| Pausanias | |
|---|---|
 Bust of Pausanias, in the Capitoline Museums, Rome. | |
| Regent of Sparta | |
| Reign | 479–478 BC |
| Predecessor | Cleombrotus |
| Successor | Pleistarchus |
| Died | 477 BC Sparta |
| Issue |
|
| Greek | Παυσανίας |
| House | Agiad |
| Father | Cleombrotus |
| Mother | Theano |
Pausanias (Greek: Παυσανίας) was a Spartan regent and a general. In 479 BC, as a leader of the Hellenic League's combined land forces, he won a pivotal victory against the Achaemenid Empire in the Battle of Plataea. Despite his role in ending the Second Persian invasion of Greece, Pausanias subsequently fell under suspicion of conspiring with the Persian king Xerxes I. After an interval of repeated arrests and debates about his guilt, he was starved to death by his fellow Spartans in 477 BC. What is known of his life is largely according to Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, Diodorus' Bibliotheca historica and a handful of other classical sources.