Laconia is a narrow
valley traversed by a considerable stream (the Eurotas) flowing
between two massive mountain ranges with snowy summits. A poet
describes the country as follows: "A land rich in tillable soil, but
hard to cultivate, deep set among perpendicular mountains, rough in
aspect, inaccessible to invasion." In this enclosed country lived the
Dorians of Sparta in the midst of the ancient inhabitants who had
become, some their subjects, others their serfs. There were, then, in
Laconia three classes: Helots, Perioeci, Spartiates.
=The Helots.=--The Helots dwelt in the cottages scattered in the plain
and cultivated the soil. But the land did not belong to them--indeed,
they were not even free to leave it. They were, like the serfs of the
Middle Ages, peasants attached to the soil, from father to son. They
labored for a Spartiate proprietor who took from them the greater part
of the harvest. The Spartiates instructed them, feared them, and ill
treated them. They compelled them to wear rude garments, beat them
unreasonably to remind them of their servile condition, and sometimes
made them intoxicated to disgust their children with the sight of
drunkenness.
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