Messenia, Ethnic Identity, and Contingency 295There was unrest among the helots andperioecithroughout theLakonikeafter the battle
of Leuctra, but there is little evidence that the unrest in Messenia was framed in ethnic
terms until after the liberation of the region and the foundation of a Messenianpolis.It
is therefore best to conclude that ethnic consciousness was a result rather than the cause
of unrest in Messenia in 371 (Luraghi 2008: 227). Messenian ethnicity in the fifth and
fourth centuries was a rebel identity, and it was attractive because it legitimated the act of
rebellion. Helots andperioeciin Messenia did not necessarily feel Messenian in periods
of quiescence, and there is no reason to suppose that loyalty to Sparta in times of crisis
required the rejection of competing ethnic loyalties. In Figueira’s definition, Messenian
ethnicity was not a reflection of genealogy, but a personal choice inversely correlated to
compliance with the Spartan system (1999: 224). This is a forceful and influential con-
clusion (accepted by Luraghi 2002b: 239, 2002c: 592, 2008: 207). However, it must be
emphasized that Messenian identity existed only within the boundaries of an ethnic dis-
course based on a myth of putative Messenian descent and an attachment to the territory
of Messenia. Figueira implies that all helots, throughout theLakonike, had the option of
identifying themselves as Messenians (1999: 217, 222–32), but this is an overcorrection
of the assumption that ethnic consciousness was an ever-present constant that distin-
guished the Messenian helots from those in Laconia (Roobaert 1977; Chambers 1978;
Ducat 1990). Certainly, it is possible to imagine helots and other deserters from Laconia
who became Messenians after joining the Ithome rebels or the Pylos garrison. However,
one must note that, in such cases, becoming Messenian depended on assimilation with an
existing group of Messenians. Fugitives who fled to Cythera and Cape Malea came across
a very different process of ethnogenesis. The islanders of Cythera were Athenian allies
at the siege of Syracuse in 413, and Thucydides makes the point that they were Dorians
and Lacedaemonian “colonists” (a term used here to express the relationship between
the Spartans and theperioeci; see Kennell 2010: 88). In Sicily, they were identified by
their island and city ethnic as “Cytherians” (7.57.6, cf. 4.53.2). Messenian ethnicity was
a rebel identity, but it was not identical with separation from the Spartan state.
REFERENCESAlcock, Susan E. 1999. “The Pseudo-history of Messenia Unplugged.”Transactions of the Amer-
ican Philological Association, 129: 333–41.
Alcock, Susan E. 2002.Archaeologies of the Greek Past: Landscape, Monuments, and Memories.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bauslaugh, Robert A. 1990. “Messenian Dialect and the Dedications of the ‘Methanioi’.”Hesperia,
59: 661–8.
Cartledge, Paul. 2001.Spartan Reflections. London: Duckworth.
Chambers, James T. 1978. “On Messenian and Laconian Helots in the Fifth CenturyB.C.”The
Historian, 40: 271–85.
Ducat, J. 1990.Les Hilotes. Athens: École française d’Athènes.
Figueira, Thomas. 1999. “The Evolution of the Messenian Identity.” In Stephen Hodkinson and
Anton Powell, eds.,Sparta: New Perspectives, 211–44. London: The Classical Press of Wales.
Figueira, Thomas. 2003. “The Demography of the Spartan Helots.” In N. Luraghi and S. E.
Alcock, eds.,Helots and their Masters in Laconia and Messenia: Histories, Ideologies, Structures,
193–239. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies.