It is confessed that very little intercourse between the Spartans and the Helots took place, at least in earlier times; for afterwards, when the masters themselves quitted the capital, resided on their estates,[177] and took to husbandry, the link must necessarily have been more closely drawn. And this circumstance renders more probable the account transmitted to us of Spartan harshness towards them. Intercommunion would have begotten more humane feelings in the master, more attachment in the slave. For like other men the Spartans felt the influence of intimacy, as is proved by their practice of enfranchising the companions of their childhood. They paid, therefore, an involuntary compliment to their own hearts when they kept the Helots at a distance, that they might be able to tyrannise over them. They could not have resisted the power of close contact, and acted like Messallina, who fled in tears from the room where a man was pleading for his life, lest she should forgive him, whispering as she went to her instrument that the accused must not be suffered to escape nevertheless.[178] However, a certain number of Helots were retained in the city as personal attendants on the Spartans, and there waited at the public tables, and were lent by one person to another,[179] like so many dogs, or oxen; although it seems probable that all the drudgery of the capital was not performed by the Helots alone, but that along with them were associated other classes of domestic slaves,[180] on whose history and condition antiquity affords us little or no light. But as the Spartans were constantly making prisoners in their wars with the neighbouring states, which were occasionally restored at the termination of hostilities, we appear to be authorized in concluding, that these captives were commonly reduced to servitude in Laconia, whether employed in household labours,[181] or dispersed among the Helots in the field. ----- Footnote 177: