At Plataea, however, the Persians, routed by the Lacedaemonians, fled in disorder to their own camp and inside the wooden walls which they had made in the territory of Thebes. It is indeed a marvel that although the battle was right by the grove of Demeter, there was no sign that any Persian had been killed in the precinct or entered into it; most of them fell near the temple in unconsecrated ground. I think—if it is necessary to judge the ways of the gods—that the goddess herself denied them entry, since they had burnt her temple, the shrine at Eleusis.