ABSTRACT
Diogenes Laertios reports that the Eleians were able to recapture Skillous because the Lakedaimonians were too slow to prevent it.5 The period immediately following Leuktra, when the Spartans could raise no more forces than the reserves they had already sent northwards under Arkhidamos, provides a context in which they would have been unable to prevent the Eleians from retaking Skillous. The Lakedaimonians seem to have established Xenophon and his companions at Skillous, which occupied a strong position on the left bank of the Alpheios opposite Olympia and commanded a strategic ford, in order to help ensure that the sanctuary remained open to them, monitor political events among the Eleians and oppose any attempt on the part of the latter to regain the communities south of the river. In the period following the significant Lakedaimonian defeat at Leuktra, when the Mantineians and Tegeans overthrew their pro-Spartan oligarchies, the Eleians helped finance the restoration and fortification of Mantineia.
