HELOTS (Gr. EZXwre5 or EfXwrae ), the serfs of the ancient Spartans. They were probably the aborigines of Laconia who had been enslaved by the Achaeans before the Dorian conquest. After the second Messenian war (see SPARTA), the conquered Messenians were reduced to the status of helots. The helots were State slaves bound to the soil and assigned to individual Spartiates to till their holdings (Gr. kleroi) ; their masters could neither emancipate them nor sell them off the land, nor raise the rent payable yearly in kind by the helots. In time of war, they served as light-armed troops or as rowers in the fleet; from the Peloponnesian war onwards they were occasionally employed as heavy infantry (Gr. hoplitai), distinguished bravery being rewarded by emancipation. The general attitude of the Spartans towards them was one of distrust and cruelty. The ephors of each year, on entering office, declared war on the helots so that they might be put to death at any time without violating religious scruple, and we have a well-attested record of 2,000 helots being freed for service in war and then secretly assassinated. (Thuc. iv. 80.) (See CRYPTEIA.) Intermediate between Helots and Spartiates were the Neoda modes and Motliones. The former were emancipated helots, or their descendants, and were much used in war; they served especially on foreign campaigns, as that of Agesilaus B.c.) in Asia Minor. The snothones, or snothakes, were the sons of Spartiates and helot mothers ; they were free men sharing the Spartan training, but not full citizens.
See C. O. Muller, History and Antiquities of the Doric Race (Eng. trans.) , bk. iii. ch. 3. ; G. Gilbert, Greek Constitutional Antiquities (Eng. trans. 1895) ; A. H. J. Greenidge, Handbook of Greek Constitu tional History (1896) ; A. Whibley, Companion to Greek Studies