Mass murders in Spartan society

This fear contributed to mistreatment of helots. Because of it, Spartan men always carried their spears, undid the straps of their bucklers only at home. That may also explain why there were so inclined to succeed in military training.

There was no end to humiliation suffered by helots from Spartans. They made helots wear hats from dog's skin, so they would not mix with Spartans. Dogs were considered servile and cowardly animals, thus the canine symbolism was clear to the Greeks. Each year, the helots were ritually flogged, apparently for no other reason than to affirm their servitude. Any Spartan could to kill helots without any repercussion or punishment. In fact, mass murders of helots were quite usual in Spartan society. For example, in 425 B.C. over two thousand helots were massacred in a carefully staged event.

It would seem to make good sense to keep the slaves well nourished, but Spartans were too weird. Any helots who became overweight were put to death, with their Spartan masters fined for "letting them get fat". What is more, the Spartans used to rape helot women as a means of meeting the state's needs in terms of human resources. Born from this rape girls were left to die, while boys were taken to serve as soldiers for a Spartan war machine.