| |
The helots were a subjugated[vague] population that constituted a
majority of the population of Laconia and Messenia – the territories
comprising Sparta. There has been controversy since antiquity as to their exact
characteristics, such as whether they constituted an ethnic group, a social
class, or both. For example, Critias described helots as "slaves to the
utmost", whereas according to Pollux, they occupied a status "between
free men and slaves". Tied to the land, they primarily worked in
agriculture as a majority and economically supported the Spartan citizens. The
number of helots in relation to Spartan citizens varied throughout the history
of the Spartan state; according to Herodotus, there were seven helots for each
Spartan at the time of the Battle of
Plataea in 479
Thus the need to keep helot population in check and prevent rebellion was one
of the main concerns of the Spartans. Helots were ritually mistreated,
humiliated and even slaughtered: every autumn the Spartans would declare war on
the helots so they could be killed by a member of the Crypteia without fear of
repercussion. Uprisings and attempts to improve the lot of the helots did
occur, such as the Conspiracy of Cinadon.
Relationship to Spartans:
From at least the classical period, the number of Spartans was very small in
comparison to that of the helots. In a celebrated passage, Thucydides stresses
that "most Spartan institutions have always been designed with a view to
security against the Helots". Aristotle compares them to "an enemy
constantly sitting in wait of the disaster of the Spartans". Consequently,
fear seems to be an important factor governing relations between Spartans and
Helots. According to tradition, the Spartiates always carried their spears,
undid the straps of their bucklers only when at home lest the Helots seize
them, and locked themselves in their homes. They also took active measures,
subjecting them to what Theopompus describes as "an altogether cruel and
bitter condition". According to Myron of Priene, an anti-Spartan historian
of the middle 3rd century: They assign to the Helots every shameful task
leading to disgrace. For they ordained that each one of them must wear a
dogskin cap and wrap himself in skins and receive a stipulated number of
beatings every year regardless of any wrongdoing, so that they would never
forget they were slaves. Moreover, if any exceeded the vigour proper to a
slave's condition, they made death the penalty; and they allotted a punishment
to those controlling them if they failed. Plutarch also states that Spartans
treated the Helots "harshly and cruelly": they compelled them to
drink pure wine (which was considered dangerous—wine usually being diluted
with water) "... and to lead them in that condition into their public
halls, that the children might see what a sight a drunken man is; they made
them to dance low dances, and sing ridiculous songs..." during syssitia
(obligatory banquets). However, he notes that this rough treatment was
inflicted only relatively late, after the 464 earthquake. Some modern scholars
advocate a reevaluation of ancient evidence about helots. It has been argued
that the kune was not actually made of dogskin, and that the diphthera
(literally, "leather") was the general attire of the poor peasant
class. The obligation of masters to prevent fatness amongst their helots is
actually deemed implausible: as the Spartiates lived separately, dietary intake
could not be rigorously controlled; as manual labour was an important function
of the Helots (for example, being used to carry their master's arms and armour
on campaign), it would make sense to keep them well fed. Besides, the rations
mentioned by Thucydides for the Helots on Sphacteria are close to normal.
Myron's evidence is interpreted as an extrapolation from actions performed on
symbolic representatives. In short, Grote writes that "the various
anecdotes which are told respecting [Helot] treatment at Sparta betoken less of
cruelty than of ostentatious scorn". He has been followed recently by J.
Ducat (1974 and 1990), who describes Spartan treatment of the Helots as a kind
of ideological warfare, designed to condition the Helots to think of themselves
as inferiors. This strategy seems to have been successful at least for Laconian
Helots: when the Thebans ordered a group of Laconian helot prisoners to recite
the verses of Alcman and Terpander (national poets of Thebes), they refused on
the grounds that it would displease their masters. Other modern scholars
consider then, "although the details may be fanciful, [Myron's evidence]
does reflect accurately the general Spartiate attitude towards helots". It
has also been stressed that contempt alone could hardly explain the organized
murder of Helots mentioned by several ancient sources. According to Aristotle,
the ephors annually declared war on the Helots, thereby allowing Spartans to
kill them without fear of religious pollution. This task was apparently given
to the kryptes, graduates of the difficult agoge who took part in the crypteia.
