Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/134

 126 DISPUTE BETWEEN EUS AND LEPREVM [v the Corinthians to join the alhance without more delay, and the Corinthians told them to come to their next assembly. 31 Soon afterwards envoys from Elis likewise arrived at ^, r. 1 • Corinth, who, first of all making an The Lepreans, having ' '. . ° agreed to pay a rent alliance with the Corinthians, went on to the Eieans, break jq Argos, and became allies of the this agreement They p^-^^^ }„ ^j.^ manner prescribed. are supported bv the ° 1 • 1 Lacedaemonians'. The Now the Eleans had a quarrel with Ekans in a rage join the Lacedaemonians about the town of the Argive league The Lepreum. A war had arisen between Lonnthtans and Llial- * • * j* cidians join likewise; the Lepreans and certam Arcadian not so the Boeotians tribes, and the Eleans having been and Megarians. ^,^jj^j -^ ^^ ^^^ Lepreans came to assist them, on condition of receiving half their territory. When they had brought the war to a successful end the Eleans allowed the inhabitants of Lepreum to cultivate the land themselves, paying a rent of a talent to Olympian Zeus. Until the Peloponnesian war they had paid the talent, but taking advantage of the war they ceased to pay, and the Eleans tried to compel them. The Lepreans then had recourse to the Lacedaemonians, who undertook to arbitrate. The Eleans suspected that they would not have fair play at their hands ; they therefore disregarded the arbitration and ravaged the Leprean territory. Never- theless the Lacedaemonians went on with the case and decided that Lepreum was an independent state, and that the Eleans were in the wrong. As their award was re- jected by the Eleans, they sent a garrison of hoplites to Lepreum. The Eleans, considering that the Lacedae- monians had taken into alliance a city which had seceded from them, appealed to the clause of the agreement which provided that whatever places any of the confederates had held previous to the war with Athens should be retained by them at its conclusion, and acting under a sense of injustice they now seceded to the Argives and, like the rest, entered into the alliance with them in the manner prescribed. Immediately afterwards the Corinthians and