## SPARTA; MANTINEA AND PARRHASIA; ELIS AND LEPREON: POLITICS AND AUTONOMIA IN 421-418 BC

By James Roy

Summary: Following the end of the Archidamian war Sparta intervened in Parrhasia and at Lepreon. The interventions weakened Mantinea and Elis, two states that caused difficulties for Sparta, but besides Realpolitik there were also questions of law, and the Spartans, though anxious to achieve strategic advantages, were careful to act with proper legal authority. Sparta declared both Parrhasia and Lepreon autonomous, but autonomy did not mean the same status in the two cases. Since knowledge of these incidents comes mainly from Thucydides' Book 5, the argument depends heavily on interpretation of Thucydides' text.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Yanis Pikoulas (1956-2022)

## INTRODUCTION

It is commonly acknowledged that the political situation in the Peloponnese at end of the Archidamian War in 421 was difficult for Sparta, since some of Sparta's allies were unhappy about the terms agreed between Sparta and Athens. In addition the thirty-year peace between Argos and Sparta came to an end (Thuc. 5.14.4), and Argos was consequently much freer to form alliances with other states, notably with dissident Spartan allies in the Peloponnese. Spartan authority in the Peloponnese suffered until Sparta's victory at the battle of Mantinea in 418. 1

- 1 See e.g. Lendon 2010: 361-67 and Millender 2017: 91-93 on Sparta's problems at the end of the Archidamian War, and, on the situation after the battle of Mantinea in 418, see e.g. Millender 2017: 94-96.

James Roy: 'Sparta; Mantinea and Parrhasia; Elis and Lepreon: Politics and Autonomia in 421-418 BC' C&M 71 (2022) 105-128.

These affairs are covered in Book 5 of Thucydides' history, but that book  poses  particular  problems,  being  apparently  less  finished  than other  sections  of  the  work. 2 Thucydides  offers  narrative  of  the  two events examined in this article, but information required to understand them is given in other early passages of Book 5. An attentive reader, or listener,  would  need  to  make  the  necessary  connections, whether the need for such cross-referencing is due to the untidiness of a work requiring further revision or to literary artifice.

Mantinea and Elis were less significant states than others that concerned Sparta in those years, like Argos and Corinth. Nonetheless both Mantinea and Elis posed real problems for Sparta, and both left the Spartan alliance to join Argos and Athens. In 418 Athens, Argos, Mantinea, and Elis operated as a military alliance in the Peloponnese before the battle of Mantinea, and, though Elis withdrew from the allied forces before the battle at Mantinea and took its hoplites back home (Thuc. 5.62.1-2), the  others  opposed  the  Spartans  and  their  allies  in  the  battle.  Eleian troops  never  in  this  period  faced  the  Spartans  in  a  major  battle,  but Eleian forces rejoined their allies after the battle (Thuc. 5.75.5). While treating Mantinea and Elis as minor partners in the anti-Spartan alliance, Thucydides nonetheless says enough about them to allow their role in those years to be understood.

## MANTINEA'S HEGEMONIAL ALLIANCE

Thucydides (5.29.1) tells us that in 421 the Mantineans were the first to break with Sparta and ally themselves with the Argives. He explains that the Mantineans were afraid of the Spartans because during the Archidamian War the Mantineans had made some (unspecified) part of Arkadia subject to themselves and thought that the Spartans, now that they had time to deal with the matter, would not overlook this Mantinean domination.

It seems clear that Parrhasia, in the western and southwestern parts of what in the fourth century became the Megalopolis basin, was at least part  of  the  territory  subdued  by  the  Mantineans  during  the  war,  and Thucydides (5.33.1-3) describes the campaign by which the Spartans in summer 421 drove the Mantineans out of Parrhasia. 3 Parrhasia was presumably controlled by Mantinea already in winter 423/2, when the Mantineans and the Tegeans with their respective allies fought an indecisive battle at Laodokeion in Oresthis (Thuc. 4.134.1-2), i.e. in the territory of Oresthasion (a Mainalian polis, see Paus. 8.27.3). Laodokeion was roughly in the middle of the Megalopolis basin: when Megalopolis was built, it was just outside the walls of the city (Paus. 8.44.1). In 423/2, therefore, Mantinea and Tegea had interests extending into the central part of the basin, and it is likely that Mantinea's interest was control of Parrhasia.

2 On the problems of Book 5 see Hornblower 2008: 1-4 and 53-57, and note the comments of Rood 1998: 83-108 on literary aspects of Book 5.

Both  Mantinea  and  Tegea  had  built  up  hegemonial  alliances.  The Mantinean alliance obviously included Parrhasia, but it must also have included other areas of Arkadia. 4 At the battle of Mantinea in 418 there were Mainalians fighting, like the Tegeans, on the Spartan side (Thuc. 5.67.1): these were presumably southern Mainalians allied to Tegea (Nielsen 2002: 366-67). On the opposing side were the Mantineans and alongside them Arkadian allies: it is generally recognised that the northern Mainalians were allied to Mantinea. 5 In the agreement between Sparta and Argos made in winter 418/7, after Sparta's victory at Mantinea, it is specified (Thuc. 5.77.1) that the Argives will return 'the boys to the Orchomenians and the men to the Mainalians.' The boys and men were evidently hostages. The alliance of Argos, Athens, Mantinea, and Elis captured Orchomenos in 418 before the battle at Mantinea (Thuc. 5.61.362.1), and the Orchomenian hostages were presumably taken then. Nielsen  argues  convincingly  that  the  Mainalian  hostages  will  have  been taken by the Mantineans from their Mainalian allies to ensure their loyalty, and then entrusted to the Argives. 6 Northern Mainalia lies between Mantinea and Parrhasia, and it is entirely understandable that Mantinea, when building a hegemonial alliance, would have brought it under con- trol. An important point noted by Pikoulas has subsequently been overlooked: 7 the territory of the Eutresians, in the northern and northeastern areas of the Megalopolis basin, lay between the northern Mainalians and the Parrhasians, and we can assume that the Eutresians also became subordinate allies of the Mantineans. 8 Thucydides (5.29.1) shows clearly that Mantinea  expanded  its  hegemonial  alliance  during  the  Archidamian War, but he does not say that Mantinea's entire alliance was constructed during that war, and it will be argued below that northern Mainalia and Eutresia may well have already been allied to Mantinea before the war. 9

3

On Parrhasia see Roy 2013.