This lack of judicial protection is confirmed by Myron of Priene, who mentions
killing as a standard mode of regulation of the Helot population. According to
a passage in Thucydides, 2,000 helots were massacred in a carefully staged
event in 425or earlier:
"The helots were invited by a proclamation to pick out those of their
number who claimed to have most distinguished themselves against the enemy, in
order that they might receive their freedom; the object being to test them, as
it was thought that the first to claim their freedom would be the most high
spirited and the most apt to rebel. As many as two thousand were selected
accordingly, who crowned themselves and went round the temples, rejoicing in
their new freedom. The Spartans, however, soon afterwards did away with them,
and no one ever knew how each of them perished."
Thus Paul Cartledge claims that "the history of Sparta is fundamentally
the history of the class struggle between the Spartans and the Helots".
Helots and kleroi:
Helots were assigned to citizens to carry out domestic work or to work on their
kleroi, or portions. The kleroi, were the original divisions of Messenia after
its conquest by Sparta. Various sources mention such servants accompanying this
or that Spartan. Plutarch has Timaia, the wife of King Agis II, "being
herself forward enough to whisper among her helot maid-servants" that the
child she was expecting had been fathered by Alcibiades, and not her husband,
indicating a certain level of trust. According to some authors, in the 4th
century, citizens also used chattel-slaves for domestic purposes. However, this
is disputed by others. Some helots were also servants to young Spartans during
their agoge, the Spartan education; these were the móthones. Finally,
helots, like slaves, could be artisans or tradesmen.
They were required to hand over a predetermined portion of their harvest, with
the helots keeping the surplus. According to Plutarch, this portion was 70
medimnoi of barley for a man, 12 for a woman, as well as a quantity of oil and
wine corresponding to an amount reasonable for the needs of a warrior and his
family, or a widow, respectively. The existence of the apophorá is
contested by Tyrtaeus:
"Secondly, though no fixed tribute was imposed on them, they used to bring
the half of all the produce of their fields to Sparta.... Like asses worn by
their great burdens, bringing of dire necessity to their masters the half of
all the fruits the corn-land bears."
Pausanias is describing the period immediately after the first Messenian
War, when
conditions were probably more severe. Also, since taking a percentage of the
produce would have required constantly overseeing the helots, it is unlikely
such a tax could be implemented upon the relatively distant Messenia. With
Tyrtaeus being a poet, the amount might well have been a poetic figure of
speech, similar to the modern "half a kingdom". In fact, it is
debated whether the quote refers to helots in the first place, since Tyrtaeus'
description of the Second Messenian War
refers to enemy phalanxes, indicating the first war could have ended with
the Messenian people becoming a vassal state of Sparta rather than helots.
Having paid their tribute, the helots could often live rather well; the lands
of Laconia and Messenia were very fertile, and often permitted two crops per
year. It seems they could enjoy some private property: in 425 , some helots had
their own boats. A certain amount of wealth was achievable: in 223 BC, 6,000
helots purchased their freedom for 500 drachmas each, a considerable sum at the
time.
Demography:
Helots lived in family units and could, at least de facto, contract unions
among themselves. Since helots were much less susceptible than other slaves in
Greek antiquity to having their family units dispersed, they could reproduce
themselves, or at least maintain their number. Probably not insignificant to
begin with, their population increased in spite of the crypteia, other
massacres of helots (see below), and losses in war. Simultaneously, the
population of Spartiate citizens declined. The absence of a formal census
prevents an accurate assessment of the helot population, but estimates are
possible. According to Herodotus, helots were seven times as numerous as
Spartans during the Battle of Plataea in 479. The long Peloponnesian War
drained Sparta of so many of its citizens that by the time of the conspiracy of
Cinadon, the beginning of the 4th century, only forty Peers, or citizens, could
be counted in a crowd of 4,000 at the agora (Xenophon, Hellenica, III, 3, 5).
