A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

The Helots 115
send the most discreet of them into different parts of the
country, equipped with daggers and necessary food; in
the daytime these men used to conceal themselves in unfrequented
spots, and take their rest, but at night they
would come down into the roads and murder any helots
they found. And often they would range about the fields,
and make away with the strongest and bravest helots
they could find. Also, as Thucydides mentions in his
History oj the Peloponnesian War, those helots who were
especially honored by the Spartans for their valor were
crowned as free men, and taken to the temples with rejoicings;
but in a short time they all disappeared, to the
number of more than two thousand, and in such a way
that no man, either then or afterward, could tell how they
perished.
Aristotle says that the Ephors, when they first
take office, declare war against the helots, in order that it
may be lawful to destroy them. And much other harsh
treatment used to be inflicted upon them; and they were
compelled to drink much unmixed wine, and then were
brought into the pubHc dining halls, to show the young
what drunkenness is.
They were also forced to sing low songs, and to dance Degradation
^
of the helots,
low dances, and not to meddle with those of a fughcr
f .,,.-. .
character. It is said that when the Thebans made their
celebrated campaign in Lacedaemon, they ordered the
helots whom they captured to sing them the songs of
Terpander, and Alcman, and Spendon the Laconian;
but they begged to be excused for they said, "the masters
do not like it."
So it seems to have been well said that in
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Lacedaemon, the free man was more free, and the slave
more a slave than anywhere else. This harsh treatment,
I imagine, began in later times, especially after the great
earthquake, when they relate that the helots joined the