Chapter 7. Freedom for the Messenians? A note on the impact of slavery and helotage on the Greek concept of freedom Kurt A. Raaflaub 1 In 371 the Thebans defeated a Spartan army at Leuctra and destroyed the myth of Spartan invincibility. [1] In the winter of 370/69 Epameinondas led an army of Thebans and allies into Lakonia, devastated parts… Read more
Chapter 6. The Dorianization of the Messenians Jonathan M. Hall It is an axiom of recent scholarship that the primordial and essential identity proclaimed by an ethnic group may often be a recent and illusory fiction, forged in the context of—and in response to—precise historical circumstances, but this view was actually anticipated already in 1922 by Max Weber, who emphasized that subjective beliefs in common descent… Read more
Chapter 5. The imaginary conquest of the Helots Nino Luraghi In a previous paper, I have questioned the idea that the Helots who worked the land of the Spartiates in Laconia and Messenia were the descendants of free populations who had occupied those areas before the Dorian conquest of Laconia and the Spartan conquest of Messenia, respectively, and had been enslaved en masse by the Spartans… Read more
Chapter 4. Agreste genus: Helots in Hellenistic Laconia Nigel M. Kennell In the aftermath of the battle of Leuctra, Sparta lost a third of its territory, comprising over half its arable land, and the majority of its helots. While their fellows west of Taygetus soon established a free state, Laconian helots, with no similar collective identity invented or genuine to differentiate themselves from their masters, remained… Read more
Chapter 3. Conquerors and Serfs: Wars of Conquest and Forced Labour in Archaic Greece Hans van Wees In many parts of the Greek world, the typical agricultural labourer was neither a free man nor a slave, but something in between. The Greeks, for once, did not have a word for it, but we may call this status “serfdom”. [1] Such serfs… Read more
Chapter 2. Raising hell? The Helot Mirage—a personal review [1] Paul Cartledge The first instalment of Larry Gonick’s idiosyncratic and insufficiently known Cartoon History of the Universe, entitled “From the Big Bang to Alexander the Great”, was published in the dynamic year of 1989. In one particularly teasing cartoon a sexy and uninhibited Spartan wife makes a prospective male Helot lover… Read more
[In this on-line version, the page-numbers of the printed version are indicated within braces (“{” and “}”). For example, “{69|70}” indicates where p. 69 of the printed version ends and p. 70 begins. These indications will be useful to readers who need to look up references made elsewhere to the printed version of this book.] Chapter 1. Researching the Helots: Details, Methodologies, Agencies Susan E. Alcock… Read more
Acknowledgments This volume originates from a workshop held at Harvard University on March 16-17, 2001. The majority of the essays in this book were there presented for the first time, in some cases in a significantly different form from that assumed in the end. In an attempt at countering the isolationist tendencies that so often plague ancient history, the organizers invited scholars from different fields to offer… Read more
Contributors Benjamin Acosta-Hughes is Assistant Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan. He specializes in Archaic and Hellenistic poetry, and in the translation of erotic epigram. His publications include Polyeideia—The Iambi of Callimachus and the Archaic Iambic Tradition (Berkeley 2002). He is currently writing a book on the Hellenistic reception of Archaic lyric. Manuel Baumbach is Wissenschaftlicher Assistent of Greek at the University… Read more
Figures Figure 1: Charioteer by Polyzalos. Delphi Museum. Fifth century BCE. Photo: courtesy of the Greek Archaeological Receipts Fund. Figure 2. Artemision Horse and Jockey. Second century BCE. Athens, National Museum, Br 15177. Photo: G. Hellner. Courtesy DAI Athens 1980/59 (height of jockey 84 cm; length of horse 250 cm). Figure 3. Emaciated man in bronze. Late Hellenistic period. Dumbarton Oaks 47.22. Photo: courtesy… Read more
