Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/395

 MANUMITTED HELOTS. 379 exaggerate those unpunished murders which occasionally hap pened into a constant phenomenon with express design. A simi- lar deduction is to be made from the statement of Myron of Priene, 1 who alleged that they were beaten every year without any special fault, in order to put them in mind of their slavery, and that those Helots, whose superior beauty or stature placed them above the visible stamp of thei; condition, were put to death ; while such masters as neglected to keep down the spirit of their vigorous Helots were punished. That secrecy, for which the ephors were so remarkable, seems enough of itself to refute the assertion that they publicly proclaimed war against the Helots ; though we may well believe that this unhappy class of men may have been noticed as objects for jealous observation in the annual ephoric oath of office. Whatever may have been the treatment of the Helots in later times, it is at all events hardly to be supposed that any regulation hostile to them can have emanated from Lykurgus. For the dangers arising from that source did not become serious until after the Messenian war, nor, indeed, until after the gradual diminution of the number of Spartan citi- zens had made itself felt. The manumitted Helots did not pass into the class of Perioeki, for this purpose a special grant, of the freedom of some Periuikic township, would probably be required, but consti- tuted a class apart, known at the time of the Peloponnesian war by the name of Neodamodes. Being persons who had earned their liberty by signal bravery, they were of course regarded by the ephors with peculiar apprehension, and, if possible, employed on foreign service, 2 or planted on some foreign soil as settlers. In what manner these freedmen employed themselves, we find no distinct information ; but we can hardly doubt that they quitted the Helot village and field, together with the rural cos- tume (the leather cap and sheepskin) which the Helot com- monly wore, and the change of which exposed him to suspicion, if not to punishment, from his jealous masters. Probably they, as well as the disfranchised Spartan citizens (called Hypcmeionea, 1 Myron, ap. Athense. xiv. p. 657. kxiKoxreiv roi)f afoovpsvc* does nrt strictly mean " to put to death." 5 Thucyd. v. 34.