What was the term for the Spartan state-owned serfs, mostly Messenians, who worked the land and vastly outnumbered Spartan citizens?

• A metics
• B perioeci
• C thetes
• D helots ✓

Helots were the subjugated population of Laconia and Messenia bound to the land and forced to provide agricultural produce to their Spartan masters, whose militarised society was built on controlling them.