Chapter VI (2)

The brief sketch here given of the Spartan government will show that, though Greek theorists found a difficulty in determining under what class they should arrange it,[614] it was in substance a close, unscrupulous, and well-obeyed oligarchy,—including within it, as subordinate, those portions which had once been dominant, the kings and the senate, and softening the odium, without abating the mischief, of the system, by its annual change of the ruling ephors. We must at the same time distinguish the government from the Lykurgean discipline and education, which doubtless tended much to equalize rich and poor, in respect to practical life, habits, and enjoyments. Herodotus (and seemingly, also, Xenophon) thought that the form just described was that which the government had originally received from the hand of Lykurgus. Now, though there is good reason for supposing otherwise, and for believing the ephors to be a subsequent addition,—yet, the mere fact that Herodotus was so informed at Sparta, points our attention to one important attribute of the Spartan polity, which it is proper to bring into view. This attribute is, its unparalleled steadiness, for four or five successive centuries, in the midst of governments like the Grecian, all of which had undergone more or less of fluctuation. No considerable revolution—not even any palpable or formal change—occurred in it, from the days of the Messenian war, down to those of Agis the Third: in spite of the irreparable blow which the power and territory of the state sustained from Epameinondas and the Thebans, the form of government, nevertheless, remained unchanged. It was the only government in Greece which could trace an unbroken, peaceable descent from a high antiquity, and from its real or supposed founder. Now this was one of the main circumstances (among others which will hereafter be mentioned) of the astonishing ascendency which the Spartans acquired over the Hellenic mind, and which they will not be found at all to deserve by any superior ability in the conduct of affairs. The steadiness of their political sympathies,—exhibited at one time, by putting down the tyrants, or despots, at another, by overthrowing the democracies,—stood in the place of ability; and even the recognized failings of their government were often covered by the sentiment of respect for its early commencement and uninterrupted continuance. If such a feeling acted on the Greeks generally,[615] much more powerful was its action upon the Spartans themselves, in inflaming that haughty exclusiveness for which they stood distinguished. And it is to be observed that the Spartan mind continued to be cast on the old-fashioned scale, and unsusceptible of modernizing influences, longer than that of most other people of Greece. The ancient legendary faith, and devoted submission to the Delphian oracle, remained among them unabated, at a time when various influences had considerably undermined it among their fellow-Hellens and neighbors. But though the unchanged title and forms of the government thus contributed to its imposing effect, both at home and abroad, the causes of internal degeneracy were not the less really at work, in undermining its efficiency. It has been already stated, that the number of qualified citizens went on continually diminishing, and even of this diminished number a larger proportion than before were needy, since the landed property tended constantly to concentrate itself in fewer hands. There grew up in this way a body of discontent, which had not originally existed, both among the poorer citizens, and among those who had lost their franchise as citizens; thus aggravating the danger arising from Periœki and Helots, who will be presently noticed.

[614] The ephors are sometimes considered as a democratical
element, because every Spartan citizen had a chance of becoming
ephor; sometimes as a despotical element, because in the exercise
of their power they were subject to little restraint and no
responsibility: see Plato, Legg. iv. p. 712; Aristot. Polit. ii.
3, 10; iv. 7, 4, 5.

[615] A specimen of the way in which this antiquity was lauded,
may be seen in Isokratês, Or. xii. (Panathenaic.) p. 288.

We pass from the political constitution of Sparta to the civil ranks and distribution, economical relations, and lastly, the peculiar system of habits, education, and discipline, said to have been established among the Lacedæmonians by Lykurgus. Here, again, we shall find ourselves imperfectly informed as to the existing institutions, and surrounded by confusion when we try to explain how those institutions arose.

It seems, however, ascertained that the Dorians, in all their settlements, were divided into three tribes,—the Hylleis, the Pamphyli, and the Dymanes: in all Dorian cities, moreover, there were distinguished Herakleid families, from whom œkists were chosen when new colonies were formed. These three tribes can be traced at Argos, Sikyôn, Epidaurus, Trœzên, Megara, Korkyra, and seemingly, also, at Sparta.[616] The Hylleis recognized, as their eponym and progenitor, Hyllus, the son of Hêraklês, and were therefore, in their own belief, descended from Hêraklês himself: we may suppose the Herakleids, specially so called, comprising the two regal families, to have been the elder brethren of the tribe of Hylleis, the whole of whom are sometimes spoken of as Herakleids, or descendants of Hêraklês.[617] But there seem to have been also at Sparta, as in other Dorian towns, non-Dorian inhabitants, apart from these three tribes, and embodied in tribes of their own. One of these, the Ægeids, said to have come from Thebes as allies of the Dorian invaders, is named by Aristotle, Pindar, and Herodotus,[618]—while the Ægialeis at Sikyôn, the tribe Hyrnêthia at Argos and Epidaurus, and others, whose titles we do not know, at Corinth, represent, in like manner, the non-Dorian portions of their respective communities.[619] At Corinth, the total number of tribes is said to have been eight.[620] But at Sparta, though we seem to make out the existence of the three Dorian tribes, we do not know how many tribes there were in all: still less do we know what relation the Obæ, or Obes, another subordinate distribution of the people, bore to the tribes. In the ancient Rhetra of Lykurgus, the Tribes and Obês are directed to be maintained unaltered: but the statement of O. Müller and Boeckh[621]—that there were thirty Obês in all, ten to each tribe—rests upon no other evidence than a peculiar punctuation of this Rhetra, which various other critics reject; and seemingly, with good reason. We are thus left without any information respecting the Obê, though we know that it was an old, peculiar, and lasting division among the Spartan people, since it occurs in the oldest Rhetra of Lykurgus, as well as in late inscriptions of the date of the Roman empire. In similar inscriptions, and in the account of Pausanias, there is, however, recognized a classification of Spartans distinct from and independent of the three old Dorian tribes, and founded upon the different quarters of the city,—Limnæ, Mesoa, Pitanê, and Kynosura;[622] from one of these four was derived the usual description of a Spartan in the days of Herodotus. There is reason to suppose that the old Dorian tribes became antiquated at Sparta, (as the four old Ionian tribes did at Athens,) and that the topical classification derived from the quarters of the city superseded it,—these quarters having been originally the separate villages, of the aggregate of which Sparta was composed.[623] That the number of the old senators, thirty, was connected with the three Dorian tribes, deriving ten members from each, is probable enough, though there is no proof of it.

