 Herodotus also recounts that King Alexander I of Macedonia (an ancestor of Alexander the Great,) who was allied to the Persians and present in their camp, secretly rode to the Greek camp with a warning that the Persians had decided to attack, and that before the main battle Mardonius issued a challenge to the Spartans to fight a special battle between equal numbers of Spartans and Persians, which was declined.Some historians have called these stories improbable.According to Herodotus, the Battle of Mycale occurred on the same afternoon as Plataea.