§ 1. Helots of Sparta. Their political condition. § 2. Their
service in war. § 3. Treatment of the helots. § 4. The crypteia. §
5. Various degrees of helotism. § 6. Number of the helots. § 7.
The phylæ of Pitana, Limnæ, Mesoa, and Cynosura.
1. The condition of the Periœci and that of the Helots must be carefully
distinguished from each other; the latter state may be termed “villenage,”
or “bondage,” to which that of the Periœci had not the slightest
resemblance.(105) The common account of the origin of this class is, that
the inhabitants of the maritime town Helos were reduced by Sparta to this
state of degradation, after an insurrection against the Dorians already
established in power.(106) This explanation, however, rests merely on an
etymology, and that by no means a probable one; since such a Gentile name
as Εἵλως (which seems to be the more ancient form) cannot by any method of
formation have been derived from Ἕλος. The word Εἵλως is probably a
derivative from Ἕλω; in a passive sense, and consequently means _the
prisoners_.(107) Perhaps it signifies those who were taken after having
resisted to the uttermost, whereas the Periœci had surrendered upon
conditions; at least Theopompus(108) calls them Achæans as well as the
others. It appears, however, more probable that they were an aboriginal
race, which was subdued at a very early period, and which immediately
passed over as slaves to the Doric conquerors.(109)
In speaking of the condition of the Helots, we will consider their
political rights and their personal treatment under separate heads, though
in fact the two subjects are very nearly connected. The first were
doubtless exactly defined by law and custom, though the expressions made
use of by ancient authors are frequently vague and ambiguous. “They were,”
says Ephorus,(110) “in a certain point of view public slaves. Their
possessor could neither liberate them, nor sell them beyond the borders.”
From this it is evident that they were considered as belonging properly to
the state, which to a certain degree permitted them to be possessed, and
apportioned them out to individuals, reserving to itself the power of
enfranchising them. But to sell them out of the country was not in the
power even of the state; and, to the best of our knowledge, such an event
never occurred. It is, upon the whole, most probable that individuals had
no power to sell them at all; since they were, for the most part, attached
to the land, which was inalienable. On these lands they had certain fixed
dwellings of their own, and particular services and payments were
prescribed to them.(111) They paid as rent a fixed measure of corn; not,
however, like the Periœci, to the state, but to their masters. As this
quantity had been definitively settled at a very early period (to raise
the amount being forbidden under heavy imprecations),(112) the Helots were
the persons who profited by a good, and lost by a bad harvest; which must
have been to them an encouragement to industry and good husbandry; a
motive which would have been wanting, if the profit and loss had merely
affected the landlords. And thus (as is proved by the accounts respecting
the Spartan agriculture),(113) a careful management of the cultivation of
the soil was kept up. By means of the rich produce of the land, and in
part by plunder obtained in war,(114) they collected a considerable
property,(115) to the attainment of which almost every access was closed
to the Spartans. Now the annual rent paid for each lot was eighty-two
medimni of barley, and a proportionate quantity of oil and wine.(116) It
may therefore be asked how much remained to the Helots themselves, after
paying this amount of corn from each lot. Tyrtæus appears to give some
information, where he describes the Messenian bondmen(117) “as groaning
like asses under heavy burdens, and compelled by force to pay to their
masters a half of the entire produce of the land.”(118)
According to this account, the families of the Helots (of which many
resided on one lot) would have retained only eighty-two medimni on an
average, and the whole amount would have been one hundred and sixty-four.
But this cannot be the institution of which Plutarch speaks; and Tyrtæus
doubtless describes some oppression much aggravated by particular
circumstances. For, assuming that the property of the Spartans amounted to
two-thirds of the whole Laconian territory, which may be rated at three
thousand eight hundred and forty square miles English, and three-fourths
being deducted for hill, wood, pasture-land, vineyards, and plantations,
we have two thousand eight hundred and eighty square miles for the nine
thousand lots of the Spartans; each of which accordingly amounted to
72/225 of a square mile, or one hundred and ninety-two plethra; a space
amply sufficient to have produced four hundred medimni,(119) which, after
the deduction of the eighty-two medimni, would have supplied twenty-one
men with double the common daily allowance, viz., one chœnix of bread. It
is at least manifest that each lot would have been quite sufficient to
maintain six or seven families of Helots. It must not, however, be
supposed that the rent was precisely the same for all the lots of the
Spartan territory. The different quality of the land made such a strict
equalization impossible; not to mention that it would have entirely
destroyed all interest in the possession. We even know that many Spartans
were possessed of herds and flocks, from which they provided young animals
for the public meals.(120) The proprietors, besides their share of the
harvest, received from their lands, at particular periods, the fruits of
the season.(121)
There could not, on the whole, have been much intercourse and connexion
between the Spartans, as possessors of the land, and the bondsmen upon
their estates. For how little interest would the Spartan, who seldom left
the town, and then only for a few days,(122) have felt for Helots, who
dwelt perhaps at Mothone! Nevertheless, the cultivation of the land was
not the only duty of the Helots; they also attended upon their masters at
the public meal,(123) who, according to the Lacedæmonian principle of a
community of goods, mutually lent them to one another.(124) A large number
of them was also doubtless employed by the state in public works.
