red, nor yet for
number of troops, wherever it may be that their presence is needed; but
with Artabazus, an honourable man whom I send you, boldly advance my
objects and yours, as may be most for the honour and interest of us
both."

Before held in high honour by the Hellenes as the hero of Plataea,
Pausanias, after the receipt of this letter, became prouder than ever,
and could no longer live in the usual style, but went out of Byzantium
in a Median dress, was attended on his march through Thrace by a
bodyguard of Medes and Egyptians, kept a Persian table, and was quite
unable to contain his intentions, but betrayed by his conduct in trifles
what his ambition looked one day to enact on a grander scale. He also
made himself difficult of access, and displayed so violent a temper to
every one without exception that no one could come near him. Indeed,
this was the principal reason why the confederacy went over to the
Athenians.

The above-mentioned conduct, coming to the ears of the Lacedaemonians,
occasioned his first recall. And after his second voyage out in the ship
of Hermione, without their orders, he gave proofs of similar behaviour.
Besieged and expelled from Byzantium by the Athenians, he did not return
to Sparta; but news came that he had settled at Colonae in the Troad,
and was intriguing with the barbarians, and that his stay there was for
no good purpose; and the ephors, now no longer hesitating, sent him a
herald and a scytale with orders to accompany the herald or be declared
a public enemy. Anxious above everything to avoid suspicion, and
confident that he could quash the charge by means of money, he returned
a second time to Sparta. At first thrown into prison by the ephors
(whose powers enable them to do this to the King), soon compromised
the matter and came out again, and offered himself for trial to any who
wished to institute an inquiry concerning him.

Now the Spartans had no tangible proof against him--neither his enemies
nor the nation--of that indubitable kind required for the punishment
of a member of the royal family, and at that moment in high office; he
being regent for his first cousin King Pleistarchus, Leonidas's son, who
was still a minor. But by his contempt of the laws and imitation of the
barbarians, he gave grounds for much suspicion of his being discontented
with things established; all the occasions on which he had in any way
departed from the regular customs were passed in review