The league was founded in 370 BC, taking advantage of the decreased power of Sparta, which had previously dominated and controlled Arcadia.

Although initially successful in resisting Spartan influence in Arcadia, the league was soon divided in the power struggles that engulfed Greece in the 4th century BC.

After the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC, Sparta, under king Agesilaus, took several opportunities over the ensuing years to discipline a number of restive allies.

In 385 BC, the Spartans attacked Mantinea and forced the city to dissolve, splitting it into five separate villages, each of which was governed by a Spartan-backed oligarchy.

The first sign of rebellious activity in Arcadia came in the spring of 370 BC, when the city of Mantinea began reassembling from the villages it had been divided into, under democratic leadership.

Shortly after this, a number of Arcadian communities began to assemble into a league for mutual protection against Sparta, an effort led by Lycomedes, a Mantinean.

[2] Although this first attempt to break up the new league had ended without success, the threat of further military intervention prompted the Arcadians to dispatch ambassadors to Athens, requesting protection.

The Athenians were theoretically bound by the terms of a treaty signed in late 371 BC to protect the autonomy of all Greek states, but their desire to maintain the strength of Sparta as a check on the ambitions of the Thebans led them to refuse the Arcadians' request.

This latter action, by depriving Sparta of much of her territory and placing a new hostile state on her borders, essentially ended any serious threat to the Arcadians.

According to an obscure passage in Pausanias, the Arcadian League may have experienced a short period of revival between 250 and 245 BC, after the liberation of Megalopolis from tyranny.

[13] The date of its final disappearance is uncertain, but at the latest it had vanished by the 230s BC, as the Arcadian cities joined the Achaean League.