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Tyrtaeus (; Tyrtaios; Floruit mid-7th century BC) was a Greeks Elegy from Sparta whose works were speculated to fill five books. His works survive from quotations and papyri, and include 250 lines or parts of lines. He wrote at a time of two crises affecting the city: a civic unrest threatening the authority of kings and elders, later recalled in a poem named Eunomia ("Law and Order"), where he reminded citizens to respect the divine and constitutional roles of kings, council, and demos; and the Second Messenian War, during which he served as a sort of "state poet", exhorting Spartans to fight to the death for their city. In the 4th century BC, when Tyrtaeus was an established classic, Spartan army on campaign were made to listen to his poetry. The Suda states that he wrote Martial music; these were important in Spartan festivals and were done through anapaestic and iambic chants that accompanied armed dances and processions.
The confusion about his place of origin, which emerged by the 5th century BC, may have had several causes. It has been suggested that the depictions of Tyrtaeus as a lame schoolmaster from Athens were invented to denigrate Sparta, which in the views of Athenians could not have had a talented poet of its own. According to Pausanias, the Athenians sent the lame, mentally defective teacher-poet to Sparta as a compromise, wishing to obey the oracle which had demanded an Athenian, but unwilling to help the Spartans in their war with a more capable individual.Pausanias 4.15.6, cited by . Yet, Tyrtaeus was not listed by Herodotus among the two foreigners ever to have been awarded Spartan citizenship.Herodotus ix. 35. One ancient source even listed Aphidnae as his supposed Athenian deme, but there was also a place of that name in Laconia.
Ancient Athenian propaganda might indeed have played a role, although even Plato, who could hardly have intended any denigration as an admirer of Sparta, gave credence to the poet's Athenian origin.Plato Laws 1.629a–b, cited by . According to scholar N. R. E. Fisher, "the story was surely an invention by Athenians, designed in the first instance for a predominantly Athenian market. It must have been aimed at making co-operation between Sparta and Athens more acceptable". It has also been noted that Tyrtaeus did not compose in the vernacular Laconian Doric Greek of Sparta, as could be expected of a native Spartan like his near contemporary Alcman. However, Greek elegists used the Ionic Greek of Homer regardless of their city of origin or their audience.
Scholars generally agree that Tyrtaeus was a native of Laconia for several reasons: the use of the first personal plural to include himself among the Heracleidae whom Zeus had given to Sparta in fragment 2; the presence of occasional Doric words in his vocabulary; and his tone of authority when addressing Spartan warriors, which would have been tolerated only if delivered by a Spartan-born poet.
Traditional accounts of his life were almost entirely deduced from his poetry or were simply fiction, such as the account by Pausanias (2nd century AD) of his supposed transformation from a lame and stupid school teacher in Athens to the mastermind of Spartan victories against the Messenians. Variations on his Athenian origin and deformity are found in numerous ancient sources. This includes philosopher Diogenes Laërtius (3rd century AD), who said that the Athenians regarded him as deranged,Diogenes Laërtius 2.43, cited by . and Porphyry (3rd century AD), who labelled him "one-eyed."Porphyry in Horace A.P. 402, cited by . Finally, historian Justin (2nd century AD) believed that he was sent to the Spartans by the Athenians as a deliberate insult.Justin 3.5, cited by .
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the picture of Tyrtaeus' life has been complicated by doubts about the authenticity of many of his verses, which were dated by various scholars to the 5th or 4th century BC. The theory that Tyrtaeus was in fact a 5th-century Athenian poet was even posited by Eduard Schwartz in 1899.E. Schwartz, "Tyrtaios", Hermes 34 (1899), cited by . See also Macan in Classical Review (February 1897); H. Weil, Études sur l'antiquité grecque (1900), and C. Giarratani, Tirteo e i suoi carmi (1905). According to Douglas E. Gerber (1997), however, "that skepticism has now largely disappeared". Disagreements among scholars now essentially revolve around the version of fragment 4 that should be accepted as genuine (Plutarch's or Diodorus' version, or a combination of the two), and some doubts remain about the dating of fragment 12, which some critics have assigned to the time of Xenophanes (c. 570 – c. 475 BC) or shortly before 498 BC.. Gerber states that "most critics have been convinced" by Jaeger's defence of fr. 12 as Tyrtaeus' work ( Five Essays. 1966 1932. pp. 103–42), but that Fränkel (EGPP. pp. 337–39) assigns it "to the time of Xenophanes" and G. Tarditi ("Parenesi e arete nel corpus tirtaico". 1982. RFIC 110. pp. 257–276) to shortly before Pindar's Pythian 10 (498).
