332 THE THREE CLASSES-1. SPARTANS; APP. BOOK V. classes were formed into which the Lacedæmonians are divided in the historical age-1. Spartans, 2. Perioci, and 3. Helots-the first the sole possessors of political rights and privileges, the second free but without franchise, the third serfs attached to the soil, cultivating it for the benefit of their masters. 2 It is unnecessary to describe at length the condition of these three classes. Bishop Thirlwall in the eighth chapter of his History,1 Mr. Grote in his second volume, and writers of repute in various works upon Greek antiquities,3 have treated the subject in such a way as to exhaust it, and are agreed in the main as to the facts. A few leading points, however, may be noticed, which have not always been given sufficient prominence. 7 (i.) The Spartans were the free inhabitants of Sparta itself, not all the Dorian population of the country. They were themselves chiefly, but not exclusively, of Doric blood, having among them Ægidæ from Thebes, who were probably Cadmeians,5 Heraclidae and Talthybiade, who were Achæans. They were originally all landed proprietors, possessed of considerable estates in the richest part of the territory, which they cultivated by means of their serfs or Helots. They were gentlemen and soldiers, it being impossible for them at least from the time of the Lycurgean legislation-to engage in trade, or even to superintend their estates, their whole lives being passed in the performance of state duties, either with the army or in the capital. 8 (ii.) The Perioci were the free inhabitants of the towns and country districts around Sparta. 1 Vol. i. pp. 306-314. 2 Pp. 488-511. 3 See particularly Dr. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiq. ad Voc. HELOTES and PERICECI. Geronthræ was certainly colonised by Dorians, who thenceforth became Pericci (Pausan. iii. 22, § 5). The same is concluded with much probability of Pharis and Amycle (cf. Pausan. iii. 2, § 6, and iii. 19, § 5). Mr. Grote assumes that every Periocic town was, at least in part, so colonised; but for this there is no authority, and it is very unlikely (vide note in the next page). 5 Pind. Isth. vii. 21; Herod. iv. 149, and note ad loc.; Ephor. Frs. 11 and 13; Arist. Fr. 75. Their share of the territory was 6 Hence Cleomenes declared himself to be "not a Dorian but an Achæan" (Herod. v. 72). 7 Herod. vii. 134. 8 Isocrat. Panath. 1. s. c. Compare Arist. Pol. ii. 6: Διὰ τὸ τῶν Σπαρτιατών εἶναι τὴν πλείστην γῆν, οὐκ ἐξετάζουσιν, κ. τ. λ. 9 I see no grounds for confining the Perioci to the country-towns, as Mr. Grote does. They are called oi èk tŷs χώρας παῖδες, and are as likely to have lived in scattered farms as in towns or villages. The fact that there were a hundred townships of the Periæci does not prove that there were no Perioci besides the inhabitants of the towns. ESSAY I. 4 2. PERICI; 3. HELOTS. 333 small and of little value.1 Trade, however, and commercial enterprise generally, manufactures, art, &c., were altogether in their hands; and thus they often acquired wealth,2 and occasionally were even employed by the Spartans in offices of considerable dignity. They formed an important element in the Spartan army, where they served not only as light-armed but also as heavy-armed; and thus they must have been called upon to undergo a good deal of severe exercise and training, though they were free from the oppressive burthen of the Lycurgean discipline. They were probably for the most part descendants of the conquered Achæans, but with a slight Doric infusion,5 and perhaps some further intermixture of races foreign to the Peloponnese.6 (iii.) The Helots were the slave population of Laconia. Their name may best be regarded as equivalent to Halôti (axwroí), "captives." Their existence is probably coeval with the conquest of the country by the Dorians, who would retain as slaves those whom they took prisoners in battle. At first they would be insig 1 Mr. Grote speaks of their possessing "the smaller half" (Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 502), but Aristotle's words allow, and Isocrates asserts, a far greater disproportion. 2 Xenophon speaks of Perioci, who were καλοκάγαθοί, οι 'gentlemen " (Hell. v. 3, § 9). 3 Thucyd. viii. 6, and 22. 