4 On the Mantinean alliance see Nielsen 2002: 367-72.

5

Nielsen 2002: 367-72, Hornblower 2008: 177.

6 Nielsen 2002: 289-90. Hornblower 2008: 197 supposes, without comment or explanation, that Mantinea will have taken hostages from the pro-Spartan Mainalians.

## PARRHASIA

Parrhasia was an important region for several reasons. Pausanias (8.27.4) lists eight Parrhasian poleis that were to be incorporated in Megalopolis, and to that list can be added Basilis, and possibly Haimoniai, though it has more often been regarded as Mainalian. 10 Evidence for the population is very poor, but the total Parrhasian population was probably well in  excess of 5,000. 11 The only certainly Parrhasian settlement that has been thoroughly excavated is near the modern village of Kiparissia, c.15 km northwest of Megalopolis. It was a fifth-century town with streets laid out on a carefully planned grid-pattern, and was fortified with a citywall and turrets. 12 Karapanagiotou, the excavator, identifies the site as ancient Trapezous, but it could be Basilis (Paus. 8.29.5). The excavator of another settlement near modern Perivolia, a few kilometres southeast of Megalopolis, believes it to be the Mainalian polis Oresthasion, though it seems possible, even likely, that it was Haimoniai. 13 In  any  case,  since

- 7 Pikoulas 1990: 477.
- 8 On the Eutresians see Paus. 8.27.3 and 8.35.5-9, with the comments of Jost 1998: 219, 243-45, and of Moggi & Osanna 2003: 419, 459-62; also Pikoulas 1999: 282-91 with Map 3.
- 9 Nielsen 2002: 368 supposed that the entire Mantinean alliance was created in the years 431-424.
- 10  Roy 2013: 6-9.
- 11  Roy 2013: 10-13.
- 12  Karapanagiotou 2020: 16-17 with Fig. 6 (on p. 23).
- 13  Fritzilas 2018. On Haimoniai see Paus. 8.3.3, 8.44.1-2.

that settlement, dating originally from the late Geometric or early archaic period, was reshaped in the fifth century with a grid-pattern of streets, communities in the Megalopolis basin clearly had an interest in planned  urban  development  well  before  the  creation  of  Megalopolis. Only further archaeological exploration will reveal whether in the later fifth  century  the  settlement  at  Kiparissia  was  exceptional  within Parrhasia,  or  typical  of  local  urban  development.  Parrhasia  also  possessed various religious sanctuaries, including notably the ash altar of Zeus Lykaios on the lower summit of Mt. Lykaion and the god's sanctuary a  little  lower  on  the  mountain.  Domination  of  Parrhasia  would  have given the Mantineans not only access to the region's manpower, but also some influence over the most important cult in Arkadia and its Lykaian Games. 14 Nielsen  suggested  that  Mantinea  may  have  profited  from  its domination of Mainalia in the years before 418 to move the bones of Arkas from a site in Mainalia to the city of Mantinea, 15 and the standing of Mantinea  among  Arkadians  could  have  been  promoted  also  by  Mantinean prominence at the Lykaia.

In addition Parrhasia was of strategic importance. The Spartan army, when marching north, often took the relatively easy route up the Eurotas valley and on into the Megalopolis basin, from which an army could proceed  without  difficulty  in  several  directions. 16 While  in  control  of Parrhasia the Mantineans built a fort at Kypsela near the frontier with Lakonian territory, in other words at the north end of the route up the Eurotas, and installed a garrison (Thuc. 5.33.1). Such a fort could only be hostile to Sparta.

In 421 there was stasis in Parrhasia, and some Parrhasians appealed to Sparta (Thuc. 5.33.1). Thucydides does not say why the stasis had arisen,

- 14  On Parrhasian cults see Roy 2013: 23-24 and 29-32: on the current very important excavations both at the ash altar and in the lower sanctuary see Romano & Voyatzis 2014 and 2015, and Karapanagiotou 2020: 15-16.The cult of Despoina at Lykosoura enjoyed considerable prestige from the Hellenistic period, but whether it was already  important  in  the  classical  period  has  recently  been  debated:  see  Jost  & Palamidis 2020.
- 15  Nielsen 2002: 403-4. On the bones of Arkas see Paus. 8.9.3, 8.36.8.
- 16  Pikoulas 1988: 109-10. Forsén 2003: 253 with note 34 observes that the Spartan army also used the route north via Sellasia towards Tegea, but recognises the importance of the route via the Megalopolis basin.

but it is commonly, and reasonably, supposed (e.g. Nielsen 2002: 392) that in  Parrhasia  there  were  pro-Mantinean and pro-Spartan factions. The appeal gave the Spartans a reason to act in Parrhasia. However Thucydides  does  not  repeat  in  this  context  what  he  had  written  at  5.16.2-3, namely that after being accused of having accepted a bribe when leading a Spartan army against Athens (Thuc. 1.114.2, 2.21.1) the Spartan king Pleistoanax had gone into exile, and had lived at the sanctuary of Zeus Lykaios in Parrhasia for nineteen years, until he was allowed to return to Sparta and resume his powers and duties as king, probably in 426. 17 Pleistoanax had therefore had ample opportunity to meet leading Parrhasians, and it is entirely likely that such contacts came into play in 421.  Pro-Spartan  Parrhasians  could  have  contacted  Pleistoanax,  or  he himself might have solicited an appeal from Parrhasian friends. At any rate the appeal from Parrhasians friendly to Sparta gave Sparta an excuse to intervene. Sparta also had good legal justification for intervention: that will be discussed below.

