“For the Helots were both
the ultimate foundation of Spartan might …and Sparta’s Achilles heel. ‘Most Spartan institutions’, as Thucydides
famously put it, ‘have always been designed with a view to security against the
Helots’. The history of Sparta, it is
not too much to say, is fundamentally the history of the class struggle between
the Spartans and the Helots.”[1]
This statement made by
Cartledge points towards a Sparta that was not the Utopia that the Spartan
contemporary historians tried to record.
It hints at internal struggles between two or more demographics and
classes of citizens, and suggests that these struggles were fundamental in the
bringing down of Sparta. Indeed, it
would appear that Ober’s observation could be correct. He stated that Xenophon adopted a stance in
his writing that was that of a knowledgeable insider that was explaining how
different things actually were to a naïve and possibly incredulous non-Athenian
reader, whilst Thucydides’ Corinthians took the approach of knowledgeable
experts as well, but did so from the point of trying to explain to the Spartans
what was new and so different about Athens.[2] How does this relate to Sparta and the
internal struggles between classes? It
signifies that there was an attitude in Sparta of superiority, and with this
type of attitude or mindset, there inherently follows an elitist viewpoint that
turns then to the subservience of some for the benefit of others. This type of subservience usually also ends
up weakening a government through infighting.
Something that should be
considered right at the beginning of any discussion concerning Sparta and the
Helots is that there is very little clearly recorded on the lives and the
status of the Helots in ancient Sparta.
The closest term to conveying what the Helots were in Sparta is that of
‘state-surf’, meaning that they were a poor class and that they were, as most
things in Sparta were, communally owned by the state.[3] Being subservient to the Spartans, the Helots
were required to turn over certain amounts of belongings and crops to the
state. Plutarch records that this was a
portion measuring 70 medimnoi of barley for men, and 12 for a woman. Further, they also had to turn over the oil
and wine that they produced in a quantity suiting a warrior and family or a
widow, depending on the circumstances.[4] But why would a civilization that was
supposed to be Utopia, and have all things common among the citizens make a
class of people poor and subservient?
As Ridley pointed out by
quoting Cook, “It is not likely that at any time in the archaic period Spartans
worked at the aesthetic crafts or Helots either. If so, since the strong continuity of style
precludes casual immigrants, it is very likely that the practice of the arts
was left to perioeci.”[5] This means that the Spartans were just the
rulers and the fighters, and all other classes were there so that they could
continue in that fashion. Finley
explained why this was the case. “The
production and distribution of weapons remain something of a puzzle. I think we can take it that the procurement
of metals and the manufacture of arms were the responsibility (and also the
privilege) of the perioeci.” The reason
behind this practice is obvious when examined: it was too dangerous to allow
the Helots to manufacture the arms, and if the Spartiates thought that manual
labour was beneath them, then only the perioikio remain to do it.[6] This type of development in the governing of
a people would have brought about interesting changes, both in practices and in
attitudes of the people. As Redfield
commented, throughout the long history of these types of processes in Greece,
this economic development will have given rise to different thematic tensions,
of which politically speaking would be the tension between an ideal of
citizenship and the actuality of the class-conflict within the citizen body.[7]
Ridley makes the point that
a starting point needs to be where Lycurgus banned Spartans working in the
trades. This is the beginning of the
belief in Spartan elitism. He goes on to
quote Herodotos (II 167) as saying: “Men who learn trades and their descendants
are held in less regard that other citizens, while any who need not work with
their hands are considered noble, especially if they devote themselves to
war. At any rate, all the Greeks have
learned this: the Lakedaimonians scorn manual workers most, the Corinthians do
so least.”[8] Indeed, Ducat also made the observation that
Spartan treatment of the Helots was a type of ideological warfare for the
strict purpose of demoralising and brainwashing the Helots into the mindset
that they were an inferior and subservient race to the Spartans.[9] This brainwashing and convincing of the
Helots that they were to be the servant class to the Spartans appears to have
been successful, and as Pausanias recorded, “Its inhabitants became the first
slaves of the Lacedaemonian state, and were the first to be called helots.”[10]
According to Redfield,
Sparta didn’t start out with the class problems that have been recorded. He says that the Spartans heroes The Spartan
heroes became the land owners instead of just the land caretakers. This then created a shift in the politics and
the social structure of Sparta. Quoting
Max Weber: “It is the most elemental economic fact that the way in which the disposition
over material property is distributed among a plurality of people… in itself
creates specific life-chances. According
to the law of marginal utility… this mode of distribution monopolises the