2. In the field the Helots never served as Hoplitæ, except in
extraordinary cases; and then it was the general practice afterwards to
give them their liberty.(125) On other occasions they attended the regular
army as light-armed troops; and that their numbers were very considerable
may be seen from the battle of Platæa, in which 5000 Spartans were
attended by 35,000 Helots.(126) Although they did not share the honour of
the heavy-armed soldiers, they were in return exposed to a less degree of
danger. For while the former in close rank received the onset of the enemy
with spear and shield, the Helots, armed only with the sling and light
javelin, were in a moment either before or behind the ranks, as Tyrtæus
accurately describes the relative duties of the light-armed soldier
(γύμνης), and the Hoplite. Sparta, in her better time, is never recorded
to have unnecessarily sacrificed the lives of her Helots. A certain number
of them was allotted to each Spartan;(127) at the battle of Platæa this
number was seven. Those who were assigned to a single master were probably
called ἀμπίτταρες.(128) Of these, however, one in particular was the
_servant_ (θεράπων) of his master, as in the story of the blind Spartan,
who was conducted by his Helot into the thickest of the battle of
Thermopylæ, and, while the latter fled, fell with the other heroes.(129)
Θεράπων, or servant, is the appropriate, and indeed honourable,
appellation which the Dorians, particularly in Crete, gave to the armed
slaves;(130) these in Sparta were probably called ἐρυκτῆρες, in allusion
to their duty of drawing (ἐρύκειν) the wounded from the ranks.(131) It
appears that the Helots were in the field placed more immediately under
the command of the king than the rest of the army.(132) In the fleet, they
composed the large mass of the sailors,(133) in which service at Athens
the inferior citizens and slaves were employed; when serving in this
manner they were, it appears, called by the name of δεσποσιοναῦται.
These accounts are sufficient to give a tolerably correct notion of the
relation of the Helots to the Doric citizens of Sparta. Although it does
not fall within the scope of the present work to enter upon a moral or
political examination of the condition of Helotism, I may be allowed to
subjoin a few observations. The Grecian states then either contained a
class of bondsmen, which can be traced in nearly all the Doric states, or
they had slaves, who had been brought either by plunder or commerce from
barbarous countries; or a class of slaves was altogether wanting. The last
was the case among the Phoceans, Locrians, and other Greeks.(134) But
these nations, through the scantiness of their resources, never attained
to such power as Sparta and Athens. Slavery was the basis of the
prosperity of all commercial states, and was intimately connected with
foreign trade; but (besides being a continued violation of justice) it was
upon the whole of little advantage to the public, especially in time of
war; and, according to the doctrine of the ancient politicians, it was
both fraught with danger, and prejudicial to morality and good order. It
must also be remembered, that nearly all the ties of family were broken
among the slaves of Athens, with which the institution of bondage did not
at all interfere;(135) and that in the latter the condition of the bondmen
was rather determined by general custom; in the former, by the arbitrary
will of individuals. Sparta had, indeed, some foreign slaves, but their
number was very inconsiderable. Thus Alcman, the slave of Agesidas,(136)
was the son of a slave from Sardis,(137) who had perhaps been brought by
Cretan traders to the coast of Laconia.