The total population of helots at that time, including women, is estimated as
170,000–224,000. Since the helot population was not technically chattel,
their population was reliant on native birth rates, as opposed to prisoners of
war or purchased slaves. Helots were encouraged by the Spartans to impose a
eugenics doctrine similar to that which they, themselves, practiced. This
would, according to Greek beliefs of the period, ensure not only genetic but
also acquired favourable characteristics be passed along to successive
generations. Tempering these selective factors was the crypteia, during which
the strongest and fittest helots were the primary targets of the kryptes; to
select soft targets would be interpreted as a sign of weakness. This
theoretically removed the strongest and most able potential rebels while
keeping the general populace fit and efficient.[citation needed] What is more,
the Spartans used helot women to satisfy the state's human personnel needs: the
'bastards' (nothoi) born of Spartan fathers and helot women held an
intermediary rank in Lacedaemonian society (cf. mothakes and mothones below)
and swelled the ranks of the citizen army. It is difficult to determine whether
these births were the results of voluntary liaisons (at least on the part of
the father) or part of a formal state program. Girls born of such unions,
serving no military purpose, were likely abandoned at birth and left to die.
Emancipation:
According to Myron of Priene, cited by Athenaeus, the emancipation of helots
was "common". The text suggests that this is normally associated with
completion of military service. The first explicit reference to this practice
in regards to the helots occurs in Thucydides (IV, 26, 5). This is on the
occasion of the events at Sphacteria, when Sparta had to relieve their
hoplites, who were besieged on the island by the Athenians: "The fact was,
that the Lacedaemonians had made advertisement for volunteers to carry into the
island ground corn, wine, cheese, and any other food useful in a siege; high
prices being offered, and freedom promised to any of the helots who should
succeed in doing so". Thucydides reports that the request met with some
success, and the helots got supplies through to the besieged island. He does
not mention whether or not the Spartans kept their word; it is possible that
some of the helots later executed were part of the Sphacterian volunteers but
later said they kept their word.[citation needed] Another such call came during
the Theban invasion of Laconia in one of the decisive battles of Peloponnese
wars. Xenophon in Hellenica (VI, 5, 28) states that the authorities agreed to
emancipate all the helots who volunteered. He then reports that more than 6,000
heeded the call, leading to some embarrassment for the Spartans, who were
initially overwhelmed by the number. Xenophon states that the Spartans' fears
were assuaged when they received aid from their allies and Boeotian mercenary
forces. All the same, in 424, the 700 helots who served
Brasidas in Chalcidice
were emancipated, and they were henceforth known as the "Brasidians".
It was also possible to purchase freedom, or achieve it by undergoing the
traditional Spartan education. Generally, emancipated helots were referred to
as "neodamodes": those who rejoined the (Deme) of the Perioeci. Moses
Finley underscores that the fact helots could serve as hoplites constituted a
grave flaw in the system. In effect, the hoplite system was a strict method of
training to ensure that discipline was maintained in the phalanx. The Spartans
gained considerable reputation as hoplites, due to tactical capabilities
developed through constant training. In addition to this military aspect, to be
a hoplite was a key characteristic of Greek citizenship. To introduce helots to
this system thus led to inevitable social conflict.
A special case: mothakes and mothones:
Phylarchus mentions a class of men that were at the same time free and
non-citizens: mothakes, who had undergone the 'agoge', the Spartan educational
system. Classical historiography recognizes that the helots comprised a large
portion of these mothakes. Nevertheless, this category poses a number of
problems, firstly that of vocabulary. The classical authors used a number of
terms which appear to evoke similar concepts: mothakes: a connotation of
freedom, Phylarchos affirmed that they were free (eleutheroi), Claudius
Aelianus (Varia Historia, 12, 43) that they could be citizens; mothones: a
connotation of servility, the word designates slaves born to the home;
trophimoi: pupils, adopted children, whom Plutarch classified among the xenoi
(strangers); syntrophoi: literally, "they who were raised with", that
is to say, milk-siblings, given by Phylarchus as equivalent to mothakes;
paratrephonoi : literally, "those who were fed near you",
signification rather different from the preceding (this word also applied to
domestic animals). The situation is somewhat complicated by a gloss of
Hesychios of Alexandria which attests that mothakes were slave children douloi
raised at the same time as the children of citizens. Philologists resolve this
quandary in two ways: they insist on reading mothãnes, as a hapax for
(Arnold J. Toynbee); the hypothesis that douloi has been interpolated by a
copyist who confounded mothakes and mothônes. In any case, the conclusion
needs to be treated carefully: the mothônes were young servants charged
with domestic tasks for young Spartans during their education (Aristotle, I,
633c), they remained slaves on reaching adulthood; the mothakes were an
independent freeborn group of helots.
