Bret Devereaux

So, the 20/23 number is the product of the following: c. 200,000 helots. Assuming roughly 4,000 adult male Spartiates (c. 420 BC; there were probably never 10k Spartiates) suggests a total Spartan citizen population (men, women, children) c. 10,000-12,000

We have very little idea about the numbers of the perioikoi, but assume generously that they double the Spartiates suggests thus 200,000 helots out of a total pop of 230,000ish. Very approximate, but that's the range of figures to be thinking of.

In this, Sparta is a massive outlier. Societies in which enslaved persons constitute a simple majority are extremely rare. And the helots were treated brutally *by the standards of ancient slavery* which in turn were extremely low.

But this is why I see defenses of say - the Spartan treatment of women - as essentially hollow. Sure, Spartan citizen women had a few more liberties than Athenian citizen women. But most Spartan women were not citizens, most of them were helots.

And given that we are talking about a society with roving terror-death-squads for helot men, can we even begin to doubt how horribly helot women must have been treated?

As for Schumptre's dictum on democracy, Sparta fails at that. There were exactly 35 people whose opinion mattered in Sparta: 28 gerontes, 2 kings, 5 ephors. Often the gerontes may have also been ephors, which lowers the number further.

Spartan elections - done by acclamation - were about as democratic as modern elections in the various crypto-dictatorships like Russia. Systems to give the ruling minority's decisions the legitimacy of democracy without the reality, a fact that even out ancient sources admit.

The idea of equality even among the peers (the homoioi) is also probably a myth. We see evidence for rich Spartiates and poor spartiates at the moment the sources are good enough to know.