Pausanias

Pausanias, Spartan general

Pausanias (pôsā`nēəs), d. c.470 B.C., Spartan general; nephew of King Leonidas. He was the victorious commander at Plataea (479) near Thebes in the Persian Wars and followed up the battle with expeditions to Cyprus and Byzantium. From Byzantium he was called home to face a very circumstantial charge of treasonable negotiations with Persia; he was acquitted (c.475). The accusation was repeated several years later, and he was acquitted again, only to be accused (this time probably justly) of planning a coup at Sparta, in collaboration with the exiled Themistocles. To escape arrest he took sanctuary in a temple, where he was left to starve.

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Pausanias, geographer of ancient Greece

Pausanias, fl. A.D. 150, traveler and geographer, probably b. Lydia. His Description of Greece is an invaluable source for the topography, monuments, and legends of ancient Greece. There are translations by J. G. Frazer and W. H. S. Jones.

Bibliography

See study by C. Habicht (1969).

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Pausanias

(flourished AD 143–176) Greek traveler and geographer. His Description of Greece is an invaluable guide to ancient ruins. He describes the religious art and architecture of Olympia and Delphi, the pictures and inscriptions at Athens, the statue of Athena on the Acropolis, and (outside the city) the monuments of famous men and of Athenians fallen in battle. According to James George Frazer, without Pausanias the ruins of Greece would be “a labyrinth without a clue, a riddle without an answer.”

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Pausanias

2nd century ad, Greek geographer and historian. His Description of Greece gives a valuable account of the topography of ancient Greece