ABSTRACT
In 479 BC the citizen army of Mycenae marched to Plataea in Boeotia to join the other mainland Greek cities in inflicting the final defeat which terminated Xerxes’ invasion of Greece.1 The Mycenaeans cannot have contributed much to the Greek victory, for together with the contingent from Tiryns they numbered only 400.2 Their action was a gesture of defiance aimed not so much at the Persian king as at their immediate Greek neighbours, the Argives, whose city normally ranked second in the Peloponnese, southern Greece, to the Spartans themselves. Indeed, Mycenae had probably been subject to the Argives for many years before the early fifth century, and they were now able to act independently only because the Argives themselves had been severely defeated by the Spartans in order to prevent them co-operating with the Persians, whose invasion had been threatened for some time. Less than twenty years after the battle at Plataea Argos recovered, and Mycenae was once more subjugated.