The Spartan intervention was a major military operation. A full levy ( pandemei )  was  led  into  Parrhasia  by  Pleistoanax  (Thuc.  5.33.1-3).  The Mantineans entrusted the guarding of their own city to the Argives and marched into Parrhasia, but were unable to hold out against the Spartans and withdrew. The Spartans destroyed the fort at Kypsela, declared the Parrhasians autonomous, and went home.

It is notable that in his account of this campaign Thucydides always refers to the Parrhasians collectively. He mentions 'the poleis among the Parrhasians' (5.33.2), but never names any particular polis .  Parrhasian territory  is  referred  to  as Parrhasike (5.33.1)  and  'the  land  of  the Parrhasians' (5.33.2). The Spartan campaign is against 'the Parrhasians of  Arkadia'.  The  constant  collective  presentation  of  the  Parrhasians brings problems, for there was stasis in Parrhasia and there must have been divisions. Thucydides (5.33.2) records that the Spartans ravaged the land of the Parrhasians with no suggestion of discrimination, though the Spartans presumably targeted the land of anti-Spartan Parrhasians and protected the interests of their friends. There is no possibility of deducing from Thucydides' account whether some Parrhasian cities were more pro-Spartan than others, or whether more or less all were split into supporters and opponents of Sparta. Thucydides certainly does not suggest that the Spartans made any distinction between Parrhasian poleis when declaring them autonomous: in fact his wording suggests rather that the whole Parrhasian community collectively enjoyed autonomy.

## SPARTA'S LEGAL AUTHORITY TO ACT IN PARRHASIA

Another question is what legal authority Sparta had to take action in Parrhasia. Here again Thucydides does not address the question in his account of the Spartan campaign, but gives two hints elsewhere. One is at 5.29.1 when he says that during the Archidamian War the Mantineans had made some part of Arkadia subject to themselves and were afraid that the Spartans would act against them once free from other concerns. The other is at 5.31.5, where the Eleians, in their dispute with Sparta over Lepreon, cited an agreement that at the end of the Attic war all should have what they had when they entered it. The nature of that agreement has been much discussed but it seems best to interpret it as an agreement among Sparta and Sparta's allies that no member of the alliance should take advantage of the war for territorial or political expansion at another ally's expense. 18 Thus the Mantineans acted 'in violation of the agreement between Sparta and her allies'. 19 That  explains  why  the  Mantineans were afraid that Sparta would act against them, and it also explains what legal authority Sparta had to act. As leader of the alliance Sparta could act against a state that had breached an agreement made by the allies. That Mantinea had left the alliance and allied itself with Argos before  Sparta  acted  (Thuc.  5.29.1)  made  no  difference:  Mantinea  had breached the agreement while still a member of Sparta's alliance. Moreover it seems that Sparta's action was limited to rectifying the effects of Mantinea's breach. As Thucydides says (5.33.3), the Spartans declared the Parrhasians autonomous, destroyed the fort at Kypsela, and went home. Yet Mantinea had other allies, the northern Mainalians and doubtless also the Eutresians, and Sparta in 421 made no attempt to separate them from Mantinea: Mantinea's Arkadian allies fought alongside the Mantineans in the battle of Mantinea in 418 (Thuc. 5.67.2). (Mantinea did give up control of 'the cities' when it reached an agreement with Sparta after the battle (Thuc. 5.81.1), but circumstances then were radically different.) In 421 it would not have been difficult for the Spartans to drive the Mantineans out of Eutresia as they drove them out of Parrhasia, in other words to drive the Mantineans completely out of the Megalopolis basin, but the Spartans simply expelled them from Parrhasia. There is no evidence of when Mantinea made the alliances with the northern Mainalians and the Eutresians, but, if they dated from before the outbreak of the  Archidamian  War,  then  the  actions  of  the  Spartans  are  coherent. Mantinean control of Eutresia and northern Mainalia would not breach the agreement of the Spartan alliance and Sparta would have no legal authority to put an end to it. Given the difficult political situation in the Peloponnese in 421, it was in the Spartans' interest to act with clear legal authority and to avoid a crude use of force.

18  On this agreement see Lendon 1994: 162-67 and Hornblower 2008: 73-74.

19  Lendon 2010: 364.

## ELIS, LEPREON, AND SPARTA

In summer 421 Elis was the second Spartan ally, after Mantinea, to break away and make an alliance with Argos. Thucydides explains (5.31.1-2) that Elis was already at odds with Sparta because of a quarrel over Lepreon. At an unspecified time before the Peloponnesian War Lepreon had been at war with some Arkadians (equally unspecified), and was apparently in some difficulty. It sought help from Elis, and formed an alliance on the basis that Lepreon would cede half its territory to Elis but would be allowed to occupy and exploit the ceded territory on condition that it paid one talent annually to Zeus at Olympia. 20 Thus by 431 (possibly well before) Lepreon was a subordinate ally of Elis. It occupied a strategically important territory on the northern bank of the river Neda as the river approached the sea: south of the river lay Messenia. 21 It was the most im- portant polis , with the greatest resources, in the region between the Alpheios and the Neda. 22 Elis'  desire  to  control  this  valuable  territory  is easy to understand.

