Perioeci in Crete

Abstract

T rHE object of the present study is to attempt to answer the question whether there existed in Crete a class of subject communities with local self-government similar to the of Sparta. Throughout the paper perioeci will always be used in this sense. If it is doubtful that a word in a source has this meaning, it will be given in its Greek form. The study is based chiefly on epigraphical evidence. A majority of the inscriptions used are found in the Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt-Inschriften, but in some cases it has seemed advisable to cite also earlier editions.1 The conclusion reached is that there is sufficient evidence to affirm that existed, and to make it possible to describe their status. It has often been held that there were in Crete, but most of the discussions in handbooks and histories are based too exclusively on the literary sources. On the one hand, there is Aristotle, who in the Politics uses -7rEpLOLKOL to designate a class that corresponds to the helots of Sparta2 and so seems to imply that Crete had no class corresponding to the Spartan perioeci; on the other hand, the Hellenistic historian Sosicrates states that the Cretans applied the term 7rEpL0LKOL to their '7rW'KOOL.3 The evidence of another Hellenistic writer, Dosiades,