[616] Herodot. v. 68; Stephan. Byz. Ὑλλέες and Δυμᾶν; O. Müller,
Dorians, iii. 5, 2; Boeckh ad Corp. Inscrip. No. 1123.

Thucyd. i. 24, about Phalius, the Herakleid, at Corinth.

[617] See Tyrtæus, Fragm. 8, 1, ed. Schneidewin, and Pindar,
Pyth. i. 61. v. 71, where the expressions “descendants of
Hêraklês” plainly comprehend more than the two kingly families.
Plutarch, Lysand. c. 22; Diodor. xi. 58.

[618] Herodot. iv. 149; Pindar, Pyth. v. 67; Aristot. Λακων.
Πολιτ. p. 127, Fragm. ed. Neuman. The Talthybiadæ, or heralds, at
Sparta, formed a family or caste apart (Herod. vii. 134).

O. Müller supposes, without any proof, that the Ægeids _must_
have been adopted into one of the three Dorian tribes; this is
one of the corollaries from his fundamental supposition, that
Sparta is the type of pure Dorism (vol. ii. p. 78). Kopstadt
thinks (Dissertat. p. 67) that I have done injustice to O.
Müller, in not assenting to his proof: but, on studying the point
over again, I can see no reason for modifying what is here stated
in the text. The Section of Schömann’s work (Antiq. Jur. Publ.
Græc. iv. 1, 6, p. 115) on this subject asserts a great deal more
than can be proved.

[619] Herod. v. 68-92; Boeckh, Corp. Inscrip. Nos. 1130, 1131;
Stephan. Byz. v. Ὑρνίθιον; Pausan. ii. 28, 3.

[620] Photius Πάντα ὀκτώ; also. Proverb. Vatic. Suidas, xi. 64;
compare Hesychius, v. Κυνόφαλοι.

[621] Müller, Dorians, iii. 5, 3-7; Boeckh ad Corp. Inscription.
part iv. sect. 3, p. 609.

[622] Pausan. iii. 16, 6; Herodot. iii. 55; Boeckh, Corp.
Inscript. Nos. 1241, 1338, 1347, 1425; Steph. Byz. v. Μεσόα;
Strabo, viii. p. 364; Hesych. v. Πιτάνη.

There is much confusion and discrepancy of opinion about the
Spartan tribes. Cragius admits six (De Republ. Lacon. i. 6);
Meursius, eight (Rep. Lacon. i. 7): Barthélemy (Voyage du Jeune
Anacharsis, iv. p. 185) makes them five. Manso has discussed the
subject at large, but I think not very satisfactorily, in the
eighth Beilage to the first book of his History of Sparta (vol.
ii. p. 125); and Dr. Thirwall’s second Appendix (vol. i. p. 517)
both notices all the different modern opinions on this obscure
topic, and adds several useful criticisms. Our scanty stock of
original evidence leaves much room for divergent hypotheses, and
little chance of any certain conclusion.

[623] Thucyd. i. 10.

Of the population of Laconia, three main divisions are recognized,—Spartans, Periœki, and Helots. The first of the three were the full qualified citizens, who lived in Sparta itself, fulfilled all the exigences of the Lykurgean discipline, paid their quota to the Syssitia, or public mess, and were alone eligible to honors[624] or public offices. These men had neither time, nor taste even, for cultivation of the land, still less for trade or handicraft: such occupations were inconsistent with the prescribed training, even if they had not been positively interdicted. They were maintained from the lands round the city, and from the large proportion of Laconia which belonged to them; the land being tilled for them by Helots, who seem to have paid over to them a fixed proportion of the produce; in some cases, at least, as much as one-half.[625] Each Spartan retained his qualification, and transmitted it to his children, on two conditions,—first, that of submitting to the prescribed discipline; next, that of paying, each, his stipulated quota to the public mess, which was only maintained by these individual contributions. The multiplication of children in the poorer families, after acquisitions of new territory ceased, continually augmented both the number and the proportion of citizens who were unable to fulfil the second of these conditions, and who therefore lost their franchise: so that there arose towards the close of the Peloponnesian war, a distinction, among the Spartans themselves, unknown to the earlier times,—the reduced number of fully qualified citizens being called The Equals, or Peers,—the disfranchised poor, The Inferiors. The latter, disfranchised as they were, nevertheless, did not become Periœki: it was probably still competent to them to resume their qualification, should any favorable accident enable them to make their contributions to the public mess.

[624] One or two Periœkic officers appear in military command
towards the end of the Peloponnesian war (Thucyd. viii. 6, 22),
but these seem rare exceptions, even as to foreign service by sea
or land, while a Periœkus, as magistrate at Sparta, was unheard
of.

[625] One half was paid by the enslaved Messenians (Tyrtæus,
Frag. 4, Bergk): ἥμισυ πᾶν, ὅσσον κάρπον ἄρουσα φέρει.

