Book 3
2.21
While these things were being done in Asia by399 B.C. Dercylidas, the Lacedaemonians at the same time were engaged in war at home, against the Eleans. They had long been angry with the Eleans, both because the latter had concluded an alliance with the Athenians, Argives, and Mantineans, and because, alleging that judgment had been rendered against the Lacedaemonians, they had debarred them from both the horse-races and the athletic contests;I.e., at the Olympic games. and this alone did not suffice them, but furthermore, after LichasA Lacedaemonian. had made over his chariot to the Thebans and they were proclaimed victorious, when Lichas came in to put the garland upon his charioteer, they had scourged him, an old man, and driven him out.
2.22
And again, at a later time, when Agis was sent to sacrifice to Zeus in accordance with an oracle, the Eleans would not allow him to pray for victory in war, saying that even from ancient times it was an established principle that Greeks should not consult the oracle about a war with Greeks; so that Agis went away without sacrificing.
2.23
It was in consequence of all these things that the ephors and the assembly were angry, and they determined to bring the Eleans to their senses. Accordingly, they sent ambassadors to Elis and said that it seemed to the authorities of Lacedaemon to be just that they should leave their outlying towns independent. And when the Eleans replied that they would not do so, for the reason that they held the towns as prizes of war, the ephors called out the ban.φρουρὰν φαίνειν was a Lacedaemonian phrase covering both the declaration of war and the mobilization of the army. And Agis, at the head of the army, made his entrance into the territory of Elis through Achaea, along the Larisus.
