Listed 6 sub titles with search on: The inhabitants for wider area of: "LAKEDEMON Ancient country PELOPONNISOS" .
LAKEDEMON (Ancient country) PELOPONNISOS
(Heilotai), and Helotes (Heilotes). The Helots or bondsmen of the
Spartans. The common account of the origin of this class is, that the inhabitants
of the maritime town of Helos were reduced by Sparta to this state of degradation,
after an insurrection against the Dorians already established in power. This explanation,
however, rests merely on an etymology, and that by no means probable. The word
Heilos is probably a derivative from helein in a passive sense, and consequently
means "a prisoner"- a derivation known in ancient times. It seems likely
that they were an aboriginal race, which was subdued at a very early period, and
which immediately passed over as slaves to the Doric conquerors. In speaking of
the condition of the Helots, their political rights and their personal treatment
will be considered under different heads, though in fact the two subjects are
very nearly connected.
The first were doubtless exactly defined by law and custom, though
the expressions made use of by ancient authors are frequently vague and ambiguous.
"They were," says Ephorus, "in a certain point of view public slaves.
Their possessor could neither liberate them nor sell them beyond the borders."
From this it is evident that they were considered as belonging properly to the
State, which to a certain degree permitted them to be possessed by individuals,
reserving to itself the power of enfranchising them. But to sell them out of the
country was not in the power even of the State; and such an event seems never
to have occurred. It is, upon the whole, most probable that individuals had no
power to sell them at all, as they belonged chiefly to the landed property, and
this was inalienable. On these lands they had certain fixed dwellings of their
own, and particular services and payments were prescribed to them. They paid as
rent a fixed measure of corn; not, however, like the Perioeci, to the State, but
to their masters. As this quantity had been definitely settled at a very early
period, 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,
as would not have been the case if the profit and loss had merely affected the
landlords. In fact, by this means, as is proved by the accounts respecting the
Spartan agriculture, a careful cultivation of the soil was kept up. By means of
the rich produce of the lands, 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. The cultivation of the land, however, was not the only duty of
the Helots; they also, at the public meals, attended upon their masters, who,
according to the Lacedaemonian principle of a community of property, mutually
lent them to one another. A large number of them was also employed by the State
in public works. In the field the Helots never served as hoplites, except in extraordinary
cases; and then it was the general practice afterwards to give them their liberty.
This seems first to have occurred under Brasidas in B.C. 424. On other occasions
they attended the regular army as light-armed troops (psiloi); and that their
numbers were very considerable may be seen from the battle of Plataea, in which
5000 Spartans were attended by 35,000 Helots. Although they did not share the
honour of the heavy-armed soldiers, they were in turn exposed to a less degree
of danger; for, while the former, in close rank, received the onset of the enemy
with spear and shield, the Helots, armed only with their slings and javelins,
were in a moment either before or behind the ranks, as Tyrtaeus accurately describes
the relative duties of the light-armed soldier (gumnes) and the hoplite. Sparta,
in her better days, is never recorded to have unnecessarily sacrificed the lives
of her Helots. A certain number of them were allotted to each Spartan. At the
battle of Plataea this number was seven. Those who were assigned to a single master
were probably called ampittares. Of these, however, one in particular was the
servant (therapon) of his master, as in the story of the blind Spartan, who was
conducted by his Helot into the thickest of the battle of Thermopylae, and, while
the latter fled, fell with the other heroes. It appears that the other Helots
were in the field placed more immediately under the command of the king than the
rest of the army. In the fleet they composed the large mass of the sailors, in
which service at Athens the inferior citizens and slaves were employed. It is
a matter of much greater difficulty to form a clear notion of the treatment of
the Helots, and of their manner of life; for the rhetorical spirit with which
later historians have embellished their views has been productive of much confusion
and misconception. Myron of Priene, in his account of the Messenian War, drew
a very dark picture of Sparta, and endeavoured at the end to rouse the feelings
of his readers by a description of the fate which the conquered underwent. "The
Helots," says he, "perform for the Spartans every ignominious service.
They are compelled to wear a cap of dog's skin (kune), to have a covering of sheep's
skin (diphthera), and are severely beaten every year without having committed
any fault, in order that they may never forget they are slaves. In addition to
this, those among them who, either by their stature or their beauty, raise themselves
above the condition of a slave, are condemned to death, and the masters who do
not destroy the most manly of them are liable to punishment." Myron's statements,
however, are to be received with considerable caution.
Plutarch relates that the Helots were compelled to intoxicate themselves,
and to perform indecent dances, as a warning to the Spartan youth. Yet Helot women
discharged the office of nurse in the royal palaces, and doubtless obtained the
affection with which the attendants of early youth were honoured in ancient times.
