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Spartan helots in battle - floofthegoof - 06-30-2007
This topic recently came up in another thread, and I wanted to discuss it further.
Here's my problem; Even in the most bitter war, you will not find an enemy who's interests are in such wide conflict with your own as the conflict that exists between master and slave. The Romans had a law that if a man died, all his slaves must be put to death, and obvious reason for this drastic measure was to bring those nearly incompatible interests together. If the Romans were to use slaves in battle in particularly dire circumstances, they had to offer freedom and citizanship to these people if they were to prove less dangerous than helpful.
Why should the Helots lift a finger to help the Spartans? Do the Spartans really want Helots at their back while they are engaged in battle? Could a Helot ever become a full citizen of Sparta? Having as many a 5 helots per Spartan hoplite could guarantee a Spartan defeat if even some leader among them with few followers decided to spontainiously get revenge.
It seems like a bad idea to bring them along.
Perhaps they had more rights than is often claimed, and that there is some sensationalism coming from the ancient authors in regards to the nature of their servitude? According to what I've been taught regarding the relationship between Helot and Spartan, not all the stories I read make logical sense to me.
Re: Spartan helots in battle - Et tu brute - 06-30-2007
Perhaps fear? Probably incorrect, but if the helots knew that if they even dared to disobey etc. they would be put to death, this doesn't make alot of sense to me either :?
Re: Spartan helots in battle - Giannis K. Hoplite - 06-30-2007
Helots were used occasionally like in Plataea.At that point it is possible that their relationship was far better than some deceys later.And in any case,I don't think Helots feared Persians less than the other Greeks.With whom do you think they would stand?And It is also possible that they had such a big impression about their masters-cultivated by them for ages-that they'd think they were truely unbeatable.
In fact,helots were isolated from the world,so isolated that after the battle some other Greeks bought from them gold fromthe spoils for bronze!Imagine!They could not even separate gold from bronze!
This doesn't mean that their life was not good.They had their families,a status that was very common between masters and servants even in medieval times and probably they wouldn't want to change their life so much as we tend to believe.
Things must have changed after they came in contact with ther Greeks,during the Persian Wars.And we all know they rioted after the earthquake in 464 bc.After that nothing would be the same.So during the Peloponnesian War Spartans had a briliant idea to have some helots fighting,with the promise of freedom(you see,they did want freedom to fight).This ensure that no helot would dare start a riot when their family membest and the best and strongest helots were fighting after Brasidas in Macedonia.And with the promise they would return free!
At the same time,Sparta increased its soldiers and gave a genious commander a force she didn't care about.
This same force of free now helots fought in Mantineia and was put to the left wing,to face the best soldiers of the enemy,and they of course lost.Even this may not have been "luck".For Sparta these men would beter die as heroes in battle!
It was a well planned political movement to have helots fight with their masters(or without them) in the first line.
Khaire
Giannis
Re: Spartan helots in battle - Jona Lendering - 06-30-2007
Quote:Why should the Helots lift a finger to help the Spartans?
There are many remarks to be made about this excellent question.
(1)
Helots were not slaves. We need not expect Spartacus-like circumstances. They were more or less like medieval serfs, who did not revolt very often too.
(2)
Why is this half-unfreedom acceptable? One reason may be that the Spartans sometimes gave freedom to helots. Fighting for the Spartans could be a way to improve your position. We do not know how often this happened, but there are clues. The famous story by Thucydides, that a group of helots was promised freedom only to have them deported, proves that the offer of freedom was credible.
(3)
We must not project our own desire for freedom on Antiquity. Unless you were able to obtain a farm of your own, the alternative for slavery was, in many cases, being a day laborer. In other words, gaining freedom is not an unqualified improvement: the slave (or serf) knows that in the end, he will have something to eat every day, because no master will accept his working instruments to die. If a day laborer has no work, he's dead.
Please note that during the American Civil War, there were military units of colored people fighting for the South. They were not fighting for their own servitude, but to avert the worse fate: capitalist exploitation of the labor forces. To some extent, they were right. They found it hard to find a job once they were free, and remained on the old plantages.
