Pausanias (general)

Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, was a member of the Spartan royal house of Agiaden and guardian of his cousin, the young king Pleistarchus after his father, Leonidas 480 BC was fallen at Thermopylae. 479 BC Pausanias was the military leader of the Spartans and led the supreme command of the allied Greeks at the decisive Battle of Plataea. He kept in confused situation overview and thus enabled the Greeks to the final victory over the Persians.

After the battle he came into possession of the household of the Great King Xerxes I. Herodotus (IX, 82) tells how Pausanias could be put in front of the Persian cooks a meal in a golden atmosphere, and then uttered a laugh:

478 BC conquered Byzantium Pausanias with 50 ships ( Thucydides I, 94) and is said to have excited because of his imperious occurrence among the Greeks displeasure afterwards. He was the Medismos ( = conspiring with the Persians ) accused and recalled to Sparta, but the subsequent negotiations fell from his favor. He then drove 477 BC without order again to Byzantium, where it remained until 471 BC on. Only when the Athenians expelled him by force, he established himself at Troas a rule.

The re- return to Sparta, a possible conspiracy with the Helots, his escape into the temple of Athena Chalkioikos - whose inputs are bricked up in order to starve him - and his subsequent death by starvation (around 467 BC ) show the inglorious end of a decisive personality on the Greek side during the Persian Wars.