Or rather makes up from two or three _disjecta membra_ of Ephoros. Strab. viii. 5. t. ii. p. 188, seq. Cf. Paus. iii. 20. 6. Footnote 163: Dorians, t. ii. p. 31. Ubbo Emmius takes the same view of the subject. iii. 138. ----- The contrary I think is the inference. They were the property of individuals, but the state reserved to itself the right of enfranchising them and preventing their emancipation, lest persons should be found who, like Marcus Porcius, Cato,[164] and the Dutch at the Cape, would sell or give them their liberty when too old to labour. “But to sell them out of the country,” says Mr. Müller, “was not in the power even of the state.” It is true there was an ancient law prohibiting the exportation of the Helots,[165] but the same authority which enacted that law could have abrogated it. Had Sparta then chosen to convert her Helots into an article of traffic, who or what was to prevent her? Since she arrogated to herself the right of beating, maiming, and putting them to death,[166] though completely innocent, is it to be supposed that, had it suited her policy, she would have hesitated to sell them? And after all are we quite certain that these unhappy people were not frequently sold into foreign lands? On the contrary, we find, that a regular trade was carried on in female Helots, who were exported into all the neighbouring countries for nurses.[167] Thus it appears that the state both had and exercised the power to convert its serfs into merchandise. ----- Footnote 164: