Partheniae

In Ancient Greece, the Partheniae or Parthenians (in Greek οἱ Παρθενίαι / hoi Partheníai , literally “sons of virgins”, i.e. unmarried young girls) were a lower ranking Spartiate population which, according to tradition, left Laconia to go to Magna Graecia and founded Taras, modern Taranto, in the current region of Apulia, in southern Italy.

At least three distinct traditions carry the origins of the Parthenians. The oldest is that of Antiochus of Syracuse (a contemporary of Thucydides quoted by Strabo, VI, 3, 2), according to which the Spartiates, during the first Messenian war (end of the 8th century BC), had rejected like cowards those who had not fought, along with their descendants:

"Antiochus says that, during the Messenian war, those Lacedemonians which did not take part with the mission shall be declared as slaves and called Helots; as for the children born during the mission, we shall call them Parthenians and deny them of all legal rights."

The Parthenians were therefore the first tresantes ("trembling"), a category which gathers the cowards and thus excludes themselves from the community of the Homoioi, the Peers. Thereafter, Parthenians plotted against the Peers and, discovered, would have been driven out of Sparta, from which they departed for Italy and founded Taras, whose date is traditionally fixed in 706 BC - which archaeology does not deny.

Strabo ( ibid , VI, 3, 3) himself opposes the testimony of Antiochus to that of Ephorus (4th century BC), also quoted by Polybius (XII, 6b, 5), Justin (III, 4, 3) and also Dionysius of Halicarnassus (XIX, 2-4). According to the latter, the Spartiates swore during the Messenian War, not to return home as long as they had not attained victory. The war prolonged and Sparta's demography being threatened, the Spartiates let the young Spartans who had not sworn the oath return home. These were ordered to copulate with all the girls available. The children who were born from these unions were named Parthenians. Their mothers, since they were compelled by the state to procreate, were legally considered unmolested and fit to marry once the war was over.

...
Wikipedia