It is, however, certain that the Doric laws did not bind servants to strict temperance;
and hence examples of drunkenness among them might well have served as a means
of recommending sobriety. It was also an established regulation that the national
songs and dances of Sparta were forbidden to the Helots, who, on the other hand,
had some extravagant and lascivious dances peculiar to themselves, which may have
given rise to the above report. It was the curse of this bondage, which Plato
terms the hardest in Greece, that the slaves abandoned their masters when they
stood in greatest need of their assistance; and hence the Spartans were even compelled
to stipulate in treaties for aid against their own subjects. A more favourable
side of the Spartan system of bondage is seen in the fact that a legal way to
liberty and citizenship stood open to the Helots. The many intermediate steps
seem to prove the existence of a regular mode of transition from the one rank
to the other. The Helots who were esteemed worthy of an especial confidence were
called argeioi; the aphetai were probably released from all service. The desposionautai,
who served in the fleets, resembled probably the freedmen of Attica, who were
called "the out-dwellers" (hoi choris oikountes). When they received
their liberty, they also obtained permission to dwell where they wished, and probably,
at the same time, a portion of land was granted them without the lot of their
former masters. After they had been in possession of liberty for some time, they
appear to have been called neodamodeis, the number of whom soon came near to that
of the citizens. The mothones or mothakes were Helots, who, being brought up together
with the young Spartans, obtained freedom without the rights of citizenship.
The number of the Helots has been estimated by K. O. Muller and Schomann
as having been some 225,000 at the time of the battle of Plataea, as against an
estimated total population of 380,000 or 400,000.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Apr 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Leleges, an ancient race which was spread over Greece, the adjoining
islands, and the Asiatic coast, before the Hellenes. They were so widely diffused
that we must either suppose that their name was descriptive, and applied to several
different tribes, or that it was the name of a single tribe and was afterwards
extended to others. Strabo (vii. p. 322) regarded them as a mixed race, and was
disposed to believe that their name had reference to this (to sullektous gegonenai).
They may probably be looked upon, like the Pelasgians and the other early inhabitants
of Greece, as members of the great Indo-European race, who became gradually incorporated
with the Hellenes, and thus ceased to exist as an independent people.
The most distinct statement of ancient writers on the origin of the
Leleges is that of Herodotus, who says that the name of Leleges was the ancient
name of the Carians (Herod. i. 171). A later Greek writer considered the Leleges
as standing in the same relation to the Carians as the Helots to the Lacedaemonians
and the Penestae to the Thessalians. (Athen. vi. p. 271.) In Homer both Leleges
and Carians appear as equals, and as auxiliaries of the Trojans. (Il. x. 428.)
The Leleges are ruled by Altes, the father-in-law of Priam, and inhabit a town
called Pedasus at the foot of Mount Ida. (Il. xxi. 86.) Strabo relates that Leleges
and Carians once occupied the whole of Ionia, and that in the Milesian territory
and in all Caria tombs and forts of the Leleges were shown. He further says that
the two were so intermingled that they were frequently regarded as the same people.
(Strab. vii. p. 321, xiii. p. 611.) It would therefore appear that there was some
close connection between the Leleges and Carians, though they were probably different
peoples. The Leleges seem at one time to have occupied a considerable part of
the western coast of Asia Minor. They were the earliest known inhabitants of Samos.
(Athen. xv. p. 672.) The connection of the Leleges and the Carians was probably
the foundation of the Megarian tradition, that in the twelfth generation after
Car, Lelex came over from Egypt to Megara, and gave his name to the people (Paus.
i. 39. § 6); but their Egyptian origin was evidently an invention of later times,
when it became the fashion to derive the civilisation of Greece from that of Egypt.
A grandson of this Lelex is said to have led a colony of Megarian Leleges into
Messenia, where they founded Pylus, and remained until they were driven out by
Neleus and the Pelasgians from Iolcos; whereupon they took possession of Pylus
in Elis. (Paus. v. 36. § 1.) The Lacedaemonian traditions, on the other hand,
represented the Leleges as the autochthons of Laconia; they spoke of Lelex as
the first native of the soil, from whom the people were called Leleges and the
land Lelegia; and the son of this Lelex is said to have been the first king of
Messenia. (Paus. iii. 1. § 1, iv. 1. § § 1, 5.) Aristotle seems to have regarded
Leucadia, or the western parts of Acarnania, as the original seats of the Leleges;
for, according to this writer, Lelex was the autochthon of Leucadia, and from
him were descended the Teleboans, the ancient inhabitants of the Taphian islands.
He also regarded them as the same people as the Locrians, in which he appears
to have followed the authority of Hesiod, who spoke of them as the subjects of
Locrus, and as produced from the stones with which Deucalion repeopled the earth
after the deluge. (Strab. vii. pp. 321, 322.) Hence all the inhabitants of Mount
Parnassus, Locrians, Phocians, Boeotians, and others, are sometimes described
as Leleges. (Comp. Dionys. Hal. i. 17.) (See Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, vol.
i. p. 42, seq.)
This text is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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