Helots and their masters in Laconia and Messenia: histories, ideologies, structures Edited by N. Luraghi and , £. Alcock UOA 62 H-0149 Institution: UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON Name: Van Wees, JGB Output number: 2 Center for Hellenic Studies Trustees for Harvard University ‘Washington, D. Distribured by Harvard University Press ‘Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England 2003 Table of contents Introduction 1, S.E. Alcock, Researching the below: detail, methodologies, agencies 2. B.Cartledge, Raising ell? The Hele Mirage—a perronal review Part I: Helotic histories 3. H. van Wees, Conquerors and seri: war of conquest and forced labour in archaic Greece... Be 4. NM. Kennel, Agieste gem lots in Hellenistic Laconia Part Il: Ideologies 5. N. Luraghi, The imaginary conguest ofthe Helos .. 6. ].M. Hall, The Dorianizaton ofthe Mesteniant ...... 7. KA. Realaub, Freedom for he Mesenians? A note on the ines of slavery and belotage on the Greek concept of freedom Petts Part Il: Structures 8, T. J. Figueira, The demography ofthe Spartan Helos 9. W Scheidel, Helot numbers a simplified model ... 10, 8, Hodkinson, Spartiates, belo and the divcion ofthe agrarian economy: towards an understanding of belotage in comparative perspective. Conclusion 11, O. Patterson, Reflections om helotie slavery and feedor «se. eeecee Index --81 107 109 142 +169 191 193 +240 = 248 287 289 311Three Conquerors and serfs: ‘wars of conquest and forced labour in archaic Greece Hans van Weer Ta many pars ofthe Greck world, the typical agricultural bourer was neither a fee ‘man nor a slave, but something in between. The Greeks, for once, did not have a word fori, but we may call this status “serfdom! Such serfs are generally regarded as creatures ofthe Dark Age, a primitive form of unfree labour destined to be replaced by the more modern institution of charel slavery in the archaic period. Serfs were ‘ated forthe lat time in mainland Greece, itis thought, when the Messenians were forced into servitude by Spartan conquest around 700 8C. Some believe that most setf populations originated when Dorian invaders subjugated che, native inhabitants of Gaece, from 1100 BC onwards, in which case the Messenians were exceptional in being conquered so late, Others imagine that serfs were poor, vulnerable families who had fallen inco a state of bondage to rich landowners over the centuties, i which case the Messenians were exceptional in being conquered a all? ‘Scat" and “sertom aze used bere, notin any oftheir echnical senae, but meray a convenient shorthand vo denote save ike satis which doesnot ental outight chatel sve. » Dorian conquest eg Lome 1959: 69-77; Marry 1993: 193; cf seon 3, below. A pcs of internal subjection was asumed ste noc by Moses Finley who placed los and ther groupe "bereen fee smen and dates in the same bracket a debr-bondmen, cient, and clon, labeling al of ths a "the Ince wishin” (1964: 128-130), an “ner labour) fre (1973: 66-70) aly le room fr ree farms asa means of creating a"halfnay ype” of unie labour (197: 60), no doube wit Meena ‘hos and colonial ef poplation in mind, bus argument eques ha conquer was the exeption He suaed the conta berwern exploitation ofan nteral abou Force, which created a "pes of seamse and expliacon of an exeraly scquied labour force (chat! slave), which ected a sharp pluton of fie and unfree (eg, 1959: 98; 1964: 132): chs concast woul have been fall nder- ‘mined if ier” abou foes hd in fc fen been subjected ouuiders swell Ian Mets opted Filey’ model hile applying eater hiorcal developments: 1987: esp. 187,196; oer clare ‘od towards Finley approach-—and ar sceptical about the histori ofthe Dorian conquest—but nd up merely supending jgment eg, Austin and Vial-Naguet 1977: 65, 86; Snodgrass 1960: 679 (Gp p. 8 “gh or wrong"; Gat 1988: 95-96 (whichever of the rw solani vou"), 33Hans van Weet A reconsideration of the evidence will show that statuses “between fiee men and slaves” were nota tlic of the Dark Age, and that the Messenian case was fr from unique. The serf poptlations in the Greek world known to us were indeed created by conquest, not by a process of internal differentation—but these ‘conquests took place in the archaic age, specifically in the peti c. 750-550 BC, not in the legendary age of the Dorian migrations.? The process was, as we shall se, similar in many ways to the impesition of servitude on the natives of Central and South America by thir sixteenth-cenury Spanish conquerors, whote attitudes call to mind the Spartan ethos “Let the dogs ‘work and die, said these men." 1. Serfdom in three archaic empires Bren our bes evidence fo serfdom in early Greece is severely limited and has only reached us through the filter of classical and hellenisic historiography. Yer ic is ‘enough to show that at least three groups of serfs in the Peloponnese were created by conquest in the archaic age: Spares Messenian helots, Sicyon's “katinaké- wearers", and the “naked people” of