Pleistoanax in the context of "Gylippus"

Nicomedes (fl. 460 – 457 BC) was a Spartan military commander and a scion of the royal Agiad dynasty. He was a regent of Sparta during the minority of Pleistoanax, the son of his brother Pausanias.

Pausanias (Ancient Greek: Παυσανίας) was the Agiad King of Sparta; the son of Pleistoanax. He ruled Sparta from 445 BC to 427 BC and again from 409 BC to 395 BC. He was the leader of the faction in Sparta that opposed the imperialist policy conducted by Lysander.

Pausanias became king in 445 BC, when his father Pleistoanax was forced into exile because he made a peace settlement with Athens, which was deemed dishonourable in Sparta. Too young to reign, his uncle Cleomenes acted as regent. Pleistoanax then returned in 427 BC and resumed his reign. Pausanias effectively became king in 409, at the death of his father. As he continued the conciliatory policy with Athens favoured by Pleistoanax, Pausanias clashed with Lysander, the Spartan general who had won the Peloponnesian War against Athens in 404 BC and supported an imperialist policy in the Aegean Sea. In 403 BC, Pausanias engineered the restoration of the Athenian democracy, which had been replaced by the regime of the Thirty Tyrants installed by Lysander after his victory. The latter's supporters and the other king Agis II attempted a prosecution for betrayal against Pausanias, who narrowly escaped condemnation.

Cleandridas or Cleandrides (Greek: Κλεανδρίδας or Κλεανδρίδης) was a Spartan general of the 5th century BCE, who advised the young Agiad king Pleistoanax during the early part of the latter's reign. According to Plutarch, both Cleandrides and Pleistoanax were banished from Sparta (most likely between the years 446 and 444 BC), for allegedly accepting a bribe from the Athenian leader Pericles to call off their planned attack on the Athenian region Attica. Although Pleistoanax was later recalled to Sparta, Cleandrides had a death sentence imposed upon him in his absence (Plutarch, Life of Pericles XXII).

Nevertheless, Cleandridas was described as a shrewd general and strategist. The 2nd century AD writer Polyaenus described how Cleandridas skillfully sowed dissent among his enemies, the people of Tegea, by promoting the false appearance that their leaders had accepted bribes from Sparta.