Spartan Suspicions and the Massacre, Again

Abstract

While narrating Brasidas’ expedition to Thrace and the Spartans’ decision to send 700 helots to accompany him as hoplites, Thucydides refers to another episode of helots’ enfranchisement, followed however by their massacre. The association of the timing of the two policies is indeed suspect, whereas it is possible that in the second case the slaughter may have been carried out in different chasms in Laconia, rather than in the so-called Kaiadas, after dividing the helots into groups.