The American Helot?
like donkeys suffering under heavy loads,
by painful force compelled to bring their masters half
of all the produce that the soil brought forth.
(Tyrtaeus West Fragment 6, trans. West)
Classics scholars who study Spartan history agree that the lives of helots were grim, and certainly worse than other social classes in Archaic and Classical Laconia. As state-owned serfs or slaves, they were responsible for working the fields of the Spartan military elite, Spartiates, in a form of absentee agrarianism. In turn, the produce they grew made up a portion of the dues a Spartiate paid to his public mess. Such communal redistribution of goods existed in other Greek city states in more egalitarian settings; however, in Sparta, helots were firmly under the yoke of their Laconic masters.
For students of ancient history, as well as the public at large, it is essential to reevaluate prior historical positions so that marginalized voices might now be heard and historical error formally acknowledged. The current slogan of civil rights, “black lives matter,” applies equally to our present day and historical narratives which shape that reality. Through examining the marginalization of helots and the distinct parallels this socio-economic system shares with American slavery, we can continue to keep classics relevant and informative to modern readers.
In light of the murder of nine African American parishioners at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, and the continued public debate about the Confederacy within American history, helots and comparative approaches to systems of oppression are more relevant than ever. The Spartan institution of ethnic enslavement/serfdom can help inform our current cultural debates about the legacy of slavery in America. Likewise, American slavery might shed some light on what little we know of the helot identity.
But Heracles unvanquished sowed your stock:
take heart! Zeus bows not yet beneath the yoke.
(Tyrtaeus West Fragment 11.1–2, trans. West)
It was the public debate following the Charleston Emanuel AME Church shooting that first sparked my interest in comparing Spartan and American systems of oppression. In the wake of the murders, symbols of the Confederacy and white supremacy were suddenly scrutinized by the media. Confederate apologists claimed their battle flag as a symbol of Southern pride: the celebration of Southern heritage, honor, and hospitality with no mention of the slavery which allowed such a culture to exist.
The American Civil War was fraught with ethical problems on both sides. Slavery is not just a stain on southern states, but on the country as a whole; it would be foolhardy to think racism exists today only in former confederate states. The moral high ground that shaped the North’s narrative of the conflict can be problematic, especially in light of what civil war historians have termed the hard war waged by General Sherman when defeating the confederate states and suppressing the rebellion (the policy of destroying and plundering Southern property in the final two years of the conflict). Nevertheless, the fact that slavery as a socioeconomic system was the root cause of the conflict is continually obfuscated by confederate apologists. So it was particularly galling to see claims of confederate and Southern idealism reasserted in light of the murders in Charleston.
Southern honor, the ideal confederate apologists often praise, is built around principles similar to those that propped up the elitism of the archaic and classical Spartan citizen, the Lycurgan Homoioi, as expressed in the poetry of Tyrtaeus (in particular West Fragments 10, 11, and 12). This is the Spartan ideal of the unflinching warrior ethos, bound by law to pursue arete through adherence to military duty and extreme submission to the state. Classical historians have portrayed this Spartan citizen class as a middling aristocracy or landed gentry, with a particular noblesse oblige toward their polis. The same warriors who subscribed to a form of heroic virtue were simultaneously dependent on state-owned helots to maintain their land holdings in a form of absentee agrarianism. Similarly, the position of the southern gentleman was — and still is — equally idealized in spite of the plantation system that sustained the aristocratic class. The hero cult of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson persists to this day.
I am not suggesting we ought to tear down the countless memorials to confederate soldiers across the country in order to scrub our public memory of our painful past, but we must find a better discourse to come to terms with the legacy of slavery. Both of these groups of elites had a duty to preserve their honor in their respective societies, from the shame of being labeled a trembler in the Spartan state, to the cultural institution of dueling in the South. In both cases, such societal ideals resulted in the unjustified historical romanticization and memorialization of the elite.
Of course, no one is particularly offended by popular Spartan idealism today (i.e. the comedic appropriation of molon labe by gun rights groups, who on occasion hold views similar to those of confederate apologists). Helots are not available to point out the injustices and atrocities committed against them — but the descendants of American slaves are. The praise of this Southern idealism, without mention of slavery, appears as an implicit endorsement of the historical system which produced such a gentleman, a system rooted in slavery.
There is also the point that Aristotle makes, that the first thing the ephors did upon taking office was declare war on the helots, so that killing them would not pollute the killer.
(Plutarch Life of Lycurgus 28.4, trans. Stadter)
American slaves and helots were both part of sociopolitical systems built around a binary of freedom and unfreedom, in what is called Herrenvolk Democracy. This system of government is elitist, but holds egalitarianism principles within the elite group (thus maintaining a semblance of democracy or popular assembly). It is true that Spartan dual kingship constituted an oligarchy, but among the Homoioi (“the equals”) the same elitist egalitarian dynamic was at play. The Spartiates and the southern gentlemen fit well within this system of government: a body of aristocratic citizens, whose freedom and privileges are derived from comparison with the external group, the unfree.
