History of the Peloponnesian War

Soon after there also came an embassy of the Eleans and first concluded an alliance with the Corinthians, and then they proceeded to Argos, as they had been instructed, and made an alliance with the Argives. It seems that at one time the Eleans were at variance with the Lacedaemonians about Lepreum.[*](In Triphylia, not far from the boundaries of Elis and Laconia (5.34.1).)

For when there had been a war between the Lepreates and some of the Arcadians, and the Eleans had been invited by the Lepreates to make an alliance with them, with the offer of half their territory, on the conclusion of the war the Eleans left the Lepreates in possession of their land, but assessed upon them a tax of a talent to be paid to Olympian Zeus.

Now up to the war with Athens they regularly paid the tribute; then on the pretext of the war they ceased to pay the tribute, and the Eleans tried to enforce payment, whereupon they had recourse to the Lacedaemonians. The case having been referred to the Lacedaemonians for arbitration, the Eleans, suspecting that they would not receive fair treatment, renounced the arbitration and ravaged the land of the Lepreates.

The Lacedaemonians, nevertheless, gave judgment, to the effect that the Lepreates were independent and the Eleans the aggressors, and as the latter did not abide by the arbitration, sent a garrison of hoplites to Lepreum.

But the Eleans, considering that the Lacedaemonians had taken under their protection a city of theirs that was in revolt, cited the agreement in which it was stipulated that whatever places any of the confederates had when they entered the war with Athens they should retain when they came out of it;

and on the ground that they had not received fair treatment went over to the Argives, their envoys making the alliance as they had been instructed to do. Immediately after them the Corinthians also and the Chalcidians in Thrace became allies of the Argives. But the Boeotians and Megarians, though holding the same views, kept quiet, awaiting events and thinking the Argive democracy not so advantageous for them, with their oligarchical form of government, as the political constitution of the Lacedaemonians.