Definition: The helots were area residents exploited, like the proverbial serf, by ancient Sparta.
When the Spartans realized they needed more arable land they looked to the southwest to the more fertile soil of Messenia. The helots were conquered Laconians whom the Spartans made subservient. Helots were treated like slaves. They worked the land to support the Spartiate, although helots could keep what they grew that the Spartans didn't require.
The origin of the helots is not entirely clear. They may have originally been the free, dependent perioikoi who rebelled. Helots could become freedmen, neodamodes, as a reward for their military service. They might also be mothones (or mothakes) neither citizen nor helot, a class probably composed of the children of Spartan fathers and helot mothers.