The Periœkus was also a freeman and a citizen, not of Sparta, but of some one of the hundred townships of Laconia.[626] Both he and the community to which he belonged received their orders only from Sparta, having no political sphere of their own, and no share in determining the movements of the Spartan authorities. In the island of Kythêra,[627] which formed one of the Periœkic townships, a Spartan bailiff resided as administrator. But whether the same was the case with others, we cannot affirm: nor is it safe to reason from one of these townships to all,—there may have been considerable differences in the mode of dealing with one and another. For they were spread through the whole of Laconia, some near and some distant from Sparta: the free inhabitants of Amyklæ must have been Periœki, as well as those of Kythêra, Thuria, Ætheia, or Aulôn: nor can we presume that the feeling on the part of the Spartan authorities towards all of them was the same. Between the Spartans and their neighbors, the numerous Periœki of Amyklæ, there must have subsisted a degree of intercourse and mutual relation in which the more distant Periœki did not partake,—besides, that both the religious edifices and the festivals of Amyklæ were most reverentially adopted by the Spartans and exalted into a national dignity: and we seem to perceive, on some occasions, a degree of consideration manifested for the Amyklæan hoplites,[628] such as perhaps other Periœki might not have obtained. The class-name, Periœki,[629]—circumresidents, or dwellers around the city,—usually denoted native inhabitants of inferior political condition as contrasted with the full-privileged burghers who lived in the city, but it did not mark any precise or uniform degree of inferiority. It is sometimes so used by Aristotle as to imply a condition no better than that of the Helots, so that, in a large sense, all the inhabitants of Laconia (Helots as well as the rest) might have been included in it. But when used in reference to Laconia, it bears a technical sense, whereby it is placed in contraposition with the Spartan on one side, and with the Helot on the other: it means, native freemen and proprietors, grouped in subordinate communities[630] with more or less power of local management, but (like the subject towns belonging to Bern, Zurich, and most of the old thirteen cantons of Switzerland) embodied in the Lacedæmonian aggregate, which was governed exclusively by the kings, senate, and citizens of Sparta.

[626] Strabo, viii. p. 362. Stephanus Byz. alludes to this total
of one hundred townships in his notice of several different
items among them,—Ἀνθάνα—πόλις Λακωνικὴ μία τῶν ἑκατον; also, v.
Ἀφροδισιὰς, Βοῖαι, Δυῤῥάχιον, etc: but he probably copied Strabo,
and, therefore, cannot pass for a distinct authority. The total
of one hundred townships belongs to the maximum of Spartan power,
after the conquest and before the severance of Messenia; for
Aulôn, Boiæ, and Methônê (the extreme places) are included among
them.

Mr. Clinton (Fast. Hellen. ii. p. 401) has collected the names of
above sixty out of the one hundred.

[627] Thucyd. iv. 53.

[628] Xenophon, Hellen. iv. 5, 11; Herod. ix. 7; Thucyd. v.
18-23. The Amyklæan festival of the Hyacinthia, and the Amyklæan
temple of Apollo, seem to stand foremost in the mind of the
Spartan authorities. Αὐτοὶ καὶ οἱ ἐγγύτατα τῶν περιοίκων (Thucyd.
iv. 8), who are ready before the rest, and march against the
Athenians at Pylus, probably include the Amyklæans.

Laconia generally is called by Thucydidês (iii. 16) as the
περιοικὶς of Sparta.

[629] The word περίοικοι is sometimes used to signify simply
“surrounding neighbor states,” in its natural geographical sense:
see Thucyd. i. 17, and Aristot. Polit. ii. 7, 1.

But the more usual employment of it is, to mean, the unprivileged
or less privileged members of the same political aggregate living
without the city, in contrast with the full-privileged burghers
who lived within it. Aristotle uses it to signify, in Krête,
the class corresponding to the Lacedæmonian Helots (Pol. ii. 7,
3): there did not exist in Krête any class corresponding to the
Lacedæmonian Periœki. In Krête, there were not two stages of
inferiority,—there was only one, and that one is marked by the
word περίοικοι; while the Lacedæmonian Periœkus had the Helot
below him. To an Athenian the word conveyed the idea of undefined
degradation.

To understand better the _status_ of the Periœkus, we may
contrast him with the Metœkus, or Metic. The latter resides
in the city, but he is an alien resident on sufferance, not a
native: he pays a special tax, stands excluded from all political
functions, and cannot even approach the magistrate except through
a friendly citizen, or Prostatês (επὶ προστάτον οἰκεῖν—Lycurgus
cont. Leocrat. c. 21-53): he bears arms for the defence of the
state. The situation of a Metic was, however, very different
in different cities of Greece. At Athens, that class were
well-protected in person and property, numerous and domiciliated:
at Sparta, there were at first none,—the Xenêlasy excluded them;
but this must have been relaxed long before the days of Agis the
Third.

The Periœkus differs from the Metic, in being a native of the
soil, subject by birth to the city law.

M. Kopstadt (in his Dissertation above cited, on Lacedæmonian
affairs, sect. 7, p. 60) expresses much surprise at that which
I advance in this note respecting Krête and Lacedæmon,—that in
Krête there was no class of men analogous to the Lacedæmonian
Periœki, but only two classes,—_i. e._ free citizens and Helots.
He thinks that this position is “prorsus falsum.”

But I advance nothing more here than what is distinctly stated
by Aristotle, as Kopstadt himself admits (pp. 60, 71). Aristotle
calls the subject class in Krête by the name of Περίοικοι. And
in this case, the general presumptions go far to sustain the
authority of Aristotle. For Sparta was a dominant or capital
city, including in its dependence not only a considerable
territory, but a considerable number of inferior, distinct,
organized townships. In Krête, on the contrary, each autonomous
state included only a town with its circumjacent territory, but
without any annexed townships. There was, therefore, no basis
for the intermediate class called, in Laconia, Periœki: just as
Kopstadt himself remarks (p. 78) about the Dorian city of Megara.
There were only the two classes of free Krêtan citizens, and
serf-cultivators in various modifications and subdivisions.

Kopstadt (following Hoeck, Krêta, b. iii. vol. iii. p. 23) says
that the authority of Aristotle on this point is overborne by
that of Dosiadas and Sosikratês,—authors who wrote specially on
Krêtan affairs. Now if we were driven to make a choice, I confess
that I should prefer the testimony of Aristotle,—considering
that we know little or nothing respecting the other two. But in
this case I do not think that we are driven to make a choice:
Dosiadas (ap. Athenæ. xiv. p. 143) is not cited in terms, so that
we cannot affirm him to contradict Aristotle: and Sosikratês
(upon whom Hoeck and Kopstadt rely) says something which does not
necessarily contradict him, but admits of being explained so as
to place the two witnesses in harmony with each other.

