Histories

With that command he pretended to lead them into battle. As he came farther on his way, he saw the Persians already fleeing and accordingly led his men, no longer in the same array, but took to his heels and fled with all speed not to the wooden fort nor to the walled city of Thebes [23.3333,38.325] (Perseus) Thebes, but to +Phocis (department), Central Greece and Euboea, Greece, Europe Phocis, so that he might make his way with all haste to the Canakkale Bogazi (strait), Canakkale, Marmara, Turkey, Asia Hellespont.

So Artabazus and his army turned that way. All the rest of the Greeks who were on the king's side fought badly on purpose, but not so the Boeotians; they fought for a long time against the Athenians. For those Thebans who were on the Persian side had great enthusiasm in the battle, and did not want to fight in a cowardly manner. As a result of this, three hundred of their first and best were killed there by the Athenians. At last, however, the Boeotians too yielded and they fled to Thebes [23.3333,38.325] (Perseus) Thebes, but not by the way which the Persians had fled and the multitude of the allies which had fought no fight to the end nor achieved any feat of arms.

This flight of theirs which took place before the actual closing of battle and was prompted because they saw the Persians flee, proves to me that it was on the Persians that the fortune of the barbarians hung. They accordingly all fled, save the cavalry, Boeotian and other; this helped the fleeing men in so far as it remained between them and their enemies and shielded its friends from the Greeks in their flight.

So the Greeks, now having the upper hand, followed Xerxes' men, pursuing and slaying. During this steadily growing rout there came a message to the rest of the Greeks, who were by the temple of Hera and had stayed out of the fighting, that there had been a battle and that Pausanias' men were victorious. When they heard this, they set forth in no ordered array, those who were with the Corinthians keeping to the spurs of the mountain and the hill country, by the road that led upward straight to the temple of Demeter, and those who were with the Megarians and Philasians taking the most level route over the plain.

However, when the Megarians and Philasians had come near the enemy, the Theban horsemen (whose captain was Asopodorus son of Timander) caught sight of them approaching in haste and disorder, and rode at them; in this attack they trampled six hundred of them, and pursued and drove the rest to Cithaeron.