The Treachery of Pausanias of Sparta

Pausanias (Greek: Παυσανίας; died c. 470 BC) was a Spartan regent, general, and war leader for the Greeks, who was suspected of conspiring with the Persian king, Xerxes I, during the Greco-Persian Wars.

What is known of his life is largely according to Thucydides‘ History of the Peloponnesian War, together with a handful of other classical sources.

However, It is conceivable that the Spartans had made Pausanias a scapegoat, for their failure to retain the leadership of Greece

Pausanias was leader of the Hellenic League created to resist the Persian invasion.

He led the Greeks in their victory over Mardonius and the Persians at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC.

While the latter is sometimes seen as a chaotic, soldiers battle, others see evidence of both strategic and tactical skill on the part of Pausanius in delaying the engagement until the point where Spartan armor and discipline could have maximum impact.

 Herodotus concluded that “Pausanius …won the most glorious victory of any known to us”.

After the victories at Plataea and the Battle of Mycale, the Spartans lost interest in liberating the Greek cities of Asia Minor until it became clear that Athens would dominate the League in Sparta’s absence.

Sparta then sent Pausanias back to command the Greek military.

Deputies were to be sent from all the states of Greece every year to Plataeae

Deliberate on their common interests, and celebrate the anniversary of the battle

Every fifth year a festival, to be called the Feast of Liberty, was to be celebrated at Plataeae

Inhabitants were declared Inviolable and Independent

Before the Greek forces withdrew, Pausanias led them to attack Thebes, and demanded the surrender of those who had been traitors to the cause of Greece.

After a siege of 20 days, Timagenidas and Attagiuus, who had been the leaders of the Median party, consented to be delivered up.

The latter, however, made his escape. Pausanias dismissed his family unharmed ; but the rest who were delivered up, he had conveyed to Corinth and put to death there without any form of trial.

“The first indication that appears of his imperious character” (Herod, ix. 88 ; Diod. xi. 33).

It was quickly followed by another.

On the tripod dedicated by the Greeks, at Delphi, from the spoil taken from the Medes, he had an  inscription engraved:

“The saviors of spacious Greece , offer this tripod having rescued it’s cities from hateful slavery.”

The inscription was afterwards obliterated by the Lacedaemonians, and the names of the states which joined in effecting the overthrow of the barbarians substituted.

In 477 BC, the confederate Greeks sent out a fleet under the command of Pausanias, to follow up their success by driving the Persians completely out of Europe and the islands.

Cyprus was first attacked, and the greater part of it subdued.

From Cyprus,  Pausanias sailed to Byzantium, and captured the city.

The capture of Byzantium, afforded Pausanias an opportunity for commencing the plans, he  apparently formed, even before leaving Greece.

Dazzled by his success and reputation, his station as a Spartan citizen had become too restricted for his ambition.

His position as regent, was one which must terminate when the king became of age.

As a tyrant over, not merely Sparta, but the whole of Greece, supported by the power of the Persian king, he hoped  the reward of his treachery to Greece would be ample enough to satisfy his  pride and arrogance.

After capturing Byzantium the previous year, Pausanias was alleged to have released some of the prisoners of war, who were friends and relations of the king of Persia.

The accusation stated, Pausanias, by the aid of Gongylus, whom he had made governor of Byzantium, sent to the king, without the knowledge of the other allies,  informing him the prisoners had made their escape and Gongylus escorted them.

Secondly,  he allegedly sent a letter via Gongylus of Eretria to Xerxes, saying  he wished to help him and bring Sparta and the rest of Greece under Persian control.

At the same time, he also  requested Xerxes to send some trusty person to the coast, to have discussions  with him.

In return, he wished to marry the king’s daughter.

Xerxes sent Artabazus , replied agreeing to his plans ,with a letter thanking Pausanias for the release of the prisoners, and offering him whatever amount of troops and money he required for accomplishing his designs. (According to Plutarch, , he actually received 500 talents of gold from the king.)

