O. Müller seems to consider that the light-armed, who attended the Periœkic hoplites at Platæa, were not Helots (Dor. iii. 3, 6). Herodotus does not distinctly say that they were so, but I see no reason for admitting two different classes of light-armed in the Spartan military force.
The calculation which Müller gives of the number of Periœki and Helots altogether, proceeds upon very untrustworthy data. Among them is to be noticed his supposition that πολιτικὴ χώρα means the district of Sparta as distinguished from Laconia, which is contrary to the passage in Polybius (vi. 45): πολιτικὴ χώρα, in Polybius, means the territory of the state generally.
[651] Xenophon, Rep. Lac. c. 12, 4; Kritias, De Lacedæm. Repub. ap. Libanium, Orat. de Servitute, t. ii. p. 85, Reisk. ὡς ἀπιστίας εἵνεκα τῆς πρὸς τοὺς Εἵλωτας ἐξαιρεῖ μὲν Σπαρτιατὴς οἴκοι τῆς ἄσπιδος τὴν πόρπακα, etc.
[652] Thucyd. i. 101; iv. 80; v. 14-23.
[653] Thucyd. iv. 80. οἱ δὲ οὐ πολλῷ ὕστερον ἠφάνισάν τε αὐτοὺς, καὶ οὐδεὶς ᾔσθετο ὅτῳ τρόπῳ ἕκαστος διεφθάρη.
[654] Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 28; Heraclides Pontic. p. 504, ed. Crag.
[655] Plato, Legg. i. p. 633: the words of the Lacedæmonian Megillus designate an existing Spartan custom. Compare the same treatise, vi. p. 763, where Ast suspects, without reason, the genuineness of the word κρυπτοί.
[656] Myron, ap. Athenæ. xiv. p. 657. ἐπικόπτειν τοὺς ἁδρουμένους does not strictly mean “to put to death.”
[657] Thucyd. v. 34.
[658] Xenophon, Rep. Lac. c. 7.