It would be in accordance with Greek custom that this trophy should be set up in that part of the field where the decisive engagement took place. If, as I take it, it was fought just south of the hill on which the ruined church of St Demetrion stands, a trophy placed on or near that site would be almost exactly two miles from the town of Platæa, or a little more than seventeen stades.
(d) This hypothesis as to the site of the temple receives peculiar confirmation, as I shall show, from the account given by Herodotus of the subsequent incidents of the battle, but it will, I think, be best to take the order of the incidents as given by Herodotus.
In Plutarch’s life of Aristides (xi.) is a topographical detail which would present considerable difficulty, were it not accompanied by other details which show the absolute valuelessness of Plutarch as an authority on the topographical question. He is speaking of the time at which a move from the first position was contemplated: “Near Hysiæ Kithæron is a quite ancient temple called (the shrine) of Eleusinian Demeter and Kore.” He says further on that the rocky slope of Kithæron meets the plain near the temple, and then adds that the Heroön of Androkrates was there also, surrounded by a thick grove of trees.
Pausanias mentions (ix. 2, 1) a temple of Apollo among the ruins of Hysiæ, but says not a word of any temple of Eleusinian Demeter being found there.
But the reference to the position of the Heroön of Androkrates shows that either Plutarch has made a great error, or that his language is hopelessly inexact.
If latter be assumed to be the case, the temple of Demeter to which I have referred might, I think, be described as being near what I take to be the site of Hysiæ. It might even, owing to the height of Kithæron, be described as underneath that mountain. As to the position of the temple being near the edge of the ύπωρέη, it may be pointed out that the site of the modern Kriekouki is a part of the rocky mountain-side which projects far into the plain, but stops far short of the church of St. Demetrion.
But even the utmost looseness of language will hardly account for the assertion that the Heroön of Androkrates was near this temple, still less that it was near the site of Hysiæ.
The explanation of the difficulty is, I take it, that Plutarch was a biographer and not an historian; and consequently he may not have thought, nay, he evidently did not think it necessary to deal intimately with the topography of the battle. There is very little topographical detail given by him, though as a Bœotian he had most probably traversed one or more of the roads which cross the field. He makes no mention of the νῆσος, either directly or indirectly:—a most strange omission if he insisted at all on topographical detail.
There is in the passage above referred to a clause which is in direct conflict with Herodotus’ narrative. Plutarch speaks of τὰς ὑπωρείας ... ἄφιππα ποιούσας τὰ καταλήγοντα καὶ συγκυροῦντα τοῦ πεδίου πρὸς τὸ ἱερόν, whereas Herodotus describes a cavalry attack as having taken place upon this ground. Furthermore,—and this is a most important point if Herodotus’ account of the fighting be correct,—the temple of Demeter certainly lay on the Persian line of retreat after they had been defeated by the Spartans; that is to say, it was almost certainly between the place where the final action took place or began and the Persian camp.
Again, I think that the words of Herodotus, in describing the first phase of the second position of the Greeks as “near the Spring of Gargaphia and the τέμενος of Androkrates the Hero, through hills of no great height and level country,” can only mean that the τέμενος was on the left of the Greek line; for the ἀπέδος χῶρος can only be the plain between Platæa and the Asopos which comes from Leuktra, and this position for the τέμενος accords with the details given by Thucydides. How, then, the τέμενος be described as near the temple of Demeter, if the latter was near Hysiæ?