Conquest 75
communities were purportedly founded by Sparta as colonies; others, which
are attested archaeologically as early as Sparta itself, seem to have been con-
quered or cowed and neither fully absorbed nor destroyed.^31
Teleklos’ successor Alcamenes is supposed, thereafter, to have taken Gytheion
in southwest Laconia, to have conquered Helos in the southeast, and to have
reduced the old Achaean population farming the rich plain near the latter town
to the status of helots—“captives,” some say, or “bondsmen”—condemned to
Map 2. Laconia and Messenia