In the year 477 the Greeks sent out a fleet under Pausanias to drive the Persians from the islands. He attacked Cyprus and subdued the greater part, and then sailed to Byzantium, which he succeeded in taking. After this victory Pausanias began to aim at personal dominion for himself rather than success for his country, being evidently dazzled by his unbroken and brilliant successes. His ambition seems to have looked for a tyranny over the whole of Greece, and to have conceived the plan of securing the aid of the Persian king in the accomplishment of this design. Among the prisoners taken at Byzantium were some Persians connected with the royal family. These he sent to the king, with a letter, in which he offered to bring Sparta and the rest of Greece under his power, and proposed to marry his daughter. His offers were gladly accepted, and whatever amount of troops and money he required for accomplishing his designs. Pausanias now set no bounds to his arrogant and domineering temper. The allies were so disgusted by his conduct that they all, except the Peloponnesians and Aeginetans, voluntarily offered to transfer to the Athenians that pre-eminence of rank which Sparta had hitherto enjoyed. In this way the Athenian confederacy first took its rise. Reports of the conduct and designs of Pausanias reached Sparta, and he was recalled and put upon his trial; but the evidence respecting his meditated treachery was not yet thought sufficiently strong. Shortly afterwards he returned to Byzantium, without the orders of the ephors, and renewed his treasonable intrigues. He was again recalled to Sparta, was again put on his trial, and again acquitted. But even after this second escape he still continued to carry on his intrigues with Persia. At length a man, who was charged with a letter to Persia, having his suspicions awakened by noticing that none of those sent previously on similar errands had returned, counterfeited the seal of Pausanias and opened the letter, in which he found directions for his own death. He carried the letter to the ephors, who prepared to arrest Pausanias; but he took refuge in the temple of Athené Chalcioecus. The ephors stripped off the roof of the temple and built up the door; the aged mother of Pausanias is said to have been among the first who laid a stone for this purpose. When he was on the point of expiring, the ephors took him out lest his death should pollute the sanctuary. He died as soon as he got outside, B.C. 470. He left three sons behind him, Plistoanax, afterwards king, Cleomenes, and Aristocles. (Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, 1898)
A Spartan of the Agid branch of the royal family, the son of Cleombrotus and nephew of Leonidas. Several writers incorrectly call him king; but he only succeeded his father Cleombrotus in the guardianship of his cousin Plistarchus, the son of Leonidas, for whom he exercised the functions of royalty from B.C. 479 to the period of his death. In 479, when the Athenians called upon the Lacedaemonians for aid against the Persians, the Spartans sent a body of 5000 Spartans, each attended by seven Helots, under the command of Pausanias. At the Isthmus, Pausanias was joined by the other Peloponnesian allies, and at Eleusis by the Athenians when he took command of the united armies, the other Greek generals forming his council. The allied forces numbered 110,000 men. Near Plataeae in Boeotia Pausanias defeated the Persians under Mardonius [p. 1187] and thus assured the independence of Greece. For his own reward, Pausanias received one tenth of the spoils ( Herod.ix. 10-85; Diod.xi. 29-33).