20  Thuc. 5.31.1-2. Patay-Horváth 2016: 246 gives reasons for believing that an annual payment of one talent was not a heavy economic charge for the land concerned.

21  The strategic importance of Lepreon is well brought out by Falkner 1999.

After making the annual payment of a talent until the Peloponnesian War began, Lepreon used the war as a reason for not paying. The Eleians tried to force them to pay and the Lepreates turned to the Spartans for an arbitration: 'and they approached the Lakedaimonians' (Thuc.5.31.3, where 'they' is clearly the Lepreates). It was more normal for both parties to a dispute to agree to go to arbitration and to agree to approach a potential arbitrator; but in this case it appears that, even if it was the Lepreates  who  first  approached  Sparta,  the  Eleians  agreed  that  Sparta should act as arbitrator. 23 Clearly, once an arbitration had begun, if the procedure  was  to  succeed  neither  party  to  the  dispute  could  subsequently withdraw because the judgment seemed likely to go against it. Consequently, when the Eleians withdrew from the arbitration because they suspected that they would not get a fair hearing, and even ravaged the territory of Lepreon, the Spartans nonetheless went ahead and gave judgment that the Lepreates were autonomous. (The nature of Lepreon's 'autonomy' will be discussed below.) The Spartans also sent a garrison of hoplites to Lepreon to protect it, on the grounds that the Eleians were not abiding by the arbitration. The Eleians, claiming that the Spartans had received a polis that had seceded from them, and citing the agreement (discussed above) that states would have at the end of the war what they had on entering it, made the alliance with Argos (Thuc. 5.33.3-5).

It is not clear when the dispute between Sparta and Elis began. Falkner 1999 argued that once the Athenians were established at Pylos in 425 Sparta would be seriously concerned not only over Messenia but also over an adjacent community like Lepreon. She says correctly (1999: 392) that in Thucydides' account the chronology of the dispute between Elis

- 22  On Lepreon's resources see Hanöffner 2020: 52-54 and Siftar 2020: 86-94.
- 23  On the process of inter-state arbitration among Greeks see Ager 1996: 3-19, and in particular 10 with n. 20 on the term epitrepein and related vocabulary. In the passage describing the arbitration about Lepreon (5.31.3-4) Thucydides uses legal terminology freely: epitrope and a form of the verb epitrepo , and also dike and a form of the verb dikazo .

and Sparta is obscure, and she seems to suggest that the Spartan arbitration took place during the Archidamian War. Thucydides does not say when Lepreon stopped making the annual payment to Zeus Olympios, but it was presumably not at the beginning of the war. Equally he does not say how long the Eleians then spent trying to force the Lepreates to pay. The final stages of the dispute certainly followed the end of the war in spring 421; the Spartans sent Brasideioi and neodamodeis to strengthen the garrison in Lepreon in summer 421 (Thuc. 5.34.1), and then became embroiled in an argument with Elis on whether they had moved troops into Lepreon during the Olympic truce for the Games of 420 (Thuc. 5.49.150.4). It is conceivable that the entire dispute followed the end of the war, i.e. that the arbitration by Sparta took place in late spring or early summer 421. 24 It would have been easier for Sparta to commit hoplites to garrison duty in Lepreon after the formal cessation of hostilities.

## SPARTAN GARRISON IN LEPREON

Thucydides has three references to movement of Spartan troops into Lepreon: at 5.30.4 he writes of a garrison of hoplites; at 5.34.1 of Brasideioi and neodamodeis , evidently sent as a reinforcement; and at 5.49.1 of 1,000 hoplites who, according to the Eleians, breached the Olympic truce. On any reckoning, whether three separate bodies of troops were sent or only two, there was a sizeable garrison. 25 It has often been supposed that the Brasideioi and neodamodeis were given plots of land in Lepreon. 26 However, Cartledge pointed out that there is no reason to believe that such grants of land at Lepreon were made, and Paradiso has developed that argument, suggesting that the garrison at Lepreon was paid a wage, and

- 24  Nielsen 2005: 62 dates the arbitration to 421.
- 25  On these contingents, see Paradiso 2008: 27-31 (in Paradiso & Roy 2008), Paradiso 2013, and Hornblower 2008: 80-81.
- 26  E.g. among many others by Roy 1998: 361: 'Sparta had also settled freed helots and neodamodeis in Lepreon', written on the assumption that the Brasideioi and neodamodeis were settlers with plots of land.

showing that neodamodeis were paid on other occasions. 27 The assumption that plots of land were provided rests solely on the wording of Thucydides at 5.34.1. (At 5.31.4 and 5.49.1 Thucydides simply says that Sparta sent hoplites to Lepreon, using forms of the verb espempo ,  meaning 'to send to'.) At 5.34.1 Thucydides says 'In summer 421 the troops who had fought under Brasidas in Thrace were brought home by Kleandridas. The Lakedaimonians voted that the Helots who had fought with Brasidas be free and live wherever they wished, and not much later they posted them with the neodamodeis in Lepreon'. The Greek for the last phrase is: καὶ ὕστερον οὐ πολλῷ αὺτοὺς μετὰ τῶν νεοδαμώδων ἐς Λέπρεον κατέστησαν .  There  is  no  obvious  reason  to  suppose  that  the  verb κατέστησαν means 'settled with plots of land': it is much more straightforward to take it to mean 'posted' in the military sense. The wording is analysed in detail by Paradiso, 28 who points out that the Spartans voted that 'the Helots who had fought with Brasidas' were to be free and to live wherever they wished, i.e. were not bound to the land of a Spartiate master.  That  left  them  as  free  men,  experienced  hoplites,  who  would have to find a living as best they could. Thucydides' text then continues 'and not much later': Paradiso stresses that Thucydides makes the connection  with  'and'  ( καὶ ),  so  that  sending  them  to  Lepreon  in  no  way clashes with the privileges that they have just received but rather follows on naturally. In fact gainful employment is found for them. 29

