noun
See helot
‘Compulsory labour takes a considerable variety of forms, today as in the past - debt bondage, clientship, peonage, helotage, serfdom, chattel slavery, and so on.’
- ‘The Spartans had, in the archaic era, annexed the adjacent territory of Messenia and forced the once-independent Messenians into helotage.’
- ‘Altogether, these papers provide a stimulating overview of the major questions, debates, and methodologies in current scholarship on helotage in one accessible volume.’
- ‘By abandoning the effort, we are, in effect, implementing a new form of helotage.’
- ‘However while Sparta tried to deliberately avoid creating a class structure among its citizens, the existence of helotage ensured that there was always the possibility of a class war and opportunity for large-scale revolt.’
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