With Athens as their ally, the Plataeans were able to avoid subjugation by their neighbours and maintain their freedom. In honour of this debt, at the Battle of Marathon, Plataea alone would fight at the Athenians' side. Herodotus describes how, on the eve of battle and faced with the formidable Persian expeditionary force, the Athenians had despaired of the Spartans, or indeed anyone else, coming to their aid in what seemed to be impossible odds. Sentinels spied dust clouds in the north and initially feared that another Persian army, or a Persian ally, was on the way to the battlefield. Instead it was the Plataeans coming "panstratiá", "i.e.," having sent "every available fighting man" (this is thought to have amounted to about 1,000) in Athens' hour of greatest need. They were led by their general, Arimnestos. In acknowledgement and gratitude of their ally's fidelity, the Athenians gave the Plataeans the honour of the left flank during the battle (the left being the safer of the two flanks). After the battle, the Plataeans were allowed to share Athenian memorials and in the (normally exclusively Athenian) religious rites, sacrifices and games asking for the blessing of Athens' patron gods.