Such commonalities between Spartan and Southern idealized citizenship should come as no surprise, since, as Orlando Patterson writes, “modern slaveholders were quick to see the parallels between their own versions of freedom and…those of the ancients, especially Sparta.” On account of the binary in Herrenvolk Government, our romanticized portrayals of these historical identities include a willful forgetting of the underclass while performing a sort of transhistorical nostalgia for systems of oppression. The helots of the Spartan polity were the bodies on which the polis was built (to say nothing of chattel slavery in the ancient world as a whole).
But the legacy of slavery in America is not so easily swept under the rug. In his book Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates tells his son, “the American Dream rests on our backs, the bedding made from our bodies.” The South’s economic prosperity and America’s body politic was created by slavery. The Capitol building, our physical embodiment of democracy in Washington D.C., was built by slaves. While it was perhaps a point of pride for the Homoioi that Sparta lacked such monumental buildings or fortifications of any kind (Thuc. 1.10.2), their economic and political system was equally dependent on fundamental inequality.
When Coates speaks of American racism and slavery, he focuses on the exploitation of the black body: the syndicate of white America that aims for exclusive power through direct and indirect means (i.e. lynching or redlining). Within the Spartan system, power was asserted over helots through the Ephors’ annual declaration of war and the krypteia, the institution that helped initiate Spartiate males into their military role through terrorizing and murdering helots (Plut. Lyc. 28.3–7; cf. Thuc. 4.80.4).
The Ku Klux Klan would be an apt comparison to the krypteia, with its political network and terrorist acts. Lynching as a formal and informal institution terrorized African Americans in the antebellum South and post-war America, not to mention the treatment of people of color generally. Terror was used explicitly as a way to disenfranchise and silence the political voices of non-whites. In Sparta, the murder of helots was no different, and formally endorsed as an acceptable way to maintain a social hierarchy, preserving institutional oppression for future generations.
As Orlando Patterson notes, both Spartan helotage and American slavery are kept in place through ritual (i.e. symbolic, non-lethal) humiliation as well. Indirect means of oppressing the helot population existed in the degradation of helot dignity within the common mess system. Spartiates would encourage helots to drink excessively at these public meals, heap abuse upon them, and incentivize them to act in ways considered unmanly to a Spartiate (Plut. Lyc. 28.4). This minstrel trope is analogous to Jim Crow caricatures of African Americans and the general popularity of racist minstrel troupes in the nineteenth century, which remains controversial to this day.
Messene good to plough and good to plant for fruit.
To conquer her they fought full nineteen years
steadfastly ever, with endurance in their hearts
those spearmen of our fathers’ fathers’ time,
and in the twentieth the foe took flight, and left
their fertile farms among Ithome’s heights.
(Tyrtaeus West Fragment 5, trans. West)
The reason Spartan enslavement of helots provides such a strong parallel to American slavery is the ethnic and racial distinction in both systems. In American history, white supremacist ideology created a racial pecking order, facilitating a binary of freedom and unfreedom. So too, the invasion of Messenia in Spartan history allowed helotage, a system that likely started off as simple chattel slavery, to become tied with the Messenian ethnic identity. As Kurt Raaflaub claims, the origin of helots as war captives is part of the foundation myth of Sparta, and later became an identity associated with all enslaved classes.
Previous scholarship has focused on the so-called invention of Messenian history as a reactionary expression of solidarity against Spartan oppression. This historical interpretation holds that oppressed people cannot possess a history on account of their enslavement. Marginalization may cause cultural blind spots but it does not erase the collective or individual memory of an oppressed person or group. Modern historians do not argue that African Americans lack historical narratives (although these oppressed narratives are often portrayed as monolithic). While struggle is a central theme for oppressed people in all time periods, the ways in which individuals overcome that oppression varies a great deal.
In a sense, we have reached the limit of the Herrenvolk binary interpretation. The binary system can be an oversimplification of societies that inevitably stratify. The multiplicity of historical experiences can be seen when such binary systems are strained, overcome, and eventually collapse.
After they were conveyed across, they viewed the corpses as they made their way through them. And everyone was certain that those lying there were all Lacedaemonians and Thespians, though they were also looking at helots
(Herodotus 8.25.1, trans. Purvis)
When Sparta went to war, the Homoioi would make use of helots as servants and attendants in the supply train, but also as additional soldiers in the ranks (e.g. Hdt. 9.10.1, 9.29; Thuc. 4.26.5, 7.19.3; Xen. Hell. 6.5.28). Historians have at times wondered why these militarized helots, such as those under Brasidas, did not rebel on campaign and in effect emancipate themselves. But these Brasidians, on account of their military service, became Neodamodeis (Thuc. 5.34; cf. 5.67, 7.19.3, and 7.58.3). Neither helot nor Spartitate, they had effectively gained the social status of the Perioikoi, a class of free non-citizens, that lacked a political voice. These Brasidians had improved their standing within the polity, if only by a half measure.
