It overlooked the Spartan use of slaves called helots and took an xenophobic look at the Persians.
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He views the Democratic Party as a coalition of Brahmins (liberal intellectual types who went to fancy schools), Dalits (poor, mostly black or Latino people), and Helots (Mexican immigrant workers).
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A further correction to 300's egregious abuse of history was also provided through the comic series Three which tells the story of rebelling helots in Sparta in 364 BCE and Sparta's fall to Thebes.
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Even the Spartan citizens, who were greatly outnumbered by the enslaved helots and noncitizen residents (the períoikoi, or "people who live around here"), had constant duties imposed on them—whether fighting in a war, or training young Spartans, or getting beaten up for stepping out of line.
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Some texts mention both slaves and helots, which seems to indicate that they were not the same thing. Plato in Alcibiades I cites "the ownership of slaves, and notably helots" among the Spartan riches,"", Alcibiades I, 122d. and Plutarch writes about "slaves and helots"."", Comp. Lyc.
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The subjugated peoples were divided into the perioeci and the helots.
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The helots were used as unskilled serfs, tilling Spartan land. Helot women were often used as wet nurses. Helots also travelled with the Spartan army as non-combatant serfs. At the last stand of the Battle of Thermopylae, the Greek dead included not just the legendary three hundred Spartan soldiers but also several hundred Thespian and Theban troops and a number of helots.
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The number of helots in relation to Spartan citizens varied throughout the history of the Spartan state; according to Herodotus, there were seven helots for each Spartan at the time of the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC.Herodotus. Histories 9.10. Thus the need to keep helot population in check and prevent rebellion was one of the main concerns of the Spartans. Helots were ritually mistreated, humiliated and even slaughtered: every autumn the Spartans would declare war on the helots so they could be killed by a member of the Crypteia without fear of religious repercussion.
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Relations between the helots and their Spartan masters were sometimes strained. There was at least one helot revolt (c. 465–460 BCE), and Thucydides remarked that "Spartan policy is always mainly governed by the necessity of taking precautions against the helots."Thucydides (IV, 80); the Greek is ambiguous On the other hand, the Spartans trusted their helots enough in 479 BCE to take a force of 35,000 with them to Plataea, something they could not have risked if they feared the helots would attack them or run away.
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Helots lived in family units and could, at least de facto, contract unions among themselves.Tyrtaeus, Frag. 7. Since helots were much less susceptible than other slaves in Greek antiquity to having their family units dispersed, they could reproduce themselves, or at least maintain their number. Probably not insignificant to begin with, their population increased in spite of the crypteia, other massacres of helots (see below), and losses in war.
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Besides the Helots, the Spartans exercised an authority over the intermediate class called the Perioeci.
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All the same, in 424 BC, the 700 helots who served Brasidas in Chalcidice were emancipated, and they were henceforth known as the "Brasidians". It was also possible to purchase freedom, or achieve it by undergoing the traditional Spartan education. Generally, emancipated helots were referred to as "neodamodes" ( / neodamōdeis): those who rejoined the / dễmos (Deme) of the Perioeci. Moses Finley underscores that the fact helots could serve as hoplites constituted a grave flaw in the system.
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From at least the classical period, the number of Spartans was very small in comparison to that of the helots. In a celebrated passage, Thucydides stresses that "most Spartan institutions have always been designed with a view to security against the Helots".Trans. by Cartledge, Annex 4, p. 299; The sentence can also be translated quite differently: "as far as the Helots are concerned, most Spartan institutions have always been designed with a view to security" (ibid.). Thycydides 4, 80, 3.
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According to a passage in Thucydides, helots were massacred in a carefully staged event in 425 BC or earlier: Thus Paul Cartledge claims that "the history of Sparta (...) is fundamentally the history of the class struggle between the Spartans and the Helots".Cartledge. Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta, p. 13.
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Spartan citizens used helots, a dependent group collectively owned by the state. It is uncertain whether they had chattel slaves as well. There are mentions of people manumitted by Spartans, which was supposedly forbidden for helots, or sold outside of Lakonia: the poet Alcman;Herakleides Lembos, fgt. 9 Dilts and Suidas, s.v. .
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This practice was instigated to prevent the threat of a rebellion by the helots and to keep their population in check. According to Cartledge, Krypteia members stalked the helot villages and surrounding countryside, spying on the servile population. Their mission was to prevent and suppress unrest and rebellion. Troublesome helots could be summarily executed.
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In Athens, public slaves were trained to look out for counterfeit coinage, while temple slaves acted as servants of the temple's deity and Scythian slaves were employed in Athens as a police force corralling citizens to political functions. Sparta had a special type of slaves called helots. Helots were Messenians enslaved during the Messenian Wars by the state and assigned to families where they were forced to stay. Helots raised food and did household chores so that women could concentrate on raising strong children while men could devote their time to training as hoplites.
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One of these posts was near Pylos on a tiny island called Sphacteria, where the course of the first war turned in Athens's favour. The post off Pylos struck Sparta where it was weakest: its dependence on the helots, who tended the fields while its citizens trained to become soldiers. The helots made the Spartan system possible, but now the post off Pylos began attracting helot runaways. In addition, the fear of a general revolt of helots emboldened by the nearby Athenian presence drove the Spartans to action.
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Their masters treated them harshly, and helots revolted against their masters several times before in 370/69 they won their freedom.
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Other modern scholars consider then, "although the details may be fanciful, [Myron's evidence] does reflect accurately the general Spartiate attitude towards helots". It has also been stressed that contempt alone could hardly explain the organized murder of Helots mentioned by several ancient sources.P. Cartledge, review of Ducat (1990), Classical Philology, Vol. 87, No. 3 (July 1992), pp. 260–263.
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L. G. Pechatnova, A History of Sparta (Archaic and Classic Periods) Having paid their tribute, the helots could often live rather well; the lands of Laconia and Messenia were very fertile, and often permitted two crops per year.Lévy, p. 121. It seems they could enjoy some private property:Cartledge, p. 141. in 425 BC, some helots had their own boats.Thucydides.
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The helots fold, but revert to open warfare joined by the Messenians. It is difficult to reconcile these versions. It is nevertheless clear that in any case the revolt of 464 BC represented a major traumatic event for the Spartans. Plutarch indicates that the Crypteia and other poor treatments of the helots were instituted after this revolt.
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The first helot attempt at revolt which is historically reported is that provoked by general Pausanias in the 5th century BC. Thucydides reports:Thucydides, 1.132, 4. > Besides, they were informed that he was even intriguing with the helots; and > such indeed was the fact, for he promised them freedom and citizenship if > they would join him in insurrection, and would help him to carry out his > plans to the end. These intrigues did not however lead to a helot uprising; Thucydides indeed implies that Pausanias was turned in by the helots (I, 132, 5 - ...the evidence even of the helots themselves.) Perhaps the promises made by Pausanias were too generous to be believed by the helots; not even Brasidas, when he emancipated his helot volunteers, offered full citizenship.Ducat (1990), p. 130.
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Lévy, pp. 120–121. Also, since taking a percentage of the produce would have required constantly overseeing the helots, it is unlikely such a tax could be implemented upon the relatively distant Messenia. With Tyrtaeus being a poet, the amount might well have been a poetic figure of speech, similar to the modern "half a kingdom". In fact, it is debated whether the quote refers to helots in the first place, since Tyrtaeus' description of the Second Messenian War refers to enemy phalanxes, indicating the first war could have ended with the Messenian people becoming a vassal state of Sparta rather than helots.
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Cimon then led 4,000 hoplites to Mt. Ithome to help the Spartan aristocracy deal with a major revolt by its helots. However, this expedition ended in humiliation for Cimon and for Athens when, fearing that the Athenians would end up siding with the helots, Sparta sent the force back to Attica.The Greek World: 479-323 BC, Simon Hornblower. Page 126.
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Online at the Perseus > project. Accessed: 11 June 2006. Thucydides reports that the request met with some success, and the helots got supplies through to the besieged island. He does not mention whether or not the Spartans kept their word; it is possible that some of the helots later executed were part of the Sphacterian volunteers but later said they kept their word.
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The Spartans were a minority of the Lakonian population. The largest class of inhabitants were the helots (in Classical Greek / Heílôtes).Herodotus (IX, 28–29)Xenophon, Hellenica, III, 3, 5 The helots were originally free Greeks from the areas of Messenia and Lakonia whom the Spartans had defeated in battle and subsequently enslaved. In contrast to populations conquered by other Greek cities (e.g.
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"In all of these texts, the naming of the group as helots is the central and symbolic moment of their reduction to serfhood. They are thus institutionally distinguished from the anonymous douloi (slaves)." Ducat (1990), p.7. Certainly conquest comprised one aspect of helotism; thus Messenians, who were conquered in the Messenian Wars of the 8th century BC, become synonymous in Herodotus with helots.
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However, this is disputed by others. Some helots were also servants to young Spartans during their agoge, the Spartan education; these were the μόθωνες / móthōnes (see below).
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Sparta placed the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity at the center of their ethical system. These values applied to every full Spartan citizen, immigrant, merchant, and even to the helots, but not to the dishonored. Helots are unique in the history of slavery in that unlike traditional slaves, they were allowed to keep and gain wealth. They could keep half their agricultural produce and presumably sell it; thus accumulating wealth.
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In short, Grote writes that "the various anecdotes which are told respecting [Helot] treatment at Sparta betoken less of cruelty than of ostentatious scorn".Quoted by Cartledge, p. 151. He has been followed recently by J. Ducat (1974 and 1990),Partially followed by Lévy, pp. 124–126. who describes Spartan treatment of the Helots as a kind of ideological warfare, designed to condition the Helots to think of themselves as inferiors.
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Only Sparta's Peloponnesian League and helots were overlooked, as the Spartans, who were responsible for administering the peace, had no wish to see the principle of independence applied there.
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The helots (; , heílotes) were a subjugated population that constituted a majority of the population of Laconia and Messenia – the territories comprising Sparta. There has been controversy since antiquity as to their exact characteristics, such as whether they constituted an ethnic group, a social class, or both. For example, Critias described helots as "slaves to the utmost",Apud Libanios, Orationes 25, 63 = Frag. 37 DK; see also Plutarch, Li hi Lycurgus 28, 11.
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Conversely, historians could deduce that a minority of the helots were Laconian, thus making this the one and only revolt of their history. Commentators such as Stephanus of Byzantium suggest that this Aithaia was in Laconia, thus indicating a large-scale uprising in the region. The version of events given by Pausanias is similar. Diodorus Siculus (XI, 63,4 – 64,1), probably influenced by Ephorus of Cyme, attributed the uprising equally to the Messenians and the helots.
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In ancient Athens, Laconism began as a current of thought and feeling after the Persian Wars. Some, like Cimon, son of Miltiades, believed that Athens should ally with Sparta against the Persian Empire. Cimon persuaded the Athenians to send soldiers to aid Sparta, when the helots (serfs of the Spartans) revolted and fortified Mount Ithome. The Spartans sent the Athenians home again with thanks, lest democratic Athenian ideas influence the helots or the perioeci.
