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

(Dana P.) #1

Notes to Pages 112–14 187


Coulson, “The Dark Age at Nichoria: A Perspective,” in Excavations at Nichoria in Southwest
Greece: Volume III: Dark Age and Byzantine Occupation, ed. William A. McDonald and William
D. E. Coulson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 316–29; Susan E. Alcock, “A
Simple Case of Exploitation? The Helots of Messenia,” in Money, Labour, and Land: Approaches to
the Economics of Ancient Greece, ed. Paul Cartledge, Edward E. Cohen, and Lin Foxhall (London:
Routledge, 2002), 185–99; and Susan E. Alcock, Andrea M. Berlin, Ann B. Harrison, Sebastian
Heath, Nigel Spencer, and David L. Stone, “Pylos Regional Archaeological Project. Part VII: His-
torical Messenia. Geometric through Late Roman,” Hesperia 74:2 (April–June, 2005): 147–209.



  1. Ethnic identity of Messenians supposed a late development: Thomas J. Figueira, “The
    Evolution of Messenian Identity,” in SNS, 211–44, and Nino Luraghi, The Ancient Messenians:
    Construction of Ethnicity and Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 1–248. To
    save his highly persuasive argument that the revolt of 465, the subsequent establishment of a helot
    refugee population at Naupactus, and the later interaction between the Athenians, that population
    at Naupactus, the helots of Messenia, and the Spartans had a considerable impact on the manner
    in which the Messenians in later times understood themselves, Figueira need only to amend that
    argument by conceding the truth of Thucydides’ observation (1.101.2) that “most of the helots”
    who rose up in 465 “were the descendants of the ancient Messenians who had earlier been reduced
    to subjection” and by acknowledging what the fifth-century evidence quite strongly suggests: that
    the helots of Messenia who revolted in 464 already had a strong sense of their identity as a nation
    in bondage. As I have argued from the outset, ethnogenesis does not take place in a vacuum, and
    ethnic identity is always in flux.

  2. Fighting near Pylos in time of Anaxandros: Paus. 3.3.4, 7.6, 14.4. Fighting in the time of
    Leotychidas I: Rhianos FGrH 265 F43, Paus. 4.15.2. Messenia subjugated 230 years before Epami-
    nondas liberates it: Plut. Mor. 194b, Ael. VH 13.42.

  3. Nauplians settled at Mothone: Paus. 4.24.4, 27.8, 35.2. One hundred communities of
    períoıkoı: Androtion FGrH 324 F49. For an overview, see Cartledge, SL; Graham Shipley, “Messe-
    nia,” in I A C P, 547–68; and the secondary literature cited in Chapter 3, note 31. On the períoıkoı,
    note also Franz Hampl, “Die Lakedaemonischen Perioeken,” Hermes 72 (1937): 1–49, and Graham
    Shipley, “ ‘The Other Lakedaimonians’: The Dependent Perioikic Poleis of Laconia and Messenia,”
    in The Polis as an Urban Centre and as a Political Community, 189–281.

  4. See Ann B. Harrison and Nigel Spencer, “After the Palace: The Early ‘History’ of Messe-
    nia,” in Sandy Pylos: An Archaeological History from Nestor to Navarino, ed. Jack L. Davis (Austin:
    University of Texas Press, 1998), 147–62 (at 158–62), and see Stephen Hodkinson, “Spartiates,
    Helots and the Direction of the Agrarian Economy: Towards an Understanding of Helotage in
    Comparative Perspective,” in HMLM, 248–85 (esp. 263–78).

  5. Quota: Tyrtaeus F6 (West), Paus. 4.14.4–5. Quantum: Plut. Lyc. 8.7, Mor. 239e. The por-
    tion reserved for the wife corresponds closely with the monthly contribution made by her husband
    to the common mess: cf. Plut. Lyc. 12.3, who has converted the Laconian into Attic measures, with
    Dicaearchus F72 (Wehrli) ap. Ath. 4.141c. See also Porph. Abst. 4.4. Cf. Stephen Hodkinson,
    “Sharecropping and Sparta’s Economic Exploitation of the Helots,” in Philolakōn, 123–34, who
    thinks that the shift from sharecropping to the payment of a rent took place much, much later. For
    additional bibliography, see Chapter 1, note 10, above.

  6. Overseers: Hodkinson, “Spartiates, Helots and the Direction of the Agrarian Economy,”
    263–78, who draws attention to Hesychius s.v. mnōıonómoı, which he rightly suggests that we
    read in light of Hybrias ap. Ath. 15.695f–696a. I do not doubt that there were helots in subordi-
    nate positions who colluded with the authorities, as Hodkinson suggests. But I suspect that the
    mnōıonómoı, who are described by Hesychius as tōn Eılō ́tōn árchontes, were Spartan magistrates
    assigned to manage the subject population [mnōía].

  7. Policy of secrecy: Thuc. 5.68.2. Survey work in search of archaic and classical fortifica-
    tions within Messenia and on its borders is needed, I believe, analogous to that undertaken by
    Jacqueline Christien, “The Lacedaemonian State: Fortifications, Frontiers, and Historical Prob-
    lems,” 163–83, with regard to the fortifications built by the Spartans along Laconia’s east coast
    during the Peloponnesian War and those constructed by the Messenians and their allies on the
    western slope of Mount Taygetus after their liberation by Epaminondas. I would not be surprised
    to learn that the latter forts had Spartan predecessors.

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