opportunity for profitable deals for all those who, provided with goods, do not
necessarily have to exchange them… This mode of distribution gives to the
propertied a monopoly on the possibility of transferring property from the
sphere of use as a “fortune” to the sphere of “capital goods”; that is, it
gives them the entrepreneurial function and all chances to share directly or
indirectly in the returns on capital… “Property” and “lack of property” are,
therefore, the basic categories of all class situations.”[11]
Helots were much less likely
than any of the other Greek-state slaves to have their families disbursed and
broken up. Because of this, the Helots
were able to, and even afforded the right to in Sparta, marry and have their
own family. Even though the Helots had a
significant number of people to begin with, their population was able to
increase despite the losses from the annual slaughtering, group massacres, and
war which will be discussed below.[12] On the subject of the Helot versus the
Spartan population, it is interesting to note that from the classical ear the
number of Spartans were much less than the number of Helots. It is curious how a larger population can
become the poor servant class of a smaller population, but Thycydides
potentially sheds some light on this by saying that “most Spartan institutions
have always been designed with a view to security against the Helots.”[13] Thus, it can be construed that both skill and
fear were important factors for the Spartans keeping the ability to govern the
Helots. As Xenophon pointed out, the
Equals always carried their spears, undid the straps of their bucklers only
when at home lest the Helots decided to seize them.[14]
Plutarch remarked that the
treatment of the Helots by the Spartans was not good. He said that the Spartans were harsh and
cruel to the Helots, making them drink pure wine[15]
“and 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” while the Spartans had their banquets.[16] This was not the only mistreatment that the
Spartans gave the Helots, however.
Aristotle, as recorded by Plutarch reported that the ephors had an
annual ritual where they would declare the Helots a type of enemy and allow the
Spartans to kill them without fear of any political or religious ramifications.[17] This was done as a way to kill ‘legitimately’
the strongest and most able of the Helots, because they were not technically
property and as such could not just be removed.
This seems like a strange practice since the Spartans also encouraged
the same eugenics practice among all classes of people that they themselves
observed, and as such meant that the strong Helots that they would kill as a
threat would not exist except for their own edicts.
There was also a time that
the Spartans took even more drastic measures to try and control the Helot
population. According to Thucydides, after the Spartans
and the Helots were engaged in a battle, the Spartans informed the Helots that
they needed to choose from among their own ranks the people that they felt did
the best service to Sparta on the campaign.
They implied that they were being thus selected so that they could be
granted their freedom from the Helot class.
Contrary to this, however, the Spartans were using this exercise to
discover who among the Helots were the strongest and most spirited, and
therefore most probably to rise against Sparta in a revolt. After 2000 of the Helots were chosen, they
put on garlands and went from temple to temple under the misconceived notion
that they were being honoured and given their freedom. The Spartans then took the Helots and
secretly killed all 2000 of them.[18] Is it any wonder that Aristotle described the
Helots as “an enemy constantly sitting in wait of the disaster of the
Spartans”?[19]
Talbert commented that the
liquidation of the 2000 Helots that were chosen as the most outstanding was not
a reflection of any threat that the Helots posed in actuality, but much more a
reflection of the fears that Sparta had of a revolution.[20] It does appear that the Spartan
constitutional developments were brought into the mainstream of Greek
constitutional history when they were viewed as an effort to eliminate the
ongoing class conflict within the entire Spartan citizen body. As Redfield stated, against the background of
this type of analysis of the Spartans, it is possible to view the Spartan
eunomia as an early, radical, and highly successful response to the disorder
generated within the state, and further to that, that the basic socio-economic
structure was preserved at the same time that it was also denied.[21]
Further evidence that there
was a class struggle between the Spartans and the Helots comes from Talbert
discussing the role of the Helots and the eventual downfall of the Spartan
state. Talbert believes that Spartas
problems and the eventual cause of its downfall lay somewhere other than with
the class struggle, and that the tensions and inequalities within the Spartiate
class were more serious, and that by the 400BC the Helots were an insignificant
element in the Spartan class struggle. He
further believes that the Helots were the main class that was trying to uphold
the Spartan ideals while they were lapsing in the Spartiate class themselves,
but that in the end none of it mattered and the state dwindled away.[22]
An observation that Ober made
while looking at the Spartans and the Athenians seems appropriate to sum up the
situation of the Helots and the Spartans.