(4)
Slaves and serfs belonged to the family. The ties were mutual. Pliny the Younger took care that one of his slaves, suffering from tuberculosis, could visit Egypt and the Alps. Another example: the serfs of 18th-century Prussia lived closely together with their masters. They even called the Junkers "father". Supreme repression? No. It also put the Junkers under an obligation to treat their Erbuntertänige they way a father should, and we know of several lawsuits in which Junkers were convicted because they were too harsh.
Note: these same Prussian serfs fought for their masters during the wars of Frederick II.
(5)
We must not believe every horror story about ancient slavery, just like we must not believe every horror story about feudalism. The Spartans were not nice guys, so much is certain; but not every element in our sources is necessarily true.
(6)
The example of Roman harshness towards slaves illustrates #5. The terrible story you refer to (somewhere in Tacitus), caused a stir, because it was exceptional. Another example, which is better documented, is the right (mentioned in the Laws of the Twelve Tables) of a man to kill his slaves, to sell his sons as slaves, and -yes- to kill his own son. There are three examples of this in the Digests: in all cases, the man who kills his son as if he were a slave, is found guilty.
(7)
Compare the situation of an unfree laborer with your own job. Your boss is an incomptent assh--e, who benefits from the brilliant ideas of his people and presents them as his own. Still, most of us prefer to work for a company and be exploited by his manager; only a few of us prefer freedom and start a company of their own.
[8]
All these remarks are not meant to justify slavery. What happens today in South-American, East-Asian and African societies, is absolutely unacceptable. On the other hand, we must not project our own, justified anger on all societies with unfree labor markets.
Spartan Helots - Paullus Scipio - 06-30-2007
I would like to endorse Jona's comments - a helot was not a slave, nor was "freedom" a concept he/she would have had any use for. To a helot 'freedom' meant an improvement in social status, and maybe having less of the fruits of his labour taken away from him.
It should also be remembered that what we think of as "freedom" is largely illusory anyway.Without wishing to turn this thread into a 'discourse on the nature of freedom', bear in mind that even in the English-speaking countries we do not have political freedom/"democracy" - merely the choice between one self appointed power group or the other ( shades of Romes 'Optimates v Populares' !! ). Most of us don't have economic freedom either - we must work for a living, as Jona says, and through complex direct and indirect taxes, most of us have half or more of our 'produce' taken from us. Yet, gentle reader, do you harbour thoughts of murdering or rebelling against authority in your society? If you do, would you carry them out, with all that might mean for your family ? Then why should a helot in his society, the only one he knew, be any different ?
Or, looked at another way, the Monty Python argument.
"Wot have the Romans/Spartans done for us ?"
"Well, we haven't been invaded for centuries."
"well.....yeah, there is that..."
"And no brigands are in the hills threatening to burn our village if we don't give them all our crops...."
"Well, yeah....."
"And the roads are in good order..."
"Well, yeah.."
"And they look after the temples, and propitiate the Gods, so we have a good harvest.."
"well, yeah..." etc.
You get the picture - the average helot was probably as content with his lot as you are with yours.......
Re: Spartan helots in battle - Giannis K. Hoplite - 06-30-2007
Exactly,two excellent posts!Posts of those who clear away the Spartan Mirage,that unfortunately continues to grow in peoples' minds.
Just to point out that of course helots would always want a better status,no more than anyone ever wanted through the ages till today.And this is what Spartans feared.It was proven they were right at some point in 464 bc in that riot...but this was one of the exceptions in all these centuries.
Any of the greek speakers has any reference from what word does the name"helot" come?In ancient language the routs of the words usually have a lot to say about the real meaning of the word.
And has anyone reference from any ancient writers in the 5th-4th century bc where the helots are refered with the more general telm "slave"?
If not,then we have no base calling helots as "slaves" anymore,as this would be only modern inaccurate oversimplification.
