874 HISTORY OF GREECE. diately surrouiuLng Sparta, and round the Perioekic Laconian towns also. Of course, there were also Helots who lived in Sparta and other towns, and did the work of domestic slaves, but such was not the general character of the class. We cannot doubt that the Dorian conquest from Sparta found this class in the condition of villagers and detached rustics ; but whether they were dependent upon preexisting Achaean proprietors, or inde- pendent, like much of tfye Arcadian village population, is a ques- tion which we cannot answer. In either case, however, it is easy to conceive that the village lands (with the cultivators upon them) were the most easy to appropriate for the benefit of masters resident at Sparta ; while the towns, with the district immediate- ly around them, furnished both dwelling and maintenance to the outgoing detachments of Dorians. If the Spartans had succeeded in their attempt to enlarge their territory by the conquest of Arcadia, 1 they might very probably have converted Tegea and Mantineia into Perirekic towns, with a diminished territory inhab- ited (either wholly or in part) by Dorian settlers, while they would have made over to proprietors in Sparta much ot the village lands of the Macnalii, Azanes, and Parrhasii, Helotizing the inhabitants. The distinction between a town and a village population seems the main ground of the different treatment of Helots and Perioeki in Laconia. A considerable proportion of the Helots were of genuine Dorian race, being the Dorian Messe- nians west of Mount Taygetus, subsequently conquered and ag- gregated to this plass of dependent cultivators, who, 'as a class, must have begun to exist from the very first establishment of the invading Dorians in the district round Sparta. From whence the name of Helots arose, we do not clearly make out : Ephorua deduced it from the town of Helus, on the southern coast, which the Spartans are said to have taken after a resistance so obstinate as to provoke them to deal very rigorously with the captives. There are many reasons for rejecting this story, and another etymology has been proposed, according to which Helot is synon- ymous with captive: this is more plausible, yet still not convinc- ing.2 The Helots lived in the rural villages, as adscripts glelxz, 1 Herodot. i. 66. IxpijarTipiafrvTo h k&fyoiai Lm -KUOTJ ry 'Apuaduv z^P?.
- See O. Miiller, Dorians, iii. 3, 1 ; Ephorus np. Strnbo, viii. p. 365 : Har
pocration, v. EiXurec.
