Of the assertion of O. Müller—repeated by Schömann[639]—“that the difference of races was strictly preserved, and that the Periœki were always considered as Achæans,”—I find no proof, and I believe it to be erroneous. Respecting Pharis, Geronthræ, and Amyklæ, three Periœkic towns, Pausanias gives us to understand that the preëxisting inhabitants either retired or were expelled on the Dorian conquest, and that a Dorian population replaced them.[640] Without placing great faith in this statement, for which Pausanias could hardly have any good authority, we may yet accept it as representing the probabilities of the case, and as counterbalancing the unsupported hypothesis of Müller. The Periœkic townships were probably composed either of Dorians entirely, or of Dorians incorporated in greater or less proportion with the preëxisting inhabitants. But whatever difference of race there may once have been, it was effaced before the historical times,[641] during which we find no proof of Achæans, known as such, in Laconia. The Herakleids, the Ægeids, and the Talthybiads, all of whom belong to Sparta, seem to be the only examples of separate races, partially distinguishable from Dorians, known after the beginning of authentic history. The Spartans and the Periœki constitute one political aggregate, and that too so completely melted together in the general opinion (speaking of the times before the battle of Leuktra), that the peace of Antalkidas, which guaranteed autonomy to every separate Grecian city, was never so construed as to divorce the Periœkic towns from Sparta. Both are known as Laconians, or Lacedæmonians, and Sparta is regarded by Herodotus only as the first and bravest among the many and brave Lacedæmonian cities.[642] The victors at Olympia are proclaimed, not as Spartans, but as Laconians,—a title alike borne by the Periœki. And many of the numerous winners, whose names we read in the Olympic lists as Laconians, may probably have belonged to Amyklæ or other Periœkic towns.
The Periœkic hoplites constituted always a large—in later times a preponderant—numerical proportion of the Lacedæmonian army, and must undoubtedly have been trained, more or less perfectly, in the peculiar military tactics of Sparta; since they were called upon to obey the same orders as the Spartans in the field,[643] and to perform the same evolutions. Some cases appear, though rare, in which a Periœkus has high command in a foreign expedition. In the time of Aristotle, the larger proportion of Laconia (then meaning only the country eastward of Taygetus, since the foundation of Messênê by Epameinondas had been consummated) belonged to Spartan citizens,[644] but the remaining smaller half must have been the property of the Periœki, who must besides have carried on most of the commerce of export and import,—the metallurgic enterprise, and the distribution of internal produce,—which the territory exhibited; since no Spartan ever meddled in such occupations. And thus the peculiar training of Lykurgus, by throwing all these employments into the hands of the Periœki, opened to them a new source of importance, which the dependent townships of Argos, of Thebes, or of Orchomenus, would not enjoy.
The Helots of Laconia were Coloni, or serfs, bound to the soil, who tilled it for the benefit of the Spartan proprietors certainly,—probably, of Periœkic proprietors also. They were the rustic population of the country, who dwelt, not in towns, but either in small villages[645] or in detached farms, both in the district immediately surrounding Sparta, and round the Periœkic Laconian towns also. Of course, there were also Helots who lived in Sparta and other towns, and did the work of domestic slaves,—but such was not the general character of the class. We cannot doubt that the Dorian conquest from Sparta found this class in the condition of villagers and detached rustics; but whether they were dependent upon preëxisting Achæan proprietors, or independent, like much of the Arcadian village population, is a question which we cannot answer. In either case, however, it is easy to conceive that the village lands (with the cultivators upon them) were the most easy to appropriate for the benefit of masters resident at Sparta; while the towns, with the district immediately around them, furnished both dwelling and maintenance to the outgoing detachments of Dorians. If the Spartans had succeeded in their attempt to enlarge their territory by the conquest of Arcadia,[646] they might very probably have converted Tegea and Mantineia into Periœkic towns, with a diminished territory inhabited (either wholly or in part) by Dorian settlers,—while they would have made over to proprietors in Sparta much of the village lands of the Mænalii, Azanes, and Parrhasii, helotizing the inhabitants. The distinction between a town and a village population seems the main ground of the different treatment of Helots and Periœki in Laconia. A considerable proportion of the Helots were of genuine Dorian race, being the Dorian Messenians west of Mount Taygetus, subsequently conquered and aggregated to this class of dependent cultivators, who, as a class, must have begun to exist from the very first establishment of the invading Dorians in the district round Sparta. From whence the name of Helots arose, we do not clearly make out: Ephorus deduced it from the town of Helus, on the southern coast, which the Spartans are said to have taken after a resistance so obstinate as to provoke them to deal very rigorously with the captives. There are many reasons for rejecting this story, and another etymology has been proposed, according to which Helot is synonymous with captive: this is more plausible, yet still not convincing.[647] The Helots lived in the rural villages, as adscripti glebæ, cultivating their lands and paying over their rent to the master at Sparta, but enjoying their homes, wives, families, and mutual neighborly feelings, apart from the master’s view. They were never sold out of the country, and probably never sold at all; belonging, not so much to the master as to the state, which constantly called upon them for military service, and recompensed their bravery or activity with a grant of freedom. Meno, the Thessalian of Pharsalus, took out three hundred Penestæ of his own, to aid the Athenians against Amphipolis: these Thessalian Penestæ were in many points analogous to the Helots, but no individual Spartan possessed the like power over the latter. The Helots were thus a part of the state, having their domestic and social sympathies developed, a certain power of acquiring property,[648] and the consciousness of Grecian lineage and dialect,—points of marked superiority over the foreigners who formed the slave population of Athens or Chios. They seem to have been noway inferior to any village population of Greece; while the Grecian observer sympathized with them more strongly than with the bought slaves of other states,—not to mention that their homogeneous aspect, their numbers, and their employment in military service, rendered them more conspicuous to the eye.
The service in the Spartan house was all performed by members of the Helot class; for there seem to have been few, if any, other slaves in the country. The various anecdotes which are told respecting their treatment at Sparta, betoken less of cruelty than of ostentatious scorn,[649]—a sentiment which we are noway surprised to discover among the citizens at the mess-table. But the great mass of the Helots, who dwelt in the country, were objects of a very different sentiment on the part of the Spartan ephors, who knew their bravery, energy, and standing discontent, and yet were forced to employ them as an essential portion of the state army. The Helots commonly served as light-armed, in which capacity the Spartan hoplites could not dispense with their attendance. At the battle of Platæa, every Spartan hoplite had seven Helots,[650] and every Periœkic hoplite one Helot, to attend him:[651] but, even in camp, the Spartan arrangements were framed to guard against any sudden mutiny of these light-armed companions, while, at home, the citizen habitually kept his shield disjoined from its holding-ring, to prevent the possibility of its being snatched for the like purpose. Sometimes, select Helots were clothed in heavy armor, and thus served in the ranks, receiving manumission from the state as the reward of distinguished bravery.[652]
But Sparta, even at the maximum of her power, was more than once endangered by the reality, and always beset with the apprehension, of Helotic revolt. To prevent or suppress it, the ephors submitted to insert express stipulations for aid in their treaties with Athens,—to invite Athenian troops into the heart of Laconia,—and to practice combinations of cunning and atrocity which even yet stand without parallel in the long list of precautions for fortifying unjust dominion. It was in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war, after the Helots had been called upon for signal military efforts in various ways, and when the Athenians and Messenians were in possession of Pylus, that the ephors felt especially apprehensive of an outbreak. Anxious to single out the most forward and daring Helots, as the men from whom they had most to dread, they issued proclamation that every member of that class who had rendered distinguished services should make his claims known at Sparta, promising liberty to the most deserving. A large number of Helots came forward to claim the boon: not less than two thousand of them were approved, formally manumitted, and led in solemn procession round the temples, with garlands on their heads, as an inauguration to their coming life of freedom. But the treacherous garland only marked them out as victims for the sacrifice: every man of them forthwith disappeared,—the manner of their death was an untold mystery.
For this dark and bloody deed, Thucydidês is our witness,[653] and Thucydidês describing a contemporary matter into which he had inquired. Upon any less evidence we should have hesitated to believe the statement; but standing as it thus does above all suspicion, it speaks volumes as to the inhuman character of the Lacedæmonian government, while it lays open to us at the same time the intensity of their fears from the Helots. In the assassination of this fated regiment of brave men, a large number of auxiliaries and instruments must have been concerned: yet Thucydidês, with all his inquiries, could not find out how any of them perished: he tells us, that no man knew. We see here a fact which demonstrates unequivocally the impenetrable mystery in which the proceedings of the Spartan government were wrapped,—the absence not only of public discussion, but of public curiosity,—and the perfection with which the ephors reigned over the will, the hands, and the tongues, of their Spartan subjects. The Venetian Council of Ten, with all the facilities for nocturnal drowning which their city presented, could hardly have accomplished so vast a coup-d’état with such invisible means. And we may judge from hence, even if we had no other evidence, how little the habits of a public assembly could have suited either the temper of mind or the march of government at Sparta.
