How did the helots affect the Spartans?

How did the helots affect the Spartans?

Spartans, who were outnumbered by the Helots, often treated them brutally and oppressively in an effort to prevent uprisings. Spartans would humiliate the Helots by doing such things as forcing them to get debilitatingly drunk on wine and then make fools of themselves in public.

What is helots in ancient Sparta?

The helots were the slaves of the Spartans. Distributed in family groups across the landholdings of Spartan citizens in Laconia and Messenia, helots performed the labour that was the bedrock on which Spartiate leisure and wealth rested.

What role did helots play in the Spartan economy?

Helots were servile agricultural workers who supported Spartan full citizens, called Spartiates or Homoioi ‘peers’, freeing them from working or managing property. The foundation of the Spartan social system lay in the kleroi ‘allotments’, that comprised arable land and the helots to cultivate it.

What was most important to Sparta?

Sparta was one of the most powerful city-states in Ancient Greece. It is famous for its powerful army as well as its battles with the city-state of Athens during the Peloponnesian War.

What are helots and what is their connection to Sparta?

The helots were in a sense state slaves, bound to the soil and assigned to individual Spartans to till their holdings; their masters could neither free them nor sell them, and the helots had a limited right to accumulate property, after paying to their masters a fixed proportion of the produce of the holding.

Why did the helots revolt against the Spartans?

It killed so many Spartans that the helots in Messenia instigated a massive revolt. The Spartans feared that the democratically inclined Athenian soldiers might decide to help the helots (who were fellow Greeks) escape from Spartan domination.

What was helots role?

What was the role of the helots?

Helots were assigned to citizens to carry out domestic work or to work on their klēroi, or portions. The klēroi, were the original divisions of Messenia after its conquest by Sparta. Various sources mention such servants accompanying this or that Spartan.

Why did the helots revolt?

The 464 BC Sparta earthquake occurred along the Sparta fault in the year 464 BC destroying much of what was Sparta and many other city-states in ancient Greece. The earthquake gave Spartan helots an opportunity to revolt against their aristocratic rulers, and the Athenians were called to their aid.

Who were the helots and what did they do?

In Ancient Sparta, the Helots were a subjugated population of slaves. Formerly warriors, the Helots outnumbered the Spartans considerably. During the time of the Battle of Plataea, which took place in 479 B.C., there were seven Helots for every Spartan.

Who were the helots who lived in the region controlled by Sparta?

Helot, a state-owned serf of the ancient Spartans. The ethnic origin of helots is uncertain, but they were probably the original inhabitants of Laconia (the area around the Spartan capital) who were reduced to servility after the conquest of their land by the numerically fewer Dorians.