The funniest battle in the Peloponnesian War

Disclaimer: this is about Ancient Greece. All of the names sound very ancient, too. It comes off pretty Lord of the Rings-y at times, and there's not a whole lot I can do about that. I swear, though, this is actually very funny.

A year or two ago, I read Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. For those who aren't familiar, take my word that it's way more interesting than it sounds, once you work around a couple of Old Testament-y stretches of ancient names and places you've never heard of (...Cephallenia?). That said, it reads pretty well if you have a decent translation. Thucydides was alive during the war, and seemingly spent much of the time traveling around and hearing people's accounts of major events. He was one of the earliest Greek historians to rely on primary sources, rather than attributing complex phenomena to "the gods" whenever convenient. All of this contributes to History being an engaging and interesting story, almost like a journalistic account of a modern war.

I enjoyed this book a lot, but there's one specific episode that's always rattling around my memory—both because it's an awesome story, and because it's really, really funny. It's been marinating for a couple years, now, so I think it's time to explore in detail.

Background

Let's set the scene. The Persians had invaded Greece in 480 BC (the second time in 10 or so years) ^[1] , but the Greek armies managed to beat them back, reclaiming land within Greece and beyond. This war featured the famous battle of Thermopylae, where the 300 Spartans, along with hundreds of other Greeks from various cities, made their last stand. That clash occupied the Persians for three days, giving the rest of the Greek army time to retreat safely. (Bonus fact: Thermopylae translates to "hot gates". Make of that what you will.)

So the combined Greek forces turned the tide of the war after a couple decisive victories at Salamis and Plataea (remember that for later), and the second Persian invasion of Greece effectively ended in 479 BC. What followed was a period of dramatic expansion for the Athenians: they ran full-tilt into imperialism, forming the Delian League ^[2] and expanding their reaches until they comprised a bona fide empire.

Tensions rose between Athens and Sparta, the two most powerful Greek city-states, over the coming decades. Local conflicts drew in larger powers due to the alliances formed by different city-states; this came to a head with the conflict between Corcyra and Corinth.

Here you can see a bunch of crap all close together, and then some other stuff further away (credit Wikipedia/Kenmayer)

For starters, Corcyra (Kerkyra) was a city on present-day Corfu, the red island above-right of the "Ionian Sea" label on the map. The allegiances here are kind of confusing, but from what I've gathered, colonists from Corinth— located on the isthmus between Athens and Sparta— founded Corcyra, and later colonists from Corcya founded a city called Epidamnus further up the coast of mainland Greece. Epidamnus had grown into a populous city, but fell to internal strife. During a civil conflict, one faction kicked out the other; the exiles then joined forces with the neighboring barbarians and began plundering the city. (Not a great look... but when in Rome...)

The remaining people of Epidamnus sent ambassadors to Corcyra, their parent-state, to ask for help, but the Corcyraeans sent them packing, not interested in getting involved. So the Epidamnians found themselves up a creek and, desperate to save their city, pleaded for help from their grandparent-state: the Corinthians.

They found in Corinth a friendly ear. The Corinthians had two reasons for helping out: 1) they felt like Epidamnus was their responsibility, since the founders of the city could trace their lineage back to Corinth; and 2) they hated Corcyra for its pride. What was once Corinth's own colony had become a wealthy city with a powerful navy, never deigning to give Corinth precedence at sacrifices or other old-timey shows of respect. I guess this would be like if your kid grew up to be richer and stronger than you and stopped picking up your calls. So terms were laid that the Epidamnians would surrender the city to the Corinthians in exchange for their protection. Corinth sent a garrison of troops and prepared to follow up with naval forces.

When the Corcyraeans caught wind of this, they were incensed. They demanded that the Corinthians relinquish the city so they could reinstall the exiled Epidamnians (remember them?) to power. Long story short, Corinth sent ships to Epidamnus and, after some circular negotiations with Corcyra, was decisively defeated in battle by the powerful Corcyraean navy, losing control of much of that area. Both sides scaled up their hostilities and prepared for a protracted conflict.

"We'll withdraw our troops if you withdraw yours first"

— Actual exchange between Corinth and Corcyra

So naturally, both of these two-bit powers decided to go higher up the ladder and recruit help from Athens. The Athenians, after hearing them out, decided in favor of Corcyra, and sent ships to defend them. Eventually, when Corinth sent ships of its own to attack Corcyra, the Athenians joined in defense of their ally. Both sides claimed the moral high ground: the Corinthians asserted that this was none of Athens' business and that they were violating their treaty by taking up arms against Corinth, and the Athenians retorted that they wouldn't engage in any violence if the Corinthians would just turn around. Naturally, the Corinthians attacked anyway.