Furthermore, it is not easy to see how Lepreon could have provided land  for  some  hundreds  of  military  settlers. 30 Nonetheless  the  widespread belief that there were Lakedaimonian military settlers on Lepreate territory has given rise to elaborate but speculative historical reconstructions (e.g. recently by Bourke and Patay-Horváth). 31

27  Cartledge 1979: 215, repeated in 2002: 215; Paradiso 2008: 69-74 and 2013: 588-91.

28  Paradiso 2008: 70.

29  On the status of the neodamodeis (helots freed to fight as hoplites) see Paradiso 2008: 71-74.

30  See Hornblower 2008: 81.

31  Bourke 2018: 137 suggests that many Lepreates might have migrated to Elis, leaving land to be settled in Lepreon, or alternatively that some Lepreates might have been expelled in a revolution occurring before Lepreon stopped making the annual payment to Olympian Zeus; there may well have been political disagreement within Lepreon, but there is no evidence that either of those things happened. Patay-Horváth

At least part of the garrison remained in Lepreon for some years. By 418 Elis, Mantinea, Argos, and Athens had formed an alliance, and carried out military operations in the Peloponnese in the period preceding the battle of Mantinea. After capturing Orchomenos, Mantinea's northern neighbour, they debated their next move (Thuc. 5.62.1-2). Elis proposed that they attack Lepreon, which suggests that it still had a significant Spartan garrison. When the allies instead adopted the Mantineans' suggestion that they move on Tegea, the Eleian troops left their allies and went home. The Eleian suggestion that the allies attack Lepreon has been criticised  on  strategic  grounds  (see  Hornblower  2008:  163,  citing  Andrewes), and their suggestion was doubtless motivated by their own interest  in  recovering  Lepreon,  but  the  capture  of  Lepreon  would  have opened a route into Messenia. 32 Moreover some of the garrison was removed from Lepreon to strengthen the Spartan army that fought at Mantinea. Brasideioi are mentioned three times among the Spartan forces at the battle (Thuc. 5.67.1, 71.3, and 72.3), and at 5.67.1 alone neodamodeis are said to be with the Brasideioi . 33 The close association of these Brasideioi and neodamodeis suggests that they all came from the liberated helots, Brasideioi and neodamodeis , posted to Lepreon. 34 Other hoplites may also have been moved from Lepreon to strengthen the Spartan army: they would simply have joined their normal units in the Spartan army, and Thucydides would have had no reason to mention them specially. The Eleians had mobilised 3,000 hoplites to fight with their allies (5.58.1), and

(2016: 253-54 and 2020: 170-74) suggests that Lepreon controlled the neighbouring Arkadian community Phigalia, that anti-Spartan Lepreates were driven out by their fellow-citizens and left land available for military settlers, and that Lakedaimonian military settlers in Lepreon and possibly also in Phigalia played a major part in the development of the sanctuary at Bassai in Phigalia. Again, these are simply conjectures.

- 32  As noted by Bourke 2018: 144.
- 33  Paradiso 2008: 71 suggests that the greater prominence of the Brasideioi in those passages  may  mean  that  they  were  more  numerous  than  the neodamodeis operating alongside them.
- 34  Hornblower 2008: 175 and 182 suggests that the Brasideioi at the battle of Mantinea included the survivors of the thousand Peloponnesian mercenaries that Brasidas had also taken to Thrace (Thuc. 4.78.1, 80.5), but that seems unlikely, since there is no evidence that the Spartans continued to employ these mercenaries.

.

would  have  had  these  men  available  when  they  returned  to  Elis;  Elis again mobilised 3,000 hoplites after the battle of Mantinea (Thuc. 5.75.5). However, there is nothing in Thucydides' account to suggest that the Eleians made any attempt to attack Lepreon themselves, despite its depleted garrison. It is in fact likely that a Spartan garrison, of whatever strength, was maintained in Lepreon until it returned to Eleian control. However, before considering that development, it is necessary to examine the dispute between Elis and Sparta over an alleged breach of the Olympic truce for the Games of 420.

## DISPUTE BETWEEN SPARTA AND ELIS OVER OLYMPIC TRUCE

The Eleians had acted clumsily in first accepting arbitration and then withdrawing and ravaging Lepreate territory, since they gave the Spartans the opportunity not only to give a verdict contrary to Elis' interests but also to garrison Lepreon to maintain that verdict. The Eleians then tried a different approach. As the Olympic Games of 420 approached, the Olympic  truce  was  announced.  Thucydides  gives  a  detailed  account (5.49.1-50.4) of what then happened. 35 The Eleians accused the Spartans of having attacked a fort at Phyrkos and having during the Olympic truce moved 1,000 hoplites into Lepreon. The two events, presented together in the text, are most naturally taken to be part of the same military action: it is likely that the fort, otherwise unknown, was in the territory of Lepreon, probably on or near the route from Messenia to the town of Lepreon. 36 It  may well have been built originally by the Lepreates, but was evidently held by Eleian forces when the Spartans attacked. A hearing took place in a court, probably an Olympic court but certainly one dominated by the Eleians, and a penalty of 2,000 minai was imposed on the Spartans for the breach of the truce. (The penalty was fixed by Olym-

- 35  See Roy 1998, Paradiso & Roy 2008, and Hornblower 2008: 122-35.

