ing themselves by day, in unfrequented places, but issuing out at night and slaughtering all such of the Helots as they found abroad. Sometimes, indeed, they fell upon them while engaged in the labors of the fields, and then cut off the best and bravest of the race." Flowing from the same policy, and designed to effect the same purpose, were those extensive massacres recorded in history, by one of which more than two thousand of those unhappy men, having been insidiously deluded into the assertion of sentiments conformable to the gallant actions they had performed in the service of the state, were removed in a day. Lulled by the gift of freedom, crowned with garlands, smiled upon, they were conducted to the temples, as if to implicate the very gods in the treachery, — and then they disappeared. Their fate was never revealed.
Every year, on taking office, the magistrates formally declared war against their unarmed and unhappy slaves, "that they might be massacred under pretence of law." It seems reasonable to believe that these oppressions kindled those bloody servile wars which Sparta could not quench without foreign aid. The Spartans were, in fact, during many years, prevented from disputing with the Athenians the supremacy in Greece, by contests with their own vassals. On the occasion of the great earthquake, when nearly every house in Sparta was shaken to the ground, the Helots rejoiced at the calamity, and flocked to the environs of the city from the whole country around, in order to put an end to their tyrants as they were escaping in terror from their tottering habitations.
It is known that the Helots were a constant source of terror to their masters, — that whenever occasion offered, they revolted, — whenever an enemy to the state appeared, they joined him, — that they fled whenever flight was possible, — and were so numerous and so bold, that Sparta was compelled, in her treaties with foreign states, to stipulate "for aid against her own subjects."[1]
The Spartans appear to have possessed other slaves besides the oppressed Helots, with whom' they have often been confounded. These were not viewed with equal dread, since they were brought together from various countries, and had no common bond of union. Many of this class were enfranchised, and rose to the rank of citizens. Another class of persons, commonly ranked among the Laconian slaves, were the Mothaces, whose origin, rank and condition it is difficult to determine. Athenæus observes, that, although not Lacedaemonians, they were free. Müller, alluding to this passage, says they are called free in reference to their future, not their past, condition. The words of Philarchos are: "The Mothaces were the brother-like companions of the Lacedæmonians. For every youthful citizen, according to his means, chose one, two, or more of these to be brought up with him; and notwithstanding that they enjoyed not the rank of citizens, they were free, and participated in all the advantages of the national education. Lysander, who defeated the
- ↑ Muller — Dorians, ii, 43.
