In mid-August of 480 B.C., the Greek allies defending the pass of Thermopylae were treated to a strange sight when four thousand Peloponnesian warriors marched into their camp. The most impressive of these troops were three hundred old men with shaved lips, red cloaks, and shields emblazoned with “Λ,” signifying their home country of Lacedaemon. Along with these soldiers marched seven hundred of the men called helots, natives of the country of Messenia subjugated by the Lacedaemonians, equipped as light infantry. During the battle that followed, the Spartans and their Helots cooperated to a degree unprecedented in Greek history: the […]