SPARTA
THE PEOPLE
Laconia.—When the Dorian mountaineers invaded the Peloponnesus, the main body of them settled at Sparta in Laconia. Laconia is a narrow valley traversed by a considerable stream (the Eurotas) flowing between two massive mountain ranges with snowy summits. A poet describes the country as follows: "A land rich in tillable soil, but hard to cultivate, deep set among perpendicular mountains, rough in aspect, inaccessible to invasion." In this enclosed country lived the Dorians of Sparta in the midst of the ancient inhabitants who had become, some their subjects, others their serfs. There were, then, in Laconia three classes: Helots, Periœci, Spartiates.
The Helots.—The Helots dwelt in the cottages scattered in the plain and cultivated the soil. But the land did not belong to them—indeed, they were not even free to leave it. They were, like the serfs of the Middle Ages, peasants attached to the soil, from father to son. They labored for a Spartiate proprietor who took from them the greater part of the harvest. The Spartiates instructed them, feared them, and ill treated them. They compelled them to wear rude garments, beat them unreasonably to remind them of their servile condition, and sometimes made them intoxicated to disgust their children with the sight of drunkenness. A Spartiate poet compares the Helots to "loaded asses stumbling under their burdens and the blows inflicted."
The Periœci.—The Periœci (those who live around) inhabited a hundred villages in the mountains or on the coast. They were sailors, they engaged in commerce, and manufactured the objects necessary to life. They were free and administered the business of their village, but they paid tribute to the magistrates of Sparta and obeyed them.
Condition of the Spartiates.—Helots and Periœci despised the Spartiates, their masters. "Whenever one speaks to them of the Spartiates," says Xenophon,[62] "there isn't one of them who can conceal the pleasure he would feel in eating them alive." Once an earthquake nearly destroyed Sparta: the Helots at once rushed from all sides of the plain to massacre those of the Spartiates who had escaped the catastrophe. At the same time the Periœci rose and refused obedience. The Spartiates' bearing toward the Periœci was certain to exasperate them. At the end of a war in which many of the Helots had fought in their army, they bade them choose those who had especially distinguished themselves for bravery, with the promise of freeing them. It was a ruse to discover the most energetic and those most capable of revolting. Two thousand were chosen; they were conducted about the temples with heads crowned as an evidence of their manumission; then the Spartiates put them out of the way, but how it was done no one ever knew.[63]
And yet the oppressed classes were ten times more, numerous than their masters. While there were more than 200,000 Helots and 120,000 Periœci, there were never more than 9,000 Spartiate heads of families. In a matter of life and death, then, it was necessary that a Spartiate be as good as ten Helots. As the form of battle was hand-to-hand, they needed agile and robust men. Sparta was like a camp without walls; its people was an army always in readiness.
EDUCATION
The Children.—They began to make soldiers of them at birth. The newly-born infant was brought before a council; if it was found deformed, it was exposed on the mountain to die; for an army has use only for strong men. The children who were permitted to grow up were taken from their parents at the age of seven years and were trained together as members of a group. Both summer and winter they went bare-foot and had but a single mantle. They lay on a heap of reeds and bathed in the cold waters of the Eurotas. They ate little and that quickly and had a rude diet. This was to teach them not to satiate the stomach. They were grouped by hundreds, each under a chief. Often they had to contend together with blows of feet and fists. At the feast of Artemis they were beaten before the statue of the goddess till the blood flowed; some died under this ordeal, but their honor required them not to weep. They were taught to fight and suffer.
Often they were given nothing to eat; provision must be found by foraging. If they were captured on these predatory expeditions, they were roughly beaten. A Spartiate boy who had stolen a little fox and had hidden it under his mantle, rather than betray himself let the animal gnaw out his vitals. They were to learn how to escape from perplexing situations when they were in the field.