Sosikratês says (ap. Athenæ. vi. p. 263), Τὴν μὲν κοινὴν δουλείαν
οἱ Κρῆτες καλοῦσι μνοίαν, τὴν δὲ ἰδίαν ἀφαμίωτας, τοὺς δὲ
περιοίκους ὑπηκόους. Now the word περιοίκους seems to be here
used just as Aristotle would have used it, to comprehend the
Krêtan serfs universally: it is not distinguished from μνώιται
and ἀφαμιῶται, but comprehends both of them as different species
under a generic term. The authority of Aristotle affords a reason
for preferring to construe the passage in this manner, and the
words appear to me to admit of it fairly.

[630] The πόλεις of the Lacedæmonian Periœki are often noticed:
see Xenophon (Agesilaus, ii. 24; Laced. Repub. xv. 3; Hellenic.
vi. 5, 21).

When we come to describe the democracy of Athens after the revolution of Kleisthenes, we shall find the demes, or local townships and villages of Attica, incorporated as equal and constituent fractions of the integer called The Deme (or The City) of Athens, so that a demot of Acharnæ or Sphêttus is at the same time a full Athenian citizen. But the relation of the Periœkic townships to Sparta is one of inequality and obedience, though both belong to the same political aggregate, and make up together the free Lacedæmonian community. In like manner, Orneæ and other places were townships of men personally free, but politically dependent on Argos,—Akræphiæ on Thebes,—Chæroneia on Orchomenus,—and various Thessalian towns on Pharsalus and Larissa.[631] Such, moreover, was, in the main, the state into which Athens would have brought her allies, and Thebes the free Bœotian communities,[632] if the policy of either of these cities had permanently prospered. This condition carried with it a sentiment of degradation, and a painful negation of that autonomy for which every Grecian community thirsted; while being maintained through superior force, it had a natural tendency, perhaps without the deliberate wish of the reigning city, to degenerate into practical oppression. But in addition to this general tendency, the peculiar education of a Spartan, while it imparted force, fortitude, and regimental precision, was at the same time so rigorously peculiar, that it rendered him harsh, unaccommodating, and incapable of sympathizing with the ordinary march of Grecian feeling,—not to mention the rapacity and love of money, which is attested, by good evidence, as belonging to the Spartan character,[633] and which we should hardly have expected to find in the pupils of Lykurgus. As Harmosts out of their native city,[634] and in relations with inferiors, the Spartans seem to have been more unpopular than other Greeks, and we may presume that a similar haughty roughness pervaded their dealings with their own Periœki; who were bound to them certainly by no tie of affection, and who for the most part revolted after the battle of Leuktra, as soon as the invasion of Laconia by Epameinondas enabled them to do so with safety.

[631] Herod. viii. 73-135; Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1, 8; Thucyd. iv.
76-94.

[632] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 3, 5, 9, 19. Isokratês, writing in the
days of Theban power, after the battle of Leuktra, characterizes
the Bœotian towns as περίοικοι of Thebes (Or. viii. De Pace, p.
182); compare Orat. xiv. Plataic. pp. 299-303. Xenophon holds the
same language, Hellen. v. 4, 46: compare Plutarch, Agesilaus, 28.

[633] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 23.

[634] Thucyd. i. 77-95; vi. 105. Isokratês (Panathenaic. Or.
xii. p. 283), Σπαρτιάτας δὲ ὑπεροπτικοὺς καὶ πολεμικοὺς καὶ
πλεονέκτας, οἵους περ αὐτοὺς εἶναι πάντες ὑπειλήφασι. Compare his
Oratio de Pace (Or. viii. pp. 180-181); Oratio Panegyr. (Or. iv.
pp. 64-67).

Isokratês, taking his point of departure from the old Herakleid legend, with its instantaneous conquest and triple partition of all Dorian Peloponnesus, among the three Herakleid brethren, deduces the first origin of the Periœkic townships from internal seditions among the conquerors of Sparta. According to him, the period immediately succeeding the conquest was one of fierce intestine warfare in newly-conquered Sparta, between the Few and the Many,—the oligarchy and the demus. The former being victorious, two important measures were the consequences of their victory. They banished the defeated Many from Sparta into Laconia, retaining the residence in Sparta exclusively for themselves; they assigned to them the smallest and least fertile half of Laconia, monopolizing the larger and better for themselves; and they disseminated them into many very small townships, or subordinate little communities, while they concentrated themselves entirely at Sparta. To these precautions for insuring dominion, they added another not less important. They established among their own Spartan citizens equality of legal privilege and democratical government, so as to take the greatest securities for internal harmony; which harmony, according to the judgment of Isokratês, had been but too effectually perpetuated, enabling the Spartans to achieve their dominion over oppressed Greece,—like the accord of pirates[635] for the spoliation of the peaceful. The Periœkic townships, he tells us, while deprived of all the privileges of freemen, were exposed to all the toils, as well as to an unfair share of the dangers, of war. The Spartan authorities put them in situations and upon enterprises which they deemed too dangerous for their own citizens; and, what was still worse, the ephors possessed the power of putting to death, without any form of preliminary trial, as many Periœki as they pleased.[636]

[635] Isokratês, Panathenaic. Or. xii. p. 280. ὥστε οὐδεὶς ἂν
αὐτοὺς διά γε τὴν ὁμόνοιαν δικαίως ἐπαινέσειεν, οὐδεν μᾶλλον ἢ
τοὺς καταποντιστὰς καὶ λῄστας καὶ τοὺς περὶ τὰς ἄλλας ἀδικίας
ὄντας· καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖνοι σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ὁμονοοῦντες τοὺς ἄλλους
ἀπολλύουσι.

[636] Isokratês, Orat. xii. (Panathenaic.) pp. 270-271. The
statement in the same oration (p. 246), that the Lacedæmonians
“had put to death without trial more Greeks (πλείους τῶν Ἑλλήνων)
than had ever been tried at Athens since Athens was a city,”
refers to their allies or dependents out of Laconia.

