 Pausanias took his first reign while still a minor, during a time of political unrest.Around 446 BC, Euboea and Megara rebelled against the Athenian empire and the Peloponnesian forces under the command of Pleistonax invaded Attica (Athens) going as far as Eleusis and Thria.His father Pleistoanax was temporarily deposed and exiled after being charged by the Spartans with taking a bribe, probably from the Athenian leader, Pericles, to withdraw from the plain of Eleusis in Attica.