Hazy though the precise details are, it appears likely that one of the key policies of the Lycurgan reform programme had been the partitioning of much of Messenia into allotments for the poor.18 Not that any member of the master-race ever farmed these grants in person: it was out of the question for a Spartan warrior to toil and sweat in a field. That was the function of the conquered Messenians.
