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
Battle of Thermopylae brevity, a Spartan style of verse that allows for varying interpretations of the meaning of the poem. Ioannis Ziogas points out that the usual English translations are far from the only interpretation possible, and indicate much about the romantic tendencies of the translators. It was well known in ancient Greece that all the Spartans who had been sent to Thermopylae had been killed there (with the exception of Aristodemus and Pantites), and the epitaph exploits the conceit that there was nobody left to bring the news of their deeds back to Sparta. Greek epitaphs often appealed to the passing reader