SERFDOM. 483 



at a merciless king s command to do his work. If not the 

 whole population, yet large parts of the population, were 

 thus conditioned in Assyria. Conquered peoples, removed 

 bodily to different parts of the empire, were forced to labour 

 at buildings by which the monarchs thought to eternalize 

 their glory, but have instead eternalized their shame. The 

 Hebrews, also, in this matter did as they were done by. In 

 I Kings ix, 20-21, we read, concerning the descendants of 

 the conquered peoples of Palestine, that those &quot; whom the 

 children of Israel also were not able utterly to destroy, upon 

 those did Solomon levy a tribute of bond-service unto this 

 day.&quot; State-serfdom of a more normal type was, however, 

 best exemplified in Sparta, where the conquering Dorians 

 possessed the land and its aborigines. Says Grote : 



&quot; The helots of Laconia were colon! or serfs bound to the soil, who 

 tilled it for the benefit of the Spartan proprietors certainly probably, 

 of Perio3kic proprietors also. . . . The helots lived in the rural villages 

 as adscripti gleba, cultivating their lands and paying over their rent 

 to the master at Sparta . . . they belonged not so much to the master 

 as to the State &quot; [to which in fact the master himself belonged.] 



In Athens the possession by the State of captives did not 

 form so large a feature in the social arrangements. But 

 besides the classes of bondsmen performing various public 

 services, there were classes belonging to the temples, who 

 carried on cultivation of the attached estates; probably 

 under conditions similar to those of the helots. 



804. As preliminary to the right understanding of serf 

 dom in Rome, we must note the form into which unceasing 

 warfare had brought Roman society. More than once I have 

 emphasized the truth that in proportion as militancy is 

 chronic, the organization proper to an army becomes the 

 organization proper to the whole society: regimentation 

 spreads throughout the entire body-politic. For efficiently 

 bringing to bear the national power upon other nations, the 

 actions of all parts have to be completely coordinated; and 