Alright, let's speed this up a bit. This conflict spiraled pretty quickly. A Corinthian colony called Potidaea— who, to make this more complex, paid tribute to Athens— revolted against Athens. Corinth, along with recruited help from Sparta, came to their aid. This culminated in an Athenian siege of Potidaea, with Corinthians and Spartans inside. Back home, the Spartan ruling class assembled, debated, and eventually decided that Athens had broken their treaty. War was declared. (Note: this is all more or less taken from Thucydides. I'm sure there were other factors involved that I'm not mentioning here, but you get the gist.)

The battle of Plataea

Bear with me for just a few more ancient cities. I promise the good stuff is coming. Plataea was a city located about 8 miles from Thebes, both not too far from Athens. Plataea and Thebes had bad blood, and more or less saw each other as mortal enemies. Whether a symptom or a cause of this rocky relationship, Plataea allied itself with Athens, and Thebes with Sparta. Right at the start of the proper war between Athens and Sparta, Thebes sent a force of a few hundred troops to Plataea with the aim of taking it over. The Thebans were assisted by some Plataean traitors who hoped to trade their city for power once a new government was established. These traitors opened the gates one night and let in the raiding Thebans.

Naturally, the Plataeans freaked out upon waking up to a bunch of enemy troops in their city. They quickly started coming to terms with the Thebans to avoid being slaughtered. As the immediate panic wore off, though, the Plataeans realized they'd overestimated how many enemy troops had entered their walls. They determined that they could, in fact, rout the Thebans through sheer strength of number. So they organized in secret, digging tunnels in the walls between their homes so they could gather without being seen en masse in the streets. Once they'd prepared, but still before dawn, they launched an attack against the invaders.

The Thebans made an effort to repel the ambush, but were outnumbered and caught off guard. (I mean, the Plataeans had started negotiations before the attack, so this feels pretty sneaky. But all's fair when you're defending home turf.) The Thebans soon broke rank and fled, but found themselves hamstrung by their limited knowledge of the city's layout. The only open gate— the one they'd come through— had been shut by the Plataeans, and in the stormy dark the Thebans ran all over town trying to find an escape route. Some got onto the city walls and jumped off (not recommended), others thought they found a way out but ended up trapped and taken prisoner. So the Plataeans quickly restored order in their city. All told, 180 Thebans were captured, and most of the rest were killed in battle.

Clearly, this didn't start off very well for the Thebans. Their backup force—which had planned to arrive the next day to make sure nothing went awry— attempted to speed up their march once they heard about the battle, but heavy rain slowed them down and they arrived at the city too late to help. Those Theban reinforcements devised a crafty plan, though: since this attack had come out of the blue, the Plataeans wouldn't have pulled all of their citizens and resources within the city walls yet. The Thebans would grab as many hostages as they could and use them as bargaining chips to get their men back, if any had been left alive. But in this conflict of utter slimeballs, the Plataeans saw this coming, and sent a herald to chastise the Theban army:

Hey, what the hell?! If you guys go after any of our civilians or livestock, we'll execute all of the prisoners we're holding inside the city.

— Plataean herald, approximately

So the Thebans pulled back, the Plataeans welcomed their citizens to safety inside the walls, and— you guessed it— executed all of the Theban prisoners anyway.

I mean, we never said we wouldn't kill em...

— Plataeans, in aggregate

Meanwhile, Athens— Plataea's ally— heard about the conflict, and sent a messenger to Plataea instructing them to not make any rash decisions with regards to the Theban prisoners until— what? you killed them all already? Oh, gods, what is wrong with you people??

Athens then marched troops to Plataea, leaving a garrison and evacuating the city of its women, children, and elderly.

Interlude: war breaks out in earnest

Alright, by now the treaty between Athens and Sparta had irreparably shattered. Sparta mustered a force to invade the Athenian part of Greece (Attica). This part is less relevant to our story, so we'll breeze past it, but just for your knowledge, Sparta would usually amass troops, lay waste to as much of Attica as possible, and then return to the Peloponnese in time for their harvest. (No wonder this war took 30 years...)

Finally: the funny part

In the third year of the war, the Spartans and their allies marched on Plataea. The Plataeans, wishing to avoid conflict, appealed to common history, invoking the memory of Sparta's role in the liberation of Plataea from the Persians a few decades prior. The Spartan leader cut them off. Instead, he proposed a deal: Plataea could remain neutral during this conflict with Athens, welcoming both sides as friends, and Sparta would ensure that Plataea suffered no violence or abuse.