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Diodorus Siculus, 11.63, 4-64,1. This version of events is supported by Plutarch.Plutarch. Life of Lycurgus, 28, 12. Finally, some authors make responsibility for the uprising with the helots of Laconia.
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All the donated food was then redistributed to feed the Spartan population of that syssitia. The helots who tended to the lands were fed using a portion of what they harvested.
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The ephors also held power over the (Helots and the Perioeci). They controlled the Crypteia, the secret police who repressed the Helots), and they were even able to sentence Perioeci to death without a trial. There were times when the legal power of an ephor was taken advantage of. Such is the case with Alcibiades' use of Endius, who persuaded the Spartans to allow Alcibiades to take control of Sparta's peace mission to Athens in 420 BCE.
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According to Myron of Priene, cited by Athenaeus,Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists, VI, 271F. the emancipation of helots was "common" ( / pollákis). The text suggests that this is normally associated with completion of military service.
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The penestae (Greek: oἱ πενέσται, hoi penéstai) were a class of unfree labourers in Thessaly, Ancient Greece. These labourers were tied to the land they inhabited, comparable in status with the Spartan helots.
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114; Lévy, p. 122. The obligation of masters to prevent fatness amongst their helots is actually deemed implausible: as the Spartiates lived separately, dietary intake could not be rigorously controlled;Ducat (1990), p. 120. as manual labour was an important function of the Helots (for example, being used to carry their master's arms and armour on campaign), it would make sense to keep them well fed. Besides, the rations mentioned by ThucydidesThucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, 4, 6, 1.
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Finally, helots, like slaves, could be artisans or tradesmen.Lévy, p. 119. They were required to hand over a predetermined portion of their harvest ( / apophorá), with the helots keeping the surplus. According to Plutarch, this portion was 70 medimnoi of barley for a man, 12 for a woman, as well as a quantity of oil and wine corresponding to an amount reasonable for the needs of a warrior and his family, or a widow, respectively.Plutarch. Life of Lycurgus, 8, 7 and 24, 2.
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101, iv. 78, viii. 3,; Aristot. Pol. ii. 6. Like Laconia, the population of Thessaly therefore consisted of three distinct classes: # The Penestae, whose condition was nearly the same as that of the Helots.
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He preserved an un-walled Sparta against the revolts and conspiracies of helots, perioeci and even other Spartans; and against external enemies, with four different armies led by Epaminondas penetrating Laconia that same year.
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These laws meant that Sparta could not readily replace citizens lost in battle or otherwise, which eventually proved near fatal as citizens became greatly outnumbered by non-citizens, and even more dangerously by helots.
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Helots were the state-owned serfs who made up 90 percent of the population. They were citizens of conquered states, such as Messenia who were conquered for their fertile land during the First Messenian War.
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Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus, 28, 3–7.Herakleides Lembos Fr. Hist. Gr. 2, 210.Athenaeus, 657 D. Uprisings and attempts to improve the lot of the helots did occur, such as the Conspiracy of Cinadon.
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Aristotle compares them to "an enemy constantly sitting in wait of the disaster of the Spartans".Politics 1269 a 37–39. Consequently, fear seems to be an important factor governing relations between Spartans and Helots.
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They also seem to have been allowed to practice religious rites and, according to Thucydides, own a limited amount of personal property. Initially Helots couldn't be freed but during the middle Hellenistic period, some 6,000 helots accumulated enough wealth to buy their freedom, for example, in 227 BCE. In other Greek city- states, free citizens were part-time soldiers who, when not at war, carried on other trades. Since Spartan men were full-time soldiers, they were not available to carry out manual labour.
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The war was prolonged into 20 years. The result was a Spartan victory. Messenia was depopulated by emigration of the Achaeans to other states. Those who did not emigrate were reduced socially to helots, or serfs.
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History of the Peloponnesian War, 4, 26, 6. A certain amount of wealth was achievable: in 223 BC, 6,000 helots purchased their freedom for 500 drachmas each, a considerable sum at the time.Plutarch. Life of Cleomeles, 23.
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The situation seems less clear in the case of the earliest helots, who, according to Theopompus, were descended from the initial Achaeans, whom the Dorians had conquered. But not all Achaeans were reduced to helotism: the city of Amyclae, home of the Hyacinthia festival, enjoyed special status, as did others. Contemporary authors propose alternative theories: according to Antiochus of Syracuse, helots were the Lacedaemonians who did not participate in the Messenian Wars; for Ephorus of Cyme, they were the perioeci ("dwellers in surrounding communities") from Helos, reduced to slavery after a failed revolt.
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The penestae of Thessaly also resembled the Spartan helots in another respect for they often rose up in arms against their lords. There was also an Illyrian tribe was called "Penestae".Wilkes, J. J. The Illyrians, 1992, page 172, .
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Thasos' gold mines and Athens' taxes on business allowed them to eliminate these indirect taxes. Dependent groups such as the Penestae of Thessaly and the Helots of Sparta were taxed by the city-states to which they were subject.
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According to tradition, the Spartiates always carried their spears, undid the straps of their bucklers only when at home lest the Helots seize them, and locked themselves in their homes.Critias, Frag. B 37; see also Xenophon, Rep. Lac. 12, 4.
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The other classes were the perioikoi, free inhabitants who were non-citizens, and the helots,Ancient Greece By Sarah B. Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, Jennifer Tolbert Roberts state- owned serfs. Descendants of non-Spartan citizens were forbidden the agoge.
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This shepherd, who becomes Talos' adoptive father, raises Talos with love and recounts him the intriguing tale of Aristodemus, the last King of the Helots. The legend goes that he who wears his armour, shall be the one to free the Helots from slavery. However, the blood that runs in his veins is Spartan after all; Talos the Cripple is drawn back to his hometown and in the midst of the legendary Battle of Thermopylae. Here he faces the inhuman brutality and savagery of the Spartan soldiers and meets his brother for the first time since their separation.
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When he crosses his brother's gaze whilst attempting to protect Antinea, the woman he loves. But destiny has got a better fate for them in store: as a war between the Achaemenid Empire and the Greek city-states looms, the two brothers will find each other again and will fight shoulder to shoulder for the future of their country. Along the way, he discovers some thing of his Spartan life like his real name is Kleidemos. When his brother dies, he oversees the Helots, with the help of his friend Karas, helps the Helots have victory over his own race.
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Below the Spartiates were the perioeci, literally "dwellers around", inhabitants of outlying towns who carried out most of the trade and commerce of the city since Spartiates were forbidden from engaging in commercial activity. The lowest were the helots, enslaved populations tied to the land and over whom the Spartan state claimed ownership. In the late 5th century BC and later, a new class, the neodamodeis, literally new damos dwellers, arose and seems to have been composed of liberated helots. Also were the hypomeiones, literally inferiors, men who were probably although not certainly Spartiates who had lost their social rank.
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Since the helot population was not technically chattel, their population was reliant on native birth rates, as opposed to prisoners of war or purchased slaves. Helots were encouraged by the Spartans to impose a eugenics doctrine similar to that which they, themselves, practiced. This would, according to Greek beliefs of the period, ensure not only genetic but also acquired favourable characteristics be passed along to successive generations. Tempering these selective factors was the crypteia, during which the strongest and fittest helots were the primary targets of the kryptes; to select soft targets would be interpreted as a sign of weakness.
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Isocrates considered the settling of the Thebans colonists in Messene a violation of the Peace of Antalcidas. He was bothered most by the fact that this ordeal would not restore the true Messenians but rather the Helots, in turn making these slaves masters. Isocrates believed justice was most important, which secured the Spartan laws but he did not seem to recognize the rights of the Helots. Ten years later Isocrates wrote a letter to Archidamus, now the king of Sparta, urging him to reconcile the Greeks, stopping their wars with each other so that they could end the insolence of the Persians.
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The kleros, the allotment given to each Spartan and cultivated by helots, was supposed to allow all citizens to pay their share. If that proved impossible, they were excluded from the syssitia. (Aristotle, Politics, II, 9). The number of members in each syssition remains vague.
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Helots were assigned to citizens to carry out domestic work or to work on their klēroi, or portions. The klēroi, were the original divisions of Messenia after its conquest by Sparta.Sarah B. Pomeroy et al. Ancient Greece. Oxford University Press, 1998: pp. 68 & 148.
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When Sparta was devastated by an earthquake in 464, it was said that the cause had been Poseidon's vengeance on the Spartan ephors after they had killed helots who had taken refuge at the sanctuary. It is thought that the sanctuary at Tainaron dates at least to a time when the helots were still independent, before they had been subjugated by Sparta. The sanctuary may have been a place of refuge for slaves. Polybius mentions it as one of the asylum sanctuaries destroyed by the Aetolian Timaios around 240, and Plutarch mentions it among the asylum sanctuaries attacked by pirates in the 1st century.
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The Spartans recalled him once again, and Pausanias fled to Kolonai in the Troad before returning to Sparta as he did not wish to be suspected of Persian sympathies. On his arrival in Sparta, the ephors had him imprisoned, but he was later released. Nobody had enough evidence to convict him of disloyalty, even though some helots gave evidence that he had offered certain helots their freedom if they joined him in revolt. However one of the messengers that Pausanias had been using to communicate with Xerxes to betray the Greeks provided written evidence (a letter stating Pausanias' intentions) to the Spartan ephors that they needed to formally prosecute Pausanias.
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Knowing that Cleomenes got the money to pay for his mercenaries from Ptolemy, Antigonus, according to Peter Green, seems to have ceded some territory in Asia Minor to Ptolemy in return for Ptolemy withdrawing his financial support of Sparta. Whether this assumption is accurate or not, Ptolemy certainly withdrew his support, which left Cleomenes without money to pay for his mercenaries. Desperate, Cleomenes freed all helots able to pay five Attic minae; in this way he accumulated 500 talents of silver. He also armed 2,000 of the ex-helots in Macedonian style to counter the White Shields, the Macedonian crack troops, before planning a major initiative.Plutarch.
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The first explicit reference to this practice in regards to the helots occurs in Thucydides (IV, 26, 5). This is on the occasion of the events at Sphacteria, when Sparta had to relieve their hoplites, who were besieged on the island by the Athenians: > "The fact was, that the Lacedaemonians had made advertisement for volunteers > to carry into the island ground corn, wine, cheese, and any other food > useful in a siege; high prices being offered, and freedom promised to any of > the helots who should succeed in doing so".Thucydides. The Peloponnesian > War. London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton. 1910.
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Skida devises complex operations against the Dual Monarchy, which the Legion is able to detect and defeat despite the Helots' advanced weaponry and sabotage campaigns. The Helots have off-planet assistance from Earth Prime in the form of military equipment and supplies up to and including surface-to-air missiles and direct induction teaching machines, former CoDominium Marine officers and noncoms, and the technoninjas from Meiji, who work for Bronson but have been instructed to accept Helot orders up to a point. Thibodeau's title within the revolutionary movement is Field Prime. There is no visible linkage between the Spartan Peoples Liberation Army and the NCLF, though the connection exists.
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Campaigns would therefore often be restricted to summer. Armies marched directly to their target, possibly agreed on by the protagonists. Sparta was an exception to this rule, as every Spartiate was a professional soldier. Spartans instead relied on slaves called helots for civilian jobs such as farming.