The statement here delivered by Isokratês, respecting the first origin of the distinction of Spartans and Periœki, is nothing better than a conjecture, nor is it even a probable conjecture, since it is based on the historical truth of the old Herakleid legend, and transports the disputes of his own time, between the oligarchy and the demus, into an early period, to which such disputes do not belong. Nor is there anything, so far as our knowledge of Grecian history extends, to bear out his assertion, that the Spartans took to themselves the least dangerous post in the field, and threw undue peril upon their Periœki. Such dastardly temper was not among the sins of Sparta; but it is undoubtedly true that, as the number of citizens continually diminished, so the Periœki came to constitute, in the later times, a larger and larger proportion of the Spartan force. Yet the power which Isokratês represents to have been vested in the ephors, of putting to death Periœki without preliminary trial, we may fully believe to be real, and to have been exercised as often as the occasion seemed to call for it. We shall notice, presently, the way in which these magistrates dealt with the Helots, and shall see ample reason from thence to draw the conclusion that, whenever the ephors believed any man to be dangerous to the public peace,—whether an inferior Spartan, a Periœkus, or a Helot,—the most summary mode of getting rid of him would be considered as the best. Towards Spartans of rank and consideration, they were doubtless careful and measured in their application of punishment, but the same necessity for circumspection did not exist with regard to the inferior classes: moreover, the feeling that the exigences of justice required a fair trial before punishment was inflicted, belongs to Athenian associations much more than to Spartan. How often any such summary executions may have taken place, we have no information.

We may remark that the account which Isokratês has here given of the origin of the Laconian Periœki is not essentially irreconcilable with that of Ephorus,[637] who recounted that Eurysthenês and Proklês, on first conquering Laconia, had granted to the preëxisting population equal rights with the Dorians,—but that Agis, son of Eurysthenês, had deprived them of this equal position, and degraded them into dependent subjects of the latter. At least, the two narratives both agree in presuming that the Periœki had once enjoyed a better position, from which they had been extruded by violence. And the policy which Isokratês ascribes to the victorious Spartan oligarchs,—of driving out the demus from concentrated residence in the city to disseminated residence in many separate and insignificant townships,—seems to be the expression of that proceeding which in his time was numbered among the most efficient precautions against refractory subjects,—the Diœkisis, or breaking up of a town-aggregate into villages. We cannot assign to the statement any historical authority.[638] Moreover, the division of Laconia into six districts, together with its distribution into townships (or the distribution of settlers into preëxisting townships), which Ephorus ascribed to the first Dorian kings, are all deductions from the primitive legendary account, which described the Dorian conquest as achieved by one stroke, and must all be dismissed, if we suppose it to have been achieved gradually. This gradual conquest is admitted by O. Müller, and by many of the ablest subsequent inquirers,—who, nevertheless, seem to have the contrary supposition involuntarily present to their minds when they criticize the early Spartan history, and always unconsciously imagine the Spartans as masters of all Laconia. We cannot even assert that Laconia was ever under one government before the consummation of the successive conquests of Sparta.

[637] Ephorus, Fragm. 18, ed. Marx; ap. Strabo, viii. p. 365.

[638] Dr. Arnold (in his Dissertation on the Spartan
Constitution, appended to the first volume of his Thucydidês, p.
643) places greater confidence in the historical value of this
narrative of Isokratês than I am inclined to do. On the other
hand, Mr. G. C. Lewis, in his Review of Dr. Arnold’s Dissertation
(Philological Museum, vol. ii. p. 45), considers the “account
of Isokratês as completely inconsistent with that of Ephorus;”
which is saying rather more, perhaps, than the tenor of the two
strictly warrants. In Mr. Lewis’s excellent article, most of the
difficult points respecting the Spartan constitution will be
found raised and discussed in a manner highly instructive.

Another point in the statement of Isokratês is, that the Dorians,
at the time of the original conquest of Laconia, were only
two thousand in number (Or. xii. Panath. p. 286). Mr. Clinton
rejects this estimate as too small, and observes, “I suspect
that Isokratês, in describing the numbers of the Dorians at the
original conquest, has adapted to the description the actual
numbers of the Spartans in his own time.” (Fast. Hellen. ii. p.
408.)

This seems to me a probable conjecture, and it illustrates as
well the absence of data under which Isokratês or his informants
labored, as the method which they took to supply the deficiency.

Of the assertion of O. Müller—repeated by Schömann[639]—“that the difference of races was strictly preserved, and that the Periœki were always considered as Achæans,”—I find no proof, and I believe it to be erroneous. Respecting Pharis, Geronthræ, and Amyklæ, three Periœkic towns, Pausanias gives us to understand that the preëxisting inhabitants either retired or were expelled on the Dorian conquest, and that a Dorian population replaced them.[640] Without placing great faith in this statement, for which Pausanias could hardly have any good authority, we may yet accept it as representing the probabilities of the case, and as counterbalancing the unsupported hypothesis of Müller. The Periœkic townships were probably composed either of Dorians entirely, or of Dorians incorporated in greater or less proportion with the preëxisting inhabitants. But whatever difference of race there may once have been, it was effaced before the historical times,[641] during which we find no proof of Achæans, known as such, in Laconia. The Herakleids, the Ægeids, and the Talthybiads, all of whom belong to Sparta, seem to be the only examples of separate races, partially distinguishable from Dorians, known after the beginning of authentic history. The Spartans and the Periœki constitute one political aggregate, and that too so completely melted together in the general opinion (speaking of the times before the battle of Leuktra), that the peace of Antalkidas, which guaranteed autonomy to every separate Grecian city, was never so construed as to divorce the Periœkic towns from Sparta. Both are known as Laconians, or Lacedæmonians, and Sparta is regarded by Herodotus only as the first and bravest among the many and brave Lacedæmonian cities.[642] The victors at Olympia are proclaimed, not as Spartans, but as Laconians,—a title alike borne by the Periœki. And many of the numerous winners, whose names we read in the Olympic lists as Laconians, may probably have belonged to Amyklæ or other Periœkic towns.

[639] Schömann, Antiq. Jurisp. Græcorum, iv. 1, 5, p. 112.

[640] Pausan. iii. 2, 6; iii. 22, 5. The statement of Müller is
to be found (History of the Dorians, iii. 2, 1): he quotes a
passage of Pausanias, which is noway to the point.

Mr. G. C. Lewis (Philolog. Mus. _ut. sup._ p. 41) is of the same
opinion as Müller.

