The Sciritae or Skiritai or Skioreitai or Skioritai (Greek: ) were a people subject to Sparta, whose status is comparable to that of the Perioeci. Deriving their name from the town of Skiritis, a mountainous region located in northern Laconia on the border with Arcadia, between the Oenus and the Eurotas rivers.
The Sciritae or Skiritai or Skioreitai or Skioritai (Greek: ) were a people subject to Sparta, whose status is comparable to that of the Perioeci. Deriving their name from the town of Skiritis, a mountainous region located in northern Laconia on the border with Arcadia, between the Oenus and the Eurotas rivers.
According to Stephanus of Byzantium and Hesychius of Alexandria, the Sciritae were of Arcadian origin. Their way of life was essentially rural: they mostly lived in villages, of which the biggest were Oion and Caryai. Their territory was inhospitable, but was of strategic importance for Sparta since it controlled the road to Tegea, which explains why it rapidly fell in Spartan hands. Their status was similar to that of the Perioeci, but Xenophon distinguished between them writing: "To meet the case of a hostile approach at night, he assigned the duty of acting as sentries outside the lines to the Sciritae. In these days the duty is shared by foreigners, if any happen to be present in the camp."
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).