Sparta was a closed society. It used Messenian people (Helots) as an underclass, so the elite could spend their time on military training. There was also another race tightly connected to the Spartans – The Perioeci. These people lived primary in the hills around Sparta as autonomous cities, and also controlled the important Laconian Island of Cythera. They had no foreign policy of their own but served in the Spartan Army.
More importantly the Perioeci acted as the merchants for the Spartans, who shunned practical business dealing. The Spartans did not like money and had no coinage of their own. According to tradition, the man who designed the Spartan government, Lycurgus, banned gold and silver coins as decadent. From that time until the third century B.C. the Perioeci used awkward iron bars as currency for Spartan transactions. After the third century, the Spartans began to strike their own coins.