5. A more favourable side of the Spartan system of bondage is, that a legal way to liberty and citizenship stood open to the Helots.(159) The many intermediate steps seem to prove the existence of a regular mode of transition from the one rank to the other. The Helots, who were esteemed worthy of an especial confidence, were called ἀργεῖοι;(160) the ἐρυκτῆρες enjoyed the same in war: the ἀφέται were probably released from all service. The δεσποσιοναῦται, who served in the fleet, resembled probably the freed-men of Attica, who were called the _out-dwellers_ (ἱ χωρὶς οἰκοῦντες).(161) When they received their liberty, they also obtained permission “_to dwell where they wished_,”(162) and probably at the same time a portion of land was granted to them without the lot of their former masters. After they had been in possession of liberty for some time, they appear to have been called _Neodamodes_,(163) the number of whom soon came near to that of the citizens.(164) The _Mothones_, or _Mothaces_, also, were not Periœci (of whose elevation to the rank of Spartans we know nothing), but Helots, who, being brought up together with the young Spartans (like Eumæus in the house of Ulysses), obtained freedom without the rights of citizenship.(165) For μόθων means a domestic slave, _verna_; and Periœci could never have been called by this name, not being dependent upon individual Spartans.(166) The descendants of the Mothaces must also have sometimes received the rights of citizenship, since Callicratidas, Lysander, and Gylippus were of Mothacic origin.(167) Those citizens who, in obedience to the ancient law of inheritance, married a widow of a deceased person, were (if we may judge from the etymology of the word) called _Epeunacti_: that slaves were once employed for this purpose is testified by Theopompus.(168)