They had their own different grades and classes, as the Saxons retained theirs after the conquest of the Normans.

Among these were the traders and manufacturers of Laconia; and thus whatever art attained of excellence in the dominions of Sparta was not Spartan but Achaean.
They served in the army, sometimes as heavy-armed, sometimes as light-armed soldiery, according to their rank or callings; and one of the Perioeci obtained the command at sea.

They appear, indeed, to have been universally acknowledged throughout Greece as free citizens, yet dependant subjects.

But the Spartans jealously and sternly maintained the distinction between exemption from the servitude of a Helot, and participation in the rights of a Dorian: the Helot lost his personal liberty--the Perioecus his political.
XIV.

The free or purely Spartan population (as not improbably with every Doric state) was divided into three generic tribes--the Hyllean, the Dymanatan, and the Pamphylian: of these the Hyllean (the reputed descendants of the son of Hercules) gave to Sparta both her kings.
Besides these tribes of blood or race, there were also five local tribes, which formed the constituency of the ephors, and thirty subdivisions called obes--according to which the more aristocratic offices appear to have been elected.