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A comment on China's ancient water pipe networks. Parent comment

Re:China's ancient water pipe networks by rgblambda on Friday September 08, 2023 @05:41AM (#37431551)
>Sparta, famously the only greek city without city walls, had tons of slaves

Didn't the Helots live outside the city of Sparta, and mainly worked the fields?

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Re:China's ancient water pipe networks by smogcutter on Friday September 08, 2023 @09:58AM (#37433572)
Regardless, parent’s point is that there’s no wall keeping them in.

As an aside, the Spartans famously claimed that they were their wall. But I wonder: Spartan construction was very simple, and they despised those with expertise or a craft (the small class of free noncitizens who along with the helots did all productive work). Maybe the truth is that a project with the scope & complexity of a good city wall was simply beyond them. They couldn’t do it, so they told themselves a sour grapes story about how they never wanted a wall to begin with. Just a hunch but I like it.

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