Crypteia

, homeland of Sparta's helot population, from Mount Ithome. The Crypteia, also referred to as Krypteia or Krupteia (Greek: κρυπτεία krupteía from κρυπτός kruptós, "hidden, secret"; members were κρύπται kryptai), was an ancient Spartan state institution. The kryptai either principally sought out and killed helots across Laconia and Messenia as part of a policy of terrorising and intimidating the enslaved population; practiced a form of military training; endured hardships as an initiation ordeal; or served a combination of all these purposes, possibly varying over time. Whatever its true nature, the Crypteia was an element of the Spartan state's child-rearing system for upper-class males. Modern historians often translate "Krypteia" as "secret police" or "secret service", but its precise structure is debated.

, homeland of Sparta's helot population, from Mount Ithome. The Crypteia, also referred to as Krypteia or Krupteia (Greek: κρυπτεία krupteía from κρυπτός kruptós, "hidden, secret"; members were κρύπται kryptai), was an ancient Spartan state institution. The kryptai either principally sought out and killed helots across Laconia and Messenia as part of a policy of terrorising and intimidating the enslaved population; practiced a form of military training; endured hardships as an initiation ordeal; or served a combination of all these purposes, possibly varying over time. Whatever its true nature, the Crypteia was an element of the Spartan state's child-rearing system for upper-class males. Modern historians often translate "Krypteia" as "secret police" or "secret service", but its precise structure is debated. ==History and function== According to Aristotle, the Crypteia were established by the legendary Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus. There is no known date associated with its establishment. Every autumn, Spartan ephors would declare war on the helot population, which would allow them to headhunt helots without fear of punishment. The chosen kryptai were then sent out into the countryside armed with daggers with the instructions to kill any helot they encountered travelling the roads and tending to fields they deemed too plentiful. They were specifically told to kill the strongest and to take any food they needed. The reason for adopting that practice may have been to reduce the repressed aggression of the hêbôntes. However, it is most commonly thought to have been adopted to prevent the threat of a helot rebellion and to keep their population in check. According to some sources, kryptai would stalk the helot villages and surrounding countryside, spying on the servile population. Their mission was to prevent and to suppress unrest and rebellion. Another point of contestation is the time of day at which the Crypteia operated. Plato described their movement as travelling in both day and night. Plutarch states that they would hide during the day and travel by night, aiming to kill any helots who they came across. That suggests that helots may have had to comply with curfew laws put into place by the Spartans. Troublesome helots could be summarily executed. Such brutal repression of the helots permitted the Spartan elite to successfully control the servile agrarian population. It may also have contributed to the Spartans' reputation for stealth, since a kryptēs (κρύπτης) who got caught was punished by whipping. Aristotle's lost account was partly disbelieved by Plutarch, several centuries later. Plutarch, who provides much of what is known of Aristotle's account, was not convinced that Lykourgos would have included such harsh customs within the Spartan constitution and instead thought that the Crypteia had been introduced, if at all, only after the helot revolt, brought on by an earthquake in Sparta in the mid-460s BC. In events preceding the ten-year conflict between the Spartans and the Messenians that resulted from the helot revolt, the Spartan leadership covertly killed two thousand helots who had participated in the war. It is thought that the Crypteia were the primary perpetrators of the massacre or were at least somehow involved in carrying it out. ==Classical sources== Several surviving classical sources, from several different centuries, describe, or mention, or at least are thought by some Classicists to reference the Crypteia. ===5th century BC=== Herodotus is thought by some to have been referring to the Crypteia when he writes "Now the Lacedemonians put to death by night all those whom they put to death, but no man by day." Thucydides is also thought by some to be referring to the Crypteia when he writes, in his account of the eighth year of the Peloponnesian War, Centuries later, Plutarch mentions Thucydides's account, immediately after speaking explicitly of the Crypteia (see below). ===4th century BC=== There is a single-sentence passing reference to the Crypteia, made by an imaginary Spartan in a fictional dialogue, in Plato's Laws There is also a scholion on this text. ===2nd century BC=== A fragment by the Alexandrian Heraclides Lembus (Heraclides fr. 10 Dilts) mentions the Krypteia, probably describing it as instituted by Lycurgus: Heraclides may, like Plutarch, below, be using a lost work of Aristotle as a source. ===1st century AD=== Plutarch, in his Life of Lycurgus, gives a long description of the Crypteia. There is another possible reference to the Crypteia, or at least to a man who was commander of it at the time of the Battle of Sellasia, in Plutarch's Lives: ==References== ==Sources== ==External links== Wallon (1850) in scanned as well as HTML version

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