[641] M. Kopstadt (in the learned Dissertation which I have
before alluded to, De Rerum Laconicarum Constitutionis Lycurgeæ
Origine et Indole, cap. ii. p. 31) controverts this position
respecting the Periœki. He appears to understand it in a sense
which my words hardly present,—at least, a sense which I did
not intend them to present: as if the majority of inhabitants
in _each_ of the hundred Periœkic towns were Dorians,—“ut per
centum Laconiæ oppida distributi _ubique majorem_ incolarum
numerum efficerent,” (p. 32.) I meant only to affirm that some
of the Periœkic towns, such as Amyklæ, were wholly, or almost
wholly, Dorian; many others of them partially Dorian. But what
may have been the comparative numbers (probably different in
each town) of Dorian and non-Dorian inhabitants,—there are no
means of determining. M. Kopstadt (p. 35) admits that Amyklæ,
Pharis, and Geronthræ, were Periœkic towns peopled by Dorians;
and if this be true, it negatives the general maxim on the faith
of which he contradicts what I affirm: his maxim is—“nunquam
Dorienses à Doriensibus nisi bello victi erant, civitate æquoque
jure privati sunt,” (p. 31.) It is very unsafe to lay down such
large positions respecting a supposed uniformity of Dorian rules
and practice. The high authority of O. Müller has been extremely
misleading in this respect.

It is plain that Herodotus (compare his expression, viii. 73 and
i. 145) conceived all the free inhabitants of Laconia not as
Achæans, but as Dorians. He believes in the story of the legend,
that the Achæans, driven out of Laconia by the invading Dorians
and Herakleidæ, occupied the territory in the north-west of
Peloponnesus which was afterwards called Achæa,—expelling from
it the Ionians. Whatever may be the truth about this legendary
statement,—and whatever may have been the original proportions
of Dorians and Achæans in Laconia,—these two races had (in the
fifth century B. C.) become confounded in one undistinguishable
ethnical and political aggregate called Laconian, or
Lacedæmonian,—comprising both Spartans and Periœki, though with
very unequal political franchises, and very material differences
in individual training and habits. The case was different in
Thessaly, where the Thessalians held in dependence Magnêtes,
Perrhæbi, and Achæans: the separate nationality of these latter
was never lost.

[642] Herod. vii. 234.

The Periœkic hoplites constituted always a large—in later times a preponderant—numerical proportion of the Lacedæmonian army, and must undoubtedly have been trained, more or less perfectly, in the peculiar military tactics of Sparta; since they were called upon to obey the same orders as the Spartans in the field,[643] and to perform the same evolutions. Some cases appear, though rare, in which a Periœkus has high command in a foreign expedition. In the time of Aristotle, the larger proportion of Laconia (then meaning only the country eastward of Taygetus, since the foundation of Messênê by Epameinondas had been consummated) belonged to Spartan citizens,[644] but the remaining smaller half must have been the property of the Periœki, who must besides have carried on most of the commerce of export and import,—the metallurgic enterprise, and the distribution of internal produce,—which the territory exhibited; since no Spartan ever meddled in such occupations. And thus the peculiar training of Lykurgus, by throwing all these employments into the hands of the Periœki, opened to them a new source of importance, which the dependent townships of Argos, of Thebes, or of Orchomenus, would not enjoy.

[643] Thucyd. viii. 6-22. They did not, however, partake in the
Lykurgean discipline; but they seem to be named οἱ ἐκ τῆς χώρας
παῖδες, as contrasted with οἱ ἐκ τῆς ἀγωγῆς (Sosibius ap. Athenæ.
xv. p. 674).

[644] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 23. διὰ γὰρ τὸ τῶν Σπαρτιατῶν εἶναι
τὴν πλείστην γῆν, οὐκ ἐξετάζουσιν ἀλλήλων τὰς εἰσφοράς.

Mr. G. C. Lewis, in the article above alluded to (Philolog. Mus.
ii. p. 54), says, about the Periœki: “They lived in the country
or in small towns of the Laconian territory, and cultivated the
land, which they did not hold of any individual citizen, but
paid for it a tribute or rent to the state; being exactly in the
same condition as the _possessores_ of the Roman domain, or the
Ryots, in Hindostan, before the introduction of the Permanent
Settlement.” It may be doubted, I think, whether the Periœki paid
any such rent or tribute as that which Mr. Lewis here supposes.
The passage just cited from Aristotle seems to show that they
paid direct taxation individually, and just upon the same
principle as the Spartan citizens, who are distinguished only
by being larger landed-proprietors. But though the principle of
taxation be the same, there was practical injustice (according to
Aristotle) in the mode of assessing it. “The Spartan citizens (he
observes) being the largest landed-proprietors, take care not to
canvass strictly _each other’s payment of property-tax_”—_i. e._
they wink mutually at each other’s evasions. If the Spartans had
been the _only_ persons who paid εἰσφορὰ, or property-tax, this
observation of Aristotle would have had no meaning. In principle,
the tax was assessed, both on their larger properties and on the
smaller properties of the Periœki: in practice, the Spartans
helped each other to evade the due proportion.

