Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/205

 132, 133] HIS INTRIGUES WITH THE HELOTS 89 dedicated as the firstfruits of their victory over the Per- sians, this elegiac couplet : — ' Pausanias, captain of the Hellenes, having destroyed the Persian host, Made this offering to Phoebus for a memorial.' The Lacedaemonians had at once effaced the lines and inscribed on the tripod the names of the cities which took part in the overthrow of the Barbarian and in the dedica- tion of the offering. But still this act of Pausanias gave offence at the time, and, now that he had again fallen under suspicion, seemed to receive a new light from his present designs. They were also informed that he was intriguing with the Helots; and this was true, for he had promised them emancipation and citizenship if they would join him in an insurrection and help to carry out his whole design. Still the magistrates would not take decided measures ; they even refused to believe the distinct testimony which certain Helots brought against him; their habit having always been to be slow in taking an irrevocable decision against a Spartan without incontestable proof. At last a certain man of Argilus, who had been a favourite and was still a confidential servant of Pausanias, turned in- former. He had been commissioned by him to carry to Artabazus the last letters for the King, but the thought struck him that no previous messenger had ever returned ; he took alarm, and so, having counterfeited the seal of Pausanias in order to avoid discovery if he were mistaken, or if Pausanias, wanting to make some alteration, should ask him for the letter, he opened it, and among the direc- tions given in it found written, as he had partly suspected, an order for his own death. He showed the letter to the Ephors, who were now 133 more inclined to believe, but still they wanted to hear something from Pausanias' own mouth, and so, according to a plan preconcerted with them, the man went to Taenarus as a suppliant and there put up a hut divided by a partition. In the inner part of the hut he placed some