36  On access from Messenia to Lepreon see the route via Aulon in Messenia followed by Agis into Elis during the Spartan-Eleian war at the end of the century (Xen. Hell . 3.2.25).

pic law at two minai per man, allowing the number of hoplites to be calculated.) Thucydides' narrative shows that the Spartans were not present at the hearing, but sent ambassadors to protest when they learnt of the verdict. 37

The case presented by the Spartan ambassadors (Thuc. 5.49.4) is remarkable for what it does not say. The Spartans began a discussion about dates,  when  the  truce  had  been  announced  at  Sparta  and  when  the troops had been moved into Lepreon. When the Spartans refused to pay the  2,000 minai ,  the  Eleians  maintained  their  position,  but  suggested other possible courses of action which would, in effect, have obliged the Spartans to admit that they were guilty. No agreement was reached, and, because the Spartans did not pay, the Eleians finally banned them from sacrificing or competing at Olympia. What the Spartan ambassadors did not say was that Lepreon was autonomous. The Eleians clearly supposed that the Olympic truce protected the territories of the polis Elis and its subordinate allies, and their condemnation of the Spartans was arguably a fresh attempt to assert that Lepreon belonged to Elis. Yet, although in their arbitration the Spartans had declared Lepreon to be autonomous, the Spartan ambassadors did not say that Lepreon, being autonomous, was no longer subject to Eleian control and therefore not covered by the Olympic truce.

This point has been noted in a recent article by Patay-Horváth 2016, who wrote (at p. 250):

'In the course of the ensuing quarrel, Sparta seems to have admitted that Lepreon was covered by the sacred truce and thus belonged to Elis: instead of referring to the fact that Lepreon was not under Elean control, Sparta exclusively insisted on temporal aspects of the episode, thus leaving the impression of accepting the Elean claim to the

- 37  Bourke 2018: 141 suggests that the court hearing at which the Spartans were condemned in their absence was comparable to the Spartans' decision about Lepreon after the Eleians had withdrawn from the arbitration - 'they [i.e. the Spartans] were now repaid in kind'. However, the Eleians had of their own volition, and contrary to normal practice in arbitration, withdrawn from the arbitration after it had begun, whereas there is no evidence that the Spartans had been given any opportunity to put their case to the court.

territory of Lepreon. But in the light of the preceding events, this impression cannot be true: the Spartan envoys simply cannot have forgotten at this moment that Sparta had recently (a few years ago at maximum) declared Lepreon's autonomy and that there were several hundreds of Spartan soldiers there in order to keep Elis at bay.'

Patay-Horváth (2016: 250-51) seeks to explain the problem by supposing that, while autonomous Lepreon was indeed free of Eleian control and therefore not covered by the truce, to reach Lepreate territory the Spartan forces had crossed purely Eleian territory, possibly the territory on which the fort Phyrkos stood. He offers no evidence that the polis Elis claimed territory in southern Triphylia as belonging directly to itself, and indeed there is no such evidence. Thus, while Patay-Horváth has made a valuable observation about Thucydides' text, some other explanation must be found.

## SPARTA'S VIEW OF LEPREON'S AUTONOMY

The  Spartan  ambassadors  certainly  knew  that  Elis  did  not  accept  the judgment given by the Spartans as arbitrators, but citing the judgment would have allowed them to represent the Eleians as being in the wrong (note ἀδικεῖν Ἠλείους at  Thuc.  5.31.4:  the  Spartans  judged  'that  the Eleians  were  acting  unjustly').  Thucydides  might  have  chosen  not  to mention  a  reference  by  the  ambassadors  to  the  arbitration,  but  that would have been a major omission, and he does choose to record a good deal of discussion that led nowhere, not only the Spartan argument, rejected by the Eleians, about the date of the announcement of the truce at Sparta but also two proposals subsequently made by the Eleians but rejected by the Spartans (5.49.5-50.1).

A different explanation is to suppose that Lepreon's autonomy meant not freedom from Eleian control but something else, namely that Lepreon was free to make its own decision on whether to pay one talent per year to Olympian Zeus. That was the issue that had led to the quarrel between Lepreon and Elis, and that was the issue on which Sparta had been asked to arbitrate. Supposing that Lepreon's autonomy concerned its freedom to decide about the annual payment and not its dependence on Elis would mean that Sparta had never questioned legally Elis' control of Lepreon as a subordinate ally, but had taken the opportunity to install a garrison to protect Lepreon when Elis not only rejected the process of arbitration but attacked Lepreate territory (5.31.3). No doubt the Spartan attack on the fort at Phyrkos, evidently occupied by Eleian troops in Lepreate territory, could also have been justified as a measure to protect Lepreon and ensure that the verdict of the arbitration was upheld.

Autonomia and related terms have attracted a good deal of scholarly attention, from which it emerges that these terms were used with different meanings in different contexts. 38 Such vocabulary was rare in the fifth century except in the work of Thucydides, who alone provides 48 of the 58 occurrences in surviving fifth-century literature. 39 It is therefore not surprising that Thucydides produces on occasion original applications of the terms.

