The type of servitude that was peculiar to Laconia and Messenia differed from its counterparts elsewhere in the ancient Greek world. A very important differentiation between the two is that the helots were essentially “prisoners” (in the sense that they were controlled by an authoritative force) in their own homeland, whereas many Greek slaves elsewhere were literal prisoners of war captured in foreign campaigns. Unlike captured foreigners, helots had a unified language and identity; they were all fellow countrymen. Helots belonged to the state (Sparta), whereas other Greek slaves belonged to individuals (Pomeroy 174). They were natives of Greece who spoke Greek, and could not be sold abroad. Additionally, they were allowed to own property, whereas their counterparts typically were not (Pomeroy 160). After having paid their due crop tribute to the Spartans, the helots could often make a decent living, as the lands of Laconia and Messenia were very fertile for farming (Pomeroy 161). Thucydides wrote that some helots even had their own boats (Th. 4 26.6). Helots lived in family units, and because they were not susceptible like the other slaves in Greece to having their family units dispersed through sale/trade, they could reproduce themselves (Pomeroy 162). Nowhere else in Greece was the labor of the slaves more essential to the survival of the state than in Laconia and Messenia (Pomeroy 173). Since Spartan men were off learning how to be warriors and Spartan women were busy raising strong Spartan boys, the use of slave labor was crucial in these areas because unlike the other parts of Greece with slaves, agriculture remained the sole basis of the citizens’ economy in Sparta (Pomeroy 173).
Perhaps the most important aspect of the enslavement of the helots, and certainly the most paramount distinction between them and their counterparts elsewhere in Greece, is the fact that their rulers, the Spartans, lived in perpetual insecurity with regards to their sheer number of helots. Ancient Greece provides a summation of this phenomenon: “Spartan prosperity rested on insecure foundations…By the time of Thucydides, helots outnumbered Spartans in the realm of 7 to 1” (Pomeroy 161). The constant fear of a helot revolt was always on the forefront of the Spartans’ minds; Spartans shaped their entire lives and their institutions around the need to prevent helot uprising (161). With numbers enormously in the helots’ favor, Spartans reckoned, any spark could ignite a revolution: a Spartan army too far away from home or one crippled by defeat, a merciful foreign liberator, or a falter in Spartan warrior discipline would be bad news against an already agitated group of suppressed people. To combat this fear, Sparta allowed annual legal massacres to keep helot numbers down; strict regimented military discipline was instilled amongst the Spartan citizenry, creating a warrior class amongst the men. According to Fornara, the helots were used “very cruelly” and their subjugators “assigned the helots every shameful task leading to every disgrace. For they ordained that each one of them be required to wear a dogskin cap and to wrap himself in leather and to receive a stipulated number of blows every year apart from any wrongdoing so that they would never forget that they were slaves” (Fornara 13a).
Though the helots in Messenia were liberated by Epaminondas, they did not inspire slave rebellion or uprising elsewhere in Greece, and the institution of Greek slavery remained stable. The reasoning for this probably rests in the fact that helots still had an identity, defined themselves as a repressed class, and always hoped to liberate themselves, whereas many other Greek slaves would not have enjoyed such a unity in common denominator, language, cause, etc. Helots had a much greater hatred for their masters than other slaves did; also, they were much greater in number so a revolt would have had a much greater chance of working than if it had been done by other Greek slaves who were more fragmented and disjointed. In addition, other Greek slaves may not have been as disenfranchised as the helots who were basically enslaved on their own homeland and in their own homes.
