ABSTRACT
There is, however, perhaps even less excuse for this outmoded and harmful attitude in studying classical Sparta than in studying some other ancient Greek states. For, as is well known, the Spartans throughout the period of their greatest territorial expansion and political supremacy (c. 550-370) rested their power and prosperity on the necessarily broad backs of the Helots, the unfree agricultural labourers who lived concentrated in the relatively fertile riverine valleys of the Eurotas in Lakonia and the Pamisos in Messenia. And besides the Helots there literally ‘dwelt round about’ the Perioikoi, who were free men living in partially autonomous communities and providing certain essential services for the Spartans but farming more marginal land. Any serious account of Spartan history therefore is obliged to make more than a token gesture at understanding the mutual relationships of these three groups of population. Thus it is with the ‘infrastructure of land allotments, helots and perioeci, with everything that includes with respect to labour, production and circulation’ (Finley 1975, 162) that this study will be primarily concerned, in a determined effort to bring the Spartans firmly down to earth.
