Greece in the 5th century BC BC, the Greeks, under the Spartan Pausanias, defeated the Persian army at Plataea. The Athenian fleet then turned to chasing the Persians out of the Aegean Sea, defeating their fleet decisively in the Battle of Cape Mycale, and in 478 BC the Athenian fleet captured Byzantium. In the course of doing so Athens enrolled all the island states and some mainland allies into an alliance, called the Delian League because the League's treasury was kept on the sacred island of Delos. The Spartans, although they had taken part in the war, withdrew from any further involvement, allowing Athens to become
Kolonos Hill Kolonos Hill Kolonos Hill (; ) is a hill in Central Greece. It is located in the narrow coastal passage known as Thermopylae, and is near the city of Lamia. The hill is best known for the site for the final stand of the 300 Spartans during the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. In 1939, Spyridon Marinatos, a Greek archaeologist found large numbers of Persian arrows around the hill, which changed the hitherto accepted identification of the site where the Greeks had fallen, slain by Persian arrows. A commemorative stone was placed on the site in Antiquity, but the