History of the Peloponnesian War

After such words of admonition, Brasidas began to withdraw his army. On seeing this the barbarians came on with a mighty shouting and uproar, thinking that he was fleeing and that they could overtake and destroy his army.

But the troops who had been selected to dash out met them wherever they charged, and Brasidas himself with his picked men sustained their attack; and so the Peloponnesians to their surprise withstood their first onset and continued to receive their attacks and repulse them, but when they ceased, themselves retired. Thereupon most of the barbarians refrained from attacking the Hellenes under Brasidas in the open country, and leaving a portion of their force to follow and harass them, the rest, advancing on the run after the fleeing Macedonians, slew them as they came upon them, and getting ahead of them occupied the narrow pass between two hills which led into the country of Arrhabaeus, knowing that there was no other way of retreat for Brasidas. And just as he was coming to the most difficult part of the road, they began to encircle him with a view to cutting him off.

But he perceived their intention and told his three hundred to break ranks and go at a run, each as fast as he could, to that one of the hills which he thought could be taken more easily and try to dislodge the barbarians already there before the larger outflanking body could come up.

They accordingly attacked and overcame the men on the hill, and so the main body of the Hellenes now more easily made their way to it; for the barbarians, finding that their own men had been dislodged from the high ground, became alarmed and followed no further, thinking that the enemy were already on the frontier and had made good their escape.

Brasidas, however, when he had gained the heights, proceeded in more security and arrived the same day at Arnisa, the first town in the dominions of Perdiccas.

As for his soldiers, they were enraged at the Macedonians for having gone ahead in retreat, and whenever they came upon any ox-teams of theirs in the road or upon any baggage that had been dropped, as was likely to happen in a retreat made by night and in a panic, of their own accord they loosed the oxen and slaughtered them, but appropriated the baggage.