322 HISTORY OF GREECE. At the outset of the Peloponnesian war, the Corinthians an 3 Spartans had talked of prosecuting it in part by borrowed money from the treasuries of Delphi and Olympia. 1 How far the pro- ject had ever been executed, we have no information. But at least, it had not been realized in any such way as to form a pre- cedent for the large sums now appropriated by the Pisatans and Arcadians ; which appropriation accordingly excited much outcry, as flagrant rapacity and sacrilege. This sentiment was felt with peculiar force among many even of the Arcadians themselves, the guilty parties. Moreover some of the leaders employed had made important private acquisitions for themeslves, so as to pro- voke both resentment and jealousy among their rivals. The Pan- Arcadian communion, recently brought together and ill-cemented, was little calculated to resist the effect of any strong special cause of dissension. It was composed of cities which had before been accustomed to act apart and even in hostility to each other ; espe- cially Mantinea and Tegea. These two cities now resumed their ancient rivalry. 2 The Mantineans, jealous both of Tegea and Megalopolis, began to labor underhand against Arcadian unity and the Theban alliance, with a view to renewed connection with Sparta ; though only five years before, they had owed to Thebes the reestablishment of their own city, after it had been broken up into villages by Spartan force. The appropriation of the sacred funds, offensive as it was to much of sincere sentiment, supplied them with a convenient ground for commencing opposi- tion. In the Mantinean assembly, a resolution was passed, renounc- ing all participation in the Olympic treasures ; while at the same time an adequate sum was raised among the citizens, to furnish pay for all members of the Epariti who came from their city. This sum was forwarded to the officers in command ; who however not only refused to receive it ; but even summoned the authors of the proceeding to take their trial before the Pan- Arcadian assem- bly, the Ten Thousand at Megalopolis, on the charge of breaking up the integrity of Arcadia. 3 The Mantinean leader* 1 Thucyd. i, 121. Perikles in his speech at Athens alludes to this understood purpose of the Spartans and their confederacy (Thucyd. i, 143).
- Xen. Hellen. vii, 4, 33, 34 ; Diodor. xv, 82 ; Pausanias, 7ii, 8, 6.
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