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William Smith,
A Smaller History of Ancient Greece|
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CHAPTER ΙV
Early History of Peloponnesus and Sparta to the end of the Messenian Wars, B.C. 668
Page 4
The population of Laconia was divided into the three classes of Spartans, Perioeci and Helots. I. The SPARTANS were the descendants of the leading Dorian conquerors. They formed the sovereign power of the state, and they alone were eligible to honours and public offices. They lived in Sparta itself and were all subject to the discipline of Lycurgus. They were divided into three tribes,--the HYLLEIS, the PAMPHILI, and the DYMANES,--which were not, however, peculiar to Sparta, but existed in all the Dorian states. II. The PERIOECI were personally free, but politically subject to the Spartans. [This word signifies literally DWELLERS AROUND THE CITY, and was generally used to indicate the inhabitants in the country districts, who possessed inferior political privileges to the citizens who lived in the city.] They possessed no share in the government, and were bound to obey the commands of the Spartan magistrates. They appear to have been the descendants of the old Achaean population of the country, and they were distributed into a hundred townships, which were spread through the whole of Laconia. III. The HELOTS were serfs bound to the soil, which they tilled for the benefit of the Spartan proprietors. Their condition was very different from that of the ordinary slaves in antiquity, and more similar to the villanage of the middle ages. They lived in the rural villages, as the Perioeci did in the towns, cultivating the lands and paying over the rent to their masters in Sparta, but enjoying their homes, wives, and families, apart from their master's personal superintendence. They appear to have been never sold, and they accompanied the Spartans to the field as light armed troops. But while their condition was in these respects superior to that of the ordinary slaves in other parts of Greece, it was embittered by the fact that they were not strangers like the latter, but were of the same race and spoke the same language as their masters, being probably the descendants of the old inhabitants, who had offered the most obstinate resistance to the Dorians, and had therefore been reduced to slavery. As their numbers increased, they became objects of suspicion to their masters, and were subjected to the most wanton and oppressive cruelty.
To Chapter V : Early History of Athens down to the Establishment of Democracy by Clisthenes, B.C. 510
Back to the History of Ancient Greece Contents
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Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/history-of-ancient-greece-4-668.asp?pg=4