Such emancipated helots were sometimes viewed as a direct threat to the Spartan state (Thuc. 4.80.3–4); however, other populations of freed helots settled back in Laconia and became Neodamodeis, not to mention other non-Spartiate classes (e.g. the Mothakes, who may have consisted of disenfranchised Spartiates, helots that had completed the Spartan agoge, or children from helot-spartiate relationships). These emancipated helots, having earned their freedom through military service, provided an alternative means for socioeconomic advancement, independent from the three recorded helot rebellions (all suppressed) in Spartan history (Thuc. 1.101–2, 1.128.1, 1.132.4, 2.27.2, 4.56.2).
In these accounts, we can see different responses to oppression: helots who sought privileges and rights within the internal state structure as opposed to those who rebelled, as well as Spartiate responses of acceptance or insecurity to such helot advancement. It seems unlikely that Messenian identity was claimed by all helots, and, as a result, those indigenous helots from Laconia may have actively sought these other means for securing advancement. These moments of emancipation are largely on account of martial service, since the ability to defend the community is tied to ancient ideals of citizenship, a principle of Western thought that has not evolved much through the 20th Century.
While Spartan ethnic stratification may have its most direct parallel in the Casta system of colonial Spain, degrees of unfreedom can also be found in the history and legacy of American slavery. In the antebellum South, the differentiation between field and house slaves was hierarchical. Just as helot emancipation was brought about inside the Spartan system and externally through rebellion, so too, African American responses to slavery and emancipation varied.
Ending slavery was certainly a moral issue for many in the North, but during the civil war emancipation was originally implemented as an emergency measure to hurt Southern productivity. The policy of contraband camps was originally less about granting freedom as it was about depriving the Confederacy of logistical support (the Spartan equivalent would be a hoplite army without seven helot servants per Spartiate, i.e. an army useless on campaign, lacking logistical support).
Black soldiers who fought for the Union, like their helot counterparts, were perceived as winning their forms of citizenship, fighting for a space in their respective political body. That space was by no means gained easily (integration of so called colored military units continued to be an issue through Vietnam). African American sharecroppers in the South, much like the Neodamodeis, still lacked a political voice and suffered under racial oppression which continues today.
Similar to the complexities of Messenian and helot identity, the solution of returning to Africa (including Lincoln’s thoughts on a Liberian mass migration for all African Americans) did not appeal to everyone. As Laconian helots remained in Sparta having earned their semi-freedom, many African Americans wanted, and still want, political expression in America.
For whenever they conversed with such men about the Spartiates, they said that not even one of the men in those groups [Neodamodeis, Hypomeiones, and Perioikoi] could hide how bitterly he felt towards the Spartans, going so far as to say that they would even eat them raw.
(Xenophon Hellenica 3.3.6, trans. Marincola)
For Paul Cartledge and other ancient historians, Spartan history is a story of class struggle between helots and Spartans. It is the internal conflict in Sparta that both makes and breaks the polis, just as slavery would both make and break antebellum America. On this point, Cartledge is unapologetic: historians have a public duty to bring forward such narratives, and “not be ashamed to nail their colours to moral masts, to decry unfreedom and cry up liberation whenever and wherever they can.”
The suffering of oppressed helots should not be taken lightly. The account of Xenophon quoted above suggests helots and other lower classes in Sparta would eat their masters raw. Such a reaction speaks to the pain of systemic degradation. The ancient writer is alluding to the rage of Achilles, directed at Hector as he cuts him down (Il. 22.347). Achilles might devour Hector raw for the pain he has caused through the death of Patroclus.
But in our public discourse our duty seems largely neglected. Academic comparisons between Sparta and other repressive regimes have been made, from South African apartheid to Nazi Germany. But Academic discussions are not enough, especially when the the stakes are so high. In both Spartan and American history, our nostalgia obscures recollection and truth; history and collective memory become commodified, even kitsch.
The popular narrative of Sparta that persists in our cultural consciousness is the narrative of Herodotus: Spartans died at Thermopylae for Greek freedom (cf. 300; we should note the complete absence of helots in this movie and in Frank Miller’s comic). Marginalized historical voices continue to remain marginalized, and this has real consequences in our political environment (see for instance, the movie posters on display at the office of Mark Madsen, a Utah state senator).
While absentee agrarianism and modern capitalism are fundamentally different, the forms of oppression they can engender are the same. It is my hope that such reconsiderations in popular portrayals might lead to the realistic conclusion of what Sparta embodied in Archaic and Classical Greece: the largest militant slave state in the region. Instead of 300, it would be more beneficial to read Kieron Gillen and Ryan Kelly’s reactionary comic, Three, for a more honest assessment of Spartan history.
The history of Spartan helots and American slavery are inherently related, involving systemic ideologies of oppression. To the average reader, the history of Sparta is viewed as little more than a story. This presents classicists with a great opportunity, since one can use helots as a proxy for dissecting American slavery. Through discussions on Spartan helotage, we can view systems of oppression in a way which implicates American culture for supporting similar institutions while also avoiding the overtly political rhetoric which currently monopolizes debates on American history.
Luke Madson is a former fishmonger and current PhD student in Ancient History at Rutgers University. You can find more of his writing here.