3. It is a matter of much greater difficulty to form a clear notion of the
treatment of the Helots, and of their manner of life; for the rhetorical
spirit with which later historians have embellished their philanthropic
views, joined to our own ignorance, has been productive of much confusion
and misconception. Myron of Priene, in his romance on the Messenian war,
drew a very dark picture of Sparta, and endeavoured at the end to rouse
the feelings of his readers by a description of the fate which the
conquered underwent. “The Helots,” says he,(138) “perform for the Spartans
every ignominious service. They are compelled to wear a cap of dog’s skin
and a covering of sheep’s skin, and they are severely beaten every year
without having committed any fault, in order that they may never forget
that they are slaves. In addition to this, those amongst them who, either
by their stature or their beauty, raise themselves above the condition of
a slave, are condemned to death; and the masters who do not destroy the
most manly of them are liable to punishment.” The partiality and ignorance
of this writer is evident from his very first statement. The Helots wore
the leathern cap with a broad band, and the covering of sheep’s skin,
simply because it was the original dress of the natives; which moreover
the Arcadians had retained from ancient usage;(139) Laertes the father of
Ulysses, when he assumed the character of a peasant, is also represented
as wearing a cap of goat’s skin.(140) The truth is, that the ancients made
a distinction between town and country costume. Hence, when the tyrants of
Sicyon wished to accustom the unemployed people, whose numbers they
dreaded, to a country life, they forced them to wear the κατωνάκη, which
had underneath a lining of fur.(141) The Pisistratidæ made use of the very
same measure.(142) Thus also Theognis describes the countrymen of Megara
(whose admission to the rights of citizenship he deplores) as clothed with
dressed skins, and dwelling around the town like frightened deer.(143) The
_dipthera_ of the Helots therefore signified nothing more humiliating and
degrading than their employment in agricultural labour. Myron is doubtless
right in stating that the Helots could not lay aside this dress at
pleasure; indeed, a young Spartan could not assume the dress of an older
man. Whilst in Athens the influence of democracy had produced an
uniformity of dress, and even (according to Xenophon)(144) of bodily form,
in citizens, resident aliens, and slaves; in Sparta the several orders
were characterised by external differences. Now since Myron thus
manifestly misinterpreted this circumstance, it is very probable that his
other objections are founded in error; nor can misrepresentations of this
political state, which was unknown to the later Greeks, and particularly
to the class of writers, have been uncommon. Plutarch,(145) for example,
relates that the Helots were compelled to intoxicate themselves, and
perform indecent dances, as a warning to the Spartan youth; but common
sense is opposed to so absurd a method of education. Is it possible that
the Spartans should have so degraded the men whom they appointed as tutors
over their young children? Female Helots also discharged the office of
nurse in the royal palaces,(146) and doubtless obtained all the affection
with which the attendants of early youth were honoured in ancient times.
It is, however, certain that the Doric laws did not bind servants to
strict temperance;(147) and hence examples of drunkenness among them might
have served as a means of recommending sobriety. It was also an
established regulation, that the national songs and dances of Sparta were
forbidden to the Helots,(148) who, on the other hand, had some extravagant
and lascivious dances peculiar to themselves, which may have given rise to
the above report.(149) We must, moreover, bear in mind, that most of the
strangers who visited Sparta, and gave an account of its institutions,
seized upon particular cases which they had imperfectly observed, and,
without knowing their real nature, described them in the light suggested
by their own false prepossessions.
4. But are we not labouring in vain to soften the bad impression of
Myron’s account, since the fearful word _crypteia_ is of itself sufficient
to show the unhappy fate of the Helots, and the cruelty of their masters?
By this word is generally understood, a chase of the Helots, annually
undertaken at a fixed time by the youth of Sparta, who either assassinated
them by night, or massacred them formally in open day, in order to lessen
their numbers, and weaken their power.(150) Isocrates speaks of this
institution in a very confused manner, and from mere report.(151)
Aristotle however, as well as Heraclides of Pontus,(152) attribute it to
Lycurgus, and represent it as a war which the Ephors themselves, on
entering upon their yearly office, proclaimed against the Helots. Thus it
was a regularly legalised massacre, and the more barbarous, as its
periodical arrival could be foreseen by the unhappy victims. And yet were
not these Helots, who in many districts lived entirely alone, united by
despair for the sake of common protection, and did they not every year
kindle a most bloody and determined war throughout the whole of Laconia?
Such are the inextricable difficulties in which we are involved by giving
credit to the received accounts: the solution of which is, in my opinion,
to be found in the speech of Megillus the Spartan, in the Laws of
Plato,(153) who is there celebrating the manner of inuring his countrymen
to hardships. “There is also amongst us,” he says, “what is called the
_crypteia_, the pain of undergoing which is scarcely credible. It consists
in going barefoot in storms, in enduring the privations of the camp,
performing menial offices without a servant, and wandering night and day
through the whole country.” The same is more clearly expressed in another
passage,(154) where the philosopher settles, that in his state sixty
agronomi or phylarchs, should each choose twelve young men from the age of
twenty-five to thirty, and send them as guards in succession through the
several districts, in order to inspect the fortresses, roads, and public
buildings in the country; for which purpose they should have power to make
free use of the slaves. During this time they were to live sparingly, to
minister to their own wants, and range through the whole country in arms
without intermission, both in winter and summer. These persons were to be
called κρυπτοὶ, or ἀγορανόμοι. Can it be supposed that Plato would have
here used the name of _crypteia_, if it signified an assassination of the
Helots, or rather, if there was not an exact agreement in essentials
between the institution which he proposed, and that in existence at
Sparta, although the latter was perhaps one of greater hardship and
severity? The youth of Sparta were also sent out, under certain
officers,(155) partly for the purpose of training them to hardships,
partly of inspecting the territory of Sparta, which was of considerable
extent. These emissaries may probably have kept a strict watch upon the
Helots, who, living by themselves, and entirely separated from their
masters, must have been for that reason the more formidable to Sparta. We
must allow that oppression and severity were not sufficiently provided
against; only the aim of the custom was wholly different; though perhaps
it is reckoned by Thucydides(156) among those institutions which, as he
says, were established for the purpose of keeping a watch over the Helots.