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Xenophon, vi.4.4-16; D.S., xv.53-56. Thebes was now the dominant power and repeatedly invaded the Peloponnese to consolidate its new-found power. In the course of these invasions it liberated the helots, those peoples of Messene who had been Spartan slaves for centuries.
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Complemented with the wine and meat, it can be considered as close to normal, given that the fighting had subsided and that the said helots were only attending to their domestic duties. Myron's evidence is interpreted as an extrapolation from actions performed on symbolic representatives.Ducat, pp. 119–121.
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Simultaneously, the population of Spartiate citizens declined. The absence of a formal census prevents an accurate assessment of the helot population, but estimates are possible. According to Herodotus, helots were seven times as numerous as Spartans during the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC.Herodotus. Histories, 9, 28–29.
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The 1811 German Coast Uprising in the Territory of Orleans was the largest rebellion in the continental United States; Denmark Vesey rebelled in South Carolina, and Madison Washington during the Creole case in the 19th century United States. Ancient Sparta had a special type of serf called helots who were often treated harshly, leading them to rebel. According to Herodotus (IX, 28–29), helots were seven times as numerous as Spartans. Every autumn, according to Plutarch (Life of Lycurgus, 28, 3–7), the Spartan ephors would pro forma declare war on the helot population so that any Spartan citizen could kill a helot without fear of blood or guilt in order to keep them in line (crypteia).
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Several theories exist regarding the origin of the name "helot". According to Hellanicus, the word relates to the village of Helos, in the south of Sparta.Hellanicos, Frag. 188 J. Pausanias thus states, "Its inhabitants became the first slaves of the Lacedaemonian state, and were the first to be called helots".Trans.
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Pausanias, 4, 24, 5. Nor does the text allow us to conclude that this was a failed uprising of helots, only that there was an attempt at escape. Additionally, a helot revolt in Laconia is unlikely, and Messenians would not likely have taken refuge at Cape Taenarus.Ducat (1990), p. 131.
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Life of Cleomenes, 23; . Around this time, Ptolemy of Egypt stopped paying subsidies to Cleomenes, which left Cleomenes without money with which to pay for his mercenaries. In order to obtain money, Cleomenes began to sell helots their freedom in exchange for a sum of money.Plutarch. Life of Cleomenes, 23; .
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According to Aristotle, the ephors annually declared war on the Helots, thereby allowing Spartans to kill them without fear of religious pollution.Aristotle, frag. 538 Rose = Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 28, 7 = frag. 538 R. This task was apparently given to the kryptes, graduates of the difficult agoge who took part in the crypteia.
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Ancient Theater in Messene. Messenia is mentioned in the oldest work of European literature, the Iliad. The name undoubtedly goes back to at least the Bronze Age, but its origins are lost in the world of mythology. The region was one of the largest that was conquered and enslaved as helots by ancient Sparta.
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Others in the state were the Perioeci or Períoikoi, a social class and population group of non-citizen inhabitants. The Perioeci were free, unlike the helots, but were not full Spartan citizens. They had a central role in the Spartan economy, controlling commerce and business, as well as being responsible for crafts and manufacturing.
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1 Cartledge, p.129. Cleomenes sent the majority of his army back to Sparta and took a thousand men to the temple of Hera to make a sacrifice. The priest forbade him, saying that strangers were not allowed to make sacrifices. Cleomenes ordered the Helots to scourge the priest and made the sacrifice anyway.
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As a result of that defeat, Sparta's allies revolted and the helots of Messenia were freed. Afterward, the Spartan economy became less able to support professional soldiers, and inequalities between supposedly equal citizens increased. As a result, the reputation of Sparta, either as a military success or as a guide in domestic affairs, diminished substantially.
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However, Athenaeus stated that the Leleges stood in relation to the Carians as the Helots stood to the Lacedaemonians.Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists, 6.271. This confusion of the two peoples is found also in Herodotus, who wrote that the Carians, when they were allegedly living amid the Cyclades, were known as Leleges. Archaeologists studying a Carian tomb in Milas, Beçin.
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4–5 Although the economy was dependent on slavery, Rome was not the most slave-dependent culture in history. Among the Spartans, for instance, the slave class of helots outnumbered the free by about seven to one, according to Herodotus.Herodotus, Histories 9.10. In any case, the overall role of slavery in Roman economy is a discussed issue among scholars.
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"Spartans, a new history", Nigel Kennell, 2010, p. 94 During his rule Spartans took away freedom of Helots, and took to themselves some territories of Arcadia. Plutarch wrote that once Clitorians encircled Spartans, preventing their access to water sources. Soos made an agreement that he would return lands if they would be allowed access to water.
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This is the case of Plutarch in his Life of Cimon:Plutarch. Life of Cimon, 17, 8. the helots of the Eurotas River valley want to use the earthquake to attack the Spartans whom they think are disarmed. The intervention of Archidamus II, who calls the Lacedaemonians to arms, simultaneously saves them from the earthquake and the helot attack.
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Galician slaughter in 1846 was a revolt against serfdom, directed against manorial property and oppression. Social institutions similar to serfdom were known in ancient times. The status of the helots in the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta resembled that of the medieval serfs. By the 3rd century AD, the Roman Empire faced a labour shortage.
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Social institutions similar to serfdom occurred in the ancient world. The status of the helots in the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta resembled that of medieval serfs. By the 3rd century AD, the Roman Empire faced a labour shortage. Large Roman landowners increasingly relied on Roman freemen, acting as tenant farmers, (instead of on slaves) to provide labour.
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It decided the king who should conduct a campaign and settled questions of disputed succession to the throne. It elected elders, ephors and other magistrates, emancipated helots and perhaps voted on legal proposals. There is a single referenceXen. Hell. iii. 3. 8 to a "small assembly" () at Sparta, but nothing is known as to its nature or competence.
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The Neodamodes (, neodamōdeis) were Helots freed after passing a time of service as hoplites in the Spartan Army. The date of their first apparition is uncertain. Thucydides does not explain the origin of this special category. Jean Ducat, in his book Les Hoplites (1990), concludes that their statute "was largely inspired by the measures dictated concerning the Brasidians", i.e.
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The military of Lacedaemonia, Sparta, had traditionally been based on levies of full citizens and perioeci (one of the free non-citizen groups of Lacedaemonia) supported by lightly armed helots. From several thousands in the times of the Greco-Persian Wars, the numbers of full citizen Spartans had declined to a few hundred in the times of Cleomenes III. There were possibly several reasons for the decline of numbers, one of which was that every Spartan who wasn't able to pay his share in the syssitia (common meal for men in Doric societies) lost his full citizenship, although this didn't exclude his offspring from partaking in the agoge (traditional Spartan education and training regime). As a result, the fielding of a respectable hoplite army without mercenaries or freed helots was difficult.
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According to Thucydides, Sparta decided to dismiss Cimon's Athenian Army, because they felt that Athens would convince the Helots on Ithome to form a coalition and besiege Sparta. Spartans did not feel comfortable with such a large Athenian force inside their city. If the Athenians were to turn their backs on Sparta, the city would not be able to protect itself.
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The idea was not to assimilate, but to turn a defeated and potentially rebellious enemy (or their sons) into Roman citizens. Instead of having to wait for the unavoidable revolt of a conquered people (a tribe or a city-state) like Sparta and the conquered Helots, Rome tried to make those under its rule feel that they had a stake in the system.
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This was followed by the siege of Ithome which the rebel helots had fortified.Aspects of Greek History 750–323 BC. Terry Buckley pp236 The pro-Spartan Cimon was successful in getting Athens to send help to put down the rebellion, but this would eventually backfire for the pro-Sparta movement in Athens.Aspects of Greek History 750-323BC. Terry Buckley pp.
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The helots were on half- rations. An Attic koinix is 698 gr. which, according to calculations (L. Foxhall and H. A. Forbes, "Sitometria: The Role of Grain as a Staple Food in Classical Antiquity" in Chiron Number 12 (1982), pp. 41–90), was far from miserable: it corresponds to 81% of daily nutritional needs for a moderately active man, according to FAO standards.
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The polis or city-state of Sparta was formed during the Greek Dark Ages, controlling the plains around the Eurotas river. Those communities already existing in the area which could not be assimilated into the Spartan state, or subjugated as helots, became the perioeci. Whether they were Dorians like the Spartans, or descended from pre-Dorian populations in the Peloponnese, is unknown.
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The Perioeci were free, unlike the helots, but were not full Spartan citizens. They lived in their own settlements in the perioecis, which were described by ancient authors as poleis.Herodotus, Histories, VII.234Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, V.54.1Xenophon, Hellenica, VI.5.21 These settlements were largely under the control of the Spartan state, but were self-governing on domestic issues.
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He has written a series for Avatar Press called Mercury Heat, and a series for Image called Three, about the helots of Sparta, planned for 2013. In Jun 2020, Marvel Comics announced that Gillen would write the upcoming six-issue miniseries Warhammer 40,000: Marneus Calgar, the first in a line of Warhammer comics published by that company, which would be released that October.
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Sparta's agriculture consisted mainly of barley, wine, cheese, grain, and figs. These items were grown locally on each Spartan citizen's kleros and were tended to by helots. Spartan citizens were required to donate a certain amount of what they yielded from their kleros to their syssitia, or mess. These donations to the syssitia were a requirement for every Spartan citizen.
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The Long Shadow of the Ancient Greek World, professor Ian Worthington, U. Missouri-Columbia, Part 2 of 4, The Teaching Company, , 2009, see page 18 of the guidebook In the Spartan approach to phalanx warfare, virtues such as courage and loyalty were particularly emphasized relative to other Greek city-states. Each Spartan citizen owned at least a minimum portion of the public land which was sufficient to provide food for a family, although the size of these plots varied. The Spartan citizens relied on the labor of captured slaves called helots to do the everyday drudgework of farming and maintenance, while the Spartan men underwent a rigorous military regimen, and in a sense it was the labor of the helots which permitted Spartans to engage in extensive military training and citizenship. Citizenship was viewed as incompatible with manual labor.
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By Thucydides's account (History of the Peloponnesian War, I.101–102), the Spartans were concerned that the Athenians would switch sides and assist the helots; from the Spartan perspective, the Athenians had an "enterprising and revolutionary character," and by this fact alone posed a threat to the oligarchic regime of Sparta. The Athenians were insulted, and therefore repudiated their alliance with Sparta. Once the uprising was put down, some of the surviving rebels fled to Athens, which settled them at Naupactus on the strategically important Corinthian Gulf. The alliance between Sparta and Athens was never revived, and disagreements continued to intensify until the outbreak of war in 460 BC. Since the Helot population used the earthquake as their opportunity to rebel, the Spartans were forced to wait to reform their society until after they had suppressed the Helots.
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Any Spartiate who was unable to pay these dues was demoted from his class. Politically, Spartiate males composed the army assembly, the body that elected the ephors, the most powerful magistrates of Sparta after the kings. The Spartiates were also the source of the krypteia, a sort of secret police, which, by measures such as assassination and kidnapping, sought to prevent rebellion among the helots.
