The Lacedæmonians were however strong enough not merely to despise this growing alienation of their allies, but even to take revenge upon such of the Peloponnesians as had incurred their displeasure. Among these stood conspicuous the Eleians; now under a government called democratical, of which the leading man was Thrasydæus,—a man who had lent considerable aid in 404 B.C. to Thrasybulus and the Athenian exiles in Peiræus. The Eleians, in the year 420 B.C., had been engaged in a controversy with Sparta,—had employed their privileges as administrators of the Olympic festival to exclude her from attendance on that occasion,—and had subsequently been in arms against her along with Argos and Mantineia. To these grounds of quarrel, now of rather ancient date, had been added afterwards, a refusal to furnish aid in the war against Athens since the resumption of hostilities in 414 B.C., and a recent exclusion of king Agis, who had come in person to offer sacrifice and consult the oracle of Zeus Olympius; such exclusion being grounded on the fact that he was about to pray for victory in the war then pending against Athens, contrary to the ancient canon of the Olympic temple, which admitted no sacrifice or consultation respecting hostilities of Greek against Greek.[392] These were considered by Sparta as affronts; and the season was now favorable for resenting them, as well as for chastising and humbling Elis.[393] Accordingly Sparta sent an embassy, requiring the Eleians to make good the unpaid arrears of the quota assessed upon them for the cost of the war against Athens; and farther,—to relinquish their authority over their dependent townships or Periœki, leaving the latter autonomous.[394] Of these dependencies there were several, no one very considerable individually, in the region called Triphylia, south of the river Alpheus, and north of the Neda. One of them was Lepreum, the autonomy of which the Lacedæmonians had vindicated against Elis in 420 B.C., though during the subsequent period it had again become subject. [392] Xen. Hellen. iii, 2, 22. Τούτων δ᾽ ὕστερον, καὶ Ἄγιδος πεμφθέντος θῦσαι τῷ Διῒ κατὰ μαντείαν τινὰ, ἐκώλυον οἱ Ἠλεῖοι μὴ προσεύχεσθαι νίκην πολέμου, λέγοντες, ὡς καὶ τὸ ἀρχαῖον εἴη οὕτω νόμιμον, μὴ χρηστηριάζεσθαι τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἐφ᾽ Ἑλλήνων πολέμῳ· ὥστε ἄθυτος ἀπῆλθεν. This canon seems not unnatural, for one of the greatest Pan-hellenic temples and establishments. Yet it was not constantly observed at Olympia (compare another example—Xen. Hellen. iv, 7, 2); nor yet at Delphi, which was not less Pan-hellenic than Olympia (see Thucyd. i, 118). We are therefore led to imagine that it was a canon which the Eleians invoked only when they were prompted by some special sentiment or aversion. [393] Xen. Hellen. iii, 2, 23. Ἐκ τούτων οὖν πάντων ὀργιζομένοις, ἔδοξε τοῖς ἐφόροις καὶ τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ, ~σωφρονίσαι αὐτούς~.