It is hardly necessary to remark that this established institution of the
crypteia was in no way connected with those extraordinary measures to
which Sparta thought herself compelled in hazardous circumstances to
resort. Thucydides leaves us to guess the fate of the 2000 Helots who,
after having been destined for the field, suddenly disappeared. It was the
curse of this bondage (of which Plato says that it produced the greatest
doubt and difficulty)(157) that the slaves abandoned their masters when
they stood in greatest need of their assistance; and hence the Spartans
were even compelled to stipulate in treaties for aid against their own
subjects.(158)
5. A more favourable side of the Spartan system of bondage is, that a
legal way to liberty and citizenship stood open to the Helots.(159) The
many intermediate steps seem to prove the existence of a regular mode of
transition from the one rank to the other. The Helots, who were esteemed
worthy of an especial confidence, were called ἀργεῖοι;(160) the ἐρυκτῆρες
enjoyed the same in war: the ἀφέται were probably released from all
service. The δεσποσιοναῦται, who served in the fleet, resembled probably
the freed-men of Attica, who were called the _out-dwellers_ (ἱ χωρὶς
οἰκοῦντες).(161) When they received their liberty, they also obtained
permission “_to dwell where they wished_,”(162) and probably at the same
time a portion of land was granted to them without the lot of their former
masters. After they had been in possession of liberty for some time, they
appear to have been called _Neodamodes_,(163) the number of whom soon came
near to that of the citizens.(164) The _Mothones_, or _Mothaces_, also,
were not Periœci (of whose elevation to the rank of Spartans we know
nothing), but Helots, who, being brought up together with the young
Spartans (like Eumæus in the house of Ulysses), obtained freedom without
the rights of citizenship.(165) For μόθων means a domestic slave, _verna_;
and Periœci could never have been called by this name, not being dependent
upon individual Spartans.(166) The descendants of the Mothaces must also
have sometimes received the rights of citizenship, since Callicratidas,
Lysander, and Gylippus were of Mothacic origin.(167) Those citizens who,
in obedience to the ancient law of inheritance, married a widow of a
deceased person, were (if we may judge from the etymology of the word)
called _Epeunacti_: that slaves were once employed for this purpose is
testified by Theopompus.(168)
6. The number of the Helots may be determined with sufficient accuracy
from the account of the army at Platæa. We find that there were present in
this battle 5000 Spartans, 35,000 Helots, and 10,000 Periœci.(169) The
whole number of Spartans that bore arms, amounted on another occasion to
8000, which, according to the same proportion, would give 56,000 for the
number of Helots capable of bearing arms, and for the whole population
about 224,000. If then the state of Sparta possessed 9000 lots there were
twenty male Helots to each (although, as we saw above, a single lot could
probably maintain a larger number), and there remained 44,000 for the
service of the state and of individuals. The account of Thucydides, that
the Chians had the greatest number of slaves of any one state after the
Lacedæmonians,(170) does not compel us to set the amount higher, because
the great number of slaves in Ægina disappeared when that island lost its
freedom, and Athens during the Peloponnesian war certainly did not possess
200,000 slaves. The number of Periœci able to bear arms would, according
to the above proportion, only amount to 16,000; but we must suppose that a
larger portion of them remained behind in Peloponnesus: for since the
Periœci were possessed of 30,000 lots (though of less extent), there must
have been about the same number of families, and we thus get at least
120,000 men; and upon the whole, for the 3800 square miles of Laconia, a
suitable population of 380,000 souls.