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In effect, the hoplite system was a strict method of training to ensure that discipline was maintained in the phalanx. The Spartans gained considerable reputation as hoplites, due to tactical capabilities developed through constant training. In addition to this military aspect, to be a hoplite was a key characteristic of Greek citizenship. To introduce helots to this system thus led to inevitable social conflict.
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In such a catastrophic earthquake, it is also unlikely that a number of the anecdotal tales from the time could be true, such as the Spartan king Archidamus leading the Spartan army out of the city to safety. Regardless of the exact death toll, there was some destruction, and the helots, the slave class in Spartan society, took advantage of this moment to rise in rebellion.
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Armoured cavalry against psiloi: Achaemenid dynast of Hellespontine Phrygia attacking a Greek light infantryman, Altıkulaç Sarcophagus, early 4th century BCE. In ancient Greece, the psiloi belonged to the poorest citizen classes; sometimes even unfree conscripts would be employed, such as the Peloponnesian helots. They were armed with a variety of missile weapons and might have a dagger or short sword. The psiloi fought as skirmishers.
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Spartan power rested on the forced labour of the helots of Messenia, which allowed the entire male Spartan population to dedicate themselves to warfare.. This focused military training system had previously enabled Sparta to exert power out of proportion to its small population. However, after their losses at Leuctra, the Spartans were unable to resist Epaminondas's invasion, and he marched into Messenia and liberated the helots, thereby permanently crippling Sparta.. The Thebans then began to extend their influence over Greece, effectively replacing the Spartan hegemony with their own... The Theban generals Pelopidas and Epaminondas campaigned all over Greece for the next 9 years to further Theban power and influence. In 362 BC, Epaminondas's fourth invasion of the Peloponnesus, which reached its climax at the Battle of Mantinea, brought almost every state in Greece into the conflict, on one side or the other.Xenophon. Hellenica, 7.5.
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Agesilaus's forces were composed of a regiment and a half of Spartiates, augmented by a force of freed helots, and a sizable force of allied troops from the Peloponnese and Ionia. Facing him on the plain, near the foot of Mount Helicon, was an army made up of Boeotians, Athenians, Argives, Corinthians, Euboeans, and Locrians. In all, the allies probably had 20,000 hoplites. To oppose these, Agesilaus had 15,000 hoplites.
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The Thebans marched into Messenia, and freed it from Sparta; this was a fatal blow to Sparta, since Messenia had provided most of the helots which supported the Spartan warrior society. These events permanently reduced Spartan power and prestige, and replaced the Spartan hegemony with a Theban one. The Theban hegemony would be short-lived however. Opposition to it throughout the period 369-362 BC caused numerous clashes.
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The inhabitants of the town attempted to shake off the yoke, but they were subdued, and gave rise and name to the Spartan class of serfs called helots. To his reign was referred the colony which went to Crete under Pollis and Delphus.Conon Narrations 36 According to Eusebius he reigned only one year;Eusebius of Caesarea, Chronicon i. p. 166 according to Apollodorus of Athens, as it appears, about 31 years.
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Before he could be executed he escaped his holding and made it back to Eira. The Messenians held Eira for over ten years before the Spartans made their last attack. Before Eira fell, however, the Spartans allowed the women and children to be released along with Aristomenes. The ones who did not escape Eira were again turned into helots and most of the ones who escaped fled to Italy.
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The Spartans also occupied Attica for periods of only three weeks at a time; in the tradition of earlier hoplite warfare the soldiers were expected to go home to participate in the harvest. Moreover, Spartan slaves, known as helots, needed to be kept under control, and could not be left unsupervised for long periods of time. The longest Spartan invasion, in 430 BC, lasted just forty days. Bust of Pericles.
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Participation was required; failure to appear could entail a loss of citizenship. But the philosopher Aristotle viewed the Spartan model of citizenship as "artificial and strained", according to one account. While Spartans were expected to learn music and poetry, serious study was discouraged. Historian Ian Worthington described a "Spartan mirage" in the sense that the mystique about military invincibility tended to obscure weaknesses within the Spartan system, particularly their dependence on helots.
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The theater of ancient Sparta with modern Sparti and Taygetus in the background Evidence of Neolithic settlement in southern Laconia has been found during excavations of the Alepotrypa cave site. In ancient Greece, this was the principal region of the Spartan state. For much of classical antiquity the Spartan sphere of influence expanded to Messenia, whose inhabitants (the Helots) were enslaved. Significant archaeological recovery exists at the Vaphio-tomb site in Laconia.
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The Sparta earthquake of 464 BC destroyed much of Sparta. Historical sources suggest that the death toll may have been as high as 20,000, although modern scholars suggest that this figure is likely an exaggeration. The earthquake sparked a revolt of the helots, the slave class of Spartan society. Events surrounding this revolt led to an increase in tension between Sparta and their rival Athens and the cancellation of a treaty between them.
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Sparta's attention was at this time, fully occupied by troubles nearer home; such as the revolt of Tegea (in about 473–471 BC), rendered all the more formidable by the participation of Argos.Aspects of Greek History 750–323 BC. Terry Buckley pp. 232–5 The most serious, however was the crisis caused by the earthquake which in 464 BC devastated Sparta, costing many lives. In the immediate aftermath, the helots saw an opportunity to rebel.
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"Spartans, a new history", Nigel Kennell, 2010, p. 42 It was as a result of this second war, according to fairly late sources, that the Messenians were reduced to the semi slave status of helots. Whether Sparta dominated the regions to its east at the time is less settled. According to Herodotus the Argives' territory once included the whole of Cynuria (the east coast of the Peloponnese) and the island of Cythera.
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Athens also agreed to come to Sparta's aid if the helots revolted. All of Sparta's allies agreed to sign the peace, except for Boeotia, Corinth, Elis, and Megara. Seventeen representatives from each side swore an oath to uphold the treaty, which was meant to last for fifty years. The Spartan representatives were the kings Pleistoanax and Agis II, Pleistolas, Damagetus, Chionis, Metagenes, Acanthus, Daithus, Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas, Antiphus, Tellis, Alcindas, Empedias, Menas, and Laphilus.
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Linguists have associated the word with the root , wel-, as in , halískomai, "to be captured, to be made prisoner". In fact, some ancient authors did not consider the term ethnic, but rather an indication of servitude: Antiochus of Syracuse writes: "those of the Lacedaemonians who did not take part in the expedition were adjudged slaves and were named helots",Geography Trans. by H.L. Jones (1924), Accessed: 11 June 2006. Apud Strabo 6, 3, 2.
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Men were meant to compete in athletics and in battle. Helots and common men likely only developed their reading and writing skills as needed to make votive offerings and read important inscriptions. Spartans who became kings, diplomats or generals would also improve the rhetoric, reading and writing skills necessary for their positions. How the majority of the population of citizen male Spartans became literate, or whether they were literate at all, is not well known.
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Thimbron or Thibron (Greek: ; fl. 400–391 BC) was a Spartan general. He was sent out as harmost in 400 BC, with an army of about 5,000 men, composed of 1,000 emancipated helots and 4,000 other Peleponesians, to aid the Ionians against Tissaphernes, who wished to bring them into subjection. In addition to this force, Thimbron recruited 2,000 local troops upon his arrival, but was initially unable to face the Persian army in the field.
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The underclass can attempt to become Citizens; many do, and on achieving Citizenship enjoy the same rights and privileges as those born on Sparta. For the rest, the usual populists and progressives try to organize them into a Movement. Paradoxically, Sparta's openness and political transparency makes it more vulnerable to such a movement than dictatorships such as Carlist Santiago. One such movement, the Non-Citizens Liberation Front, has a guerrilla army of self-styled Helots.
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Their aim was probably to instigate a revolt of the Messanian helots against Sparta. Eventually they left due to scarce resources and few harbors for the Achaemenid fleet in the area, as well as the looming possibility of Lacedaemonian relief forces being dispatched. They then raided the coast of Laconia and seized the island of Cythera, where they left a garrison and an Athenian governor to cripple Sparta's offensive military capabilities. Cythera in effect became Achaemenid territory.
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Their aim was probably to instigate a revolt of the Messanian helots against Sparta. Eventually they left due to scarce resources and few harbors for the Achaemenid fleet in the area, as well as the looming possibility of Lacedaemonian relief forces being dispatched. They then raided the coast of Laconia and seized the island of Cythera, where they left a garrison and an Athenian governor to cripple Sparta's offensive military capabilities. Cythera in effect became Achaemenid territory.
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The long Peloponnesian War drained Sparta of so many of its citizens that by the time of the conspiracy of Cinadon, the beginning of the 4th century BC, only forty Peers, or citizens, could be counted in a crowd of 4,000 at the agora (Xenophon, Hellenica, III, 3, 5). The total population of helots at that time, including women, is estimated as 170,000–224,000.Paul Cartledge, Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta. London: Johns Hopkins University, 1994, p. 174.
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Sparta was forced to dedicate a garrison to controlling this activity; this was the first of the / epiteikhismoí ("ramparts"), outposts planted by the Athenians in enemy territory. The second such outpost was at Kythera. This time, the Athenians set their sights on the helots of Laconia. Again, pillaging and desertion did occur, but not on the scale hoped for by the Athenians or feared by the Spartans: there was no uprising like that which accompanied the earthquake.
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At the age of thirty they were released from the barracks and allowed to marry and have a family. After that, men devoted their lives to war until their retirement at the age of 60. Unlike other civilizations, whose armies had to disband during the planting and harvest seasons, the Spartan serfs or helots, did the manual labor. This allowed the Spartans to field a full-time army with a campaign season that lasted all year.
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Being published outside the Third Reich's borders until World War II, Pester Lloyd was not subject to Nazi Gleichschaltung and thus, in an article on 16 September 1935, openly criticized the antisemitic Nuremberg Laws of 1935. The paper spoke of the laws allowing an extent of discrimination unheard of in history and compared the situation of the Jews in Nazi Germany to those of the Helots, a slave class in the ancient Greek state of Sparta.
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The conditions of Baharnah were described to be "little better than landless serfs" and "virtually serfs". British officials described Baharnah peasants as "shamefully rack-rented peasantry" and "their condition resembled that of helots, who could call no lands nor the produce of any land their own".; . On the other hand, pearl diving was controlled by Sunni Arab tribesmen, who had their own estates, enjoyed a high level of autonomy and freedom of operation within them, and were not directly taxed.
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Stadion. After the defeat of the Spartan army at the Battle of Leuctra in Boeotia, 371 BC, the helots of Messenia revolted yet again against their Spartan overlords. This time the victorious general, Epaminondas, entered the Peloponnesus with an army of Boeotians, Argives and Messenians living abroad. Epaminondas resolved to support an independent Peloponnesus by building three fortified cities, Megalopolis and Mantinea in Arcadia and Messene in Messenia.This section relies heavily on Pausanias, Guide to Greece, Book IV, Sections 4.27.
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Around the time of that change, Sparta embarked on the conquest of the neighboring state of Messenia. The acquisition of such a comparatively large piece of territory and conquered population seems to have both provided the basis for the system of helotage and required the existence of a large military force to keep the potentially- rebellious Messenians under control. The Spartiates thus became a permanently- armed master class, living off the labour of the helots and preventing rebellion through constant struggle.