Khairete
Giannis
Re: Spartan helots in battle - Aryaman2 - 07-01-2007
Besides Jona compelling arguments I would like to add that Spartans were not unique in bringing slaves to war, in general every hoplite of wahtever Polis was expected to bring a servant with him.
Re: Spartan helots in battle - Gaius Julius Caesar - 07-01-2007
True, all very good points. Then the other element, fear, was also used! The young men of Sparta were expected to 'cull' the helots, by being part of the secret police so to speak, the proper name of which escapes me, as usual! Or has this been deemed fiction too?
Re: Spartan helots in battle - Tarbicus - 07-01-2007
Even the Romans used slaves in war - Galearii; slaves trained in combat who accompanied the legions.
Jona and Paullus make excellent points. Besides, what would be the point of the Helots doing the dirty on campaign? Their families, kin and property would all be virtual hostages back home anyway. Better to have protection and a mutual relationship, than become actual slaves.
Re: Spartan helots in battle - Jona Lendering - 07-01-2007
Quote:True, all very good points. Then the other element, fear, was also used! The young men of Sparta were expected to 'cull' the helots, by being part of the secret police so to speak, the proper name of which escapes me, as usual! Or has this been deemed fiction too?Krypteia. It is mentioned by Plutarch (half a millennium after the fall of Sparta), who uses sources that were not written by Spartans. The story may be true, of course, but we must never underestimate the capacity to exaggerate and invent in illiterate societies, and this smells like a horror story invented by Spartan enemies.
No one will try to reconstruct Babylonian or Etruscan society from what is written by Diodorus Siculus; a similar caution seems prudent when we study Sparta - although, of course, Plutarch at least was Greek, had access to written sources we no longer have, and shared a language. Still, what applies to Greek descriptions of Babylonia and Etruria, does to some extent also apply to Sparta.
Re: Spartan helots in battle - hoplite14gr - 07-01-2007
verb Aloo = overpower by military force capture or take prisoner (Ionic form adopted by alexandrian scholars in "Common Greek").
Aichmalotos = prisoner literly volnurable to the point
Doryalotos = volnuralbe to the spear
The Doric form is Eiloo- Aicmeilotas Doyreilotas
Eilotas then is some volnurable to your power -prisoner or captive.
Excelent points and posts from all people so far.
Most people belive that after the 3rd Messenian War even the institution of the War against Helots by the Efors was gradually abandoned elimininating thus agood reason for revolt.
Kind regards
Re: Spartan helots in battle - Giannis K. Hoplite - 07-01-2007
Thanks Stefane.Then the word "helot"(eilotas) was used from the begining to name all the populations that had no political "freedom" by the Spartans,in their early history.This again doesn't nessesarily explain the life of the helots some three centuries after they had been "captivated".But it does give us a clue that even by name a helot was every day forced to remeber his status.
Khairete
Giannis
Re: Spartan helots in battle - hoplite14gr - 07-01-2007
Well that was the reason of most revolts.
You don´t need people to rub things to your nose everyday or make you drunk to show to little kids what a drunkard looks like.
Now asuming you are a helot and you live after the 430 B.C. you are not obliged to do lifetime military service and after yo upaid your 50 percent you need not eat regulation food or having regulation life.
If the king takes you abroad with the army you can loot, steal, pillage and eat all good foods you find while the "free-citiziens" eat regulation ratios. :twisted: (source: Plutarch Xenophon on Agisilaos)
If you have stollen enought you might buy periiokos status.
And you stupid cousin can risk life and limp with Brasidas as a volonteer to become later a citizen who eats black broth and regulation ratios :twisted:
Kind regards
Spartan Helots - Paullus Scipio - 07-01-2007
....nor should it be forgotten that the life of a Spartan Helot was little or no different from that of a serf/peasant/poor villager in Attica or Boetia or anwhere else for that matter.....
Re: Spartan helots in battle - Giannis K. Hoplite - 07-01-2007
Yes,but you see,dear co-helot Stefane,I become a citizen,even with lesser political rights,if I fight with Brasidas.I can walk with the nose up among my previous masters... :twisted:
lol: