Pausanias was a Spartan general from the house of the Agiadae. As commissary of Plistarchus son of Leonidas, he was leader of the Hellenic army at Plataea. There he defeated the Persians, having forced them to fight on the heights of Cithaeron, where their cavalry could not deploy. After the battle he wished to present the tripod dedicated by the Hellenes at Delphi as his own personal offering. He laid siege to Thebes and managed to get all collaborators with the Persians handed over to him. In the sequel, he fought as chief of the Hellenic fleet, initally off Cyprus, and captured Byzantium, a powerful Persian base. But ambition led him to make approaches to Persia. He hired a bodyguard of Persians and Egyptians and adopted Median dress. He proposed to the king of Persia that he should help him to subdue Hellas, the reward being that he should be its acknowledged ruler. In 477 B.C., the Spartans recalled him from Thrace because of his despotic behaviour. He was then found not guilty of the charge of Medism, but returned a little later and put together a body of mercenaries in order to gain control of Byzantium. But he was defeated by Cimon and took refuge in the Troad, from whence he continued his negotiations with Persia. Recalled for a second time to Sparta, he started a conspiracy whose aim was a helot uprising. But the fact that he had been in correspondence with the Persian satrap Artabazus came to light, and, hotly pursued, he sought asylum in the temple of Athena Chalcioecus. The Spartans then took off the roof of the temple and walled up its exits, thus condemning him to death from starvation.