Pausanias of Sparta

Spartan military commander

• Born: Late sixth century b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Sparta, Greece
• Died: c. 470 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Sparta, Greece

Pausanias of Sparta led a coalition of allied Greeks to victory over the Persians at Plataea and helped liberate certain Greek cities from Persian control.

Early Life

Other than the fact that Pausanias (paws-AYN-ee-ahs) of Sparta was the son of Cleombrotus and a member of the oldest of Sparta’s royal houses, the Agiads, virtually nothing is known about his early life.

Life’s Work

In 480 b.c.e. the Spartan king Leonidas was killed while fighting against the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae. Leonidas’s son Pleistarchus was too young to assume the duties of king. Thus Pausanias, as member of a royal house and the young man’s cousin, was appointed as his regent. After Leonidas’s death, the Persians continued their advance south toward Athens. Persian forces under Mardonius had previously made their way to Athens, had destroyed the city, and had begun moving west toward Megara. The Spartans were summoned to assist their fellow Greeks, and in 479, Pausanias led the Spartan troops north to face the Persians.

The people of Argos, who had promised Mardonius they would oppose the Spartans, withdrew their resistance once they learned that Pausanias and his forces had set out from Sparta. The Persians, who had been advancing west from Athens, also retreated to the north into the region of Boeotia, as Thebes, the chief city of Boeotia, was friendly to their cause. Mardonius deployed his forces near Plataea north of the river Asopus, while Pausanias and the Spartans, bolstered by allies from other towns (including Athens and Tegea), encamped south of the Asopus. In the ensuing conflict, Pausanias would serve as the supreme commander of the Greek land forces.

Over the next several days, the Persian cavalry harassed the Greek forces, but neither army was prepared to make a decisive move. One of the leading Persians, Artabazus, advocated moving the Persian army within the walls of Thebes, where they would be well supplied and could conduct the campaign at their leisure. Mardonius, however, argued that the Greek ranks were increasing in numbers daily and that the Persians should attack while they still had an advantage in size. Certain oracles also led Mardonius to believe that the Persians would be victorious. In the end, Mardonius’s view was adopted, and it was decided the Persians would attack at dawn the following day.

Fortunately for Pausanias and the Greeks, a Macedonian who had joined the Persian cavalry rode to the Greek camp in the middle of the night and informed the Greeks of Mardonius’s intent. The historian Herodotus reports that when Pausanias heard this, he became frightened: The Spartan forces were posted directly opposite the Persian regular troops in the current battle formation. Accordingly, Pausanias proposed that because the Athenians had already battled the Persians successfully at Marathon, the Athenians and Spartans should trade places in the formation. The Athenians agreed, and the change was made. When the Persians noticed the change, they also changed positions, so that they themselves would have to face the Spartans. The Spartans again changed places, only to have the Persians move opposite them again.

Finally, the Persians began the battle by sending out their cavalry, who inflicted some damage to the Greek troops and cut off their watersupply from the Gargaphian spring. The Greek forces managed to hold off the Persian cavalry for the rest of the day, and Pausanias planned to move the troops into a position where they could have access to the water of the Asopus River. When Mardonius learned that the Greeks had moved, he thought that they were fleeing and set out in pursuit. During the Greeks’ maneuver, some of the various contingents took different paths. Thus, when Mardonius attacked, some of the Greek forces were so far out of position that they could not come to their army’s aid. Accordingly, it happened that the Spartans and the Tegeans bore the brunt of the Persian attack. Eventually, Pausanias and his heavily armed troops gained the advantage over the Persians, who wore no armor. When Mardonius was killed in the battle, the Persian forces fell apart, and those who retreated to their camp were cut down. After the battle, the Athenian commander Aristides urged that both Pausanias and the Spartans receive prizes for their valor in the battle. Eleven days after the battle at Plataea, Pausanias marched on and besieged the town of Thebes, which had allied itself with the Persians. Pausanias demanded that those responsible for the alliance with Persia be handed over. When the responsible Thebans turned themselves over to Pausanias, he had them executed.

