Pausanias: A Brief Reign in Ancient Macedonian History

Introduction

Pausanias was a short-lived king of the ancient Macedonian kingdom, reigning for about one year c. 394/3–393/2 BC. He is recorded as a son of Aeropus II and thus conventionally placed within the Macedonian succession of the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC. Sources indicate a turbulent transfer of power in which Amyntas (commonly called Amyntas II in modern reconstructions) ruled briefly after Aeropus II’s death before Pausanias took the throne.

No substantive acts, reforms, military campaigns, or administrative measures from Pausanias survive in the extant narratives; his rule is chiefly attested in regnal lists and brief chronicle notices. The period is marked by rapid turnover and dynastic confusion in contemporary and later accounts. Ancient reconstructions differ over details: Diodorus reports that Pausanias was assassinated in 393/2 BC by Amyntas (the king who then succeeded him), while other tradition and modern scholarship preserve a slightly different ordering of short reigns in the same years.

Pausanias’ reign ended violently and his historical footprint is limited to his brief succession and murder; later chroniclers and modern historians emphasize the episode as part of the era’s unstable, often lethal, struggle for the Macedonian throne. A minority scholarly view regards his family as Lyncestian rather than Argead, but the majority view treats him as descended from Aeropus II within the Macedonian royal line.