4 Herod. ix. 28; Thucyd. iv. 38, &c. 5 Mr. Grote holds the exact converse to this, viz., that they were Dorians, with a slight Achæan infusion (Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 500, &c.); but the ordinary view seems to me far more probable. The Dorians, who issued from the narrow valley of the Pindus, cannot be conceived of as very numerous, or as bearing more than a small proportion to the Achæans whom they conquered (comp. Thuc. iv. 126). Indeed it is sufficiently surprising that they should have entered the Peloponnese in such numbers as to found three kingdoms and gradually establish themselves as the dominant race. The supposed migration of the Achæans into the Peloponnesian Ionia can refer only to a small section of the nation; for that narrow region cannot possibly have received more than a portion of the great race which was spread through the three countries of Argolis, Lacedæmon, and Messenia. Herodotus, it must be allowed, seems to regard the Perioci as Dorians when he mentions the several nations of the Peloponnese in his eighth book (ch. 73); but it is not quite certain that he does not merely omit them from his list as not forming, like the Cynurians, a separate people; and further, it is worthy of remark that his early Spartan history is very indifferent (cf. i. 65, and note ad loc.). 6 See Ephorus, Fr. 18; Herod. iv. 145. 7 Harpocration (ad voc. eiλ@TEVEIV) and Pausanias (iii. 20, § 6), derive Helot from the town "Exos; but this is wrong both historically and etymologically. The derivation given above -which was known to the ancients (see Schol. ad Plat. Alcib. i. p. 78, ed. Ruhnk.; Apostol. vii. 62)—is approved by K. O. Müller (Dorians, ii. p. 30) and by Drs. Liddell and Scott. 334 THE HELOTS. APP. BOOK V. nificant in number; but the conquest of rebel towns,8 and perhaps in some cases of Achæan cities which made a prolonged resistance,9 greatly increased them; and finally, upon the reduction of Messenia and the general enslavement of its inhabitants, they became the preponderating element in the population.1 A considerable number of them dwelt in Sparta, where they were the attendants 2 of their masters, and were subject to their caprices; but by far the greater portion lived scattered over the country, cultivating (like the Russian serfs) their masters' lands, but paying (instead of a definite amount of labour) a certain proportion of the produce of the land -probably one half 3 -as rent to the owner. Happier than the Russian serfs, these rustic cultivators were not brought into any direct contact with their masters, who dwelt at Sparta; but enjoyed their homes and indulged their family affections in security. With hearths inviolate and self-respect intact; with free social intercourse among each other, and no cold shadow of neighbouring greatness to awe or oppress them; with a firm hold on their lands from which they could not be ejected; with a fixed scale of rent which the lord had no power of augmenting; with a possibility of acquiring property by industrious exertion, and some prospect of obtaining freedom by purchase or by services to the state, the Spartan Helots must be considered, as a rustic class, to have been singularly favoured, and to have occupied a position which will in many respects compare favourably with that of the modern daylabourer. Had it not been for one terrible institution-the barbarous practice of the "Crypteia "-by which the bravest and most aspiring of the Helot class were from time to time secretly made away with, at the mere will of the government," their position. might have been envied by the peasantry of almost any other country. As Egys (Pausan. iii. 2, § 5). 9 As is related of Helos (Pausan. iii. 2, sub fin., and iii. 20, § 6. Compare Ephor. Fr. 18). 1 Clinton calculates the Helots at 170,000, and the rest of the population at 99,000 (F. H. ii. p. 501); K. O. Müller makes the former 224,000, the latter 156,000. These calculations cannot, of course, pretend to be more than rough guesses; but they sufficiently express the fact noted in the text (On the number of the Helots, cf. Thucyd. viii. 40). 5 2 Xen. Rep. Lac. vi. 3; Arist. Pol. ii. 2, &c. 3 This was at any rate the proportion paid by the Messenians (Tyrtæus, Fr. 5), who were probably placed on the same footing with other Helots. 4 Plut. Cleom. c. 23. 5 Thucyd. iv. 26, and 80; Xen. Hell. vi. 5, § 28; Myron. ap. Athen. vi. p. 271, F. 6 Thucyd. iv. 80; Aristot. Fr. 80; Heraclid. Pont. Fr. II. 3; Plut. Vit. Lycurg. c. 28. ESSAY I. SUCCESSION OF THE EARLY MONARCHS. 