[muawiyah]

A rose is a rose no matter what name......

If slaves were called Helots in Sparta, that really doesn't change the nature of the institution.

I know there are those who argue that once any slaves became "attached to the land" their lot was improved, but that was more likely a consequence of a general improvement in the local economy at the time.

Abortion and slavery have a lot in common, and one of those things is the attempt to create euphemisms to hide the fact that the victims have lost all civil liberties ordinarily accorded free men and women.

[Destro]

Your ignorance shows--words have meanings. Helots were serfs not slaves.

[mark502inf]

a rose may be a rose, but the system of helotage in Sparta was not slavery. Many Greeks had personally owned slaves, whom they called slaves. However, the helots were Messenian Greeks--fellow Greeks conquered by the Spartans. They lived in their own villages and did their own farming and producing of goods. They lived in fear of the Spartans, who required tributes of as much as 50% of what the Helots produced. Failure to produce invoked sudden and violent Spartan action. While the soldiers of other Greek city-states were part-timers who were usually also farmers, the Spartans lived off the helots and could thus devote their energies full-time to drill and training for war--thus the famed Spartan proficiency as warriors.