perioikoi, “dwellers-around,” who were nominally free but, in ways not well understood, subject to the hereditary Spartiates. The third class were the slaves—helots. They were said originally to have been the free inhabitants of a place called Helos who had been conquered and enslaved. Later, the Spartans also conquered Messenia and added the Messenians to the helots. The helots did all the agricultural labor and had to hand over a sizable portion of the proceeds: Tyrtaeus compares them to donkeys, “oppressed with great burdens, grimly compelled to produce for their masters half of the