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498–502 The creator of the Spartan system of rule was the legendary lawgiver Lycurgus. He is associated with the drastic reforms that were instituted in Sparta after the revolt of the helots in the second half of the 7th century BCE. In order to prevent another helot revolt, Lycurgus devised the highly militarized communal system that made Sparta unique among the city- states of Greece. All his reforms were directed towards the three Spartan virtues: equality (among citizens), military fitness, and austerity.
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By the winter of late 370 BC, King Agesilaus took the field, not against Thebes, but in an attempt to preserve at least a toehold of influence for Sparta in Arkadia. This backfired when, in response, the Arkadians sent an appeal for help to Boeotia. Boeotia responded by sending a large army, led by Epaminondas, which first marched on Sparta itself and then moved to Messenia where the helots had already rebelled. Epaminondas made that rebellion permanent by fortifying the city of Messene.
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Another such call came during the Theban invasion of Laconia in one of the decisive battles of Peloponnese wars. Xenophon in Hellenica (VI, 5, 28) states that the authorities agreed to emancipate all the helots who volunteered. He then reports that more than 6,000 heeded the call, leading to some embarrassment for the Spartans, who were initially overwhelmed by the number. Xenophon states that the Spartans' fears were assuaged when they received aid from their allies and Boeotian mercenary forces.
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At the stage of paidiskoi, around the age of 18, the students became reserve members of the Spartan army. Also, some youths were allowed to become part of the Crypteia, a type of 'Secret Police', where the members were instructed to spy on the Helot population. They would also kill Helot slaves who were out at night or spoke about rebelling against the Government, to help keep the population submissive. The state supported this by formally declaring war on the Helots every autumn.
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It led the Persians behind the Greek lines. Leonidas, aware that his force was being outflanked, dismissed the bulk of the Greek army and remained to guard their retreat with 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians, fighting to the death. Others also reportedly remained, including up to 900 helots and 400 Thebans; most of these Thebans reportedly surrendered. Themistocles was in command of the Greek Navy at Artemisium when he received news that the Persians had taken the pass at Thermopylae.
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It separates the Messenian Gulf in the west from the Laconian Gulf in the east. Cape Taenarum in classical antiquity was the site of the city of Taenarum, (Ancient Greek: Ταίναρον) now in ruins. In ancient Greek mythology the eponymous ctistes — the founder-hero of the city — was Taenarus, (Ταίναρος) who was credited with establishing the city's important temple of Poseidon. Greeks used the proverb Tainarian evil (), meaning a great and unlawful evil affecting suppliants, for the Spartans killed the Helots who had fled into Tainaron.
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Spartiates were expected to adhere to an ideal of military valour, as exemplified by the poems of Tyrtaeus, who praised men who fell in battle and heaped scorn on those who fled. Each Spartiate male was assigned a plot of land, with the helots that worked it. That was the source of his income since he performed no labour or commerce himself. The primary use of that income was to pay the dues of the communal mess halls to which all Spartiates were required to belong.
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Lycurgus as legislator. Lycurgus is credited with the formation of many Spartan institutions integral to the country's rise to power, but more importantly the complete and undivided allegiance to Sparta from its citizens, which was implemented under his form of government. Lycurgus is said to have been the originator of the Spartan "Homoioi," the "Equals," citizens who had no wealth as insofar as the citizens (not the Helots) were concerned. This radical lifestyle differentiated the Spartans once again from other Greeks of their time.
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The army must be composed only of professional native Greek soldiers, who would be supported by the taxpayers, or "Helots" who would be exempt from military service. Land was to be publicly owned, and a third of all produce given to the state fund; incentives would be given for cultivating virgin land. Trade would be regulated and the use of coinage limited, barter instead being encouraged; locally available products would be supported over imports. Mutilation as a punishment would be abolished, and chain gangs introduced.
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It was this fear, according to Thucydides, which made the second, larger (and more famous) Peloponnesian War inevitable.Thucydides I, 23 Pericles, the Athenian politician who led Athens through much of her 'golden age' Athens sent troops in 462 BC to aid Sparta with the Messenian Revolt (c. 465-461 BC), under the terms of the old Hellenic alliance.Thucydides I, 102 The Spartans however, in the fear that Athens might interfere in the political situation between the Spartans and their helots, sent the Athenians home.
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Unlike other slaves in ancient Greece, the helot population was maintained through reproduction, rather than the purchase of more slaves. Because of this, helots were able to freely choose partners, and live in family groups, whereas other Greek slaves were kept in single-sex dormitories. Along with relationships with helot men, some helot women seem to have had children with Spartan men. These children were called mothakes, and were apparently free and able to gain citizenship - according to Aelian, the admiral Lysander was a mothax.
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465—Operations in Northern Greece: Athens' powers and desire for expansion grow. In 465, after cleruchizing the Chersonese, they tried to gain control of Thasos. Thucydides wrote that Sparta contemplated an invasion of Attica in order to help free Thasos. However, in the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake and subsequent helot uprising in Sparta, no attack—if indeed such was projected—was launched. 461—The Debate in Athens over Helping Sparta: With a legion of Helots rebelling against Sparta, Athens offered Sparta their help by sending a force of 4,000 Hoplites to suppress the rebels.
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Providing the official justification that since the initial assault on Ithome had failed, what was now required was a blockade, a task the Spartans did not need Athenian help with. In Athens, this snub resulted in Athens breaking off its alliance with Sparta and allying with its enemy, Argos. Further friction was caused by the consummation of the Attic democracy under Ephialtes and Pericles. Paul Cartledge hazards that the revolt of helots and perioeci led the Spartans to reorganize their army and integrate the perioeci into the citizen hoplite regiments.
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The uprising coincident with the earthquake of 464 BC is soundly attested to, although Greek historians do not agree on the interpretation of this event. According to Thucydides,Thucydides, 1.101, 2. the helots and perioeci of Thouria and Aithaia took advantage of the earthquake to revolt and establish a position on Mt. Ithome. He adds that most of the rebels were of Messenian ancestry—confirming the appeal of Ithome as a historical place of Messenian resistance—and focuses attention on the perioeci of Thouria, a city on the Messianian coast.
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The First Messenian War lasted from 743 BC to 724 BC. During the period prior to conquest, Sparta dealt with overpopulation in the Laconia region by assimilating other Laconians as perioeci ('those who live around us'). In an effort to further expand their territory in the Peloponnese, the Spartan Army went to war with the Messenians. As a result of two decades' struggle, the Messenian people became enslaved as helots and made serfs of the state, following Spartan victory in the southwestern region of the Peloponnese.Dunstan, William E. Ancient Greece.
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The soldiers who stayed behind were to protect their escape against the Persian cavalry. Herodotus himself believed that Leonidas gave the order because he perceived the allies to be disheartened and unwilling to encounter the danger to which his own mind was made up. He therefore chose to dismiss all troops except the Thebans, Thespians and helots and save the glory for the Spartans. Of the small Greek force, attacked from both sides, all were killed except for the 400 Thebans, who surrendered to Xerxes without a fight.
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The 464 BCE Sparta earthquake occurred along the Sparta fault in the year 464 BCE destroying much of what was Sparta and many other City-states in Ancient Greece. Historical sources suggest that the death toll may have been as high as 20,000, although modern scholars suggest that this figure is likely an exaggeration. The earthquake gave the helots an opportunity to revolt against the Spartans, and the Athenians were called to their aid. Their immediate dismissal upon arrival is said to have been a key event that lead up to the First Peloponnesian War.
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But after a "considerable force" arrived from Athens under the command of Cimon, Sparta, fearing the "unorthodox" politics of Athens and the possibility of her supporting the enslaved Helots rather than fighting them, sent the Athenian contingent home while keeping on the rest of her allies. Deeply offended by these Spartan interferences and insults, Athens was increasingly willing to support discord within the Peloponnesian League and took Megara into its protection during its border dispute with the Spartan-allied Corinth, leading to open war with Corinth but not Sparta herself.
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In Seleucid Asia the major challenge for agriculture was to feed the numerous new cities, in Egypt to feed the metropolis of Alexandria and to supply the grain used in Ptolemaic diplomacy. In the Greek homeland, established forms of agriculture continued. In most areas, free citizens farmed with the help of a slave or two, while other traditional forms of dependent labor also persisted— helots in Sparta, serfs in Crete. Changes did occur in the pattern of land tenure, with land being accumulated by the wealthy at the expense of marginal farmers.
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In the Second Messenian War, Sparta established itself as a local power in the Peloponnesus and the rest of Greece. During the following centuries, Sparta's reputation as a land-fighting force was unequalled."A Historical Commentary on Thucydides". David Cartwright, p. 176 At its peak around 500 BCE, Sparta had some 20,000–35,000 citizens, plus numerous helots and perioikoi. The likely total of 40,000–50,000 made Sparta one of the larger Greek city-states; however, according to Thucydides, the population of Athens in 431 BCE was 360,000–610,000, making it much larger.
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Spartan is the story of two brothers born in the military city-state of Sparta. The elder brother, Brithos, was a Spartan paragon; the younger brother, Talos, was crippled and deformed at birth. Because of the cruel and strict laws in vigour at Sparta, babies that were deformed, crippled or had any health issues would not serve the city-state its purpose, which was to battle; therefore, these weaker children had to be sacrificed at Mount Taygetus. The young Talos however survives, rescued by a shepherd of the Helots, the people who served as slaves to the Spartans.
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Pausanias, full of arrogance over his victory at Plataea and the subsequent ease with which he punished the Theban leaders for their support of the Persians, ordered a dedication on the column ascribing victory to himself alone. Later, it was discovered he had been in negotiations with the Persians and the Helots of Sparta to stage a rebellion, and set himself up as Tyrant. Although his treachery was, at first, disbelieved in Sparta, it was eventually confirmed by the Ephors of Sparta through his personal slave, and he was killed. Thucydides describesTranslated from Thucydides, Book 1.132.
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1987 The new Helots: migrants in the international division of labour, Aldershot: Avebury/Gower Publishing Group; paperback edition, Gower, 1988; Japanese translation, 1989; reprinted 1993, 2003. 1986 Endgame in South Africa: the changing ideology and social structure of South Africa, Paris: UNESCO Press & London: James Curry; German edition under the title Endspiel Südafrika: Eine Anatomie der Apartheid, Translated by Ulf Dammann, with a Foreword by Jean Ziegler, Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag, 1987; US edition, New York: Africa World Press, 1988. 1974 Labour and politics in Nigeria: 1945–71, London: Heinemann Education Books & New York: Holmes & Meier/Africana Publishing Corporation. New edition 1982.
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6.39 Leukaspides are mentioned in the army of Pyrrhus of Epirus on his campaigns in Italy. Under Cleomenes III, the Spartan army was reformed in 228 BC. Until then, the Spartans had merely kept the traditional hoplite spear. Cleomenes created a 4,000 strong phalanx and then formed another phalanx with 2,000 freed helots in order to counter the Antigonid Leukaspides. Philopoemen reformed the army of the Achaean League into the Macedonian phalanx in 208–207 BC and we are told that, by the end of the 3rd century, the Boeotians did the same, thereby creating the 'Peltophoroi'.
