The Spartan Regime_ Its Character, Origins, and Grand Strategy - Paul Anthony Rahe

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Notes to Page 11 151


143.1.2.13 [Gigon] ap. Heraclid. Lemb. 373.13 [Dilts]) and men (Pol. 1294b25–29; Plut. Mor. 237b,
239c; Just. Epit. 3.3.5). See also Plut. Lyc. 10.3. For an overview, see Hodkinson, PWCS, 209–70.
15.Exception made for breeding and racing of horses: see the material collected by G. E. M.
de Ste. Croix, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), 137–
38 (with 354–55), and consider Hodkinson, PWCS, 303–33. Late formation of standing force of
cavalry: Thuc. 4.55. Military employment, see Xen. Hell. 6.4.10–11. Free use of servants, horses,
and hounds: Xen. Lac. Pol. 6.3–4, Arist. Pol. 1263a33–39. Common way of life: Thuc. 1.6.4, Xen.
Lac. Pol. 7.3–4, Arist. Pol. 1294b19–29.
16.Old helots of Achaean stock: Chapter 3, note 32, below.



  1. Selective recruitment of freed helots as soldiers: Ronald F. Willetts, “The Neodamodeis,”
    CPh 49 (1954): 27–32; Yvon Garlan, “Les Esclaves grecques en temps de guerre,” in Actes de collo­
    que d’histoire sociale 1970 (Paris: Annales Littéraires de l’Université de Besançon, 1972), 29–62
    (esp. 40–48); Karl-Wilhelm Welwei, Unfreie im antiken Kriegsdienst (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner
    Verlag, 1974–77) I: Athen und Sparta, 108–74; Teresa Alfieri Tonini, “Il problema dei neodamodeis
    nell’ambito della società spartana,” RIL 109 (1975): 305–16; Umberto Cozzoli, “Sparta e l’affranca-
    mento degli iloti nel V e nel IV secolo,” in Sesta miscellanea greca e romana (Rome: Istituto Italiano
    per la Storia Antica, 1978), 213–32; and Ducat, Hilotes, 155–73. In this connection, one should
    perhaps also consider Detlef Lotze, “Mothakes,” Historia 11:4 (October 1962): 427–35.
    18.Helot threat: consider Xen. Hell. 3.3.4–7; Pl. Leg. 6.776c–d, 777b–d; Arist. Pol. 1264a32–
    36, 1269a34–1269b12, 1272b16–22 (with 1330a25–28). To assess the impact on Spartan policy of
    the fear to which the helot danger gave rise, one should read Hdt. 7.235 (with Xen. Hell. 4.8.8,
    Diod. 14.84.5); Thuc. 4.3–5, 8–23, 26–41, 53–57, 5.35, 39.2–3, 44.3, 56.2–3, 115.2, 6.105.2, 7.18.3,
    26.2, 86.3; Diod. 13.64.5–7 in light of Critias Vorsokr.^6 88 B37; Thuc. 4.80 (with 1.132.4, 4.6, 41.3,
    55.1, 5.14.3, 23.3, 35.6–7, and Borimir Jordan, “The Ceremony of the Helots in Thucydides, IV,
    80,” AC 59 [1990]: 37–69); Xen. Lac. Pol. 12.4; Plut. Lyc. 28, Sol. 22.1–3. The fact that the Spartans
    found the means to contain the helot threat should not be taken as evidence that it was not at all
    times serious: cf. Arlette Roobaert, “Le Danger hilote?” Ktèma 2 (1977): 141–55; James T. Cham-
    bers, “On Messenian and Laconian Helots in the Fifth Century B.C.,” The Historian 40 (1977–78):
    271–85; Manfred Clauss, Sparta: Eine Einführung in seine Geschichte und Zivilisation (Munich:
    C. H. Beck, 1983), 109–15; Richard J. A. Talbert, “The Role of the Helots in the Class Struggle at
    Sparta,” Historia 38:1 (1st Quarter 1989): 22–40; Ducat, Hilotes, 105–82; Michael Whitby, “Two
    Shadows: Images of Spartans and Helots,” in SS, 87–126, who give the ancient evidence regarding
    this matter short shrift, with Paul Cartledge, “Richard Talbert’s Revision of the Spartan-Helot
    Struggle: A Reply,” Historia 40:3 (1991): 379–81; Stefan Link, Der Kosmos Sparta: Recht und Sitte
    in klassischer Zeit (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1994), 1–9; Elisabeth Herrmann-
    Otto, “Verfassung und Gesellschaft Spartas in der Kritik des Aristoteles,” Historia 47:1 (1998):
    18–40 (at 22–25); and Ernst Baltrusch, “Mythos oder Wirklichkeit? Die Helotengefahr und der
    Peloponnesische Bund,” HZ 272:1 (February 2001): 1–24, who rightly insist on regarding it as
    dispositive. Timidity of Laconian helots seized by Thebans: Plut. Lyc. 28.10. At the time of the great
    earthquakes of the 460s, even the old helots of Laconia rose up (note Thuc. 1.128.1, 132.4; then
    compare Diod. 11.63–64 and Plut. Cim. 16.4–8, 17.3 with Paus. 3.11.8; see also Plut. Lyc. 28.12);
    and after the Theban defeat of Sparta at Leuctra, many of the Laconian helots joined the invaders
    of Laconia: see Ephraim David, “Revolutionary Agitation in Sparta after Leuctra,” Athenaeum 68
    (1980): 299–308. Note also Thuc. 7.26.2. Hostile force lying in wait: Arist. Pol. 1269b36–39. In
    general, see Ducat, “Aspects de l’hilotisme,” 5–46 (esp. 24–38); Paul Cartledge, “Rebels and Sambos
    in Classical Greece: A Comparative View,” in Cartledge, SR, 127–52; and Dorothy M. Figueira and
    Thomas J. Figueira, “The Colonial ‘Subject’ and the Ideology of Subjection in Lakōnikē: Tasting
    Laconian Wine Behind Lacanian Labels,” in SCA, 305–30.

  2. Messenian helots as nation in bondage hostile to masters, prone to revolt: consider Xen.
    Hell. 3.3.4–7; Pl. Leg. 6.776c–d, 777b–d; Arist. Pol. 1269a34–1269b12, 1272b17–22 (with 1330a25–
    28); Ath. 6.264f–265a in light of Thuc. 1.101.2, and see Chapters 3 and 4, below, where I address
    the scholarly disputes concerning the ethnogenesis of the Messenians. Jean Ducat understates the
    threat posed by the Laconian helots, but he is nonetheless correct in emphasizing the role played
    in Messenia by the national question: see Hilotes, 105–73.

  3. Argive threat: Arist. Pol. 1269a39–1269b5. The recent discovery of a new fragment of

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