In 478 b.c.e. the Spartans turned their sights toward liberating Greek cities that remained under Persian control. Pausanias, with help from Aristides, assembled a fleet of some eighty ships, sailed out, and liberated both Cyprus and Byzantium. Some of the leading Persians in Byzantium, however, were turned over by Pausanias to an Eretrian named Gongylus. Supposedly, Pausanias had given these Persians to Gongylus for punishment, but in fact they were to be taken to the Persian king Xerxes, with whom Pausanias had made a secret alliance and whose daughter was engaged to Pausanias. Furthermore, the Persian general Artabazus, who served as go-between for Xerxes and Pausanias, had been giving Pausanias large amounts of money to win over various Greeks to the Persian cause.

Pausanias’s betrayal of the Greeks was soon discovered, though, as he began using his Persian riches to finance a luxurious lifestyle. While in Byzantium, he began to dress and dine in the Persian fashion as well as surround himself with bodyguards, including Persians and Egyptians. Additionally, Pausanias had begun to treat the Spartans who served under him in a tyrannical manner, which engendered their hatred of him. Eventually, some of Pausanias’s allies returned to Greece and began complaining to the Spartans about him.

Pausanias had also made himself unpopular because of an inscription he had placed on an offering to Apollo to commemorate the victories at Plataea and Salamis. This inscription implied that Pausanias himself was primarily responsible for the victories. Accordingly, in 477 the Spartans recalled Pausanias and put him on trial for various offenses, the most serious of which was treasonous behavior in collusion with the Persians. He was convicted of some of the lesser accusations but acquitted on the charge involving the Persians.

Following this trial, Pausanias, without authorization from the Spartan government, sailed to Byzantium and took up residence there. Ancient sources say that he intended to continue his relationship with the Persians and had aims of ruling the whole of Greece. After some time, though, Pausanias became a source of trouble in Byzantium. In his Life of Cimon, contained in Bioi paralleloi (c. 105-115; Parallel Lives, 1579), Plutarch relates how Pausanias accidentally killed a maiden named Cleonice, with whom he intended to have sexual relations, and then was haunted by her ghost.

Around 475 b.c.e., after being driven from Byzantium by the Athenian Cimon, Pausanias sailed to Colonae (in the Troad) and lived there. In Colonae, he continued his treacherous relationship with the Persians. When Pausanias’s behavior gained the attention of the Spartans, they again recalled him in the late 470’s. Wishing to avoid suspicion, Pausanias obligingly returned to Sparta and was there imprisoned. After he offered to stand trial for any crimes of which he might be accused, he was released. The Spartans, however, had no irrefutable proof of any wrongdoing on Pausanias’s part and so decided legal prosecution might be futile. The Spartans also heard a rumor that Pausanias had promised the helots (the Spartans’ slaves) freedom and citizenship if they would help him in a revolt against the Spartans. Even this rumor was not credible enough to prompt the Spartans to take legal action against Pausanias.

Finally, a trusted servant of Pausanias, who was supposed to take a letter from his master to Artabazus, noticed that none of Pausanias’s other messengers had ever returned from their missions. The servant opened the letter. On seeing that the letter’s contents included, among its treasonous material addressed to the Persians, a request from Pausanias to have the servant executed, the servant showed the letter to the Ephors (five Spartan magistrates who were annually elected).

Even with this information, the Ephors wanted to hear Pausanias for themselves. Accordingly, they arranged for the servant to go as a suppliant to Taenarus, a town south of Sparta, and construct a hut that was divided by a partition. Apparently Pausanias was summoned to the hut to meet with his servant, while some of the Ephors hid on the other side of the partition. When Pausanias met with the servant, the servant accused Pausanias of planning to have him killed and discussed the other details of the letter with him. During their conversation, Pausanias spoke of his dealings with the Persian king. Pausanias promised the servant that no harm would come to him and urged him to deliver the letter as previously instructed.

