Marcus Niebuhr Tod

“ Unlike the Spartiates they might, and did, possess gold and silver and the iron and steel wares from the mines on Mt Taygetus, the shoes and woollen stuffs of Amyclae, and the import and export trade of Laconia and Messenia probably enabled some at least of them to live in an ease and comfort unknown to their Spartan lords. ”

“ The term, however, came to denote not a nationality but a political status, and though the main body of the perioeci may have been Achaean in origin, yet they afterwards included Arcadians on the northern frontier of Laconia, Dorians, especially in Cythera and in Messenia, and Ionians in Cynuria. They inhabited a large number of settlements, varying in size from important towns like Gythium to insignificant hamlets (Isocrates xii. 179) ; the names of these, so far as they are known, have been collected by Clinton (Fasti hellenici, 2nd ed. i. 401 sqq) . ”