Pausanias, in ancient Greek Παυσανίας († 469), was a Spartan politician and general.
Member of the royal family of the Agiades, he is the son of Cleombrote I and the nephew of Leonidas I, the hero of Thermopylae, and Cleomenes I. Regent of Sparta during the minority of the son of Leonidas I, his cousin Pleistoarchos, he commanded the army of the Greeks which triumphed at Plataea. In 479 and 477, he liberated the Greek cities of Asia, seized Cyprus and then Byzantium.
Pausanias quickly becomes odious to the Greeks by the brutality of his leadership. He is suspected of wanting to build a kingdom and Sparta calls him back brutally. He is judged but acquitted and returns to Byzantium as a simple adventurer. Cimon drives him out of the city around 472-471 and Pausanias settles in Troad resuming his contacts with Persia. He feared the new power of Athens with the league of Delos and opposed the conservative party in Sparta, which was unfavorable to distant expeditions and more worried about the situation in the Peloponnese and the rise in power of Argos. Called back to Sparta again, he is betrayed by one of his servants, who reveals his plans to the ephors.
To escape punishment, Pausanias takes refuge in the temple of Athena Khalkiokos. While the ephors hesitate as to his fate, his mother Theano places a brick in front of the door of the sanctuary, and leaves without saying a word (Diodorus of Sicily, XI, 45, 6). The ephors then decide to wall him up. Pausanias dies of starvation around 469.