The Helots of Laconia were Coloni, or serfs, bound to the soil, who tilled it for the benefit of the Spartan proprietors certainly,—probably, of Periœkic proprietors also. They were the rustic population of the country, who dwelt, not in towns, but either in small villages[645] or in detached farms, both in the district immediately surrounding Sparta, and round the Periœkic Laconian towns also. Of course, there were also Helots who lived in Sparta and other towns, and did the work of domestic slaves,—but such was not the general character of the class. We cannot doubt that the Dorian conquest from Sparta found this class in the condition of villagers and detached rustics; but whether they were dependent upon preëxisting Achæan proprietors, or independent, like much of the Arcadian village population, is a question which we cannot answer. In either case, however, it is easy to conceive that the village lands (with the cultivators upon them) were the most easy to appropriate for the benefit of masters resident at Sparta; while the towns, with the district immediately around them, furnished both dwelling and maintenance to the outgoing detachments of Dorians. If the Spartans had succeeded in their attempt to enlarge their territory by the conquest of Arcadia,[646] they might very probably have converted Tegea and Mantineia into Periœkic towns, with a diminished territory inhabited (either wholly or in part) by Dorian settlers,—while they would have made over to proprietors in Sparta much of the village lands of the Mænalii, Azanes, and Parrhasii, helotizing the inhabitants. The distinction between a town and a village population seems the main ground of the different treatment of Helots and Periœki in Laconia. A considerable proportion of the Helots were of genuine Dorian race, being the Dorian Messenians west of Mount Taygetus, subsequently conquered and aggregated to this class of dependent cultivators, who, as a class, must have begun to exist from the very first establishment of the invading Dorians in the district round Sparta. From whence the name of Helots arose, we do not clearly make out: Ephorus deduced it from the town of Helus, on the southern coast, which the Spartans are said to have taken after a resistance so obstinate as to provoke them to deal very rigorously with the captives. There are many reasons for rejecting this story, and another etymology has been proposed, according to which Helot is synonymous with _captive_: this is more plausible, yet still not convincing.[647] The Helots lived in the rural villages, as _adscripti glebæ_, cultivating their lands and paying over their rent to the master at Sparta, but enjoying their homes, wives, families, and mutual neighborly feelings, apart from the master’s view. They were never sold out of the country, and probably never sold at all; belonging, not so much to the master as to the state, which constantly called upon them for military service, and recompensed their bravery or activity with a grant of freedom. Meno, the Thessalian of Pharsalus, took out three hundred Penestæ of his own, to aid the Athenians against Amphipolis: these Thessalian Penestæ were in many points analogous to the Helots, but no individual Spartan possessed the like power over the latter. The Helots were thus a part of the state, having their domestic and social sympathies developed, a certain power of acquiring property,[648] and the consciousness of Grecian lineage and dialect,—points of marked superiority over the foreigners who formed the slave population of Athens or Chios. They seem to have been noway inferior to any village population of Greece; while the Grecian observer sympathized with them more strongly than with the bought slaves of other states,—not to mention that their homogeneous aspect, their numbers, and their employment in military service, rendered them more conspicuous to the eye.

[645] The village-character of the Helots is distinctly marked
by Livy, xxxiv. 27, in describing the inflictions of the
despot Nabis: “Ilotarum quidam (hi sunt jam inde antiquitus
_castellani_, agreste genus) transfugere voluisse insimulati, per
omnes _vicos_ sub verberibus acti necantur.”

[646] Herodot. i. 66. ἐχρηστηριάζοντο ἐν Δέλφοισι ἐπὶ πάσῃ τῇ
Ἀρκάδων χώρῃ.

[647] See O. Müller, Dorians, iii. 3, 1; Ephorus ap. Strabo,
viii. p. 365: Harpocration, v. Εἵλωτες.

[648] Kleomenes the Third, offered manumission to every Helot,
who could pay down five Attic minæ: he was in great immediate
want of money, and he raised, by this means, five hundred
talents. Six thousand Helots must thus have been in a condition
to find five minæ each, which was a very considerable sum
(Plutarch, Kleomenes, c. 23).

The service in the Spartan house was all performed by members of the Helot class; for there seem to have been few, if any, other slaves in the country. The various anecdotes which are told respecting their treatment at Sparta, betoken less of cruelty than of ostentatious scorn,[649]—a sentiment which we are noway surprised to discover among the citizens at the mess-table. But the great mass of the Helots, who dwelt in the country, were objects of a very different sentiment on the part of the Spartan ephors, who knew their bravery, energy, and standing discontent, and yet were forced to employ them as an essential portion of the state army. The Helots commonly served as light-armed, in which capacity the Spartan hoplites could not dispense with their attendance. At the battle of Platæa, every Spartan hoplite had seven Helots,[650] and every Periœkic hoplite one Helot, to attend him:[651] but, even in camp, the Spartan arrangements were framed to guard against any sudden mutiny of these light-armed companions, while, at home, the citizen habitually kept his shield disjoined from its holding-ring, to prevent the possibility of its being snatched for the like purpose. Sometimes, select Helots were clothed in heavy armor, and thus served in the ranks, receiving manumission from the state as the reward of distinguished bravery.[652]

[649] Such is the statement, that Helots were compelled to appear
in a state of drunkenness, in order to excite in the youths a
sentiment of repugnance against intoxication (Plutarch, Lycurg.
c. 28; also, Adversus Stoicos de Commun. Notit. c. 19, p. 1067).

[650] Herod. ix. 29. The Spartans, at Thermopylæ, seem to have
been attended each by only one Helot (vii. 229).

O. Müller seems to consider that the light-armed, who attended
the Periœkic hoplites at Platæa, were _not_ Helots (Dor. iii. 3,
6). Herodotus does not distinctly say that they were so, but I
see no reason for admitting two different classes of light-armed
in the Spartan military force.

The calculation which Müller gives of the number of Periœki and
Helots altogether, proceeds upon very untrustworthy data. Among
them is to be noticed his supposition that πολιτικὴ χώρα means
the district of Sparta as distinguished from Laconia, which is
contrary to the passage in Polybius (vi. 45): πολιτικὴ χώρα, in
Polybius, means the territory of the state generally.

[651] Xenophon, Rep. Lac. c. 12, 4; Kritias, De Lacedæm. Repub.
ap. Libanium, Orat. de Servitute, t. ii. p. 85, Reisk. ὡς
ἀπιστίας εἵνεκα τῆς πρὸς τοὺς Εἵλωτας ἐξαιρεῖ μὲν Σπαρτιατὴς
οἴκοι τῆς ἄσπιδος τὴν πόρπακα, etc.

[652] Thucyd. i. 101; iv. 80; v. 14-23.