His verses seem to mark a critical point in Spartan history, when Spartans began to turn from their flourishing arts and crafts and from the lighter verses of poets like Alcman (roughly his contemporary), to embrace a regime of military austerity: "life in Sparta became spartan". Some modern scholars believe that Tyrtaeus helped to precipitate and formulate this transition,e.g. Jaeger and Tigerstedt, cited by but others see no real evidence for this.
Tyrtaeus in his poetry urged the Spartans to remain loyal to the state and he reminded them of a constitution based on divine providence, requiring co-operation of kings, elders and the people."After listening to Phoebus, they brought home from Pytho the god's oracles and sure predictions. The divinely honoured kings, in whose care is Sparta's lovely city, and the aged elders are to initiate counsel; and the men of the people, responding with straight utterances, are to speak fair words, act justly in everything, and not give the city (crooked?) counsel. Victory and power are to accompany the mass of the people. For so was Phoebus' revelation about this to the city."adapted into prose from Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 6, and Diodorus Siculus World History 7.12.5–6, by . He sought to inspire them in battle by celebrating the example of their grandfathers' generation, when Messenia was first captured, in the rule of King Theopompus,"...our king Theopompus dear to the gods, through whom we captured spacious Messene, Messene good to plough and good to plant. For nineteen years the spearmen fathers of our fathers fought unceasingly over it, displaying steadfast courage in their hearts, and in the twentieth year the enemy fled from the high mountain range of Ithome, abandoning their rich farmlands."adapted into prose from three sources (Pausanias 4.6.5, schol. ad loc. (p. 301 Greene) on Plato's Laws, Strabo 6.3.3) by . and he gave practical advice on weapons, armour and tactics (see for example the verses below). Some modern scholars however think his advice shows more familiarity with the schoolroom than with the battlefield, appearing to feature obsolete armour and tactics typical of Homeric rather than hoplite warfare.H. L. Lorimer, "The Hoplite Phalanx" A.B.S.A. 42 (1947), pages 122ff Others have argued that the Spartans at that time were still developing hoplite tactics, or that they were adapting hoplite tactics to encounter Messenian guerillas.N.G.L.Hammond, "The Lycurgean Reform at Sparta", J.H.S. 70 (1950), n. 50, page 51
Tyrtaeus's poetry is almost always interpreted teleologically, for signs of its subsequent impact on Spartan society. The similarities in meter and phrasing between Homeric epic and early elegy have encouraged this tendency, sometimes leading to dramatic conclusions about Tyrtaeus's significance. He has been called, for example, "the first poet of the Greek city state" and, in a similar vein, "he has recast the Homeric ideal of the single champion's arete (excellence) into the arete of the patriot".Tigerstedt (1965) p. 50, and Jaeger (1966) p. 103, cited and quoted by For some scholars, this is to credit Tyrtaeus with too much: his use of arete was not an advance on Homer's use of it but can still be interpreted as signifying "virtue" in the Archaic Greece sense of an individual's power to achieve something rather than as an anticipation of the Classical Greece sense of moral excellence, familiar to Plato and others.
Athenaeus, Strabo and the second entry of the Suda claim that Tyrtaeus was a Spartan general.Athenaeus 14.630f and Strabo 8.4.10; cited by . Some modern scholars, such as F. Rossi (1967–68), maintain that Tyrtaeus held a high military position,Rossi, F. (1967–68). "La 'strategie' di Tirteo". AIV. 126. pp. 343–375. but Gerber (1997) contends that this is a speculative surmise: "it may have been assumed that only a military commander could give military admonitions and instructions, but it is an unnecessary assumption.".
