ountry being just
then at enmity with Lacedaemon and Lepreum. Some time back there had
been a war between the Lepreans and some of the Arcadians; and the
Eleans being called in by the former with the offer of half their lands,
had put an end to the war, and leaving the land in the hands of its
Leprean occupiers had imposed upon them the tribute of a talent to the
Olympian Zeus. Till the Attic war this tribute was paid by the Lepreans,
who then took the war as an excuse for no longer doing so, and upon the
Eleans using force appealed to Lacedaemon. The case was thus submitted
to her arbitrament; but the Eleans, suspecting the fairness of the
tribunal, renounced the reference and laid waste the Leprean territory.
The Lacedaemonians nevertheless decided that the Lepreans were
independent and the Eleans aggressors, and as the latter did not abide
by the arbitration, sent a garrison of heavy infantry into Lepreum. Upon
this the Eleans, holding that Lacedaemon had received one of their rebel
subjects, put forward the convention providing that each confederate
should come out of the Attic war in possession of what he had when he
went into it, and considering that justice had not been done them
went over to the Argives, and now made the alliance through their
ambassadors, who had been instructed for that purpose. Immediately
after them the Corinthians and the Thracian Chalcidians became allies
of Argos. Meanwhile the Boeotians and Megarians, who acted together,
remained quiet, being left to do as they pleased by Lacedaemon, and
thinking that the Argive democracy would not suit so well with their
aristocratic government as the Lacedaemonian constitution.

About the same time in this summer Athens succeeded in reducing Scione,
put the adult males to death, and, making slaves of the women and
children, gave the land for the Plataeans to live in. She also brought
back the Delians to Delos, moved by her misfortunes in the field and by
the commands of the god at Delphi. Meanwhile the Phocians and Locrians
commenced hostilities. The Corinthians and Argives, being now in
alliance, went to Tegea to bring about its defection from Lacedaemon,
seeing that, if so considerable a state could be persuaded to join,
all Peloponnese would be with them. But when the Tegeans said that they
would do nothing against Lacedaemon, the hitherto zealous Corinthians
relaxed their activity, and began to fear that none of the rest would
now come over. Still