Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/171

Rh PAUSANIAS. mione, as though with the intention of taking part in the war, and, returning to Byzantium, which was still in the hands of Gongylus, re- newed his treasonable intrigues. According to Plutarch {Cimon, c. 6 ; comp. Moral, p. 555, b.), the immediate occasion of his expulsion from the city was an atrocious injury offered to a family of distinction in Byzantium, which ended in the tragical death of the victim of his lust and cruelty, at which 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 impera- tive recal to Sparta, and not thinking his plans sufficiently matured to enable him to bid defiance to the ephors, he returned at their command, and on his arrival was thrown into prison. He was, however, soon set at liberty ; and, tnisting to the influence of money, offered himself for trial. Still all the suspicious circumstances which were collected and compared with respect to his present and pre- vious breaches of established customs did not seem sufficient to warrant the ephors in proceeding to ex- tremities with a man of his rank. But even after this second escape Pausanias could not rest. He opened an intrigue with the Helots (comp. Arist. Folit. V. 1, 7), promising them freedom and the .rights of citizenship, if they would rise and over- throw the government. But even when these de- signs were betrayed by some of the Helots, the ephors were still reluctant to act upon this inform- ation. Accident, however, soon furnished them Avith decisive evidence. Pausanias was still carry- ing on his intrigues with Persia. A man named Argilius, who was charged with a letter to Arta- bazus, having his suspicions awakened by noticing that none of those sent previously on similar er- rands had returned, counterfeited the seal of Pau- sanias and opened the letter, in which he found directions for his own death. He carried the letter to the ephors, and, in accordance with a plan suggested by himself, took refuge in the temple of Poseidon at Taenarus, in a hut which he divided by a partition, behind which he placed some of the ephors. Pausanias, as he expected, came to in- quire the reason of his placing himself here as a suppliant. Argilius reproached him with his un- grateful disregard of his past services, and con- trived that the ephors should hear from the lips of Pausanias himself the admission of his various intrigues with the barbarian. Upon this the ephors prepared to arrest him in the street as he returned to Sparta. But, wanied by a friendly signal from one of the ephors, and guessing from the looks of another the purpose for which they were coming, he fled and took refuge in the temple of Athene Chalcioecus, establishing himself for shelter in a building attached to the temple. The ephors, having watched for a time wheu he was inside, intercepted him, stripped off the roof, and proceeded to build up the door ; the aged mother of Pausanias being 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. It was at first proposed to cast his body into the Caeadas ; but that proposal was overruled, and he was buried-in tlie neighbourhood of the temple. Subsequently, by the direction of the Delphic oracle, his body PAUSANIAS. 159 was removed and buried at the spot where he died ; and to atone to the goddess for the loss of her suppliant, two brazen statues were dedicated in her temple. (Thuc. i. 94, 95, 128—134 ; Diod. xi. 44, 45 ; Nepos, Faus. 5 ; Suidas, s. v. Uav<r. ; Poiyaen. viii. 51.) According to Plutarch (de sera numinum Vindicta, p. 560), an oracle directed the Spartans to propitiate the soul of Pausanias, for which purpose they brought necromancers from Italy. As to the date of the death of Pausanias, we only know that it must have been later than B. c. 471, when Themistocles was banished, for Themistocles was living in Argos at the time when Pausanias communicated to him his plans (Plut. Tliemist. p. 123), and before B. c. 466, when The- mistocles took refuge in Asia. The accounts of the death of Pausanias given by Nepos, Aelian, and others, differ, and are doubtless erroneous, in some particulars. Pausanias left three sons behind him, Pleisto- anax (afterwards king ; Thuc. i. 107, 114), Cleo- menes (Thuc. iii. 26), and Aristocles (Thuc. V. 16). From a notice in Plutarch {Apophih. p. 230, c.) it has been concluded that on one occasion Pausanias was a victor at the Olympic games. But the passage may refer merely to his success at Plataeae, having been publicly announced by way of honour at the games. The character and history of Pausanias furnish a remarkable exemplification of some of the leading features and faults of the Spartan character and constitution. His pride and arrogance were not very different either in kind or in degree from that commonly exhibited by his countrymen. The selfish ambition which appears in him as an indi- vidual Spartan appears as characteristic of the national policy of Sparta throughout her whole history ; nor did Sparta usually show herself more scrupulous in the choice of means for attaining her ends than Pausanias. Sparta never exhibited any remarkable fidelity to the cause of Greece, except when identical with her own immediate interests ; and at a subsequent period of her history appears with the aid of Persia in a position that bears considerable analogy to that which Pausanias de- signed to occupy. If these characteristics appear in Pausanias in greater degree, their exaggeration was but a natural result of the influence of that position in which he was placed, so calculated to foster and stimulate ambition, and so little likely ultimately to supply it with a fair field for legiti- mate exertion. 2. Son of Pleistoanax, and grandson of the pre- ceding. He succeeded to the throne on the banishment of his father (b. c. 444), being placed under the guardianship of his uncle Cleomenes. He accompanied the latter, at the head of the Lacedaemonian army, in the invasion of Attica, B. c. 427. (Thuc. iii. 26.) We next hear of him in B. c. 403, when Lysander, with a large body of troops, was blockading Thrasybulus and his partisans in Peiraeus. The king, the ephors, and many of the leading men in Sparta, being jealous of the increasing influence of Lysander, a plan was concerted for baffling his designs. Pau- sanias was sent at the head of an army into Attica, professedly to assist Lysander, but in reality to counteract his plans. He accordingly encamped near Peiraeeus. The besieged, not knowing his intentions, attacked him as he was ostensibly re- connoitring the ground to make preparations for a