At 20 they joined one of the sussitia, dining clubs or messes of about 15 strong. They
were required to contribute their own monthly rations which came from the kleros
farmed by the helots. They were able to marry but still required to live in barracks.
Sources report that eating and drinking here were carefully regulated and drunken-
ness much frowned on. At the age of 30 they became full citizens with voting rights in
the assembly. Every citizen, therefore, was trained to be a soldier and lived constantly
in a state of military preparedness. In fact, the Spartiates, unlike hoplites in other states,
were fully professional soldiers. The system, made possible by the labour of the helots
working the land and by perioikoiengaging in crafts and trade, encouraged conformity
and equality reflected in the Greek word applied to them, homoioi (men of equal status).
Hence came the discipline for which the Spartan elite was famous.
Other Dorian communities in Crete and Thessaly had sussitiaand serf popula-
tions, but none developed a system as intensely militaristic and successful as the
Spartans. To a large extent, this development was a response to Sparta’s own
domestic situation and the need to control the population of helots that greatly
outnumbered the citizen body, possibly by as many as 6 or 7 to 1. Slavery existed
throughout the Greek world, but no other Greek state was subject to actual revolt and
the fear of revolt to such an extent. This fear was responsible for the operation of the
krypteiaas a kind of secret police in the way in which they were encouraged to roam
the countryside and randomly kill helots at night.Thucydides tells the chilling story
of a Spartan operation in the course of the Peloponnesian war:
They made a proclamation to the effect that the helots should choose out of their
own number those who claimed to have done the best service to Sparta on the
battlefield [helots occasionally accompanied the Spartans on campaigns], implying
that they would be given their freedom. This was, however, a test conducted in
the belief that the ones who showed most spirit and came forward first to claim
their freedom would be the ones most likely to turn against Sparta. So about 2,000
were selected, who put garlands on their heads and went round the temples under
the impression that they were being made free men. Soon afterwards, however,
the Spartans did away with them, and no one ever knew exactly how each one of
them was killed.
(4, 80)One of the annual duties of the ephors,who were responsible for foreign policy, was
to declare war on the helots in order to avoid the threat of religious pollution in the
event of any helot death. This fear came to dictate the whole of Sparta’s foreign
policy.
In the sixth century, Sparta was involved in a war with her northern neighbour,
Tegea. The defeated Tegeans were not treated like the Messenians, though they
54 THE GREEKS