Other proceedings, ascribed to the ephors against the Helots, are conceived in the same spirit as the incident just recounted from Thucydidês, though they do not carry with them the same certain attestation. It was a part of the institutions of Lykurgus (according to a statement which Plutarch professes to have borrowed from Aristotle) that the ephors should every year declare war against the Helots, in order that the murder of them might be rendered innocent; and that active young Spartans should be armed with daggers and sent about Laconia, in order that they might, either in solitude or at night, assassinate such of the Helots as were considered formidable.[654] This last measure passes by the name of the Krypteia, yet we find some difficulty in determining to what extent it was ever realized. That the ephors, indeed, would not be restrained by any scruples of justice or humanity, is plainly shown by the murder of the two thousand Helots above noticed; but this latter incident really answered its purpose, while a standing practice, such as that of the Krypteia, and a formal notice of war given beforehand, would provoke the reaction of despair rather than enforce tranquillity. There seems, indeed, good evidence that the Krypteia was a real practice,[655]—that the ephors kept up a system of police or espionage throughout Laconia, by the employment of active young citizens, who lived a hard and solitary life, and suffered their motions to be as little detected as possible. The ephors might naturally enough take this method of keeping watch both over the Periœkic townships and the Helot villages, and the assassination of individual Helots by these police-men, or Krypts, would probably pass unnoticed. But it is impossible to believe in any standing murderous order, or deliberate annual assassination of Helots, for the purpose of intimidation, as Aristotle is alleged to have represented,—for we may well doubt whether he really did make such a representation, when we see that he takes no notice of this measure in his Politics, where he speaks at some length both of the Spartan constitution and of the Helots. The well-known hatred and fear, entertained by the Spartans towards their Helots, has probably colored Plutarch’s description of the Krypteia, so as to exaggerate those unpunished murders which occasionally happened into a constant phenomenon with express design. A similar deduction is to be made from the statement of Myrôn of Priênê,[656] who alleged that they were beaten every year without any special fault, in order to put them in mind of their slavery,—and that those Helots, whose superior beauty or stature placed them above the visible stamp of their condition, were put to death; while such masters as neglected to keep down the spirit of their vigorous Helots were punished. That secrecy, for which the ephors were so remarkable, seems enough of itself to refute the assertion that they publicly proclaimed war against the Helots; though we may well believe that this unhappy class of men may have been noticed as objects for jealous observation in the annual ephoric oath of office. Whatever may have been the treatment of the Helots in later times, it is at all events hardly to be supposed that any regulation hostile to them can have emanated from Lykurgus. For the dangers arising from that source did not become serious until after the Messenian war,—nor, indeed, until after the gradual diminution of the number of Spartan citizens had made itself felt.
The manumitted Helots did not pass into the class of Periœki,—for this purpose a special grant, of the freedom of some Periœkic township, would probably be required,—but constituted a class apart, known at the time of the Peloponnesian war by the name of Neodamôdes. Being persons who had earned their liberty by signal bravery, they were of course regarded by the ephors with peculiar apprehension, and, if possible, employed on foreign service,[657] or planted on some foreign soil as settlers. In what manner these freedmen employed themselves, we find no distinct information; but we can hardly doubt that they quitted the Helot village and field, together with the rural costume (the leather cap and sheepskin) which the Helot commonly wore, and the change of which exposed him to suspicion, if not to punishment, from his jealous masters. Probably they, as well as the disfranchised Spartan citizens (called Hypomeiones, or Inferiors), became congregated at Sparta, and found employment either in various trades or in the service of the government.