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The Athenian general Pericles recommended that his city fight a defensive war, avoiding battle against the superior land forces led by Sparta, and importing everything needful by maintaining its powerful navy. Athens would simply outlast Sparta, whose citizens feared to be out of their city for long lest the helots revolt. This strategy required that Athens endure regular sieges, and in 430 BC it was visited with an awful plague that killed about a quarter of its people, including Pericles. With Pericles gone, less conservative elements gained power in the city and Athens went on the offensive.
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The first known standing armies in Europe were in ancient Greece. The male citizen body of ancient Sparta functioned similar to a standing army, unlike all other city-states (poleis), whose armies were drafted citizen militias. The existence of an enslaved population of helots enabled the Spartiates to focus their time and energy on martial training instead of manual labor. Philip II of Macedon instituted the first true professional Hellenic army, with soldiers and cavalrymen paid for their service year-round, rather than a militia of men who mostly farmed the land for subsistence and occasionally mustered for campaigns.
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To accomplish this equality, Plutarch, in his Life of Lycurgus, attributes to Lycurgus a thoroughgoing land reform, a reassignment and equalizing of landholdings and wealth among the population, To support this new land division, Lycurgus was said to have divided the country of Laconia into 30,000 equal shares, and the part attached to the city of Sparta in particular into 9,000; all shares were distributed among the Spartans. Helots (the population of the territories the Spartans had captured in their wars in Laconia) were attached to the land, not to individual owners; hence, all slaves were property of the state.
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According to Herodotus (IX, 28–29), helots were seven times as numerous as Spartans. Following several helot revolts around the year 600 BC, the Spartans restructured their city-state along authoritarian lines, for the leaders decided that only by turning their society into an armed camp could they hope to maintain control over the numerically dominant helot population.Thomas R. Martin, Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times (Yale UP, 2000) pp. 66, 75–77 In some Ancient Greek city-states, about 30% of the population consisted of slaves, but paid and slave labor seem to have been equally important.
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The word dāsa occurs in the Hindu Sruti texts Aitareya and Gopatha Brahmanas, but not in the sense of a slave. Towards the end of the Vedic period (600 BCE), a new system of varnas had appeared, with people called shudras replacing the erstwhile dasas. Some of the shudras were employed as labouring masses on farm land, much like "helots of Sparta", even though they were not treated with the same degree of coercion and contempt. They could be given away as gifts along with the land, which came in for criticism from the religious texts Āśvalāyana and Kātyāyana Śrautasūtras.
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Life of Lycurgus 28, 8–10. See also, Life of Demetrios, 1, 5; Constitution of the Lacedemonians 30; De Cohibenda Ira 6; De Commmunibus Notitiis 19. However, he notes that this rough treatment was inflicted only relatively late, after the 464 BC earthquake. Some modern scholars advocate a reevaluation of ancient evidence about helots. It has been argued that the kunē was not actually made of dogskin,The word / kunễ is used in Greek literature, especially by Homer in the Iliad, to mean a helmet; in Athens, and in the Odyssey (XXIV, 231), it also means a leather or skin hat.
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The Crypteia or Krypteia (Greek: κρυπτεία krupteía from κρυπτός kruptós, "hidden, secret") was an ancient Spartan state institution involving young Spartan men. Its goal and nature are still a matter of discussion and debate among historians, but some scholars (such as Henri-Alexandre Wallon) consider the Krypteia to be a kind of secret police and state security force organized by the ruling class of Sparta to patrol the Laconian countryside and to terrorize the helots. Others (including Hermann Köchly and Wilhelm Wachsmuth) believe it to be a form of military training, similar to the Athenian ephebia.
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A similar formation, the Irenas (ἰρένας) were in charge of overseeing Helots and assisting in the krypteia. The Greek colony of Taras is said to have been founded by a group of 20-year-old Spartan Partheniae who were refused citizenship in order to encourage them to leave their hometown and found a new settlement. Herodotus mentions the myth of Aristodemus, who fought courageously but was refused the recognition as best fighter by the Spartans because he got "mad" (lyssônta) and abandoned the formation, suggesting that Ancient Greeks thought that berserk-acting warriors had no place in the phalanx formation.
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1 Conflict between the states flared up again in 465 BC, when a helot revolt broke out in Sparta. The Spartans summoned forces from all of their allies, including Athens, to help them suppress the revolt. Athens sent out a sizable contingent (4,000 hoplites), but upon its arrival, this force was dismissed by the Spartans, while those of all the other allies were permitted to remain. According to Thucydides, the Spartans acted in this way out of fear that the Athenians would switch sides and support the helots; the offended Athenians repudiated their alliance with Sparta.
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The inhabitants of Sparta were stratified as Spartiates (Spartan citizens with full rights), mothakes (non-Spartan free men raised as Spartans), perioikoi (free residents engaged in commerce), and helots (state-owned serfs, enslaved non-Spartan locals). Spartan men underwent the rigorous agoge training and education regimen, and Spartan phalanx brigades were widely considered to be among the best in battle. Spartan women also enjoyed considerably more rights and equality with men than elsewhere in classical antiquity. Sparta was frequently a subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in Western culture following the revival of classical learning.
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Slave revolts occurred elsewhere in the Greek world, and in 413 BCE 20,000 Athenian slaves ran away to join the Spartan forces occupying Attica.Thucydides (VII, 27) What made Sparta's relations with her slave population unique was that the helots, precisely because they enjoyed privileges such as family and property, retained their identity as a conquered people (the Messenians) and also had effective kinship groups that could be used to organize rebellion. As the Spartiate population declined and the helot population continued to grow, the imbalance of power caused increasing tension. According to Myron of PrieneTalbert, p. 26.
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As in other places in ancient Greece, in Sparta far more is known about the elites than the lower classes, and ancient sources do not discuss gender in relation to the non-Spartans who lived in Sparta. Along with Spartan citizens, various groups of free non- Spartiates lived in Sparta, as did helots and, at least later in Spartan history, personal slaves. According to Xenophon, Spartan women were not required to do the domestic labour which women elsewhere in the Greek world were responsible for. He reports that in Sparta, doulai (slave women) did the weaving.
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By the Hellenistic period, the geographer Polemon of Athens reported that he had seen bronze statues in Sparta dedicated by the prostitute Cottina, and there was a brothel named for her near the temple of Dionysos. Spartan nurses were famous throughout Greece, and wealthy families from across Greece had their children nursed by Spartans. Plutarch reports that Alcibiades was nursed by a Spartan woman called Amycla.Plutarch, Alcibiades 1.2 The status of these nurses is not clear - they were probably not helots, who would not have been sold to foreigners, but could have been some other form of non-citizen women from Laconia.
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On its conquest by the Dorians its inhabitants were reduced to slavery; and, according to a common opinion in antiquity, their name became the general designation of the Spartan bondsmen, helots, but the name of these slaves (εἵλωτες) probably signified captives, and was derived from the root of ἑλεῖν.: the account differs a little in In the time of Strabo Helos was only a village; and when it was visited by Pausanias, it was in ruins. Helos is also mentioned by Thucydides, Xenophon, and Stephanus of Byzantium. It is tentatively located at a site called Agios Stephanos, in the modern community of Elos.
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For the first time the amount of produce the Helots had to surrender to each klaros-holder was specified in absolute quantities rather than as a proportion of the annual yield. Cleomenes trained 4,000 Hoplites and restored the ancient Spartan military and social discipline. The citizens' children were required to pass through an agoge, and the adult citizens had to practise again the old austere diaita centred upon communal living within the framework of the military-minded masses. More significantly, Cleomenes decreed that his new army should follow the model of the Macedonian army, a century after the bitter defeat of the Athenians and Thebans to the Macedonians at Chaeronea.
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Robin Cohen's doctoral work was published as Labour and politics in Nigeria (1974). There followed collaborative work on labour movements and labour history in other parts of Africa. However, his interest and expertise in labour developed into a wider project about the continuing significance of the movement of people across national boundaries and the problems to which this has given rise in very many parts of the world. In The new Helots (1987), he suggested that Marx had underestimated the continuing salience of migrant labour, a feature that allowed capitalism to thrive and thereby evade the fundamental confrontation between worker and employer that Marx predicted.
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To maintain the social system of the city, it was necessary to have a force ready to oppose any uprising of the helots (that occurred several times in the classical period). To ensure their military readiness, Spartiate youths enrolled in military training (agoge) from the age of seven to thirty, the age of full citizenship. From that age until they became too old to fight, they would live in their barracks, visiting their families (and, later, their wives) only when they could sneak out. Spartiate women, as well, were expected to remain athletically fit since the Spartans believed that strong and healthy parents would produce strong and healthy children.
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He argues these laws were intended to preserve the native character of the Doric tribe from any taint of foreign influence. However, Müller wrote in the context of a racial, mythographic view of history - they were the invading and occupying force in Lacedæmonia, holding down a population of servile peasants, called Helots, by iron military rule, and so, themselves, in the strict sense, xenoi. Niccolò Machiavelli believed that Sparta lasted a long time because "she did not permit strangers to establish themselves in the republic" and remarked that the Roman Republic took the opposite course of Sparta spelling her doom.The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli, trans.
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The outcome not looking to be promising, the Ezhava leadership threatened that they would convert from Hinduism en masse, rather than stay as helots of Hindu society. C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer, realising the imminent danger, prompted the Maharajah to issue the Temple Entry Proclamation, which abolished the ban on lower-caste people from entering Hindu temples in the state. Steven Wilkinson says that the Proclamation was passed because the government was "frightened" by the Ezhava threat of conversion to Christianity. Eventually, in 1903, a small group of Ezhavas, led by Palpu, established Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalan Yogam (SNDP), the first caste association in the region.
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The sources on Nabis, who took power in 207 BC, are so uniformly hostile that it is impossible today to judge the truth of the accusation against him - that his reforms were undertaken only to serve Nabis' interests.Paul Cartledge, The Spartans p234 Certainly his reforms went far deeper than those of Cleomenes who had liberated 6000 helots merely as an emergency measure.Paul Cartledge, The Spartans p. 235 The Encyclopædia Britannica states: The historian W.G. Forest is willing to take these accusations at face value including that he murdered his ward, and participated in state sponsored piracy and brigandage - but not the self-interested motives ascribed to him.
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This was meant as a supreme honor. The pro-Spartan Athenian magnate Xenophon sent his two sons to Sparta for their education as trophimoi. Alcibiades, being an Alcmaeonid and thus a member of a family with old and strong connections to Sparta, was admitted as a trophimos and famously excelled in the agoge as well as otherwise (he was rumoured to have seduced one of the two queen consorts with his exceptional looks). The other exception was that sons of helots could be enrolled as syntrophoi (comrades, literally "the ones fed, or reared, together") if a Spartiate formally adopted him and paid his way.
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They also took active measures, subjecting them to what Theopompus describes as "an altogether cruel and bitter condition".FGH 115 F 13. According to Myron of Priene, an anti-Spartan historianTalbert, p. 26. of the middle 3rd century BC: Plutarch also states that Spartans treated the Helots "harshly and cruelly": they compelled them to drink pure wine (which was considered dangerous—wine usually being diluted with water) "... and to lead them in that condition into their public halls, that the children might see what a sight a drunken man is; they made them to dance low dances, and sing ridiculous songs..." during syssitia (obligatory banquets).
