History of the Peloponnesian War

"When as captain of the Hellenes he had destroyed the Persian host, Pausanias dedicated this memorial to Phoebus.[*](The distich was composed by Simonides.)” Now the Lacedaemonians had immediately chiselled off these verses and inscribed on the tripod by name all the cities which had had a part in overthrowing the Barbarians and had together set up this offering. The act of Pausanias, however, was felt at the time to have been a transgression, and now that he had got into this further trouble, it stood out more clearly than ever as having been but a prelude to his present designs.

They were informed also that he was intriguing with the Helots; and it was even so, for he was promising them freedom and citizenship if they would join him in a revolt and help him accomplish his whole plan.

But not even then, nor relying on certain Helots who had turned informers, did they think it best to take harsh measures against him; they adhered to their usual method in dealing with men of their own class—not to be hasty, in the case of a Spartan, in adopting an irrevocable decision unless they had indisputable proofs. But at last, as it is said, the man who was to take to Artabazus Pausanias' last letter to the King, a man of Argilus who had once been a favourite of his and had hitherto been most loyal to him, turned informer. For he took fright when he called to mind that no previous messenger had ever come back again; and so, having made a counterfeit seal, in order that his act might not be discovered, in case he should be wrong in his suspicion or in case Pausanias should ask to make some alteration in the letter, he opened the letter and in fact found written therein, as he suspected he should find something of the sort to have been directed, an order for his own death.