335 This cruel and inhuman system, sanctioned by law and frequently carried out in act,8 must have greatly diminished from that comfort in which the country Helot would otherwise have lived; and, while devised to lesson the danger of a servile rising, must in reality have been the chief cause of that hostile feeling which the Helots entertained against their Spartan lords, and which showed itself on various occasions in disaffection and even in open revolt.9 11. The order of succession in the two royal houses at Sparta, from Agis I. in the one, and from Eurypon in the other, may be regarded as tolerably certain;1 but the characters of the early kings and the events assigned to their reigns cannot be considered to have much historic foundation. The anagraphs of the Spartans, even if they commenced as early, would be likely to contain at most a bare notice of the wars,2 and would neither descend to per 7 Aristotle's statement that the Ephors, as a part of the regular formula on entering office, proclaimed war upon the Helots (Fr. 80), has been needlessly called in question by Müller (Dorians, ii. p. 41), Thirlwall (Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 311), Grote (vol. ii. p. 510), and others. On such a point Aristotle's authority is decisive; and all difficulty is removed if we regard the proclamation as secret, being intended (as Aristotle said) merely to (i.) ÆGIDE:- Agis (his son) Echestratus (his son) satisfy the consciences of those in power in case they thought it expedient to have recourse to the Crypteia during the year of office (öπws evayès }} τὸ ἀνελεῖν). 8 See Thucyd. iv. 80; Plat. Leg. i. p. 633; and the authorities quoted in the last note but one. 9 Thucyd. i. 101, iv. 41; Xen. Hell. vii. 2, § 2, &c. 1 The line of descent is commonly given as follows: (ii.) EUBYPONTIDÆ :— Soüs (his son) Eurypon (his son) Prytanis (his son) Labotas (his son) Doryssus (his son) [Eunomus (his son)] 336 ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION— 3 APP. BOOK V. sonal traits, nor even give the details of military operations. And tradition on such points would be a very unsafe guide, more especially during a time admitted to have been one of continued struggle and disturbance. Spartan history, in its connection with real and genuine personages whose deeds and characters are known to us, must be considered therefore to begin with Lycurgus, who, though presented to us in somewhat mythical colours, is to be accounted an actual man, the true founder of the greatness of his country. What Sparta became was owing entirely to the institutions of this famous lawgiver, who stands without a rival in the history of the first state in Greece, as the author of a system which endured nearly unaltered for five centuries, and which raised a small and insignificant country to a proud and wonderful eminence. 12. Great as were the services of Lycurgus to Sparta, they have undoubtedly been in one respect exaggerated. Not contented with viewing him as the introducer of the discipline known by his name, and as the improver in certain points of the previously existing constitution, the ancient writers are fond of ascribing to him the entire constitution of Sparta as it existed in their own day. Thus Herodotus and Plutarch speak of his "establishing the Senate; "4 and in one of the Rhetræ which he was said to have procured from Delphi, all the main points of the constitution are made to be of his institution.5 As however Sparta certainly existed as a separate state for several centuries before Lycurgus, there must have been an established form of government anterior to him; and hence, before we can determine how much or how little of the framework existing in later times was of his creation, we must endeavour to find out what the constitution of the Spartan state was in the interval between the original settlement and the Lycur 3 Herod. i. 65. Δίζω ἤ σε θεὸν μαντεύσομαι ἢ ἄνθρωπον. 4 Herod. i. 65; Plut. Lyc. c. 5. The latter writer is circumstantial in his account, and distinctly states that Lycurgus invented the Senate as a power intermediate between the kings and the people, to soften the asperities of their contests, and to throw its weight on the side of the weaker party. 5 Διὸς Ἑλλανίου καὶ ̓Αθανᾶς Ελλανίας ἱερὸν ἱδρυσάμενον, φυλὰς φυλάξαντα, καὶ ὠβὰς ὠβάξαντα τριάκοντα, γερουσίαν σὺν ἀρχαγέταις καταστήσαντα, ὥρας ἐξ ὥρας |