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The hostages gave the Athenians a bargaining chip. After these battles, the Spartan general Brasidas raised an army of allies and helots and marched the length of Greece to the Athenian colony of Amphipolis in Thrace, which controlled several nearby silver mines; their product supplied much of the Athenian war fund. Thucydides was dispatched with a force which arrived too late to stop Brasidas capturing Amphipolis; Thucydides was exiled for this, and, as a result, had the conversations with both sides of the war which inspired him to record its history. Both Brasidas and Cleon were killed in Athenian efforts to retake Amphipolis (see Battle of Amphipolis).
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In archaic Sparta, it would have been helot women who fulfilled this role, but later in Spartan history, especially after the emancipation of the Messenian helots, many of these women were likely personal slaves. Women in perioicic communities were presumably responsible for the domestic labour for their own household, just as women were elsewhere in the Greek world. Plutarch says in his Life of Lycurgus that due to the lack of money in ancient Sparta, and because of the strict moral regime instituted by Lycurgus, there was no prostitution in Sparta. Later on, when gold and silver was more available, prostitution seemed to have surfaced.
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Slaves were legally prohibited from participating in politics, which was reserved for citizens. Modern historiographical practice distinguishes between chattel slavery (personal possession, where the slave was regarded as a piece of property as opposed to a mobile member of society) versus land-bonded groups such as the penestae of Thessaly or the Spartan helots, who were more like medieval serfs (an enhancement to real estate). The chattel slave is an individual deprived of liberty and forced to submit to an owner, who may buy, sell, or lease them like any other chattel. The academic study of slavery in ancient Greece is beset by significant methodological problems.
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A growing population and a shortage of land also seem to have created internal strife between rich and poor in many city-states. In Sparta, the Messenian Wars resulted in the conquest of Messenia and enserfment of the Messenians, beginning in the latter half of the 8th century BC. This was an unprecedented act in ancient Greece, which led to a social revolutionHolland T. Persian Fire pp. 69–70. in which the subjugated population of helots farmed and labored for Sparta, whilst every Spartan male citizen became a soldier of the Spartan Army permanently in arms. Rich and poor citizens alike were obliged to live and train as soldiers, an equality which defused social conflict.
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Epaminondas (; , Epameinondas; d. 362 BC) was a Greek general of Thebes and statesman of the 4th century BC who transformed the Ancient Greek city-state of Thebes, leading it out of Spartan subjugation into a pre-eminent position in Greek politics. In the process he broke Spartan military power with his victory at Leuctra and liberated the Messenian helots, a group of Peloponnesian Greeks who had been enslaved under Spartan rule for some 230 years after being defeated in the Messenian War ending in 600 BC. Epaminondas reshaped the political map of Greece, fragmented old alliances, created new ones, and supervised the construction of entire cities. He was also militarily influential and invented and implemented several major battlefield tactics.
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Demosthenes, commanding the force at Pylos, initially planned to starve the Spartans out rather than attack them, but as time wore on it became clear that the Spartans would be able to hold out for longer than anticipated.Unless otherwise noted, all details of the siege are drawn from Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 4.26. By offering freedom to Helots and monetary rewards to free men who would volunteer to carry food across to the island, the Spartans were able to bring in a small but critical stream of food. Some of these men reached the island by approaching from the seaward side at night during rough weather; others swam underwater towing bags of food.
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The problem of the lack of man-at-arms was then taken up by Cleomenes III of Sparta, who attempted to address it by his radical reforms. Cleomenes launched a coup against his rivals at home and used their demise to push forward a reform to increase Spartan manpower. In 227 BC, Cleomenes cancelled all debts, pooled and divided the large estates and increased the citizen body by enfranchising 5,000 Perioikoi and 'metics' (resident foreigners). Before long, he increased the citizen body further by allowing Helots to buy their freedom for five minae and therefore he 'acquired 500 talents, some of which he used to arm 2,000 men in the Macedonian fashion as phalangites'.
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The conspiracy of Cinadon was an attempted coup d'état which took place in Sparta in the 4th century BC during the first years of the reign of Eurypontid King Agesilaus II (398 BC-358 BC).This article translated from the French wiki article 15 June 2006 The leader was Cinadon (), who was a distinguished military officer, but came from a poor family. The conspiracy aimed to break the power of the oligarchic Spartan state and its elite and give rights to poorer Spartans and even to helots. Although elaborately organized, the plot was in the end betrayed to the ephors; they cracked down on the conspirators, and Cinadon himself was tortured and executed.
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Once preliminary skirmishing was over, skirmishers participated in the main battle by shooting into the enemy formation, or they joined in melée combat with daggers or short swords. Their mobility made skirmishers also valuable for reconnaissance, especially in wooded or urban areas. In Classical Greece, skirmishers originally had a low status. For example, Herodotus, in his account of the Battle of Plataea of 479 BC, mentioned that the Spartan Army fielded 35,000 lightly-armed helots to 5,000 hoplites, but there is no mention of them in his account of the fighting.Greek Warfare, Myths and Realities, Hans van Wees p61 Often, Greek historians ignored them altogether, but Xenophon distinguished them explicitly from the statary troops.
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The massacre of Cape Taenarus, the promontory formed by the southernmost tip of Taygetus, is also reported by Thucydides:Thucydides, 1.128, 1. > The Lacedaemonians had once raised up some helot suppliants from the temple > of Poseidon at Taenarus, led them away and slain them; for which they > believe the great earthquake at Sparta to have been a retribution. This affair, recalled by the Athenians in responding to a Spartan request to exile Pericles--who was an Alcmaeonid on his mother's side--is not dated. Historians know only that it happened before the disastrous earthquake of 464 BC. Thucydides here is the only one to implicate the helots: Pausanias speaks rather about Lacedaemonians who had been condemned to death.
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Such brutal repression of the helots permitted the Spartan elite to successfully control the servile agrarian population and devote themselves to military practice. It may also have contributed to the Spartans' reputation for stealth since a kryptēs (κρύπτης) who got caught was punished by whipping.Paul Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia: A Regional History 1300-362 BC, 2nd Edition, Routledge, 2001 Only Spartans who had served in the Krypteia as young men could expect to achieve the highest ranks in Spartan society and army. It was felt that only those Spartans who showed the willingness and ability to kill for the state at a young age were worthy to join the leadership in later years.
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In return for his assistance in the war, Rome accepted Nabis' possession of the polis of Argos. While Nabis was already King of Sparta, he made his wife Apia ruler of her hometown Argos. Afterwards, Apia and Nabis staged a financial coup by confiscating large amounts of property from the wealthy families of these cities, and torturing those who resisted them; much of the confiscated land was redistributed to liberated helots loyal to Nabis.Cartledge and Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta:A tale of two Cities, 74 After increasing his territory and wealth by the aforementioned method, Nabis started to turn the port of Gythium into a major naval arsenal and fortified the city of Sparta.
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The planet's orbiting space station/weapons platform is taken over by elements of the 77th, then retaken by the Legion and CoDominium Navy units loyal to Lermontov. A fratricidal space battle between the battle cruiser whose captain is aware of what he can do with the force at his command on one side, and the recaptured space station plus the CoDominium naval squadron based on Sparta whose captains and officers support Lermontov on the other, is averted. The scenario graphically demonstrates the chaos to come after the CoDominium falls. Ordinary armed Spartan Citizens stand and fight with so much determination that the Line Marines, contrasting the Citizens with the Helots, change sides.
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120 of these were from the Spartiate class, and their peril threw the Spartan government into a panic. Members of the government were dispatched to the scene, and negotiated an armistice on the spot; the entire Spartan fleet was surrendered to the Athenians as a guarantee for Spartan good conduct, and ambassadors were sent to Athens to seek a permanent peace. When these negotiations failed, the Athenians retained possession of the Spartan ships on a pretext, and settled in to besiege the hoplites on Sphacteria; eventually, in the Battle of Sphacteria, those hoplites were captured and taken as hostages to Athens. Pylos remained in Athenian hands, and was used as a base for raids into Spartan territory and as a refuge for fleeing Spartan Helots.
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They were told that they would not conquer all of Arcadia but it was possible for Tegea to fall, for the oracle would "give you Tegea to dance in with stamping feet and her fair plain to measure out the line". The Spartans misinterpreted this oracle, believing that it referred to them measuring out the line to split it into kleros (the land allocated to each Spartan citizen upon coming of age). They then marched to battle carrying rods with which to parcel out their soon-to-be-conquered land and chains (fetters) with which to shackle their soon-to-be-conquered Arcadian Helots. Instead, they themselves became prisoners of war and ended up wearing the very chains they had brought with them.
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The 464 BCE Sparta earthquake is marked by scholars as one of the key events that led to the First Peloponnesian War. However, according to Thucydides, the ancient Greek chronicler of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta had already decided to invade Attica when the earthquake struck. In the aftermath of the earthquake, the helots and various Messenian subjects of Sparta revolted; Sparta invoked the aid of other Greek cities to put down the rebellion, which they were obliged to help in accordance with the alliance. Athens, whose aid the Spartans sought because of their "reputed experience in siege operations," sent approximately 4,000 hoplites under the leadership of Cimon, but this contingent was sent back to Athens, while those from other cities were allowed to stay.
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Sparta's constitution took on the form it would have in the Classical period during the eighth century BC. By the classical period, Spartan tradition attributed this constitution to Lycurgus of Sparta, which was dated by Thucydides to a little over four centuries before the end of the Peloponnesian War, or around the end of the ninth century. The First Messenian War, probably taking place from approximately 740 to 720 BC, saw the strengthening of the powers of the Gerousia against the assembly, and the enslavement of the Messenian population as Helots. Around the same time, the ephors gained the power to restrict the actions of the kings of Sparta. Thus by the late seventh century, Sparta's constitution had recognisably taken on its classical form.
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Pelopidas and Epaminondas endowed Thebes with democratic institutions similar to those of Athens, the Thebans revived the title of "Boeotarch" lost in the Persian King's Peace and—with victory at Leuctra and the destruction of Spartan power—the pair achieved their stated objective of renewing the confederacy. Epaminondas rid the Peloponnesus of pro-Spartan oligarchies, replacing them with pro-Theban democracies, constructed cities, and rebuilt a number of those destroyed by Sparta. He equally supported the reconstruction of the city of Messene thanks to an invasion of Laconia that also allowed him to liberate the helots and give them Messene as a capital. He decided in the end to constitute small confederacies all round the Peloponnessus, forming an Arcadian confederacy (the King's Peace had destroyed a previous Arcadian confederacy and put Messene under Spartan control).
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By this time, Agesilaus's army, after brushing off attacks from the Thessalians during its march through that country, had arrived in Boeotia, where it was met by an army gathered from the various states of the anti-Spartan alliance. Agesilaus's force from Asia, composed largely of emancipated helots and mercenary veterans of the Ten Thousand, was augmented by half a Spartan regiment from Orchomenus, and another half a regiment that had been transported across the Gulf of Corinth. These armies met each other at Coronea, in Theban territory; as at Nemea, both right wings were victorious, with the Thebans breaking through while the rest of the allies were defeated. Seeing that the rest of their force had been defeated, the Thebans formed up to break back through to their camp.
