Did Sparta give citizenship to the helots who participated on its side in the Battle of Plataea?

History

Could a helot become a citizen?

For distinguished merit in the field they might be set free, and a special class called Neodamodeis was formed of these liberated Helots. The Neodamodeis, however, had no civil rights; and indeed it was but seldom that a Helot ever became a Spartan citizen.

What did Sparta do to the helots?

Spartans: Masters of the Helots



When the Spartans conquered a territory, the citizens were forced to become slaves. For example, the Spartans conquered a land called Messenia, which was a rich agricultural region west of Laconia. The citizens of Messenia worked on their own fields, but they were slaves of the Spartans.

Who freed the helots?

Epaminondas

Epaminondas briefly returned to Arcadia, before marching south again, this time to Messenia, a region which the Spartans had conquered some 200 years before. Epaminondas freed the helots of Messenia, and rebuilt the ancient city of Messene on Mount Ithome, with fortifications that were among the strongest in Greece.

What happened to the helots after the Peloponnesian war?

The Spartans were fighting to gain back control, but they were outnumbered seven Helots to one Spartan. The details about this war were concealed, and very little information is known about what happened in the war. In the end, the Spartans won and banished the remaining rebel Helots to Sicily.

Who owned the helots?

The Helots, by contrast, had their own families and communities. Additionally, the Helots were not privately owned, but belonged to the state. According to Strabo, “the Lacedaemonians held the Helots as state-slave in a way, having assigned to them certain settlements to live in and special services to perform.”
 

Who controlled the helots?

Helots lived in their master’s household but were owned by the state; unlike regular slaves, their master could not declare them free. They served as agricultural and domestic slaves, and sometimes military servants as well. Spartans usually allowed agricultural Helots to keep excess produce.

Were helots ever freed?

In 371 BC, the Spartans suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Leuctra. The victorious Thebans then invaded the Peloponnese, and the Helots of Messenia were liberated. The last Helots (the Helots of Laconia) were emancipated at the end of the 3rd century BC by the reformer kings Cleomenes III and Nabis.
 

How were helots treated?

Helots were ritually mistreated and humiliated. Every autumn the Spartans would declare war on the helots so they could be mistreated by a member of the Crypteia without fear of religious repercussion.



How did Sparta treat their citizens?

Spartan society was separated into social classes, and conquered people were not given political rights or citizenship. Even lower than the conquered population was a group called the helots. Helots were responsible for agricultural duties and other day-to-day tasks that supported the Spartans.
 

Who could become a citizen in Sparta?

Only native Spartans were considered full citizens and were obliged to undergo the training as prescribed by law, as well as participate in and contribute financially to one of the syssitia.

Could slaves or metics become citizens?

As citizenship was a matter of inheritance and not of place of birth, a metic could be either an immigrant or the descendant of one. Regardless of how many generations of the family had lived in the city, metics did not become citizens unless the city chose to bestow citizenship on them as a gift. This was rarely done.

Can helots own land?

The helots were in a sense state slaves, bound to the soil and assigned to individual Spartans to till their holdings; their masters could neither free them nor sell them, and the helots had a limited right to accumulate property, after paying to their masters a fixed proportion of the produce of the holding.



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