves in his present course we will never come to terms with Xerxes.’ After receiving this defiant message, Mardonius marched with his army against Athens. The Spartans, in spite of their promises, sent no troops to defend the city, and the Athenians were forced once again to take refuge at Salamis. Then they reproached the Spartans, and in bitter anger they declared that if an army was not sent at once to Attica to attack Mardonius, they would be forced to make an alliance with the enemy. Again the Spartans grew alarmed for their own safety. Without further delay they sent a force of five thousand citizens, each attended by seven helots. Other troops soon followed, and all were under the command of Pausanias, who was a relation of Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylae. The Persians had reached the province of Boeotia and were encamped on the plain of Plataea, while the Athenians and the Spartans set up their camp on a hill above the enemy.