Pausanias (Greek = Παυσανίας) was a Spartan general of the 5th century BCE. He was the nephew of Leonidas I and served as regent after his uncle's death, as Leonidas' son, Pleistarchus was still under-age. He was responsible for the Greek victory over Mardonius and the Persians at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BCE, and was the leader of the Hellenic League created to resist Persian aggression during the Greco-Persian Wars.

Pausanias (Greek: ) was a Greek traveller and geographer of the 2nd century A.D., who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between classical literature and modern archaeology. This is how Andrew Stewart assesses him: One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works, introduction.

Pausanias, an Athenian of the deme Kerameis, was the lover of the poet Agathon. He appears in the Socratic dialogues of both Plato (Symposium, p. 176, a., 180, c.; Protagoras, p. 315, d.) and Xenophon (Symposium, 8. § 32). It has been supposed that Pausanias was the author of a se­parate erotic treatise, but Athenaeus (Deipnosophistae, book v., p. 216) knew of no books at all by him.