Note 650 — Chapter VI · LAWS AND DISCIPLINE OF LYKURGUS AT SPARTA.

Herod. ix. 29. The Spartans, at Thermopylæ, seem to have been attended each by only one Helot (vii. 229).

O. Müller seems to consider that the light-armed, who attended the Periœkic hoplites at Platæa, were not Helots (Dor. iii. 3, 6). Herodotus does not distinctly say that they were so, but I see no reason for admitting two different classes of light-armed in the Spartan military force.

The calculation which Müller gives of the number of Periœki and Helots altogether, proceeds upon very untrustworthy data. Among them is to be noticed his supposition that πολιτικὴ χώρα means the district of Sparta as distinguished from Laconia, which is contrary to the passage in Polybius (vi. 45): πολιτικὴ χώρα, in Polybius, means the territory of the state generally.