History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides, Vol. 1-4. Smith, Charles Foster, translator. London and Cambridge, MA: Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1919-1923.

And the blast passing through the air-tight tube into the cauldron, which contained lighted coals, sulphur, and pitch, made a great blaze and set fire to the wall, so that no one could stay on it longer, but all left it and took to flight;

and in this way the fortification was taken. Of the garrison some were slain, and two hundred were captured; but most of the rest got on board their ships and were conveyed home.

So Delium was taken seventeen days after the battle, and when the Athenian herald, who knew nothing of what had happened, came back not long after to ask for the dead, the Boeotians did not again make the same answer but gave them up.

And there were slain in the battle, of the Boeotians a little more than five hundred, of the Athenians a little less than one thousand, including Hippocrates their general, besides a great number of light-armed troops and baggage-carriers.