After the meeting between Pausanias and his servant, the Ephors decided to arrest Pausanias back at Sparta. This plan, however, was thwarted. As Pausanias was walking down a certain street, he saw the Ephors approaching. One of the Ephors, who was still on friendly terms with Pausanias, signaled him that he was about to be arrested. Perceiving the threat, Pausanias ran to the nearby temple of Athena of the Brazen House. He entered a small, sheltered room that adjoined the temple and took asylum there. The Ephors followed, barricaded Pausanias within this room, guarded the area, and then began to starve him.

Just before Pausanias died, the Ephors removed him from the temple. They buried Pausanias nearby, but, according to the scholiast on Euripides (in Alcestis 1128), his ghost began harassing those who tried to enter the temple. To discover a remedy for this curse, the Spartans consulted the Delphic oracle, who directed them to move Pausanias’s tomb to the place where he died and to give Athena two bodies instead of one. Accordingly, the Spartans moved Pausanias’s place of burial and dedicated two bronze statues to the goddess.

Significance

Pausanias’s leadership at the Battle of Plataea and in the liberation of various Greek cities from Persia helped allow the Greek civilization to develop on its own. What Pausanias did at Plataea, however, may not be as significant as what he was prevented from doing after his military successes: plotting with the Persians to gain mastery over his fellow Greeks. Had Pausanias of Sparta been successful in his ambitions, the course of Western civilization might have been altered as the Athenians failed to flourish without interference from the outside world.

Bibliography

Diodorus Siculus. Bibliotheca historica. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962-1983. Diodorus, writing from 60 to 30 b.c.e., composed a history of the world up to his own times in which are included accounts of the Battle of Plataea, Pausanias’s activities in Byzantium, and Pausanias’s death.

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Robin Waterfield. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Herodotus, writing in the fifth century b.c.e., provides an extensive early account of Pausanias’s activities at Plataea.

Lazenby, J. F. The Defence of Greece, 490-479 b.c.. Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips, 1993. Lazenby provides military history of the first two Persian invasions of Greece, which the author considers within the context of the fifth century b.c.e. Attention is also given to Herodotus’s insight and skill as a military historian.

Lazenby, J. F. “Pausanias, Son of Kleombrotos.” Hermes 103 (1975): 235-251. Lazenby argues that it is wrong to consider Pausanias as only a traitor. Despite evidence of Pausanias’s personal ambition in Byzantium, he could have had Sparta’s interests in mind.

Loomis, W. T. “Pausanias, Byzantium, and the Formation of the Delian League.” Historia 39 (1990): 487-492. Loomis argues that because Byzantium was not captured until spring of 477 b.c.e., Pausanias could not have been recalled to Sparta before that time.

Lord, Louis E. Literary Criticism of Euripides in the Earlier Scholia and the Relation of This Criticism to Aristotle’s “Poetics” and the Aristophanes. Göttingen, Germany: W. F. Kaestner, 1908. Includes a discussion of the scholia of Euripides.

Plutarch. Cimon. London: Institute of Classical Studies, University of London, 1989. Writing in the latter half of the first century c.e. and the first quarter of the second century c.e., Plutarch, in his biography of Cimon, provides scattered details about Pausanias, especially his time in Byzantium.

Simonides. “Anthologia Palatina.” In Simonides: Selected Epigrams. Translated by Timothy Sean Quinn. Edgewood, Ky.: Robert L Barth, 1996. Composed by Pausanias’s contemporary, this two-line poem records Pausanias’s dedication of a bronze tripod to Apollo at Delphi after his victory at Plataea.

Thucydides. The Peloponnesian Wars. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. New York: Washington Square Press, 1963. Writing in the latter half of the fifth century b.c.e., Thucydides provides a detailed account of the attempted arrest and death of Pausanias.