The vast host of Artaxerxes, advancing steadily and without noise, were now within less than half a mile of the Cyreians, when the Greek troops raised the pæan or usual war-cry, and began to move forward. As they advanced, the shout became more vehement, the pace accelerated, and at last the whole body got into a run.[86] This might have proved unfortunate, had their opponents been other than Grecian hoplites; but the Persians did not stand to await the charge. They turned and fled, when the assailants were yet hardly within bow-shot. Such was their panic, that even the drivers of the scythed chariots in front, deserting their teams, ran away along with the rest; while the horses, left to themselves, rushed apart in all directions, some turning round to follow the fugitives, others coming against the advancing Greeks, who made open order to let them pass. The left division of the king’s army was thus routed without a blow, and seemingly without a man killed on either side; one Greek only being wounded by an arrow, and another by not getting out of the way of one of the chariots.[87] Tissaphernes alone,—who, with the body of horse immediately around him, was at the extreme Persian left, close to the river,—formed an exception to this universal flight. He charged and penetrated through the Grecian peltasts, who stood opposite to him between the hoplites and the river. These peltasts, commanded by Episthenes of Amphipolis, opened their ranks to let him pass, darting at the men as they rode by, yet without losing any one themselves. Tissaphernes thus got into the rear of the Greeks, who continued, on their side, to pursue the flying Persians before them.[88] [86] Xen. Anab. i, 8, 17; Diodor. xiv, 23. [87] Xen. Anab. i, 8, 17-20. [88] Xen. Anab i, 10, 4-8.