2. Son of Pleistoanax, and grandson of the preceding. He succeeded to the throne on the banishment of his father (B. C. 444), being placed under the guardianship of his uncle Cleomenes. He accompanied the latter, at the head of the Lacedaemonian army, in the invasion of Attica, B. C. 427. (Thuc. 3.26.) We next hear of him in B. C. 403, when Lysander, with a large body of troops, was blockading Thrasybulus and his partisans in Peiraeus. The king, the ephors, and many of the leading men in Sparta, being jealous of the increasing influence of Lysander, a plan was concerted for baffling his designs. Pausanias was sent at the head of an army into Attica, professedly to assist Lysander, but in reality to counteract his plans. He accordingly encamped near Peiraeeus. The besieged, not knowing his intentions, attacked him as he was ostensibly reconnoitring the ground to make preparations for a circumvallation. He defeated the assailants with some slaughter, but did not follow up his victory, and secretly sent a message to the besieged. At his suggestion a deputation was sent by them to himself and the ephors, an armistice was concluded with the exiles, and their deputies were sent to Sparta to plead their cause. The result was, that fifteen commissioners were appointed, in conjunction with Pausanias, to settle the differences of the two Athenian parties. An amnesty was published, including all but the thirty tyrants, the Eleven, and the Ten who had been governors of Peiraeeus. Pausanias then disbanded his forces (Xen. Hell. 2.4.28-39; Paus. 3.5.1; Plut. Lys. 100.21). On his return to Sparta, however, the opposite party brought him to trial before a court consisting of the gerontes, the ephors, and the other king Agis. Fourteen of the gerontes, with king Agis, voted for his condemnation; the rest acquitted him. (Paus. 3.5.2.)

In B. C. 395, when hostilities broke out between Phocis and Thebes, and the former applied to Sparta, war was decreed against Thebes, and Lysander was sent into Phocis to raise all the forces he could in that quarter. Pausanias was to join him on an appointed day with the Peloponnesian troops. These collected so slowly, that when Lysander with the troops which he had raised reached Haliartus, Pausanias had not arrived. A battle ensued under the walls of Haliartus, in which Lysander was slain. Next day Pausanias reached the spot, but the arrival of an Athenian army rendered him unwilling to engage. A council of war was held, in which it was decided that application should be made for permission to carry away the dead bodies of those who had been slain in the late engagement. This was only granted on condition that Pausanias should withdraw his forces from Boeotia; and these terms were accepted. On his return to Sparta, Pausanias was impeached, and, besides his conduct on this last occasion, his leniency to Thrasybulus and his party at Peiraeeus was again brought up against him; and Pausanias, seeing that a fair trial was not to be hoped for, went into voluntary exile, and was condemned to death. He sought shelter in the sanctuary of Athene Alea at Tegea, and was still living here in B. C. 385, when Mantinea was besieged by his son Agesipolis, who succeeded him on the throne. Pausanias, who had friendly relations with the leading men of Mantinea, interceded with his son on behalf of the city. (Xen. Hell. 3.5.17_25, 5.2.3_6 ; Paus. 3.5.3_7; Plut. Lysand. 100.31.) Diodorus (14.17) erroneously substitutes Pausanias for Agis in connection with the quarrel between the Lacedaemonians and Eleans.