Mardonius

Mardonius son of Gobryas, married to Xerxes's sister Artazostre — chief military councillor of the invasion (it was his pressure, Herodotus reports, that decided the king on war) and commander of the land force Xerxes left behind in Greece after Salamis. He wintered 480/479 in Thessaly, in spring 479 marched south, re-occupied Athens, and finally gave battle on the Asopos plain near Plataea. Against the disciplined Spartan phalanx under Pausanias he was killed — Herodotus names his killer as the Spartan Aeimnestus, who struck him with a stone; the Persian army broke with his death and the camp was stormed.

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