Pausanias

Pausanias, a famous Spartan regent and general, the son of Cleombrotus, and nephew of Leonidas. He commanded the confederate Greeks in the important battle of Plataea (479 B.C.), in which the Persians were totally routed, and their leader, Mardonius, slain. He then marched his troops against Thebes, and compelled the inhabitants to give up the chiefs of the Persian party to him for punishment. Elated by this victory, however, he became in an extreme degree haughty and vainglorious, took all the credit to himself, and allowed none to the Athenian generals, Aristides and Cimon, who commanded under him, and treated all the other Greeks as if the Spartans were their lords. Nevertheless, he still continued his conquests, capturing Cyprus and Byzantium. It was here he first began to play false to Greece. He entered into secret negotiations with Xerxes, with the view of becoming ruler, under the Persian monarch, of the whole country, and, in his journey through Thrace, even adopted the dress and luxurious habits of a Persian satrap, and surrounded himself with a bodyguard of Persians and Egyptians. He was recalled, on account of these things, by the Spartans, but his former services procured his acquittal. He then returned to Byzantium, where he renewed his traitorous intrigues, was expelled from the city for a criminal assault upon a Byzantine lady, withdrew to the Troas, and there continued his treachery. He was a second time called to account by the Spartan ephors, but again escaped, though with greater difficulty. Yet his passion for the sovereignty of Greece, even though at the expense of the national liberties, once more drove him to play the traitor. He tried to stir up the Helots, but was taken in his own net. A Helot betrayed him. When Pausanias found his position desperate he took sanctuary in a temple of Athena. Hereupon the people blocked up the gate of the temple with heaps of stones, and left him to die of hunger, his own mother depositing the first stone.