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Certain young Spartan men who had completed their training at the agoge with such success that they were marked out as potential future leaders would be given the opportunity to test their skills and prove themselves worthy of the Spartan polity through participation in the Krypteia. Every autumn, according to Plutarch (Life of Lycurgus, 28, 3–7), the Spartan ephors would pro forma declare war on the helot population so that any Spartan citizen could kill a helot without fear of punishment. At night, the chosen kryptai (κρύπται, members of the Krypteia) were sent out into the countryside armed with knives with the instructions to kill any helot they encountered and to take any food they needed. They were specifically told to kill the strongest and best of the helots.
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Upon discovering that his army had been encircled, Leonidas told his allies that they could leave if they wanted to. While many of the Greeks took him up on his offer and fled, around two thousand soldiers stayed behind to fight and die. Knowing that the end was near, the Greeks marched into the open field and met the Persians head-on. Many of the Greek contingents then either chose to withdraw (without orders) or were ordered to leave by Leonidas (Herodotus admits that there is some doubt about which actually happened).Herodotus VII, 219Herodotus VII, 220 The contingent of 700 Thespians, led by their general Demophilus, refused to leave and committed themselves to the fight.Herodotus VII, 222 Also present were the 400 Thebans and probably the helots who had accompanied the Spartans.
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This led to a serious decline in Sparta's military power, and the aim of Nabis reforms was to reestablish a class of loyal subjects capable of serving as well-equipped phalangites (operating in a close and deep formation, with a longer spear than the hoplites'). Nabis' liberation of the enslaved helots was one of the most outstanding deeds in Spartan history. With this action, Nabis eliminated a central ideological pillar of the old Spartan social system and the chief reason for objection to Spartan expansion by the surrounding poleis (city- states). Guarding against helot revolt had been, until this time, the central concern of Spartan foreign policy, and the need to protect against internal revolt had limited adventurism abroad; Nabis' action abolished this concern with a single stroke.
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A nucleus of Greeks, probably Chalcideans, seems to have settled at Grammichele (site of ancient Occhiolà, abandoned after the 1693 earthquake and usually identified with Echetla in the literary sources) and Morgantina in the mid 6th century BC. Existing scholarship argues that Sicily had been colonised by the Greeks as far as Enna by 500 BC. However, the Siculi soon found themselves in a similar position to the helots in ancient Sparta - they were not technically someone's property, but were indissolubly linked to the land. According to Herodotus they were named killichirioi. The pressure of the new Greek population pushed the existing Siculi and Sicani further and further into the island's interior - forced to abandon the coast, they often became a problem for the new colonies, with clashes over territory and later full revolts against the colonists.
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In the aftermath, however, due to the plottings of Pausanias with the Persians and their unwillingness to campaign too far from home, the Spartans withdrew into a relative isolation, leaving the rising power of Athens to lead the continued effort against the Persians. This isolationist tendency was further reinforced by the revolts of some of her allies and a great earthquake in 464, which was followed by a large scale revolt of the Messenian helots. The parallel rise of Athens as a major power in Greece led to friction with Sparta, and to two large-scale conflicts, (the First and Second Peloponnesian Wars), which devastated Greece. Sparta suffered several defeats during these wars, including, for the first time, the surrender of an entire Spartan unit at Sphacteria in 425 BC, but ultimately emerged victorious, primarily through the aid it received from the Persians.
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At Pylos, a Messenian garrison was installed, and these men, launching raids into country that had once been their home, did significant damage to the Spartans and instigated the desertion of numerous Helots. At Athens, Cleon, his seemingly mad promise fulfilled, was the man of the hour; he was granted meals at the state's expense in the prytaneum (the same reward granted to Olympic champions), and most scholars see his hand in the legislation of the following months, the most prominent item of which was an increased levy of tribute on the empire.Kagan, The Peloponnesian War, 152-3 Sphacteria had changed the nature of the war. The next few years would see a newly aggressive Athens, and it would take a string of Athenian reverses to diffuse the impetus that the surrenders had given and bring the two sides to the table to negotiate the Peace of Nicias in 421 BC.
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From the 6th century BC, it was one of the cities that controlled trade routes along the coast of Thrace; there were even confirmed dealings with the Greek colonies in Italy, especially concerning the export of the famous local wine Mendaeos oinos. During the 5th century BC, Mende became one of the most important allies of Athens and joined the Delian League, paying a tax that varied from six up to fifteen Attic talents per year. However, in 423 BC, it managed to revolt against Athenian rule, a situation that did not last long as the Athenians quickly suppressed the revolt (Thuc. iv. 121). During the Peloponnesian War, Mende, Toroni and Skione were the main regional goals of the two combatants, Athens and Sparta, specially after Brasidas,the Spartan general, raised an army of allies and helots and went for the sources of Athenian power in north Greece in 424.
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Leonidas at Thermopylae (1814) by Jacques-Louis David, who chose the subject in the aftermath of the French Revolution as a model of "civic duty and self- sacrifice", but also as a contemplation of loss and death, with Leonidas quietly poised and heroically nudeJack Johnson, "David and Literature," in Jacques-Louis David: New Perspectives (Rosemont, 2006), pp. 85–86 et passim. Upon receiving a request from the confederated Greek forces to aid in defending Greece against the Persian invasion, Sparta consulted the Oracle at Delphi. The Oracle is said to have made the following prophecy in hexameter verse: In August 480 BC, Leonidas marched out of Sparta to meet Xerxes' army at Thermopylae with a small force of 1,200 men (900 helots and 300 Spartan hoplites), where he was joined by forces from other Greek city-states, who put themselves under his command to form an army of 7,000 strong.
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At least three distinct traditions carry the origins of the Parthenians. The oldest is that of Antiochus of Syracuse (a contemporary of Thucydides quoted by Strabo, VI, 3, 2), according to which the Spartiates, during the first Messenian war (end of the 8th century BC), had rejected like cowards those who had not fought, along with their descendants: > "Antiochus says that, during the Messenian war, those Lacedemonians which > did not take part with the mission shall be declared as slaves and called > Helots; as for the children born during the mission, we shall call them > Parthenians and deny them of all legal rights." The Parthenians were therefore the first tresantes ("trembling"), a category which gathers the cowards and thus excludes themselves from the community of the Homoioi, the Peers. Thereafter, Parthenians plotted against the Peers and, discovered, would have been driven out of Sparta, from which they departed for Italy and founded Taras, whose date is traditionally fixed in 706 BC - which archaeology does not deny.
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Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 1.102 When the rebellious helots were finally forced to surrender and permitted to evacuate the state, the Athenians settled them at the strategic city of Naupaktos on the Gulf of Corinth.Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War 1.103 In 459 BC, Athens took advantage of a war between its neighbors Megara and Corinth, both Spartan allies, to conclude an alliance with Megara, giving the Athenians a critical foothold on the Isthmus of Corinth. A fifteen-year conflict, commonly known as the First Peloponnesian War, ensued, in which Athens fought intermittently against Sparta, Corinth, Aegina, and a number of other states. For a time during this conflict, Athens controlled not only Megara but also Boeotia; at its end, however, in the face of a massive Spartan invasion of Attica, the Athenians ceded the lands they had won on the Greek mainland, and Athens and Sparta recognized each other's right to control their respective alliance systems.
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Agesilaus is first recorded as king during the suppression of the conspiracy of Cinadon, shortly after 398 BC. Then, in 396, Agesilaus crossed into Asia with a force of 2,000 neodamodes (freed helots) and 6,000 allies (including 30 Spartiates) to liberate Greek cities from Persian dominion. On the eve of sailing from Aulis he attempted to offer a sacrifice, as Agamemnon had done before the Trojan expedition, but the Thebans intervened to prevent it, an insult for which he never forgave them. Armoured cavalry of Achaemenid Hellespontine Phrygia attacking a Greek psiloi at the time of the invasion of Agesilaus, Altıkulaç Sarcophagus, early 4th century BCE. On his arrival at Ephesus in 396 BC, a three months' truce was concluded with Tissaphernes, the satrap of Lydia and Caria, but negotiations conducted during that time proved fruitless, and on its termination Agesilaus raided Hellespontine Phrygia, where he easily won immense booty from the satrap Pharnabazus; Tissaphernes could offer no assistance, as he had concentrated his troops in Caria.
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Now that he was Gauleiter of the Sudetenland, Henlein revealed his real feelings about the Czechs, whom he deeply hated, and whose policies towards were described by Cornwall as "merciless". Henlein imposed what Cornwall called an "apartheid" regime on the Czech minority in the Sudetenland that was designed to ensure the total physical separation of the German and Czech communities with the Czechs being forced to accept considerably more inferior facilities than the Germans. Henlein openly stated that the ethnic Czechs in the Sudetenland were to serve as "helots" to the Germans, and he banned Czech children from going beyond primary school as he believed that allowing the Czechs any sort of education beyond primary school would encourage them to demand equality again. Henlein pursued tax policies that were highly discriminatory towards Czechs who owned homes, businesses and land, and in 1942–43, he confiscated much land owned by ethnic Czech farmers who had been unable to pay their taxes, and handed them over to 3,000 settlers who arrived from Germany.
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Cephisodotus (; lived 4th century BC) was an Athenian general and orator, who was sent with Callias, Autocles, and others in 371 BC to negotiate peace with Sparta. Again, in 369 BC, when the Spartan ambassadors had come to Athens to settle the terms of the desired alliance between the states, and the Athenian council had proposed that the land-forces of the confederacy should be under the command of Sparta, and the navy under that of Athens, Cephisodotus persuaded the assembly to reject the proposal, on the ground that, while Athenian citizens would have to serve under Spartan generals, few but Helots (who principally manned the ships) would be subject to Athenian control. Another arrangement was then adopted, by which the command of the entire force was to be held by each state alternately for five days. It seems to have been about 359 BC that he was sent out with a squadron to the Hellespont, where the Athenians hoped that the Euboean adventurer, Charidemus, the friend of Cephisodotus, would, according to his promise made through the latter, co- operate with him in re-annexing the Thracian Chersonese to their dominion.
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He had not based his case against the Transvaal on the letter of the Conventions, and regarded the employment of the word "suzerainty" merely as an "etymological question," but he realised keenly that the spectacle of thousands of British subjects in the Transvaal in the condition of "helots" (as he expressed it) was undermining the prestige of Great Britain throughout South Africa, and he called for "some striking proof" of the intention of the British government not to be ousted from its predominant position. This dispatch was telegraphed to London, and was intended for immediate publication; but it was kept private for a time by the home government. Its tenor was known, however, to the leading politicians at the Cape, and at the insistence of Jan Hendik Hofmeyr a peace conference was held (31 May5 June) at Bloemfontein between the high commissioner and Transvaal President Kruger. Milner made three demands, which he knew could not be accepted by Kruger: The enactment by the Transvaal of a franchise law which would at once give the Uitlanders the vote; the use of English in the Transvaal parliament; and that all laws of the parliament should be vetted and approved by the British parliament.
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