It has been necessary to give this short sketch of the orders of men who inhabited Laconia, in order to enable us to understand the statements given about the legislation of Lykurgus. The arrangements ascribed to that lawgiver, in the way that Plutarch describes them, presuppose, and do not create, the three orders of Spartans, Periœki, and Helots. We are told by Plutarch that the disorders which Lykurgus found existing in the state arose in a great measure from the gross inequality of property, and from the luxurious indulgence and unprincipled rapacity of the rich,—who had drawn to themselves the greater proportion of the lands in the country, leaving a large body of poor, without any lot of land, in hopeless misery and degradation. To this inequality (according to Plutarch) the reforming legislator applied at once a stringent remedy. He redistributed the whole territory belonging to Sparta, as well as the remainder of Laconia; the former, in nine thousand equal lots, one to each Spartan citizen; the latter, in thirty thousand equal lots, one to each Periœkus: of this alleged distribution, I shall speak farther presently. Moreover, he banished the use of gold and silver money, tolerating nothing in the shape of circulating medium but pieces of iron, heavy and scarcely portable; and he forbade[658] to the Spartan citizen every species of industrious or money-seeking occupation, agriculture included. He farther constituted,—though not without strenuous opposition, during the course of which his eye is said to have been knocked out by a violent youth, named Alkander,—the Syssitia, or public mess. A certain number of joint tables were provided, and every citizen was required to belong to some one of them, and habitually to take his meals at it,[659]—no new member being admissible without an unanimous ballot in his favor by the previous occupants. Each provided from his lot of land a specified quota of barley-meal, wine, cheese, and figs, and a small contribution of money for condiments: game was obtained in addition by hunting in the public forests of the state, while every one who sacrificed to the gods,[660] sent to his mess-table a part of the victim killed. From boyhood to old age, every Spartan citizen took his sober meals at this public mess, where all shared alike; nor was distinction of any kind allowed, except on signal occasions of service rendered by an individual to the state.
These public Syssitia, under the management of the Polemarchs, were connected with the military distribution, the constant gymnastic training, and the rigorous discipline of detail, enforced by Lykurgus. From the early age of seven years, throughout his whole life, as youth and man no less than as boy, the Spartan citizen lived habitually in public, always either himself under drill, gymnastic and military, or a critic and spectator of others,—always under the fetters and observances of a rule partly military, partly monastic,—estranged from the independence of a separate home,—seeing his wife, during the first years after marriage, only by stealth, and maintaining little peculiar relation with his children. The supervision, not only of his fellow-citizens, but also of authorized censors, or captains nominated by the state, was perpetually acting upon him: his day was passed in public exercises and meals, his nights in the public barrack to which he belonged. Besides the particular military drill, whereby the complicated movements required from a body of Lacedæmonian hoplites in the field, were made familiar to him from his youth,—he also became subject to severe bodily discipline of other kinds, calculated to impart strength, activity, and endurance. To manifest a daring and pugnacious spirit,—to sustain the greatest bodily torture unmoved,—to endure hunger and thirst, heat, cold, and fatigue,—to tread the worst ground barefoot,—to wear the same garment winter and summer,—to suppress external manifestations of feeling, and to exhibit in public, when action was not called for, a bearing shy, silent, and motionless as a statue,—all these were the virtues of the accomplished Spartan youth.[661] Two squadrons were often matched against each other to contend (without arms) in the little insular circumscription called the Platanistûs, and these contests were carried on, under the eye of the authorities, with the utmost extremity of fury. Nor was the competition among them less obstinate, to bear without murmuring the cruel scourgings inflicted before the altar of Artemis Orthia, supposed to be highly acceptable to the goddess, though they sometimes terminated even in the death of the uncomplaining sufferer.[662] Besides the various descriptions of gymnastic contests, the youths were instructed in the choric dances employed in festivals of the gods, which contributed to impart to them methodized and harmonious movements. Hunting in the woods and mountains of Laconia was encouraged, as a means of inuring them to fatigue and privation. The nourishment supplied to the youthful Spartans was purposely kept insufficient, but they were allowed to make up the deficiency not only by hunting, but even by stealing whatever they could lay hands upon, provided they could do so without being detected in the fact; in which latter case they were severely chastised.[663] In reference simply to bodily results,[664] the training at Sparta was excellent, combining strength and agility with universal aptitude and endurance, and steering clear of that mistake by which Thebes and other cities impaired the effect of their gymnastics,—the attempt to create an athletic habit, suited for the games, but suited for nothing else.