The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 2 of 2

by Karl Otfried Müller

Chapter III.

§ 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; [pg 030] 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 [pg 031] 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 [pg 032] 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 [pg 034] 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 [pg 035] 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 [pg 036] 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 [pg 037] 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 [pg 038] 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 [pg 039] 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] [pg 040] 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 [pg 041] 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 [pg 042] 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 [pg 043] 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 [pg 044] 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 [pg 045] 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 [pg 046] 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 [pg 047] 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 [pg 048] 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 [pg 049] 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 [pg 050] 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.