His cheeks bright red, his chin wet with spittle, the Helot would weave and stagger and totter until he passed out in the dirt. |
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The military structure of Spartan society was shaped by the necessity of holding down the helot class that did all the actual work. |
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Plato, for example, remarked that the helot system was the most controversial example of servitude in Greece. |
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Before the wolves can get him, however, he is rescued by a wise old shepherd and brought up as a helot, one of the aboriginal population the Spartans have enslaved. |
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These tensions were exacerbated in 462, when Athens sent a force to aid Sparta in overcoming a helot revolt, but their aid was rejected by the Spartans. |
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