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Since the barbarians were thus separated in their flights, so the body of the Greeks was similarly divided; for the Athenians and Plataeans and Thespiaeans after those who had set out for Thebes, and the Corinthians and Sicyonians and the Phliasians and certain others followed after the forces which were retreating with Artabazus; and the Lacedaemonians together with the rest pursued the soldiers who had taken refuge within the palisade and trounced them spiritedly. [2] The Thebans received the fugitives, added them to their forces, and then set upon the pursuing Athenians ; a sharp battle took place before the walls, the Thebans fighting brilliantly, and not a few on both sides, but at last this body overcome by the Athenians and took refuge again within Thebes. [3]

After this the Athenians withdrew to the aid of the Lacedaemonians and joined with them in assaulting the walls against those Persians who had taken refuge within the camp; both sides put up a vigorous contest, the barbarians fighting bravely from the fortified positions they held and the Greeks storming the wooden walls, and many were wounded as they fought desperately, while not a few were also slain by the multitude of missiles and met death with stout hearts. [4] Nevertheless the powerful onset of the Greeks could be withstood neither by the wall the barbarians had erected not by their great numbers, but resistance of every kind was forced to give way; for it was a case of rivalry between the foremost peoples of Greece, the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians, who were buoyed up by reason of their former victories and supported by confidence in their valour. [5] In the end the barbarians were overpowered, and they found no mercy even though they pled to be taken prisoner. For the Greek general, Pausanias, observing how superior the barbarians were in number, took pains to prevent anything due to miscalculation from happening, the barbarians being many times more numerous than the Greeks; consequently he had issued orders to take no man prisoner, and soon there was an incredible number of dead. And in the end, when the Greeks had slaughtered more than one hundred thousand of the barbarians, they reluctantly ceased slaying the enemy.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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