CHAPTER VIII.
SERFS OF SPARTA, CRETE, THESSALY, ETC.
If we now pass from the consideration of slavery in the comparatively mild form which it assumed in Attica to an examination of the state of the Laconian Helots, we shall discover the spirit which actuated the two governments to present a still broader contrast in this, the lowest stage of its influence, than when operating upon the nobler citizens on the great arena of public life.
Among certain scholars on the continent it appears to be very much the fashion to oppose an invincible scepticism to the testimony of ancient writers, as often as that testimony makes against any theory they desire to establish; and on the subject of the Helots several of the ablest authors among them have adopted an opinion which cannot be supported without annihilating several Greek authors, who, in their opinion, prophesy as awkwardly as Calchas did for the peace of Agamemnon.
Among these the principal is Mr. Müller, from whom I have the misfortune to differ on many points, but without in the least disparaging his ability or his learning, for both of which I entertain the highest respect.[[157]]
As, however, he has adopted a very peculiar system in the interpretation of antiquity, which, though plausible and ingenious, seems ill-calculated to lead to truth, I have found it impossible to participate on many important points the views which he maintains, more especially on the subject of the Helots. In fact, with all his talents and sagacity he has chosen rather to become an advocate than an historian, and pushes so far his eagerness to defend his favourite people, as not unfrequently to provoke a smile. In his derivation of the term Helot, however, he is perhaps correct,[[158]] it being more probable that it should have sprung from an ancient word signifying “The Prisoners” than from the name of the town. In the absence of all testimony we might likewise entertain the conjecture, “that they were an aboriginal race subdued at a very early period, and which immediately passed over as slaves to the Doric conquerors.” But we have the weighty authority of Theopompos to oppose to this inference, and the words of this historian[[159]] attentively considered would lead to the etymology of the name given by Müller:—“having taken them prisoners,” he says, “they called them εἵλωτες.” They were, however, Greeks of the Achaian race, who fell, together with the land, into the power of the new-comers, so that the excuse of only tyrannising over a foreign and half-savage race is wanting to the Spartans, which was the object aimed at by Mr. Müller’s ingenious conjecture.
In considering the condition of the Helots, I shall not affect, with the historian of the Doric race,[[160]] “to range their political rights and personal treatment,” under separate heads; in the first place because, strictly speaking, they had no political rights, and, secondly, because in the treatment they experienced consists whatever is peculiar in their position. Several of this learned historian’s notions on the Lacedæmonian serfs appear to be in direct contradiction with those of the writers from whom all we know concerning the Helots is obtained. Of this he seems to be conscious, and in the following way endeavours to bring discredit on them; assuming as a settled thing, that the Helots must have possessed political rights, he concludes that they “were doubtless exactly defined by law and custom, though the expressions made use of by ancient authors are frequently vague and ambiguous.”[[161]] Whether this be the case or not we shall presently see. The remark of Ephoros is, that “they were in a certain point of view public slaves. Their possessor could neither liberate them nor sell them beyond the borders.” On this passage which he quotes,[[162]] the historian raises a superstructure which it will by no means support. “From this,” he says, “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.”[[163]]
The contrary I think is the inference. They were the property of individuals, but the state reserved to itself the right of enfranchising them and preventing their emancipation, lest persons should be found who, like Marcus Porcius, Cato,[[164]] and the Dutch at the Cape, would sell or give them their liberty when too old to labour. “But to sell them out of the country,” says Mr. Müller, “was not in the power even of the state.” It is true there was an ancient law prohibiting the exportation of the Helots,[[165]] but the same authority which enacted that law could have abrogated it. Had Sparta then chosen to convert her Helots into an article of traffic, who or what was to prevent her? Since she arrogated to herself the right of beating, maiming, and putting them to death,[[166]] though completely innocent, is it to be supposed that, had it suited her policy, she would have hesitated to sell them? And after all are we quite certain that these unhappy people were not frequently sold into foreign lands? On the contrary, we find, that a regular trade was carried on in female Helots, who were exported into all the neighbouring countries for nurses.[[167]] Thus it appears that the state both had and exercised the power to convert its serfs into merchandise.
That the males also were not exported like cattle, than which they were far worse treated, was owing simply to the calculation, that it would be more profitable to retain them. For, as the Spartans possessed estates, which personally they never cultivated, the Helots, who equally belonged to them, were stationed throughout the country upon those estates, which it was their business to till for the owners. To live it was of course necessary that they should eat, and therefore a portion of the produce was abandoned to them, according to Tyrtæos,[[168]] the half, a division which must have borne very hard upon them, since their numbers were five times greater than those of the Spartans.[[169]] However, even in this arrangement, the learned historian discovers something to praise “as this quantity had been definitively settled at a very early period (to raise the amount being forbidden under very heavy imprecations) 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.”[[170]] But on the res rusticæ the notions of this writer are somewhat confused. For in another place he remarks that, owing to the “usurpations of the successive conquerors of Peloponnesos, agriculture was kept in a constant state of dependence and obscurity, so that we seldom hear of the improvement of the country, which is a necessary part of the husbandman’s business.” It therefore did not flourish in Laconia. No, says the historian, that is not the conclusion we must come to, for, notwithstanding that we never hear of any improvements in it, “agriculture was always followed with great energy and success!”[[171]]
There appear to have been instances of Helots becoming comparatively wealthy in spite of the oppressions they endured: but so we have known peasants growing rich in the worst despotisms of the East, and such too was in the middle ages the case with the Jews, notwithstanding the terrible persecutions and cruelties they endured. This fact, therefore, only proves that no pressure of hardship or ill-usage can entirely destroy the elasticity of the spirit; and no doubt, like all slaves, the Helots sought to soften their miseries by the gratification which a sense of property procures even in bondage to the sordid mind.[[172]] “By means of the rich produce of the land, and in part by plunder obtained in war, they collected a considerable property, to the attainment of which almost every access was closed to the Spartans.”[[173]] But of what value is property to a man who is himself the property of another? Besides, the expression[expression] of the historian in this place seems calculated to lead to erroneous conclusions respecting the Spartans, who, so far from being debarred the means of amassing wealth,[[174]] rose frequently to extraordinary opulence, insomuch that this self-denying community came at length to be the richest in Greece.[[175]] To assume that the Helots, like the Thessalian Penestæ,[[176]] enjoyed means of augmenting their possessions superior to those permitted themselves by their masters, is to propagate an error which must vitiate our whole conception of the Lacedæmonian commonwealth.