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| Anonymous French Artist Men sawing Timber 17th century drawing Städel Museum, Frankfurt |
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| Laurits Andersen Ring Building Watercourse at Søndersø 1885 oil on canvas Fuglsang Kunstmuseum, Lolland, Denmark |
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| Elias Porcelius The Carpenter ca. 1710 woodcut Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna |
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| Wilhelm Trübner Young Carpenter planing a Coffin 1870 drawing Städel Museum, Frankfurt |
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| Anthon van Rappard Cotton Worker ca. 1890 oil on canvas Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo |
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| Anonymous German Artist Lathe Worker ca. 1518 woodcut Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel |
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| Stefano della Bella Studies of Workers ca. 1640 drawing Yale University Art Gallery |
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| Joseph Wagner after Jacopo Amigoni Lamp-Lighter 1739 etching and engraving Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig |
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| Albert Renger-Patzsch Crab Fisherman 1925 gelatin silver print Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal |
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| Fritz Boehle Group of Fishermen ca. 1898 drawing Städel Museum, Frankfurt |
-Basque-Fishermen-1930-oil-on-panel-Mus%C3%A9e-des-Beaux-Arts-de-Pau.jpg) |
| Ramiro Arrúe Valle Basque Fishermen 1930 oil on panel Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau |
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| Carl Ludvig Locher Women gathering Nets on the Beach at Hornbæk 1884 oil on canvas Kunsten Museum, Aalborg, Denmark |
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| Alexander Archipenko Gondolier 1914 gouache on paper Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo |
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| Lorenzo Bianchi and Domenico Cuciniello Maltese Fish-Seller ca. 1825 lithograph Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin Kitchen Maid ca. 1738 oil on canvas Alte Pinakothek, Munich |
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| Claude-Joseph Bail Far Niente ca. 1890 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Mulhouse |
For the Athenians vexing Peloponnesus, and their particular territory Laconia most of all, they thought the best way to divert them was to send an army to the confederates of the Athenians, so to vex them again. And the rather because Perdiccas and the Chalcideans were content to maintain the army, having called it thither to help the Chalcideans in their revolt. And because also they desired a pretence to send away part of their Helotes, for fear they should take the opportunity of the present state of affairs, the enemies lying now in Pylus, to innovate. For they did also this further, fearing the youth and multitude of their Helotes, for the Lacedaemonians had ever many ordinances concerning how to look to themselves against the Helotes.* They caused proclamation to be made that as many of them as claimed the estimation to have done the Lacedaemonians best service in their wars should be made free; feeling them in this manner and conceiving that, as they should every one out of pride deem himself worthy to be first made free, so they would soonest also rebel against them. And when they had thus preferred about two thousand, which also with crowns on their heads went in procession about the temples as to receive their liberty, they not long after made them away, and no man knew how they perished.
– from The Peloponnesian War as written by Thucydides (5th century BC) and translated by Thomas Hobbes (1628) and edited by David Grene (1959)
*Helot is the general name applied to the people who cultivated the ground for the Spartans. As the latter lived entirely in barracks till the age of thirty and even after that were closely attached to the army, the farming of their estates had to be done by others. These farm workers were serfs, but not slaves. They were bound to the land but could not be sold, and they were paid a proportion of produce from the land they worked. They were of various races, being composed of the people who had owned the land when the Spartans conquered it.