“The conflict between modernity and traditionalism thus produced
socio-political pathologies that proved capable of infecting and ultimately
destroying polis communities. The fact
that the dynamic conflict was contested by two opposing political systems
(democracy and oligarchy) offered distinct socio-economic groups (the rich and
the poor) within a given city the opportunity to identify their particular and
factional interests with much larger processes, with complex systems (in the
form of the Athenian and the Spartan alliance) promoting, variously, modernity
and tradition.”[23] It would seem that the history of Sparta is
made up of the cause and effect cycles of the Helots and the Spartans
struggling with their respective class structures, just as Cartledge stated.
Bibliography
Aristotle. The
Politics. Trans. T. A. Sinclair,
(1981). Penguin, Middlesex, England
Cartledge,
P. (1987). “The Origins and Organisation of the
Peloponnesian League”, in Sparta,
edited by Whitby, M. (2002). Edinburgh
University Press, Edinburgh.
Cartledge,
P. (2002). Sparta
and Lakonia. A Regional History 1300 to 362 BC. (2nd Ed.) Routledge, New York.
Ducat,
J. (1990). Les
Hilotes. Bulletin de Correspondence
Hellenique, suppl. XX. Ecole francaise
d’Athenes, Athenes.
Ober,
J. (2005). “Thucydides and the invention of political
science”, Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics. Ver 1.0.
Princeton University.
Pausanias,
Description of Greece, Volume 1:
Books 1-2 (Attica and Corinth). Trans.
W. H. S. Jones, (1918). Loeb Classical
Library, William Heinemann, London.
Plutarch.
The Life of Lycurgus, in The Parallel
Lives, Vol. 1, trans. (1914). Loeb
Classical Library. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Lycurgus*.html
Redfield,
J. (Dec. 1977 – Jan. 1978). “The Women of Sparta”. The
Classical Journal, Vol. 73, No. 2, pp. 146-161.
Ridley,
R. T. (1974). “The Economic Activities of the
Perioikoi”. Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 27, Fasc. 3, pp. 281-292.
Talbert,
R. (1989). “The Role of the Helots in the Class Struggle
at Sparta”. Historia: Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte. Bd. 38, H. 1, pp 22-40.
Thucydides. The
Peloponnesian War. London, J. M.
Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton, trans Richard Crawley, (1910).
Xenophon. Constitution
of the Athenians in Marchant, E., and Bowersock, G., trans. (1925), Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 7, Harvard University Press. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=xen.+const.+lac.+1.1
[1]
Cartledge, ‘The Origins and Organisation of the Peloponnesian League’, p. 229
[2]
Ober, “Thucydides and the
invention of political science” p. 7
[3]
Talbert, “The Role of the
Helots in the Class Struggle at Sparta”, pp. 22-23
[6]
Ibid, p. 285
[10]
Pausanias, Description of Greece,
3.20.6
[12]
Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia, p. 141
[15]
Wine was usually watered down as the ‘norm’.
[16]
Plutarch,
The Life of Lycurgus, 28.8-10
[17]
Plutarch, The
Life of Lycurgus, 28.7
[19]
Aristotle, The Politics, 1269 a 37-39
[20]
Talbert, “The Role of the
Helots in the Class Struggle at Sparta”, p. 25
[21]
Redfield, “The Women of
Sparta”, p. 153
[22]
Talbert, “The Role of the
Helots in the Class Struggle at Sparta”, p. 40
[23]
Ober, “Thucydides and the
invention of political science” , p. 9
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