{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4012",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 4012,
    "subject": "latro's manumission",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2003-05-30T17:30:50+00:00",
    "last": "2003-05-30T17:30:50+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0305-3438@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "maa32",
        "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu"
      },
      "date": "2003-05-30T17:30:50+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) latro's manumission",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Crush asked me to post this on Wednesday (sorry for the delay, everyone)\nMarc Aramini"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "-----------------------------------------------\nAs Wolfe says in his interview:\n\"Then they held a ceremony which I described in detail, exactly as it was\nand they gave each Helot who was to be awarded his freedom as a climax of\nthe ceremony a young Spartan as his companion to lead him through the\nceremony. And at a given signal each companion killed that Helot that he was\nresponsible for. And they were all killed except Latros who they did not\nintend to kill because he was not really a Helot. And he survived and all of\nthe rest of them who had gone in the ceremony were butchered.  And they\nreally were, this took place.\"\n\nThe identification of Latro's manumission with the event described by\nThucydides (4:80) has always bothered me. Wolfe says the ceremony occurred\nexactly as he described. But this is what Thucydides says:\n\n\"In fact [the Spartans] were so frightened of [the helots] unyielding\ncharacter and of their numbers that they had had recourse to the following\nplan. (Spartan policy with regard to the helots had always been based almost\nentirely on the idea of security.) They made a proclamation to the effect\nthat the helots should choose out of their own number those who claimed to\nhave done the best service to Sparta on the battlefield, implying that they\nwould be given their freedom. This was, however, a test conducted in the\nbelief that the ones who showed most spirit and came forward first to claim\ntheir freedom would be the ones most likely to turn against Sparta. So about\n2,000 were selected, who put garlands on their heads and went round the\ntemples under the impression that they were being made free men. Soon\nafterwards, however, the Spartans did away with them, and no one ever knew\nexactly how each one of them was killed.\" (translation by Rex Warner)\n\nFirst of all, Thucydides tells this tale without saying when it happened and\nunder what circumstances. He is merely using it to emphasize that the\nSpartans were glad to send a lot of the helots to war in Thessaly to get\nthem out of Sparta during the Peloponesian War. Also, this story is\nsignificant because the Spartan commander Brasidas is about to make the same\noffer to the helots, which he will this time fulfill. But while the story\nprobably rings true to Spartan's attitude and sense of honor toward the\nhelots, the story smells like an urban legend. After all, the Spartan's\nessentially declared war on the helots every year as it was -- with an\nemphasis on eliminating any helot that was outstanding in anyway. Would such\na public elimination be necessary? This is beside the point of course except\nthat there is no evidence that this murder occurred in connection to the\nPersian war -- but none that it didn't.\n\nSecond, the event described by Thucydides did not occur \"just as Wolfe\ndescribed it\". Other than the garlands, there are no real \"details\" of the\nmurders except that they seem to have occurred some time after the ceremony\nand they seem to have occurred surreptitiously, not in one go. There is no\nmention of Spartans paired with each helot (each Spartan had seven helots\nafter all -- so how could there have been enough to pair off?).\n\nSo, has Wolfe drawn from a different source here? or a second source?\nPerhaps one that Thucydides himself drew from?\n\n-- Crush"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}