To render credible this sketch of cruelty, the character and education of the Spartans must be kept in view:
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos,
was not their maxim.[[211]] They loved to trample on the fallen. Even in boyhood and among themselves, they practised gouging as an accomplishment, and as an Athenian did music—as a necessary consequence, even the writers most favourable to their state, confess them to have been brutal, inhuman, perfidious.[[212]] Nor among a people so ignorant, so prejudiced, so narrow-minded, whose understandings were possibly incapable of comprehending the idea of justice or liberality, can we altogether wonder at such an outbreak of barbarism. Men have been known in modern times to shoot slaves for their amusement; a king of France has been known from the same motive to shoot his subjects, and a learned professor,[[213]] not very remarkable for cruelty, has pronounced the panegyric of that king. There is nothing, therefore, at all incredible in the Spartan Crypteia, which exactly harmonizes with all we know of the nation.
An attempt, however, has been made to explain the whole away, by the unauthorized inference, that in the casual glance which Megillos, in the laws of Plato, makes at this institution, we have a complete description of it in all its features. But very far is this from being the case. The Spartan interlocutor is there making out a defence of his own country, and consequently alludes only to such points as appear capable of a favourable interpretation. Of course he is careful to keep the massacre of the Helots in the back-ground; and merely says, “There is also amongst us 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.”[[214]] This is the picture of a Spartan, dwelling on his own hardships; which, however, must have been endured for some purpose, and what was that? If exercise and military seasoning were alone aimed at, where was the necessity for that concealment, that lying in ambush, which the word itself signifies? It is well known that the Helots were a constant terror to their masters—that whenever occasion offered, they revolted—whenever any enemy to the state presented himself, they joined him—that they fled whenever flight was possible—and were, it is confessed, so numerous and so bold, that Sparta was compelled, in treaties with foreign states, to stipulate “for aid against her own subjects.”[[215]] What more probable, therefore, under the circumstances, than the institution of the Crypteia? What more in harmony with the genius of the people?
There can be no doubt that on certain extraordinary occasions these chief of slaves obtained their freedom from the state; but that any “legal way to liberty and citizenship stood open to them,”[[216]] does not appear.[[217]] The chain of “probabilities” by which this conclusion is attempted to be arrived at is perfectly unique, and would lead with equal force to any other whatever. “The many intermediate steps, it is said, seem to prove the existence of a regular mode of transition from the one rank to the other.” It has not, however, been proved that there were any intermediate steps; and the very attempt is based almost wholly on a fragment of that Myron of Priene, whose Messenian History Mr. Müller denominates a romance, and whose “partiality and ignorance” he considers so self-evident but a few passages back.
1. The Helots who were esteemed worthy of an “especial confidence were called ἀργεῖοι.”[[218]] This however, is no intermediate step, as it is not said that their being thus called was necessarily followed by any result.
2. The ἐρυκτῆρες enjoyed the same “(especial confidence) in war.”[[219]] On points of this kind it is necessary to rely on some authority, and the historian adduces none.[[220]] It has, indeed, been conjectured, from the derivation of their name, that this class of freedmen served as a body-guard to their former masters. Positively, however, nothing whatever is known of their condition.
3. The ἀφέται were, probably, released from “all service.” The expression of Eustathius[[221]] is, “being made free, they were called aphetæ.”
4. “The δεσποσιοναύται,[[222]] who served in the fleet, resembled, probably, the freedmen of Attica, who were called the out-dwellers.”[[223]] This phrase is calculated to convey an erroneous impression, as though these freedmen necessarily took up their quarters in the country, whereas οἱ χωρὶς οἰκούντες merely signifies persons who have establishments of their own. With respect to the Desposionautæ, they would appear to have been slaves brought up in their masters’ houses, and afterwards enfranchised, and ordered to be employed about the fleet.
5. “When they (the Helots) received their liberty, they also obtained permission to dwell where they wished, and, probably, at the same time, a[a] portion of land was granted to them without the lot of their former masters.” This is drawing a general inference from a particular case. Thucydides,[[224]] the authority relied on, speaks only of those Helots who having served in Thrace under Brasidas, obtained enfranchisement on their return, together with a portion of the lands recently taken from the Lepreatæ. On other occasions, as the whole of Laconia and Messenia had been divided among the citizens, it is difficult to understand whence the state could have obtained lands to bestow. The probability, therefore, is, that they bestowed none.