Argos. The Mestenian helots ‘The earliest surviving account of the subjection of the Messenians appears in the near-contemporary poems of Tyrtaeus, which said that Theopompus, king of Sparta, occupied “Messene” after a twenty-year war of conquest in the time of “the fathers of our fathers” (F 5.1-6 West), probably the eatly seventh century. As ‘Tyrtaeus picrured it, some Messenians abandoned their homes (F5.7-8), but those who stayed were forced to present half of their annual harvests to the Spartans, “labouring under dhe heavy burdens which they carry for their masters under * This chapter adops sce ofthe imporant new ideas abou the history of Mestenian heotge sscetly developed by Nino Laragh (and summarised by him in cis volume), but also ake ee ith some of his ides, above all is contendon that “in Greck history, there nots singe ca ofa ly being conquered and it citizens beng ep thereat aves ofthe conqueror" (2002: 237) sad lndeed that “mass enslavement of an indigenous population ia inherendly unlikely eplnaco’ for the origins of serfdom (hie value, p. 10% ef 2002: 236). So Alonso de Zoi in his Brief and Sure, Relation ofthe Leds of Ne Spi, 1570 (1963: 217- 218). Ota Paneson singled ou the Spanish conquest of the Ameria ar are moder ene of enlvement "eu maze and ins” (1982110 113). The mest convincing chronology ofthe Mesenian Wars it ealishe by Parker 1998, Conquerors and serfi riserable compulsion, like donkeys" (F 6), and to mourn at Spartan funerals, “both the men and their wives uttering lamentations for their masters” (F 7). ‘The poet does not seem to have called the Messenians “helots” (beiléee), and pethaps ths label was not applied to them until later, but their starus was clearly already “between free men and slaves” and as such a form of serfdom. Families (Cmen and their wives’) and presumably communities were lefe intact, but assigned to individual Spartan “masters” co whom they owed burdensome: material and symbolic wibures. Forced lamentation atthe death of people with whom one had “no connection or relation” (Aelian VEY 6.1) was deemed particularly humiliating — itis a role played elsewhere by slave women, ostensibly mourning their master but «ying “each for her own sorrows” (Iliad 19.301-2)2 Spartans and Messenians fought again in Tyrtaeus’ own day, and the poet’ allu- sion to the eater conquest by Theopompus shows thatthe Spartans regarded their campaign as a war against rebellious subjecs. It is possible, of course, that ‘Theopompus’ conquests had not extended to all of Messenia, and that the Spartans ‘were in fact engaged in further expansion. Ac least one ancient school of thought held thar the Messenians were not finally subjected until the end ofthis war, c. 600 Bc After cheir defeat, according to Pausanias, some Mestenians emigrated to Sicily, Larghi (is volume p. 114-5; cE 2002: 235-6) noes thar FF 6 and 7 do not name the Mesenians and mighe ref o some ote “dependent our force"; eso pints out tha the only explicit ater ‘ment in Tyres abou the inhabitants of Messene” (which, Luraghi point out, may not have meant ‘he ei regio ater known as Masi) i tha hey fhe and While tis tre, we should give some weigh to che fc that Pawan (4.14.1-5) and his probable source Myron of rien, who knew the whole poem, though that FF 6 and 7 did fer to Meneninns. ei, moreover, highly ikely chat FE 5,6 and 7 were cll lnkd in the exginal tee in F 5.7, the people who lave thei lands are Jnoduced wih the wor ho men. which gg thar hry ae the lof const pind cated by the common men... de consrucon (aed by Tynes in FF 43-5, 10.29, 115-6 and tte 14, 2338-10 Wes) fs, the poem wil have continued by inedacing (withthe wor bo de) asecond \g0up of inhabians of Mestne, who didnot fee, bu stayed behind and sceped servitude, ates then colwtfilydescbed in FF 6 and 7 (¢£ Hodkinson, this volume, p 256), For the label “heloo, se below. Individual masters Hodkngon 2000: 113116; Luraghis this ‘volume, p 114: “peopl held in a relcon of personal dependence, rather than a wubrited oma ‘ir’. Forced lamentation for individual masers i wo be distinguished fom the duty to moun ‘opal funeral mentioned by Herodors (658), ahough Pauranias cones the two by explaining “amen at “ngs and other oficial” (4.144; ef Hodkinson 2000: 287-238; Duct 1990: 60) The Perception of forced mourning a particulary “elvis” led Herodors to ses that in Sparta even "spective of (fe) cin families and (Fee) periikic communis mourned a soyal funeae “under compubon’ custom paralleled only among (lavish) barbarians the (unfee) helo were sls compelled odo so was unremarkable to him and he mentions this oly in pasting, For the sane reason, Ain sresed chat the Sparans imposed the dry to lament on “fee” Mestenian wore, ie ‘women who had ben ie untl the momen of conquest one sould not infer that Alan though thatthe Messnians remained fie even ae tei delet (contra Luraghi 2002: 236) * Plucarch Moni 1945 and Aclian VE 13.42, with che dicsion ofthis date in Pusher 1993, 35