Clearly alongside legal issues there were questions of Realpolitik, and it is understandable that the Eleians claimed (Thuc. 5.31.5) that the Spartans had received a polis that had defected from them. The Spartans, with their garrison in Lepreon, clearly had de facto control of Lepreon. The Spartans had nonetheless legal justification for their action, and had manoeuvred more skilfully than the Eleians. It has been suggested that Thucydides' account of the quarrel between Elis and Sparta was sympathetic to the Eleians, and possibly based on material supplied by Eleian informants. 40 However, a careful reading of the text does not show the Eleians in a very favourable light.

When war between Sparta and Elis broke out at the end of the fifth century Lepreon was once more controlled by Elis (though it broke away

- 38  There is a large bibliography, although the only monograph is the (fairly brief) treatment  by  Ostwald  1982.  Unsurprisingly autonomia attracted  attention  in  the  researches of the Copenhagen Polis Centre: see e.g. Hansen 1995 and 2015. Bosworth 1992 showed well how the meaning of autonomia and related terms could vary.
- 39  Lévy 1983: 255, with a list of the Thucydidean passages in n. 51 (extending onto p. 256).
- 40  E.g. Andrewes 27 (in Gomme, Andrewes & Dover 1970) on 5.31.2: 'since he [i.e. Thuc.] chose to present only the Elean side of the case'. Falkner 1999: 390 suggested that Thucydides' sympathies were apparently with the Eleians, who were perhaps his informants.

and joined the Spartan side at the earliest opportunity: Xen. Hell . 3.2.25). Also, when the Spartans refused to pay the fine imposed by the Eleians in 420 they were banned from sacrificing or competing at Olympia, but an incident involving King Agis shows that the ban was lifted at an unknown date before the Spartan-Eleian war. Xenophon says that, acting on the advice of some other oracle, the Spartans sent King Agis to consult the oracle at Olympia. The Eleians refused to allow him to do so on the grounds that, according to tradition, the oracle was not consulted about war  on  Greeks. 41 To  consult  the  oracle  at  Olympia  Agis  would  have needed to sacrifice, and there is no mention in Xenophon, or in Diodorus, of any difficulty for Agis about sacrificing: all concerned apparently assumed that Agis could have consulted the oracle if the object of his consultation had been different. It thus appears that at some time after 418 Elis had regained Lepreon and the ban on Spartans' sacrificing at Olympia had been lifted, but there is no ancient evidence of how or when these things happened.

There have been various modern conjectures. One suggestion is that Elis recovered Lepreon by military action. 42 The main objections to this view are that there is no mention of such action against Spartan control of Lepreon in the accounts of the later Spartan-Eleian war, and also that the proposal does not explain why the ban on Spartans' sacrificing at Olympia was lifted. Bourke (2018: 144-45) suggested that Elis recaptured Lepreon in 418, and that later, possibly early in 417, 'concerned for their own security' the Eleians removed the bans imposed on the Spartans 'by surrendering their own share of the fine and paying the money due to the god' as they had offered to do in the discussions with the Spartans described by Thucydides (5.49.5-50.1). Again this supposes a military attack not mentioned in the run-up to the later Spartan-Eleian war.

.34.2.22: see also D.S. 14.17.4, and on the name of the Spartan king to be read

41  Xen. Hell there, see Schepens 2004: 7-18.

42  Proposed by Falkner 1999: 393, Nielsen 2005: 61, and Patay-Horváth: 2016: 251-53.

## AGREEMENT BETWEEN SPARTA AND ELIS?

It  seems  easier  to  suppose  an  agreement  between Sparta and Elis. 43 It would certainly have occurred after the battle of Mantinea in 418, and possibly before the reference to 'Eleian Lepreon' in Aristophanes' Birds 149,  performed  in  414.  (The  political  status  of  Lepreon  was  of  no  importance for Aristophanes' play, but the allusion might have been more interesting  if  Lepreon  had  recently  been  restored  by  Sparta  to  Elis.) Sparta's victory at Mantinea put Sparta in a stronger position, and weakened that of Elis; but the Eleians did not fight in the battle and could not be dictated to as a defeated enemy, as was Mantinea (Thuc. 5.81.1).

It is unlikely that any account was taken of the desires of Lepreates, though they doubtless had views on whether subordination to Elis or attachment to Sparta was better: when open warfare broke out between Elis and Sparta in the very different circumstances that followed the end of the Peloponnesian War, the Lepreates took the earliest opportunity to break from Elis and join Sparta (Xen. Hell . 3.2.25).

An agreement would have needed to cover various issues. 44 One obviously was the restoration of Lepreon to Elis. If there was still a Spartan garrison in Lepreon, it would have to be withdrawn: that would allow Sparta  to  use  the  troops  elsewhere.  If  men  in  the  garrison  had  been granted land in Lepreon, compensation for their loss of the land would be needed; but it was argued above that there is no reason to believe that such grants had been made. Since Sparta had never denied that Lepreon was a subordinate ally of Elis, there would be no difficulty about allowing that relationship to continue, but Sparta would need to be satisfied that Elis would respect the verdict given in the arbitration, and agreement would be needed on whether Lepreon had to make any payment to Zeus at Olympia. Elis would have to withdraw the penalty imposed on Sparta (the fine of 2,000 minai ), and remove the bans on sacrificing and competing at Olympia. Sparta might also have wanted some guarantee that Elis would not take any action, or allow any action by others on Eleian territory, that would endanger Spartan control of Messenia. Any such agreement would not necessarily bring friendly  relations  between  Elis  and Sparta - as is clear from the refusal to let King Agis consult the oracle at Olympia, not to mention the war at the end of the century - but it would solve a number of problems. Elis would recover control of Lepreon, and Sparta would no longer need to commit men to Lepreon, while Spartans would once more be able to sacrifice and to compete at Olympia. It would also mean that the quarrel over Lepreon was settled by negotiation, not by  military  force.  Obviously  during  the  quarrel  both  Elis  and  Sparta sought to promote, or at least protect, political and strategic interests, but the Spartans made only very limited use of military force, and preferred to use legal authority. They had deployed troops at Lepreon only when the Eleians, refusing to accept the result of arbitration, used military force against Lepreate territory. Thucydides makes clear (5.50.1-4) the respective outlooks of the Eleians and the Spartans. After banning the Spartans from sacrificing or competing at Olympia, the Eleians saw a military problem: they were afraid that the Spartans would use force to gain  access  to  the  Games  in  420,  and  not  only  mobilised  their  own younger men to guard the sanctuary but also had troops from their allies Argos, Mantinea, and Athens to help them. 'But the Spartans remained at peace.'

