Intermediate between Helots and Spartiates were the two classes of _Neodamodes_ and _Mothones_. The former were emancipated helots, or possibly their descendants, and were much used in war from the end of the 5th century; they served especially on foreign campaigns, as those of Thibron (400-399 B.C.) and Agesilaus (396-394 B.C.) in Asia Minor. The _mothones_ or _mothakes_ were usually the sons of Spartiates and helot mothers; they were free men sharing the Spartan training, but were not full citizens, though they might become such in recognition of special merit.
See C. O. Müller, _History and Antiquities of the Doric Race_ (Eng. trans.), bk. iii. ch. 3.; G. Gilbert, _Greek Constitutional Antiquities_ (Eng. trans.), pp. 30-35; A. H. J. Greenidge, _Handbook of Greek Constitutional History_, pp. 83-85; G. Busolt, _Die griech. Staats- u. Rechtsaltertümer_, § 84; _Griechische Geschichte_, i.[2] 525-528; G. F. Schömann, _Antiquities of Greece: The State_ (Eng. trans.) pp. 194 ff. (M. N. T.)
HELPS, SIR ARTHUR (1813-1875), English writer and clerk of the Privy Council, youngest son of Thomas Helps, a London merchant, was born near London on the 10th of July 1813. He was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge, coming out 31st wrangler in the mathematical tripos in 1835. He was recognized by the ablest of his contemporaries there as a man of superior gifts, and likely to make his mark in after life. As a member of the Conversazione Society, better known as the "Apostles," a society established in 1820 for the purposes of discussion on social and literary questions by a few young men attracted to each other by a common taste for literature and speculation, he was associated with Charles Buller, Frederick Maurice, Richard Chenevix Trench, Monckton Milnes, Arthur Hallam and Alfred Tennyson. His first literary effort, _Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd_ (1835), was a series of aphorisms upon life, character, politics and manners. Soon after leaving the university Arthur Helps became private secretary to Spring Rice (afterwards Lord Monteagle), then chancellor of the exchequer. This appointment he filled till 1839, when he went to Ireland as private secretary to Lord Morpeth (afterwards earl of Carlisle), chief secretary for Ireland. In the meanwhile (28th October 1836) Helps had married Bessy, daughter of Captain Edward Fuller. He was one of the commissioners for the settlement of certain Danish claims which dated so far back as the siege of Copenhagen; but with the fall of the Melbourne administration (1841) his official experience closed for a period of nearly twenty years. He was not, however, forgotten by his political friends. He possessed admirable tact and sagacity; his fitness for official life was unmistakable, and in 1860 he was appointed clerk of the Privy Council, on the recommendation of Lord Granville.