"Helots"

Definition: When the Spartiate (Spartans) realized they needed more arable land, they looked to the southwest, and then they conquered the fertile soil of Messenia, turning the conquered people into "helots." The Spartiates made the conquered helots subservient and treated them like slaves. They worked the land to support the Spartiates who only had time for military training. Some helots may have originally been free, but dependent, perioikoi who rebelled. Helots could become freedmen, neodamodes, as a reward for their military service, or mothones (or mothakes) neither citizen nor helot, a class probably composed of the children of Spartiate fathers and helot mothers.