Clearchus leaped down from his horse and recovered his sword with the intention of pursuing Phradates, but he saw at a glance that the attempt would be useless. The Phœnician, unarmed as he was, fled toward the Persian lines too fast to be overtaken.
He looked around for the second of the two horsemen with whom Chares had been engaged when Phradates attacked him, but the man was nowhere to be seen. He turned to his friend and embraced him.
"You were just in time," Chares said.
"Thank the Gods!" Clearchus replied. "This is no place to die. I think the battle is ours."
Phradates, riding at full speed, passed through the Persian lines and galloped up the slope. Here and there a Persian horseman saw him go and followed. Others, and still others, joined the flight until, like a dam that goes down before the swollen current of a river in spring, the barbarian squadrons wavered and broke, streaming up the hill disordered and panic-stricken, with death at their heels. Their only thought was to save themselves.
Slaughter took the place of conflict. Grim and silent the Macedonian cavalry and the Thessalian horse rode among the fugitives with swords that knew no mercy. In that disastrous rout the pride of Persia's chivalry was dragged in the dust, and the courtier deemed himself fortunate who escaped to tell of his own dishonor.
Past the camp of the despised Greek mercenaries who had been bidden to watch the defenders of the Great King conquer or die, ran the barbarian rabble, with the wolves of Macedon tearing at their flanks. Southward they fled, leaving behind a broad track of the wounded and the dying, and scattering as they went until no semblance of the Persian army remained. Sweet in their ears at last was the music of the trumpet notes that withdrew the pursuit and left them free to take breath.
The mercenaries stood before their camp, unmoved amid the panic, awaiting the command to fight or flee. The order never came. Memnon had fought beside the Persian generals and had been swept away with them, leaving his army to its fate. Below them the Greeks saw the Macedonian phalanx re-forming its ranks, with the cavalry, of which they had none, upon its wings.
"Why should we die for these cowards?" they said, one to another. "They have deserted us and we are free."
They stretched out their hands in supplication toward Alexander.