Battle of Leuktra 371 BC

[Paralus]

The Messenian helots were not enslaved, this is pure anti-spartan propaganda, they were serfs and the difference is far more than semantic. Every state in Greece was rife with true chattel slaves, many of them fellow Greeks, so there was no pseudo-abolishonist movement. What there was, was a realization that by creating a state that never existed historically as a united political unit, giving them a real big capitol, and calling them Messenia would fetter Sparta.

Quickly, as I need to get to the office. The Messenian helots were, in no real way, "free". Yes every state (and notable) in Greece existed off "slave" labour - particularly Athens in its Laurium mines as an example. They were a percentage of Greek and mostly "others". They enabled the flourishing of Athenian democracy and culture. The difference is that Athens did not set about subjugating the entire population of Attica and reduce it to agrarian serfdom in support of its minority citizen elite. In fact Sparta reduced an area (not checking maps here) larger than (certainly more productive) and more populous than Attica to agrarian serfdom to support its minority elite. This by might of arms. This is no anti-Spartan "propaganda"; rather history as we know it. Thus the helots were always ready to “eat the homoioi aliveâ€