GREECE: B. C. 478-477. Reduction of Byzantium. Mad conduct of Pausanias. His recall. Alienation of the Asiatic Greeks from Sparta. Their closer union with Athens. Withdrawal of the Spartans from the war. Formation of the Delian Confederacy. "Sestos had fallen: but Byzantion and the Thrakian Doriskos, with Eion on the Strymon and many other places on the northern shores of the Egean, were still held by Persian garrisons, when, in the year after the battle of Plataiai, Pausanias, as commander of the confederate fleet, sailed with 20 Peloponnesian and 30 Athenian ships to Kypros (Cyprus) and thence, having recovered the greater part of the island, to Byzantion. The resistance here was as obstinate perhaps as at Sestos; but the place was at length reduced, and Sparta stood for the moment at the head of a triumphant confederacy. It was now in her power to weld the isolated units, which made up the Hellenic world, into something like an organised society, and to kindle in it something like national life. … But she had no statesman capable, like Themistokles, of seizing on a golden opportunity, while in her own generals she found her greatest enemies." Pausanias "was, it would seem, dazzled by Persian wealth and enamoured of Persian pleasures. He had roused the indignation of his own people by having his name inscribed, as leader of all the Greek forces, on the tripod which was to commemorate the victory of Plataiai: and now his arrogance and tyranny were to excite at Byzantion a discontent and impatience destined to be followed by more serious consequences to his country as well as to himself. On the fall of Byzantion he sent to the Persian king the prisoners taken in the city, and spread the report that they had escaped. He forwarded at the same time, it is said, … a letter in which he informed Xerxes that he wished to marry his daughter and to make him lord of all Hellas." Xerxes opened negotiations with him, and "the head of this miserable man was now fairly turned. Clad in Persian garb, he aped the privacy of Asiatic despots; and when he came forth from his palace it was to make a royal progress through Thrace, surrounded by Median and Egyptian life guards, and to show his insolence to men who were at least his equals. The reports of this significant change in the behaviour of Pausanias led to his recall. He was put on his trial; but his accusers failed to establish the personal charges brought against him, while his Medism also was dismissed as not fully proved. The suspicion, however, was so strong that he was deprived of his command. … All these events were tending to alienate the Asiatic Greeks and the islanders of the Egean from a state which showed itself incapable of maintaining its authority over its own servants." Even before the recall of Pausanius, "the Asiatic Greeks