Another service the Helots performed for their masters, which necessarily produced some degree of intimacy, I mean the military service in which they fought and bled by their side.[182] The state was, no doubt, reluctant to admit them among the Hoplitæ, or heavy-armed, where the discipline was rigorous, and their weapons would have placed them on a level with their oppressors. But even this was sometimes hazarded, as in the reinforcements forwarded to Gyleppus, at Syracuse,[183] when six hundred Neodomades and picked Helots were complimented with this dangerous distinction. As light troops, however, they almost invariably formed the majority of the Lacedæmonian forces. In other countries, where the subject races were more humanely treated, no fear was entertained at entrusting them with arms. Among the Dardanians, for example, where it was not uncommon for a private individual to possess a thousand slaves, or more, they in time of peace cultivated the land, and in war filled the ranks of the army, their masters serving as officers.[184] ----- Footnote 182: On this point the remark of Capperonier is ingenious: “On les voit rarement (les Lacédémoniens) se mettre en campagne sans eux; (les Hilotes;) la politique l’exigeoit; que n’auroient-ils pas en à craindre si, les contenant à peine lorsqu’ils étoient chez eux, ils les y eussent laissés seuls en leur absence?” Recherches sur les Hilotes, Mem. de l’Acad. Des Inscrip. t. xxiii. p. 285. Footnote 183: Thucyd. vii. 19. Cf. v. 57. 64. iv. 80. They were sometimes entrusted with important commands on foreign stations, which by the free confederates of Sparta, however, was regarded as an insult: ἀλλὰ τοὺς μὲν εἴλωτας ἁρμοστὰς, observes the Theban ambassador at Athens, καθιστάναι ἀξιοῦσι, τῶν δὲ ξυμμάχων ἐλευθέρων ὄντων, ἐπεὶ εὐτύχησαν, δεσπόται ἀναπεφῄνασιν. Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 5. 12. Footnote 184: Athen. vi. 103. ----- From this circumstance one of two things must be inferred; either that the Dardanians considered them in the light of subjects, as we do the natives of India, where large armies are officered by Englishmen, or that that people understood better than any other in antiquity the art of ruling over men.