It was then, Pausanias started to adopt Persian customs and dress like a Persian royalty.

He treated the allies with harshness and injustice, made himself difficult of access, and conducted himself so angrily and violently towards all alike, that no one could come near him ; and with rashness that even exceeded his arrogance, and  journeyed through Thrace ,with a guard of Persians and Egyptians.

The allies were so digusted by his conduct, they all, except the Peloponnesians and Aeginetans, voluntarily offered to transfer leadership to the Athenians , which Sparta possessed at that time.

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 as the allies refused to obey Dorcis, who was sent in his place.

In 478 BC ,Pausanias was suspected of conspiring with the Persians and was recalled to Sparta; however he argued that the prisoners had escaped.

Pausanias, on reaching Sparta, was put on  trial, and convicted of various offences against individuals ; but the evidence respecting his meditated treachery and Medism ,was not yet thought sufficiently strong.

Pausanias was acquitted, but his command was not restored.

The Spartans declined to take any farther action, in  operations against the Persians.

He then left Sparta of his own accord, taking a trireme from the town of Hermione, as though with the intention of taking part in the war, and, returning to Byzantium, which was still in the hands of Gongylus, this renewed suspensions of  his treasonable intrigues.

According to Plutarch, the  occasion of his expulsion from the city was an atrocious injury offered to a family of distinction in Byzantium, which ended in the tragic death of the victim of his lust and cruelty, which made the allies were so incensed, that they called upon the Athenians to expel him.

He did not return to Sparta, but went to Colonae ,in the Troas, where he again entered into communication with the Persians.

Having received an imperative recall to Sparta, and not his plans sufficiently matured to enable him to bid defiance, he returned at their command, and on his arrival,  thrown into prison.

He was soon set at liberty ; and, trusting to the influence of money, offered himself for trial to sped up his departure.

But all the suspicious circumstances collected and compared to his present and previous breaches of established customs, did not seem sufficient to warrant proceeding to extremities with a man of his rank.

But even after this second escape Pausanias could not rest.

He opened an intrigue with the Helots , promising them freedom and the rights of citizenship, if they would rise and over throw the government -even when these designs were betrayed by some of the Helots, and the Ephors were still reluctant to act on this information.

Accident, however, soon furnished them with decisive evidence, Pausanias was still carrying on his intrigues with Persia.

A man named Argilius, who was charged with a letter to Arta- bazus, but became suspicious when he realized,  none of the letters sent previously on similar errands had returned.

ancient seal

Then he counterfeited the seal of Pausanias , opened the letter, and found that Pausanias was offering to support the Persians if they invaded Greece.

More than that, the general suggested that the Persians ought to kill the messenger delivering the letter, just to be sure of secrecy.

Understandably aggrieved at the one-way nature of his errand, Argilios decided to leak the letter to the Ephors (Spartan authorities).

Persia was the mortal enemy of Greece, so the general’s actions were seen as nothing less than treachery – Upon this, the Ephors prepared to arrest him in the street as he returned to Sparta.

But, warned by a friendly signal from one of the Ephors, and guessing from the looks of another, he ran and took refuge in Temple of Athena, so it was that he was bricked up in the without any food -the aged mother of Pausanias , was  said to have been among the first who laid the first brick.

When he was on the point of dying, the Ephors took him out, so his death would not desecrate the sanctuary.

He died, as soon as be got outside.

Caeadas A ravine in Taygetus into which the Spartans pushed criminals and prisoners of war condemned to death. It was at first proposed to cast his body into the Caeadas ; but it was overruled and he was buried in the neighborhood near the temple.

In classical antiquity, an oracle was a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions or precognition of the future, inspired by the god.

Later his body was moved to where he died per the instruction of a Delphic oracle , and at her instruction for the Spartans to propitiate his soul, they sent for necromancers from Italy.