According to the Suda, both his Constitution and his Precepts (Ὑποθῆκαι) were composed in elegiac couplets. Pausanias also mentions Anapests, a few lines of which are quoted by Dio Chrysostom and attributed to Tyrtaeus by a scholiast.Pausanias 4.15.6 and Dio Chrysostom 2.59; cited by . They are generally seen by scholars as belonging to the so-called War Songs (Μέλη Πολεμιστήρια) mentioned by the Suda. Presumably written in the Laconian dialect, nothing else of it has survived.
According to Philodemus, who presented it as a little-known fact, Tyrtaeus was honoured above others because of his music, not just his verses.Philodemus. De Musica, 17 (p. 28 Kemke); cited by . Julius Pollux stated that Tyrtaeus introduced Spartans to three choruses based on age (boys, young and old men),Pollux Vocabulary 4.107, cited by . and some modern scholars in fact contend that he composed his elegies in units of five couplets each, alternating between exhortation and reflection, in a kind of responsion similar to Greek choral poetry. Ancient commentators included Tyrtaeus with Archilochus and Callinus as the possible inventor of the elegy.Didymus ap. Orion, Et.Mag. p. 57, Scholiast on Ar. Birds 217, cited by .
The elegies, being sung at military banquets, belong to a tradition of Symposium poetryEwen Bowie, 'Lyric and Elegiac Poetry', The Oxford History of the Classical World, eds. J. Boardman, J. Griffin and O. Murray, Oxford University Press (1986), pages 101–2 while also being representative of the genre of martial exhortation. The adoption of language and thematic concerns from Homeric epic is characteristic of this genre. For instance, the words of Tyrtaeus 10.1–2 ("For it is a fine thing for a man having fallen nobly amid the fore-fighters to die, fighting on behalf of the fatherland") undoubtedly echo Hector's speech in 15.494–7 of Homer's Iliad.: ("And whoever hit by a missile or struck by a sword find his death and fated end, let him die. It is not unseemly for one to die protecting the land of his fathers"). It is possible that Tyrtaeus intentionally alludes to Homer in instances such as these for political reasons: given the fact that his poetry, like that of other archaic authors, was most likely performed in the context of aristocratic symposia, his references to epic heroism served to praise the elite status of his aristocratic audience.
The noble sentiment of line 1 seems to be original yet the vocabulary is entirely Homeric and, though lines 5– 7 are adapted from Homer's Iliad (13.130–33),"...locking spear by spear, shield against shield at the base, so buckler/ leaned on buckler, helmet on helmet, man against man, and the horse-hair crests along the horns of their shining helmets/ touched as they bent their heads, so dense were they formed on each other,..." Iliad 13.130–33, translated by R.Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer, University of Chicago Press (1951) there is an important difference: Homer describes the advance of one side in close formation, whereas Tyrtaeus describes two sides meeting in the hoplite style of fighting. The description of the battle is rejected however by some scholars as anachronistic: for example, missiles were not characteristic of hoplite warfare. The passage demonstrates one of the more common devices employed by Tyrtaeus—the use of parallel phrases for amplification, sometimes degenerating into tedious repetition. Here it is used to communicate a sense of the crowded battlefield.
First, Tyrtaeus' poems exemplifies an ancient Greek thought and Homeric concept called Arete. This concept involves the idea of what it means to be excellent. Tyrtaeus is able to show in his work this ideal in both the singular and in the group environment of Sparta. In poem 9, he shows that in order to achieve true and the best arete, it involves being in a cohesive group that exemplifies this concept together. The reasoning for writing around the concept of arete is through the Spartan ideology of what makes the Spartan warrior the most courageous and patriotic fighter. One can speculate that his poems help push this ideology along by constantly promoting how a Spartan becomes their most powerful self. Although he writes around this concept, he never accepts this as his way of thinking he is instilling. Instead, he writes specifically about a "fierce fighting spirit."
Another subject within military ideology that is clearly shown in Tyrtaeus, 9 is the idea of solidarity amongst a group. In order to perform one's singular arete in a Phalanx, one must remain in the forefront with those he is fighting with. This requires a Spartan man to have the duty to be one with his group.
Finally, Tyrtaeus makes a style choice to not include names of anyone in his poems. This further drives in the idea that a warrior must be selfless in their contributions to the welfare of the state. This can further show that Tyrtaeus' use of military ideology in his poems influenced Spartan warriors to live a certain way for their state including being courageous and knowing they will be honored in death or in victory over battle.
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