43  As proposed in Roy 2009: 71-74.

44  In fact more than those discussed by Roy 2009.

## SPARTAN LEGALITY

Two general issues arise from the arguments presented in this paper. One is that in the difficult years that followed the end of the Archidamian War the Spartans were careful to be seen to act with legal justification. They used military force when it seemed legally justified, and did so on an appropriate scale. The garrison at Lepreon was big enough to deter the Eleians, but not a major force. The campaign in Parrhasia, on the other hand, was conducted with a full levy of the Spartan army. It was clearly necessary to send a force that the Mantineans could not effectively oppose, and such force was justified because the Mantineans had not respected the agreement within the Spartan alliance not to take advantage of the war to seize territory. Even in that case, however, Sparta acted  only  to  redress  the  Mantinea's  breach  of  the  allies'  agreement, driving the Mantineans out of Parrhasia and so freeing the Parrhasians from Mantinean control, but taking no action against the rest of Mantinea's alliance. The freedom of the Parrhasians was expressed as autonomy: 'having made the Parrhasians autonomous' (Thuc. 5.33.3).

## MEANING(S) OF AUTONOMIA

That, however, raises another general question, about the nature of autonomia . In case of Parrhasia autonomy clearly meant freedom from Mantinean  domination.  Yet,  although  the  Spartans  when  arbitrating  had judged that the Lepreates were autonomous (Thuc. 5.31.4), that autonomy did not mean that the Lepreates were no longer subordinate allies of the Eleians. The Eleians clearly considered that Lepreon was covered by the Olympic truce for the Games of 420, and the Spartans did not challenge that view, choosing instead to argue about when the truce had been announced and whether any movement of Spartan troops in Lepreate territory had occurred after the announcement. It seems then that the nature of autonomy, as conceived by the Spartans and reported by Thucydides, varied according to circumstances. It seems in fact to mean that the community concerned, in some way subordinate to another, had the right to decide for itself about the point at issue. In the case of the Parrhasians the issue was whether or not they should be subject to the Mantineans,  and,  since  the  Mantineans  had  established  control  over Parrhasia in breach of the agreement within the Spartan alliance, the Spartans  declared  in  effect  that  the  Parrhasians  were  free  to  decide whether or not to remain allied to Mantinea. The Spartans, by driving the Mantineans  out  of Parrhasia, had made  it certain that the Parrhasians would decide to be free of Mantinea, but the decision could be represented as a free choice made by the autonomous Parrhasians.

The case of the Lepreates was different. In the quarrel between Elis and Lepreon the point at issue was whether Lepreon should continue to pay one talent annually to Zeus at Olympia. The Lepreates had used the Archidamian War as a reason for stopping the annual payment. Thucydides' report is brief (5.31.3), but the argument of the Lepreates was presumably that they were making a contribution to the war-effort of the Spartan alliance, and that that contribution had a cost. Thucydides does not report the view of the Eleians, beyond the fact that they insisted that the Lepreates should continue to pay, 45 and equally he does not give the the Spartans' reasons for their verdict in the arbitration. The Spartans may have chosen to regard the support provided by the Lepreates to the Spartan alliance and the cost incurred by Lepreon as a sufficient reason for not paying. If, as seems likely, the arbitration occurred after the end of  the  Archidamian  War,  then  the  Spartans  might  have  regarded  the costs already incurred as sufficiently heavy to justify a respite for a time, or they might have reasoned that in the uncertain situation of the Peloponnese further military effort, and further cost, might be needed. Without evidence any explanation of the Spartan verdict can be no more than conjecture, but it seems safe to assume that the Spartans will have found arguments to justify their verdict. The verdict was that the Lepreates were  autonomous,  and  that  meant  in  practice  that  they  were  free  to choose whether or not to make the annual payment to Olympian Zeus. They decided not to pay.

Autonomia as  decreed  by  the  Spartans  in  the  two  cases  of  the Parrhasians and the Lepreates appears to be the freedom of a subordinate community to take its own decision about the point at issue. In each case there was a more powerful state whose interests were concerned. Mantinea could not uphold its interests either legally (because it had breached the agreement of the Spartan alliance, and indeed had left the alliance) or militarily (because it was not strong enough). The Eleians defended their interests as best they could, and had the great advantage of controlling  Olympia.  The  Spartans  prevented  the  Eleians  from  using force against Lepreon, but were banned from sacrificing and competing at Olympia. Nonetheless the Spartans continued to recognise that Lepreon was a subordinate ally of Elis, and eventually allowed the city to return to Eleian control.

45  On relations between Elis and its allies generally (often referred to as 'perioikoi' of Elis, though there is no evidence that the Eleians used the term) see Roy 1997. We have little information about what obligations Elis imposed on its allies (Roy 1997: 291-98).

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