The Plataeans, not wanting to make any major moves without consulting their benefactor, sent an envoy to Athens. The Athenians responded that they'd never abandoned Plataea before, and wouldn't start now: tell the Spartans to kick rocks, and we'll protect you. So the Plataeans refused the Spartan offer of neutrality, resigned to suffer the consequences. (By the way, keep that Athenian promise of protection in mind for later in the story.)

Plataea's main defense in this conflict was its great wall wrapping the city. In the days before drone strikes and nukes, I guess this was a pretty hefty deterrent. Once the Spartan army began their formal assault, they took two immediate actions: surround the city so no one could escape, and start building a mound of earth against the wall, with the aim of being able to climb over it and overrun Plataea. Confused? Picture this scene from World War Z, but with dirt instead of zombies:

So there's a big wall, right? And there's a bunch of stuff stacked in front of it...

The mound-building continued in uninterrupted shift work for 70 days and nights. Alarmed, the Plataeans began building a taller wall opposite the mound. This old-school arms race continued for some time, with both sides trying to build over their opponent. There's a limit to how high you can build, though, and 2500 years ago that limit must not have been very impressive. Hard-pressed to think of a more sustainable solution, the Plataeans disassembled part of the base of their wall that butted up against the Spartan mound and began carrying the dirt off into their city. To continue our World War Z analogy, this would be like removing one of those panels at the bottom of the wall and carrying in the zombies so they couldn't Yertle the Turtle their way to the top— wait, that wouldn't work.

Anyway. Well, the Spartans weren't total fools. They figured out what was going on and threw clay and reeds into the part of the mound abutting the wall, so the Plataeans couldn't easily dig it out and carry it off.

The Plataeans, unfazed, dug a mine under the mound and started carrying off the dirt, just like they'd been doing before. Remember what I said about the Spartans not being total fools? Well, I take that back, because they didn't notice for a long time. Somehow, nobody was surprised by the fact that despite all the building they did, the mound never got any taller. Thucydides' description is so funny that I think it's worth repeating here:

This went on for a long while without the enemy outside finding it out, so that for all they threw on the top their mound made no progress in proportion, being carried away from beneath and constantly settling down in the vacuum.

Okay, that might not sound funny on first read, but translate it into conversational English and imagine this playing out. You gotta think this was almost the inspiration for this Spongebob bit:

Back to our story. Again fearing that this subterfuge wouldn't last forever, the Plataeans took up one more strategy: they started building a new wall inside their existing wall. If the Spartans got through the first wall, they'd have to build another mound to get over the second one, and this time they'd be even more exposed to attack by projectiles.

The Spartans, outwitted at every turn, made a last ditch attempt to destroy Plataea. They piled up a ton— and I mean a ton— of wood against the city wall and, once they couldn't pile it any higher, lit it on fire. If not for a heavy rain that day, the Plataeans might have had their city burned to a crisp. But as fate would have it, they survived, and the Spartans gave up the offensive, preferring to wall off the city and starve out the residents.

The dramatic escape

That wasn't enough for you? Sheesh, tough crowd. Well, lucky for you there's more to the story— yes, it has it all: intrigue, comedy, a dramatic nighttime escape. Let's get to it.

Fast forward about a year, and the Plataeans (with their small Athenian garrison) were still besieged by the Spartans, who had circumvallated the city so nobody could escape. With provisions running low, the Plataeans had few palatable options: stick it out and possibly starve waiting for Athenian help (yeah, remember that promise from earlier?), surrender— which, back then, usually meant enslavement at best— or break through the investment and high-tail it to Athens. Of the 440 besieged, half chose the last option and set to work planning their jailbreak.

For starters, the Plataeans needed a way to get over the Spartan walls that caged them in. To that end, they built ladders, calculating the height by counting the number of bricks in the enemy wall (it was close enough to see well) and multiplying by the height of a brick. Many of them performed the count, many times, so they could be confident that their average wouldn't leave them short during the escape.

The Spartan siege wall consisted of two separate walls: an inner one to prevent people from leaving Plataea, and an outer one to defend against a possible attack from Athens. The enclosed space measured about 16 feet across, punctuated by guard towers that spanned the breadth of the double-walls. So, essentially, a huge, skinny donut shape with battlements and guard towers. A war donut.

During inclement weather, the Peloponnesians kept guard from inside the towers, rather than patrolling the battlements directly. A force of 300 remained on hand in case of an emergency.

