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Sanctuary of Hera

Hera's precinct in front of Plataea in Boeotia, a landmark of the battle of 479 BCE

The Plataeans honoured Hera in a sanctuary that stood in front of their city. At the battle of Plataea in 479 it became a fixed point in the story. Many allied contingents halted there after a confused night march, and the Spartan commander Pausanias turned towards it to pray before his men charged the Persian army of Mardonius.

In the game: The sanctuary stands on the Plataea map as a historic structure. The player cannot build it.

The halt on the night march

Ancient account

Herodotus says the Greeks were short of water and harried by Persian cavalry, so they planned to move by night to a new position called the Island. The contingents of the centre did not go there. They hurried back towards Plataea and halted at the Heraion. He places it in front of the city, about twenty stades from the spring Gargaphia. The Spartans and Athenians were left on their own, some way off.

Herodotus 9.49-52

Pausanias prays to Hera

Ancient account

Herodotus says that when the Persians attacked the Spartans and Tegeans the following morning, the sacrifices gave bad omens, and the hoplites stood under arrow fire without moving. Pausanias looked towards the Heraion of the Plataeans and called on the goddess not to let the Greeks be cheated of their hope. While he still prayed, the Tegeans moved forward. Soon afterwards the omens turned good and the Spartans advanced as well.

Herodotus 9.61-62

The troops at the Heraion join late

Ancient account

Herodotus says the Greeks camped around the Heraion took no part in the main fighting. When they heard that Pausanias was winning, they set off in disorder. The Megarians and Phliasians crossed open plain and were caught by Theban cavalry, who killed about six hundred of them.

Herodotus 9.69

The later temple and its site

Disputed

Thucydides says that after Plataea fell to Sparta and Thebes in 427 and was razed, a large hostel was built near the Heraion, along with a stone temple of Hera about a hundred feet long. Pausanias the travel writer later saw a temple of Hera at Plataea with statues of Hera and Rhea by Praxiteles. Modern scholars still disagree over where the sanctuary of 479 stood, and this affects how the movements of the battle are reconstructed.

Thucydides 3.68; Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.2; W. K. Pritchett, Studies in Ancient Greek Topography, 1965

Hera of Cithaeron and the Daedala

Later legend

Pausanias the travel writer tells a story from the region. Hera quarrelled with Zeus and withdrew to Cithaeron. Zeus won her back by pretending to marry a wooden figure dressed as a bride. The Plataeans said this was the origin of their festival of the Daedala, held in honour of Hera. The tale was written down more than six centuries after the battle.

Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.3