Helot revolts:
The Pausanias plot: The
first helot attempt at revolt which is historically reported is that provoked
by general Pausanias in the 5th century . Thucydides reports: Besides, they
were informed that he was even intriguing with the helots; and such indeed was
the fact, for he promised them freedom and citizenship if they would join him
in insurrection, and would help him to carry out his plans to the end. These
intrigues did not however lead to a helot uprising; Thucydides indeed implies
that Pausanias was turned in by the helots (I, 132, 5 - ...the evidence even of
the helots themselves.) Perhaps the promises made by Pausanias were too
generous to be believed by the helots; not even Brasidas, when he emancipated
his helot volunteers, offered full citizenship.
Massacre at Taenarus:
The massacre of Cape Taenarus, the promontory formed by the southernmost tip of
Taygetus, is also reported by Thucydides: The Lacedaemonians had once raised up
some helot suppliants from the temple of Poseidon at Taenarus, led them away
and slain them; for which they believe the great earthquake at Sparta to have
been a retribution. This affair, recalled by the Athenians in responding to a
Spartan request to exile Pericles—who was an Alcmaeonid on his mother's
side—is not dated. Historians know only that it happened before the
disastrous earthquake of 464. Thucydides here is the only one to implicate the
helots: Pausanias speaks rather about Lacedaemonians who had been condemned to
death. Nor does the text allow us to conclude that this was a failed uprising
of helots, only that there was an attempt at escape. Additionally, a helot
revolt in Laconia is unlikely, and Messenians would not likely have taken
refuge at Cape Taenarus.
Third Messenian War:
The uprising coincident with the earthquake of 464 is soundly attested to,
although Greek historians do not agree on the interpretation of this event.
According to Thucydides, the helots and perioeci of Thouria and Aithaia took
advantage of the earthquake to revolt and establish a position on Mt. Ithome.
He adds that most of the rebels were of Messenian ancestry—confirming the
appeal of Ithome as a historical place of Messenian resistance—and focuses
attention on the perioeci of Thouria, a city on the Messianian coast.
Conversely, historians could deduce that a minority of the helots were
Laconian, thus making this the one and only revolt of their history.
Commentators such as Stephanus of Byzantium suggest that this Aithaia was in
Laconia, thus indicating a large-scale uprising in the region. The version of
events given by Pausanias is similar. Diodorus Siculus (XI, 63,4 – 64,1),
probably influenced by Ephorus of Cyme, attributed the uprising equally to the
Messenians and the helots. This version of events is supported by Plutarch.
Finally, some authors make responsibility for the uprising with the helots of
Laconia. This is the case of Plutarch in his Life of Cimon: the helots of the
Eurotas River valley want to use the earthquake to attack the Spartans whom
they think are disarmed. The intervention of Archidamus II, who calls the
Lacedaemonians to arms, simultaneously saves them from the earthquake and the
helot attack. The helots fold, but revert to open warfare joined by the
Messenians. It is difficult to reconcile these versions. It is nevertheless
clear that in any case the revolt of 464 represented a major traumatic event
for the Spartans. Plutarch indicates that the Crypteia and other poor
treatments of the helots were instituted after this revolt. If there is any
doubt in these affirmations, they at least underscore the immediate Spartan
reaction: allies are gathered and war ensues with the same Athens that would be
faced later in the Peloponnesian War. Athenian outposts During the same war and
after the capitulation of the Spartans besieged in Sphacteria, the Athenians
installed a garrison in Pylos composed of Messenians from Naupactus. Thucydides
underlines that they had hoped to exploit the patriotism of the latter in order
to pacify the region. Though the Messenians may not have triggered full-blown
guerrilla warfare, they nevertheless pillaged the area and encouraged helot
desertion. Sparta was forced to dedicate a garrison to controlling this
activity; this was the first of the " epiteikhismoí"
("ramparts"), outposts planted by the Athenians in enemy territory.
The second such outpost was at Kythera. This time, the Athenians set their
sights on the helots of Laconia. Again, pillaging and desertion did occur, but
not on the scale hoped for by the Athenians or feared by the Spartans: there
was no uprising like that which accompanied the earthquake.
|
|
