the agoge could lose their citizenship. These laws meant that Sparta could not readily replace citizens lost in battle or otherwise, which eventually proved near fatal as citizens became greatly outnumbered by non-citizens, and even more dangerously by helots. Non citizens The other classes were the perioikoi, free inhabitants who were non-citizens, and the helots, state-owned serfs. Descendants of non-Spartan citizens were forbidden the agoge. Helots The Spartans were a minority of the Lakonian population. The largest class of inhabitants were the helots (in Classical Greek / Heílôtes). The helots were originally free Greeks from the areas of Messenia and Lakonia whom the Spartans had defeated in battle and subsequently enslaved. In contrast to populations conquered by other Greek cities (e.g. the Athenian treatment of Melos), the male population was not exterminated and the women and children turned into chattel slaves. Instead, the helots were given a subordinate position in society more comparable to serfs in medieval Europe than chattel slaves in the rest of Greece. The Spartan helots were not only agricultural workers, but were also household servants, both male and female would be assigned domestic duties, such as wool-working. However, the helots were not the private property of individual Spartan citizens, regardless of their household duties, and were instead owned by the state through the kleros system. Helots did not have voting or political rights. The Spartan poet Tyrtaios refers to Helots being allowed to marry and retaining 50% of the fruits of their labor. They also seem to have been allowed to practice religious rites and, according to Thucydides, own a limited amount of personal property. Initially, helots couldn't be freed but during the middle Hellenistic period, some 6,000 helots accumulated enough wealth to buy their freedom, for example, in 227 BC. In other Greek city-states, free citizens were part-time soldiers who, when not at war, carried on other trades. Since Spartan men were full-time soldiers, they were not available to carry out manual labour. The helots were used as unskilled serfs, tilling Spartan land. Helot women were often used as wet nurses. Helots also travelled with the Spartan army as non-combatant serfs. At the last stand of the Battle of Thermopylae, the Greek dead included not just the legendary three hundred Spartan soldiers but also several hundred Thespian and Theban troops and a number of helots. There was at least one helot revolt (c. 465–460 BC)