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The repeated assertion that there were seven Helots to each Spartiate (ch. 10. 1, 29. 1, 61. 2) evidently rests on something more than mere conjecture. The words ἐφύλασσον most naturally would mean that they were in personal attendance on their master, but elsewhere each Spartiate has but one squire (θεράπων, cf. vii. 186. 2 n., 229. 1 n.). Krüger would take it to mean that the light-armed Helots covered the right wing from the attacks of the Persian horse and archers; but though H. regards them as combatants (μάχιμοι, ch. 30; cf. 29. 8), there is nowhere any indication that they played an effective part in the fighting, though archers, and presumably other light troops, were urgently required (ch. 60). Hence at best they can only have been an army service corps (ch. 39, 50); cf. Appendix XIX. 3.

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