ve orders to retreat, and retired from Greece. The main body, however,
of the defeated Persians retired to their fortified camp. This was
attacked by the Lacedaemonians, and carried with immense slaughter, so that
only three thousand men survived out of the army of Mardonius, save the
forty thousand which Artabazus--a more able captain--had led away. The
defeat of the Persians was complete, and the spoils which fell to the
victors was immense--gold and silver, arms, carpets, clothing, horses,
camels, and even the rich tent of Xerxes himself, left with Mardonius. The
booty was distributed among the different contingents of the army. The
real victors were the Lacedaemonians, Athenians, and Tegeans; the
Corinthians did not reach the field till the battle was ended, and thus
missed their share of the spoil.

(M449) There was one ally of the Persians which Pausanias resolved to
punish--the city of Thebes when a merited chastisement was inflicted, and
the customary solemnities were observed, and honors decreed for the
greatest and most decisive victory which the Greeks had ever gained. A
confederacy was held at Plataea, in which a permanent league was made
between the leading Grecian States, not to separate until the common foe
was driven back to Asia.

(M450) While these great events were transpiring in Boeotia, the fleet of
the Greeks, after the battle of Salamis, undertook to rescue Samos from
the Persians, and secure the independence of the Ionian cities in Asia.
The Persian fleet, now disheartened, abandoned Samos and retired to
Mycale, in Ionia. The Greek fleet followed, but the Persians abandoned or
dismissed their fleet, and joined their forces with those of Tigranes,
who, with an army of sixty thousand men, guarded Ionia. The Greeks
disembarked, and prepared to attack the enemy just as the news reached
them of the battle of Plataea. This attack was successful, partly in
consequence of the revolt of the Ionians in the Persian camp, although the
Persians fought with great bravery. The battle of Mycale was as complete
as that of Plataea and Marathon, and the remnants of the Persian army
retired to Sardis. The Ionian cities were thus, for the time, delivered of
the Persians, as well as Greece itself chiefly by means of the Athenians
and Corinthians. The Spartans, with inconceivable narrowness, were
reluctant to receive the continental Ionians as allies, and proposed to
transport them across the AEgean into Western Greece