So in the passage here before us, περιορώμενοι seems the _passive_ participle in this sense. Thucydidês, having just described an energetic remonstrance sent by the Spartans to prevent Corinth from joining Argos, means to intimate (by the words here in discussion) that _no_ similar _interference_ was resorted to by them to prevent the Bœotians and Megarians from joining her: “The Bœotians and Megarians remained as they were, _left to themselves by the Lacedæmonians_, and thinking the Argeian democracy less suitable to them than the oligarchy of Sparta.” The conduct of Elis, like that of Mantineia, in thus revolting from Sparta, had been dictated by private grounds of quarrel, arising out of relations with their dependent ally Lepreum. The Lepreates had become dependent on Elis some time before the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, in consideration of aid lent by the Eleians to extricate them from a dangerous war against some Arcadian enemies. To purchase such aid, they had engaged to cede to the Eleians half their territory; but had been left in residence and occupation of it, under the stipulation of paying one talent yearly as tribute to the Olympian Zeus; in other words, to the Eleians as his stewards. When the Peloponnesian war began,[28] and the Lacedæmonians began to call for the unpaid service of the Peloponnesian cities generally, small as well as great, against Athens, the Lepreates were, by the standing agreement of the confederacy, exempted for the time from continuing to pay their tribute to Elis. Such exemption ceased with the war; at the close of which Elis became entitled, under the same agreement, to resume the suspended tribute. She accordingly required that the payment should then be recommenced: but the Lepreates refused, and when she proceeded to apply force, threw themselves on the protection of Sparta, by whose decision the Eleians themselves at first agreed to abide, having the general agreement of the confederacy decidedly in their favor. But it presently appeared that Sparta was more disposed to carry out her general system of favoring the autonomy of the lesser states, than to enforce the positive agreement of the confederacy. Accordingly the Eleians, accusing her of unjust bias, renounced her authority as arbitrator, and sent a military force to occupy Lepreum. Nevertheless, the Spartans persisted in their adjudication, pronounced Lepreum to be autonomous, and sent a body of their own hoplites to defend it against the Eleians. The latter loudly protested against this proceeding, and pronounced the Lacedæmonians as having robbed them of one of their dependencies, contrary to that agreement which had been adopted by the general confederacy when the war began,—to the effect that each imperial city should receive back at the end of the war all the dependencies which it possessed at the beginning, on condition of waiving its title to tribute and military service from them so long as the war lasted.