Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/170

Rh 158 PAUSANTAS. style, had come to rob the Greeks of their scanty stores. (Herod, ix. 10—85 ; Diod. xi. 29— 33.) As to the generalship of Pausanias in this action, Bishop Thirl wall remarks {^Hist. of Greece^ vol. ii. p. 352) : " Whether Pausanias committed any considerable faults as a general, is a question still more open to controversy than similar cases in modern warfare. But at least it seems clear that he followed, and did not direct or control events, and that he was for a time on the brink of ruin, from which he was delivered more by the rashness of the enemy than by his own prudence. In the critical moment, however, he displayed the firmness, and if, as appears manifest, the soothsayer was his instrument, the ability of a commander equal to the juncture." Immediately after the battle a formal confederacy was entered into, on the proposition of Aristeides (Plut. Arist. 21). The contingents which the allies were to maintain for carrying on the war against the barbarians, were fixed ; deputies were to be sent from all the states of Greece every year to Plataeae, to deliberate on their common interests, and celebrate the anniversary of the battle ; and every fifth year a festival, to be called the Feast of Liberty, was to be celebrated at Plataeae, the in- habitants of which place were declared inviolable and independent. It is this treaty which Thucy- dides calls tos iraKaias Tlaxxraviov fxeroL top Mrj- Suv (nrovMs (Thuc. iii. 68, comp. ii. 71). 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 twenty days, Timagenidas and Attaginus, 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 speedily followed by another. On the tripod dedicated by the Greeks at Delphi from the spoil taken from the Medes he had the following inscription engraved : 'EA.Xifj'wi/ dpxnyos errei arpardv (uKecre MrjSiaVy liavaavias ^oi€({> fiurjfji.' dvedrjKe ro'Se. The inscription was afterwards obliterated by the Lacedaemonians, and the names of the states which joined in effecting the overthrow of the bar- barian substituted (Thuc. i. 1 32 ; Dem. in Neaeram, p. 1378, ed. Reiske ; Corn. Nepos, Pavs. 1 ; Herod, viii. 82). Simonides, with whom Pau- sanias seems to have been on terms of intimacy (Aelian, Var. Hist. ix. 41), was the composer of the elegy. (Pans. iii. 8. § 2.) In B. c. 477 (see the discussion by Clinton On the Atlienian Empire^ Fasti Hellen. vol. ii. p. 248, &c.) 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 (Thuc. i. 94). It was probably as a memorial of this conquest that he dedicated to Poseidon in a temple on the Thracian Bosponis, at a place called Exampaeus, the bowl mentioned by Herodotus (iv. 81 ), the inscription on which is preserved by Athe- PAUSANIAS. naeus (xii. 9, p. 536, a.b.). It does not distinctly appear what could have induced Justin (ix. 1 ) to call Pausanias the founder of Byzantium (a state- ment which is repeated by Isidorus, Origines, xv. 1. § 42); though if, as Justin says, Pausanias held possession of the city for seven years, he may have had opportunities for effecting such alterations in the city and the government as nearly to have re- modelled both, and the honours usually accorded to founders may have been conferred on him by the Byzantines. The capture of Byzantium afforded Pausanias an opportunity for commencing the execution of the design which he had 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 po- sition as regent was one which must terminate when the king became of age. As a tyrant over, not Sparta merely, but the whole of Greece (icpie/xevos 'EWtjviktjs dpxvs, Thuc. i. 128), sup- ported by the power of the Persian king, he hoped that the reward of his treachery to Greece would be ample enough to satisfy his overweening pride and arrogance. Among the prisoners taken at Byzantium were some Persians connected with the royal family. These Pausanias, by the aid of Gongylus, whom he had made governor of Byzantium, sent to the king without the knowledge of the other allies, giving out that they had made their escape. Gon- gylus escorted them, and was the bearer of a letter from Pausanias to the king, in which the former offered to bring Sparta and the rest of Greece under his power, and proposed to marry his daughter (Herodotus, v. 32. mentions that he had proposed to marry the daughter of Megabates). He at the same time requested Xerxes to send some trusty person to the coast to treat with him. Xerxes sent Artabazus 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 Plu- tarch, PamZ/. 10, he actually received 500 talents of gold from the king.) Pausanias now set no bounds to his arrogant and domineering temper. 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 a rashness that even exceeded his arrogance as- sumed the dress and state of a Persian satrap, and even journeyed through Thrace with a guard of Persians and Egyptians. The allies were so dis- gusted by this conduct, especially as contrasted with that of Cimon and Aristeides, that they all, except the Peloponnesians and Aeginetans, volun- tarily offered to transfer to the Athenians that pre- eminence of rank which Sparta had hitherto en- joyed. In this way the Athenian confederacy first took its rise. Reports of the conduct and designs of Pausanias reached Sparta, and he Avas recalled ; and as the allies refused to obey Dorcis, who was sent in his place, the Spartans declined to take any farther share in the operations against the Persians. Pausanias, on reaching Sparta, was put upon his trial, and convicted of various offences against individuals ; but the evidence respecting his meditated treachery and Medism was not yet thought sufficiently strong. He however, without the orders of the ephors, sailed in a vessel of Her-