The names of these nine townships, which are preserved by Pausanias, are: Gareatae (Γαρεᾶται), Phylaceis (Φυλακεῖς), Caryatae (Καρυᾶται), Corytheis (Κορυθεῖς), Potachidae (Πωταχίδαι), Oeatae (Οἰᾶται), Manthyreis (Μανθυρεῖς), Echeuetheis (Εχευήθεἱς), to which Apheidantes (Ἀφείδαντες) was added as the ninth in the reign of king Apheidas.

[5][6] The Tegeatae were early divided into 4 tribes (phylai) (φυλαί), called respectively Clareotis (Κλαρεῶτις, in inscriptions Κραριῶτις[7]), Hippothoitis (Ἱπποθοῖτις), Apolloneatis (Ἀπολλωνεᾶτις), and Athoneatis (Ἀθανεᾶτις), to each of which belonged a certain number of metoeci (μέτοικοι) or resident aliens.

In one of the wars between the two peoples, Chariläus or Charillus, king of Sparta, deceived by an oracle which appeared to promise victory to the Spartans, invaded Tegeatis, and was not only defeated, but was taken prisoner with all his men who had survived the battle.

[12][13] More than two centuries afterwards, in the reign of Leon and Agesicles, the Spartans again fought unsuccessfully against the Tegeatae; but in the following generation, in the time of their king Anaxandridas II, the Spartans, having obtained possession of the bones of Orestes in accordance with an oracle, defeated the Tegeatae and compelled them to acknowledge the supremacy of Sparta, about 560 BC.

[14][15] Thus, Tegea's struggle against Spartan hegemony in Arcadia came to an end, and it was forced into some form of collaboration, maybe as one of the earliest members of what would become the Sparta-centered Peloponnesian League.

[19][20] About this time, and also at a subsequent period, Tegea, and especially the temple of Athena Alea in the city, was a frequent place of refuge for persons who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the Spartan government.

[26] The Temple of Athena Alea burned in 394 BCE and was magnificently rebuilt, to designs by Scopas of Paros, with reliefs of the Calydonian boar hunt in the main pediment.

[29] Tegea at a later period joined the Aetolian League, but soon after the accession of Cleomenes III to the Spartan throne it formed an alliance with Sparta, together with Mantineia and Orchomenus.

Maira was a daughter of Atlas, and Homer makes mention of her in the passage where Odysseus tells to Alkinous his journey to Hades, and of those whose ghosts he beheld there.

[36] Votive bronzes at the site from the Geometric and Archaic periods take the forms of horses and deer; there are sealstones and fibulae.

1.54) In the Middle Ages, through some unclear process, Tegea received the name of Amyklion (later usually shortened to Amykli and Nikli) by the 10th century.

[38][39] Nikli and the rest of Arcadia were captured by the Crusaders in c. 1206–1209, becoming part of the new Frankish Principality of Achaea, which soon came to encompass most of the Peloponnese.

In ancient times, the people of Tegea said that Cydon, Archedius, and Gortys, the surviving sons of their king Tegeates, migrated voluntarily to Crete, and that the cities Kydonia, Gortyna, and Catreus, were named after them.