Helos

{{Short description|Town of ancient Laconia}}

{{about||the town of ancient Elis|Helos (Elis)|the town of ancient Ionia|Helos (Ionia)}}

Helos ({{langx|grc|τὸ Ἕλος}}, meaning "marshland" or "swamp"), also Hele (Ἕλη), was a town of ancient Laconia, situated east of the mouth of the Eurotas, close to the sea, in a plain which, though marshy near the coast, is described by Polybius as the most fertile part of Laconia.{{Cite Polybius|5.19}} In the earliest times it appears to have been the chief town on the coast, as Amyclae was in the interior; for these two places are mentioned together by Homer in the Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad.{{Cite Iliad|2.584}}Homeric Hymn to Apollo 410. Helos is said to have been founded by Helios, the youngest son of Perseus. On its conquest by the Dorians its inhabitants were reduced to slavery; and, according to a common opinion in antiquity, their name became the general designation of the Spartan bondsmen, helots, but the name of these slaves (εἵλωτες) probably signified captives, and was derived from the root of ἑλεῖν.{{Cite Pausanias|3|20|6}}: the account differs a little in {{Cite Strabo|viii. p.365}} In the time of Strabo Helos was only a village; and when it was visited by Pausanias, it was in ruins.{{Cite Strabo|viii. p.363}}{{Cite Pausanias|3|22|3}} Helos is also mentioned by Thucydides,{{Cite Thucydides|4.54}} Xenophon,{{Cite Hellenica|6.5.32}} and Stephanus of Byzantium.{{Cite Stephanus|s.v.}}

It is tentatively located at a site called Agios Stephanos, in the modern community of Elos.{{Cite DARE|27445}}{{Cite Barrington|58}}