eclaration of war
against the Helots--probably but an idle ceremony of disdain and
insult. We cannot believe with Plutarch, that the infamous cryptia
was instituted for the purpose he assigns--viz., that it was an
ambuscade of the Spartan youths, who dispersed themselves through the
country, and by night murdered whomsoever of the Helots they could
meet. But it is certain that a select portion of the younger Spartans
ranged the country yearly, armed with daggers, and that with the
object of attaining familiarity with military hardships was associated
that of strict, stern, and secret surveillance over the Helot
population. No Helot, perhaps, was murdered from mere wantonness; but
who does not see how many would necessarily have been butchered at the
slightest suspicion of disaffection, or for the faintest utility of
example? These miserable men were the objects of compassion to all
Greece. "It was the common opinion," says Aelian, "that the
earthquake in Sparta was a judgment from the gods upon the Spartan
inhumanity to the Helots." And perhaps in all history (not even
excepting that awful calmness with which the Italian historians
narrate the cruelties of a Paduan tyrant or a Venetian oligarchy)
there is no record of crime more thrilling than that dark and terrible
passage in Thucydides which relates how two thousand Helots, the best
and bravest of their tribe, were selected as for reward and freedom,
how they were led to the temples in thanksgiving to the gods--and how
they disappeared, their fate notorious--the manner of it a mystery!

XIII. Besides the Helots, the Spartans exercised an authority over
the intermediate class called the Perioeci. These were indubitably
the old Achaean race, who had been reduced, not to slavery, but to
dependance. They retained possession of their own towns, estimated in
number, after the entire conquest of Messenia, at one hundred. They
had their own different grades and classes, as the Saxons retained
theirs after the conquest of the Normans. Among these were the
traders and manufacturers of Laconia; and thus whatever art attained
of excellence in the dominions of Sparta was not Spartan but Achaean.
They served in the army, sometimes as heavy-armed, sometimes as
light-armed soldiery, according to their rank or callings; and one of
the Perioeci obtained the command at sea. They appear, indeed, to have
been universally acknowledged throughout Greece as free citizens, yet
de