| 释义 |
helot|ˈhɛlət, ˈhiːlət|
Forms: 6 Hylote, 6–7 Ilot(e, 7 El(y)ot, 7– Helot, 9 helot.
[ad. L. Hēlōtes, a. Gr. Εἵλωτες (pl. of Εἵλως), also Hīlōtæ (Ilōtæ, Livy), a. Gr. Εἵλωται (pl. of Εἱλώτης); traditionally taken as deriv. of Ἕλος Helos, a town in Laconia whose inhabitants were enslaved. (The capital H is now usual only in the original historical sense; so in the derivatives.)]
Gr. Antiq. (Helot) One of a class of serfs in ancient Sparta, intermediate in status between the ordinary slaves and the free Spartan citizens.
drunken Helot: in allusion to the statement (Plutarch Lycurg. xxviii), that Helots were, on certain occasions, compelled to appear in a state of intoxication, in order to excite in the Spartan youth repugnance to drunken habits.
1579Gosson Sch. Abuse (Arb.) 48 If Lycurgus..take counsel of Apollo..he shalbe charged to leaue those precepts to the white liuered Hylotes. 1586T. B. La Primaud. Fr. Acad. i. (1589) 194 Well, if yee thinke it good, divide the rest amongst the Ilots. 1630R. Brathwait Eng. Gentlem. (1641) 100 Like those base Elyots slaved to ebriety. a1653G. Daniel Idyll iii. 166 The Rest Like drunken Helots, either Act the Jest Their Rigours shall impose. 1779Johnson in Boswell 1 Apr., In that respect he would be like the drunken Helot. 1846Grote Greece ii. vi. (1888) II. 291 The Helots..were Coloni or serfs bound to the soil, who tilled it for the benefit of Spartan proprietors.
b. transf. (helot) A serf, a bondsman.
[1579Gosson Sch. Abuse (Arb.) 48, I coulde wishe it in England, that there were greater preferment for the valiant Spartanes, then the sottishe Hylotes.] 1823Byron Age of Bronze vi, Slaves of the east, or helots of the west. 1862D. Wilson Preh. Man II. xxiv. 404 The Saxon helot of the Conquest grew into the sturdy English freeman. 1877Farrar Days of Youth ii. 17 God's heroes may be the world's helots.
c. Comb., as helot-like adj.
a1873Lytton Pausanias 84 The rigid and helot-like slavery to which the native Bithynians were subjected. |