From this calculation it also results, that, according to the population
to be maintained, the estates of the Spartans (πολιτικὴ χώρα)(171) must
have amounted to two-thirds of all the tillage-land in the country. This
arrangement could not have been attended with any difficulty after the
conquest of the fertile territory of Messenia, when the number of lots was
doubled,(172) and the area of each was perhaps increased in a still
greater proportion. For when the Spartans had (as it appears) dislodged
the Doric Messenians, and conquered their country, a few maritime and
inland towns (Asine, Mothone, Thuria, and Æthæa) were indeed suffered to
remain in the possession of Periœci; but the best part of a country so
rich in tillage-land, plantations, and pastures,(173) passed into the
hands of Spartan proprietors, and the husbandmen who remained behind
became Helots.(174) It was these last in particular who, during the great
earthquake in 465 B.C., took possession of the towns of Thuria and Æthæa,
fortified the strong hold of Ithome, and afterwards partially
emigrated.(175) If however this insurrection had been common to all the
Helots, as Diodorus relates, how could the Spartans have afterwards
allowed the insurgents to withdraw from the country, without entirely
depriving the land of its cultivators? After the battle of Leuctra also,
it was not the Laconian, but the Messenian Helots who revolted,(176) and
were without doubt the chief promoters of the re-establishment of
Messenia, where they exercised the rights of citizenship in the
newly-founded democracy.(177)
7. In Laconia itself, according to the Rhetra of Agis (which in all
probability merely confirmed existing institutions), the territory
belonging to Sparta consisted of the inland tract, which was bounded by
part of mount Taygetus to the west, by the river Pellene, and by Sellasia
to the north, and extended eastward towards Malea,(178) and this was
therefore at that time cultivated by Helots. Here it may be asked, who
were the inhabitants of the towns situated in this district, for example
Amyclæ, Therapne, and Pharis? Certainly not Helots alone, for there were a
considerable number of Hoplitæ from Amyclæ in the Lacedæmonian army,(179)
who must therefore have been either Spartans or Periœci. But whether the
Periœci inhabited small districts in the midst of the territory
immediately occupied by the Spartans, or whether some Spartans lived out
of the city in country-towns, cannot be completely determined. The former
is, however, the more probable, since some Periœci lived in the vicinity
of the city,(180) and Amyclæ is reckoned among the towns of Laconia;(181)
the Spartans also are mentioned to have had dwellings in the country,(182)
but never to have possessed houses in any other town except Sparta, and a
few villages in the neighbourhood.
This induces us to attempt the solution of the difficult problem, of what
is the proper signification of the Phylæ (as the grammarians sometimes
call them),(183) of Pitana, Limnæ or Limnæum, Mesoa and Cynosura, which
Pausanias also mentions together as divisions of the people.(184) Now
Pausanias calls them divisions of the _Spartans_, and it appears that we
must follow his statement. For in an Amyclæan inscription,(185) Damatrius,
an overseer of the foreigners at Amyclæ, is called a Mesoatan; and in
another inscription, a Gymnasiarch of the Roman time is designated as
belonging to the Phyle of the Cynosurans;(186) and we cannot suppose these
persons to have been Periœci.(187) And if Alcman, according to a credible
account, was a Mesoatan,(188) we may understand by this term a citizen of
Sparta (although of an inferior grade), without contradicting the
authority of Herodotus, who only denies that any _stranger_ besides
Tisamenus and Hegias was ever made a Spartan.(189) Further, it is clear
from ancient writers that Pitana, Limnæ, Mesoa, and Cynosura, were names
of places. We are best informed with respect to Pitana, an ancient town,
and without doubt anterior to the Dorians,(190) which was of sufficient
importance to have its own gymnastic contests,(191) and to furnish a
battalion of its own, called Pitanates.(192) Herodotus, who was there
himself, calls it a demus;(193) and we know that it was near the temple
and stronghold of Issorium,(194) which, according to Pausanias’ topography
of Sparta, must have been situated at the western extremity of the
town.(195) This author also mentions, in the same district of the city,
the porch of the Crotanes, who were a division of the Pitanatæ. We
therefore know that Pitana lay to the west of Sparta, outside the town
according to Herodotus,(196) inside (as it appears) according to
Pausanias. So Limnæ likewise, as we learn from Strabo, was a suburb of
Sparta,(197) and at the same time a part of the town, as also was
Mesoa,(198) whither however Pausanias relates that Preugenes the Achæan
brought the statue of Artemis, rescued from the Dorians at _Sparta_.(199)
It follows from these apparently contradictory accounts, some including
these places in Sparta, and some not, that they were nothing else than the
hamlets (κῶμαι), of which, according to Thucydides,(200) the town of
Sparta consisted, and which lay on all sides around the _city_ (πόλις)
properly so called, but were divided from one another by intervals, until
at a late period (probably when Sparta, during the time of the Macedonian
power, was enclosed with walls) they were united and incorporated
together.