3. It is a matter of much greater difficulty to form a clear notion of the treatment of the Helots, and of their manner of life; for the rhetorical spirit with which later historians have embellished their philanthropic views, joined to our own ignorance, has been productive of much confusion and misconception. Myron of Priene, in his romance on the Messenian war, drew a very dark picture of Sparta, and endeavoured at the end to rouse the feelings of his readers by a description of the fate which the conquered underwent. “The Helots,” says he,(138) “perform for the Spartans every ignominious service. They are compelled to wear a cap of dog’s skin and a covering of sheep’s skin, and they are severely beaten every year without having committed any fault, in order that they may never forget that they are slaves. In addition to this, those amongst them who, either by their stature or their beauty, raise themselves above the condition of a slave, are condemned to death; and the masters who do not destroy the most manly of them are liable to punishment.” The partiality and ignorance of this writer is evident from his very first statement. The Helots wore the leathern cap with a broad band, and the covering of sheep’s skin, simply because it was the original dress of the natives; which moreover the Arcadians had retained from ancient usage;(139) Laertes the father of Ulysses, when he assumed the character of a peasant, is also represented as wearing a cap of goat’s skin.(140) The truth is, that the ancients made a distinction between town and country costume. Hence, when the tyrants of Sicyon wished to accustom the unemployed people, whose numbers they dreaded, to a country life, they forced them to wear the κατωνάκη, which had underneath a lining of fur.(141) The Pisistratidæ made use of the very same measure.(142) Thus also Theognis describes the countrymen of Megara (whose admission to the rights of citizenship he deplores) as clothed with dressed skins, and dwelling around the town like frightened deer.(143) The _dipthera_ of the Helots therefore signified nothing more humiliating and degrading than their employment in agricultural labour. Myron is doubtless right in stating that the Helots could not lay aside this dress at pleasure; indeed, a young Spartan could not assume the dress of an older man. Whilst in Athens the influence of democracy had produced an uniformity of dress, and even (according to Xenophon)(144) of bodily form, in citizens, resident aliens, and slaves; in Sparta the several orders were characterised by external differences. Now since Myron thus manifestly misinterpreted this circumstance, it is very probable that his other objections are founded in error; nor can misrepresentations of this political state, which was unknown to the later Greeks, and particularly to the class of writers, have been uncommon. Plutarch,(145) for example, relates that the Helots were compelled to intoxicate themselves, and