Teuthis and the Arcadian League

After the defeat of Sparta at Leuctra and the creation of Megalopolis, Arcadian communities were drawn into a new federal political order. Pausanias later describes Teuthis as a place that had once been a town and, in his own time, was a village in the wider Arcadian landscape. For Dimitsana, the episode gives the ancient Teuthis tradition a broader civic and political setting.

The exact archaeological equation between Teuthis and modern Dimitsana should be presented with care, but the tradition is central to how the area’s ancient identity is understood.