This movement should
have begun from the left wing, but there was some delay in executing
the order, and Cleon, who was in a great hurry to reach a place of
safety, led the way with his own division, which, being on the right,
ought to have closed the retreat. The consequence was that the whole
Athenian army was thrown into confusion, and Brasidas, who was
watching from his station at the gate, saw by the irregular motion of
their spears and helmets that all discipline was at an end. "Now is
our time," he cried to his men: "Open the gates! The day is ours."
With these words he rushed out with his troops, and fell upon the
Athenian centre; and at the same moment the main body under Clearidas
poured out from the northern gate, and attacked them in the rear.
The effect of this sudden assault was to cut the Athenian army in
half: the left wing, which was nearest to Eion, fled without striking
a blow, but the right made a vigorous resistance, though abandoned by
their cowardly general, who was cut down by a Thracian spearman as he
tried to make good his escape. A far nobler name was also added to the
death-roll of that fatal day: Brasidas, fighting at the head of his
troop, received a mortal wound, and was carried, unobserved by the
Athenians, into the city.
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