Pausanias

Pausanias son of Cleombrotus, nephew of Leonidas — Agiad regent of Sparta (479–c. 470) for the under-age Pleistarchus, Leonidas's orphaned son. As commander-in-chief of the Greek land force at Plataea he won the decisive battle of the invasion. Two years later he led the League fleet across the Aegean, liberating Cyprus and Byzantium; arrogant behaviour in the east alienated the Ionian Greeks and marked the transfer of naval hegemony from Sparta to Athens. He was recalled to Sparta, accused of treasonous correspondence with Xerxes, and finally starved to death by the ephors in the sanctuary of Athena Chalkioikos on the Spartan acropolis, c. 470.

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