Paıdeía 11
sengers. Moreover, the ordinary citizen was allowed the free use of the helots,
horses, and hounds of his wealthier fellows-in-arms. As Thucydides, Xeno-
phon, and Aristotle all emphasize, the Spartans shared a common way of life.^15
Those with scanty resources apart from the civic allotment may still have
felt envy—but, if so, it was a jealousy dampened by fear. The helots who tilled
the soil were a permanent threat to the city’s survival. The “old helots,” de-
scended from the ancient Achaean stock ascendant in the Mycenaean age,^16
resided near their masters within Laconia in the southeastern Peloponnesus
and gave every appearance of being docile. In time of need, some from among
them were even freed and recruited as hoplites into the army of Lacedae-
mon.^17 Those seized when the Thebans invaded Laconia in 370/369 were so
thoroughly broken in spirit that, when their captors asked them to sing the
verses of Terpander, Alcman, and Spendon the Laconian, they resolutely re-
fused to do what their Spartiate masters did not allow. And yet—when the
opportunity presented itself—many of these Laconian helots nonetheless
proved to be fully capable of rebellion. Aristotle rightly speaks of them as a
hostile force “continuously lying in wait for misfortune” to strike.^18
In this regard they were by no means alone: throughout much of the ar-
chaic and nearly all of the subsequent classical period, the Spartans controlled
not just Laconia, but the neighboring province of Messenia in the southwest-
ern Peloponnesus as well. The latter region was fertile and exceedingly well
watered but extremely difficult of access, shut off as it was from Laconia’s Eu-
rotas valley by the rugged peaks of Mount Taygetus. There, where the Spartans
themselves were few, the helots were numerous, conscious of their identity as
a separate people, bitterly hostile to their masters, and prone to revolt.^19 The
danger posed by the helots of Laconia and perhaps even that posed by those
in Messenia might have been managed with relative ease had Lacedaemon
lacked foes abroad, but unfortunately for her that was not the situation: not far
from Sparta’s northeastern border, her ancient enemy Argos, a large and pow-
erful city, stood poised, watching and waiting to take advantage of any disaster
that might strike.^20 Even in the best of times, the helots of the two regions
appear to have outnumbered their masters by a margin of four, some say, but
quite possibly even seven to one;^21 and in an emergency, the Spartans could
never be fully confident that their associates would rally to their cause. The
“dwellers-about [períoıkoı],” the class of non-Spartiate Lacedaemonians who
resided in the subject villages of Laconia and Messenia and retained in privi-
lege a measure of local autonomy, may generally have been loyal—but only, we