Biding their time, the Plataeans waited for a stormy, moonless night. When such an opportunity arose, they crept out of their city, dispersing to minimize the risk of noise from clashing armor or weapons. They headed for a spot midway between guard towers, where they would be furthest from the Spartan sentinels keeping watch. Swathed in darkness and drowned out by the howling wind, they raised their ladders to the wall. Up went the stealthiest troops, 12 lightly armed men carrying only daggers. They split up, six to each nearby guard tower. Then followed a larger party of light troops, wielding spears. A significant contingent mounted the wall surreptitiously, but eventually someone knocked a tile off of the battlements, causing a stir. The Spartan guards took notice and raised the alarm.

But, of course, that wasn't it. The tunnel-digging, brick-counting, ladder-building Plataeans knew it wouldn't be that simple. The other half of the Plataeans, who had elected to hang back, made an attack against the diametrically-opposite portion of the wall in order to divert the Spartans' attention. On top of this, when the Spartans lit fire signals to relay the news of an attack to Thebes, the city-bound Plataeans lit signals of their own, rendering the message unintelligible. As a result, the Spartans found themselves in disarray, unsure of what was happening and how to react.

Meanwhile, the initial 12 Plataeans stormed the nearby towers, killing the guards and establishing control over the area. As their comrades scaled the wall and poured into the outside world, these troops held back any enemies who might've discovered them. Eventually, the main body of Plateans had gathered outside the walls, poised to escape but pelting the Spartans with arrows and darts to cover for the last of their fellow combatants. Just as the final escapists descended the outer wall, the 300 reserve Spartans arrived at the scene carrying torches. This made them easy targets, and they were greeted with a volley of arrows materializing out of the darkness.

The Plataeans made flight along the road towards Thebes, their enemy, knowing that the Spartans would never suspect this to be their escape route. After a couple miles, they veered off and cut straight to Athens. In the end, 212 escaped; of the other eight who attempted the escape, one was taken prisoner and the rest turned back before ascending the ladders.

An unhappy ending

For completeness, we have to talk about the remaining Plataeans. They withstood the siege as best they could but, weakened and on the verge of starvation, knew they would be unable to repulse a Spartan attack. The Spartans, in an effort to claim that Plataea voluntarily joined their side— which meant that in the event of a future treaty with Athens, they might not need to return the land to the Athenians— sent a herald asking if the Plataeans would surrender and face trial, assuring them punishment of the guilt but not without the rule of law.

The Plataeans accepted. Soon afterwards, they came to understand the conditions of their trial: five Spartan judges, freshly arrived from the homeland, avoided making any direct charges against the Plataeans, instead asking them simply whether they'd contributed to the Spartan cause during this current war with Athens. Expected to give a brief yes or no answer, the Plataeans sent forth two delegates to speak on their behalf. Invoking their history and alliance in fighting off the Persians decades before, their outsize valor in battle when defending Greece, and their reluctance to enter into the present conflict with Sparta, the Plataeans asked for mercy— or at least the opportunity to return to their city and die in battle.

Our lives may be quickly taken, but it will be a heavy task to wipe away the infamy of the deed; as we are no enemies whom you might justly punish, but friends forced into taking arms against you.

— Platean defense speech, as formulated by Thucydides

Unfortunately, the verdict had been decided before the trial was brought. The Spartans valued their alliance with Thebes given the current large-scale war with Athens, and the Thebans wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than the destruction of their enemy. The 200-odd Plataeans, forced to answer whether they had contributed to the Spartan cause, were put to death. And now, a moment of silence to remember them.

Some closing thoughts

History is so weird. The more I learn about the past, the more I'm thankful to be living in the present. On top of that, it's difficult to humanize people who lived millenia ago. Obviously, I'm aware that they were human, but sincerely empathizing with these nameless citizens— understanding that they, too, had friends and families and passions and interests, on no smaller scale than mine— defies my abilities. It's hard enough to put myself in the place of people I know, let alone long-dead strangers a world away. But I think it's a vital part of remembering the past: what lessons can we learn from history if we don't see its actors as equally complex and human as ourselves?

On top of that, history is so messy. While writing this, I gave in to my human desire to have clear-cut heroes and villains. I painted the Plataeans as mostly-blameless protagonists, the Davids facing the Theban/Spartan Goliath. I think this is much more accurate than the opposite portrayal, but it's way too simplistic. For example, the 200 or so Plataeans ruthlessly put to death by the Spartan tribunal? They did more or less the same thing to the 180-odd Theban prisoners at the start of the siege. Does that mean they had it coming? It's hard to acknowledge the nuance in a story like this— not just to admit there is nuance, but to actually appreciate it and keep it in mind all at once. And sometimes, it's just nice to have an interesting story, regardless of whole-picture accuracy.

I hope you enjoyed this. Thanks for reading.