Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/390

 3C8 HISTORY OF GREECE. and cruelty rarely equalled in history. Wishing to bhigle out from the general body such as were most high-coaraged and valiant, the ephors made proclamation, that those Helots, who conceived themselves to have earned their liberty by distinguished services in war, might stand forward to claim it. A considerable number obeyed the call ; probably many who had undergone imminent hazards during the preceding summer, in order to con- vey provisions to the blockaded soldiers in Sphakteria. 1 They were examined by the government, and two thousand of them were selected as fully worthy of emancipation ; which was forth- with bestowed upon them in public ceremonial, with garlands, visits to the temples, and the full measure of religious solemnity. The government had now made the selection whi^h it desired ; presently every man among these newly-enfranchized Helots was made away with, no one knew how. 2 A stratagem at once 1 Thucyd. iv, 80. 2 Thucyd. iv, 80. Kal irpoicpivavTef }f dic^Movf, ol fie re Kal TO. lepii Trepifadov wf Tj^.ev&epufivoL ol 6e ov noAZti varepov rjrot)f, KOI ovdeic rj<r&e~o dry rpoTru faorof iSieQ&upjj : compare Diodor. xii, 67. Dr. Thirlwall (History of Greece, vol. iii. ch. xxiii, p. 244, 2d edit, note) thinks that this assassination of Helots by the Spartans took place at some other time unascertained, and not at the time here indicated. I cannot r oncur in this opinion. It appears to me, that there is the strongest proba- 61e reason for referring the incident to the time immediately following the disaster in Sphakteria, which Thucydides so especially marks (ir, 41) by the emphatic words : Oi 6e Aanedai/nwioi apadele ovref kv TU irpiv XP VU Titjareias Kal TOIOVTOV iro?*e/nov, ruv re ~E.l7.uTuv avTO/ioXovvTuv Kal Qopovfie- voi IITI Kal kirl paKporepov atyini TL veurepLcr&y TUV Kara rr/v %upav, ov padluq tyepov. This was just after the Messcnians were first established at Pylus, and began their incursions over Laconia, with such temptations as they could offer to the Helots to desert. And it was naturally just then that the fear, entertained by the Spartans of their Helots, became exaggerated to the maximum, leading to the perpetration of the act mentioned in the text. Dr. Thirlwall observes, " that the Spartan government would not order the massacre of the Helots at a time when it could employ them on foreign service." But to this it may be replied, that the capture of Sphak- teria took place in July or August, while the expedition under Brasidas was not organized until the following winter or spring. There was therefore an interval of some months during which the government had not yet formed the idea of employing tl e Helots on foreign service. And this interval Is