But Sparta, even at the maximum of her power, was more than once endangered by the reality, and always beset with the apprehension, of Helotic revolt. To prevent or suppress it, the ephors submitted to insert express stipulations for aid in their treaties with Athens,—to invite Athenian troops into the heart of Laconia,—and to practice combinations of cunning and atrocity which even yet stand without parallel in the long list of precautions for fortifying unjust dominion. It was in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war, after the Helots had been called upon for signal military efforts in various ways, and when the Athenians and Messenians were in possession of Pylus, that the ephors felt especially apprehensive of an outbreak. Anxious to single out the most forward and daring Helots, as the men from whom they had most to dread, they issued proclamation that every member of that class who had rendered distinguished services should make his claims known at Sparta, promising liberty to the most deserving. A large number of Helots came forward to claim the boon: not less than two thousand of them were approved, formally manumitted, and led in solemn procession round the temples, with garlands on their heads, as an inauguration to their coming life of freedom. But the treacherous garland only marked them out as victims for the sacrifice: every man of them forthwith disappeared,—the manner of their death was an untold mystery.

For this dark and bloody deed, Thucydidês is our witness,[653] and Thucydidês describing a contemporary matter into which he had inquired. Upon any less evidence we should have hesitated to believe the statement; but standing as it thus does above all suspicion, it speaks volumes as to the inhuman character of the Lacedæmonian government, while it lays open to us at the same time the intensity of their fears from the Helots. In the assassination of this fated regiment of brave men, a large number of auxiliaries and instruments must have been concerned: yet Thucydidês, with all his inquiries, could not find out how any of them perished: he tells us, that no man knew. We see here a fact which demonstrates unequivocally the impenetrable mystery in which the proceedings of the Spartan government were wrapped,—the absence not only of public discussion, but of public curiosity,—and the perfection with which the ephors reigned over the will, the hands, and the tongues, of their Spartan subjects. The Venetian Council of Ten, with all the facilities for nocturnal drowning which their city presented, could hardly have accomplished so vast a _coup-d’état_ with such invisible means. And we may judge from hence, even if we had no other evidence, how little the habits of a public assembly could have suited either the temper of mind or the march of government at Sparta.

[653] Thucyd. iv. 80. οἱ δὲ οὐ πολλῷ ὕστερον ἠφάνισάν τε αὐτοὺς,
καὶ οὐδεὶς ᾔσθετο ὅτῳ τρόπῳ ἕκαστος διεφθάρη.

Other proceedings, ascribed to the ephors against the Helots, are conceived in the same spirit as the incident just recounted from Thucydidês, though they do not carry with them the same certain attestation. It was a part of the institutions of Lykurgus (according to a statement which Plutarch professes to have borrowed from Aristotle) that the ephors should every year declare war against the Helots, in order that the murder of them might be rendered innocent; and that active young Spartans should be armed with daggers and sent about Laconia, in order that they might, either in solitude or at night, assassinate such of the Helots as were considered formidable.[654] This last measure passes by the name of the Krypteia, yet we find some difficulty in determining to what extent it was ever realized. That the ephors, indeed, would not be restrained by any scruples of justice or humanity, is plainly shown by the murder of the two thousand Helots above noticed; but this latter incident really answered its purpose, while a standing practice, such as that of the Krypteia, and a formal notice of war given beforehand, would provoke the reaction of despair rather than enforce tranquillity. There seems, indeed, good evidence that the Krypteia was a real practice,[655]—that the ephors kept up a system of police or espionage throughout Laconia, by the employment of active young citizens, who lived a hard and solitary life, and suffered their motions to be as little detected as possible. The ephors might naturally enough take this method of keeping watch both over the Periœkic townships and the Helot villages, and the assassination of individual Helots by these police-men, or Krypts, would probably pass unnoticed. But it is impossible to believe in any standing murderous order, or deliberate annual assassination of Helots, for the purpose of intimidation, as Aristotle is alleged to have represented,—for we may well doubt whether he really did make such a representation, when we see that he takes no notice of this measure in his Politics, where he speaks at some length both of the Spartan constitution and of the Helots. The well-known hatred and fear, entertained by the Spartans towards their Helots, has probably colored Plutarch’s description of the Krypteia, so as to exaggerate those unpunished murders which occasionally happened into a constant phenomenon with express design. A similar deduction is to be made from the statement of Myrôn of Priênê,[656] who alleged that they were beaten every year without any special fault, in order to put them in mind of their slavery,—and that those Helots, whose superior beauty or stature placed them above the visible stamp of their condition, were put to death; while such masters as neglected to keep down the spirit of their vigorous Helots were punished. That secrecy, for which the ephors were so remarkable, seems enough of itself to refute the assertion that they publicly proclaimed war against the Helots; though we may well believe that this unhappy class of men may have been noticed as objects for jealous observation in the annual ephoric oath of office. Whatever may have been the treatment of the Helots in later times, it is at all events hardly to be supposed that any regulation hostile to them can have emanated from Lykurgus. For the dangers arising from that source did not become serious until after the Messenian war,—nor, indeed, until after the gradual diminution of the number of Spartan citizens had made itself felt.

[654] Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 28; Heraclides Pontic. p. 504, ed.
Crag.

[655] Plato, Legg. i. p. 633: the words of the Lacedæmonian
Megillus designate an existing Spartan custom. Compare the same
treatise, vi. p. 763, where Ast suspects, without reason, the
genuineness of the word κρυπτοί.

[656] Myron, ap. Athenæ. xiv. p. 657. ἐπικόπτειν τοὺς ἁδρουμένους
does not strictly mean “to put to death.”

The manumitted Helots did not pass into the class of Periœki,—for this purpose a special grant, of the freedom of some Periœkic township, would probably be required,—but constituted a class apart, known at the time of the Peloponnesian war by the name of Neodamôdes. Being persons who had earned their liberty by signal bravery, they were of course regarded by the ephors with peculiar apprehension, and, if possible, employed on foreign service,[657] or planted on some foreign soil as settlers. In what manner these freedmen employed themselves, we find no distinct information; but we can hardly doubt that they quitted the Helot village and field, together with the rural costume (the leather cap and sheepskin) which the Helot commonly wore, and the change of which exposed him to suspicion, if not to punishment, from his jealous masters. Probably they, as well as the disfranchised Spartan citizens (called Hypomeiones, or Inferiors), became congregated at Sparta, and found employment either in various trades or in the service of the government.

[657] Thucyd. v. 34.