TOPIC: SPARTAN SOCIETY TO THE BATTLE OF

LEUCTRA
Name:

Homework Task
Who was Tyrtaeus? What were
the themes of his poetry?
Use the sources to answer the questions which follow. Refer to the sources and
background information to support your answers.

SOURCE 1: Poems by Tyrtaeus have strong
militaristic themes, like the theme depicted in this
amphora from the 6th century BCE. From
Study.com.
SOURCE 2: L.F. Fitzhardinge, The Spartans,
Thames & Hudson, London, 1980, p.124.
Tyrtaeus wrote about the middle of the (7th)
century, during and shortly after the second
Messenian war. The Alexandrians had five books
of his poems, containing martial exhortations,
marching songs, and a poem known as Eunomia or
‘Good Order’.

We have three samples of the exhortations, one

quoted by a fourth-century orator at Athens and
two included in a late anthology, but only two
quotations, totaling twelve lines, certainly from the
Eunomia, and a few short quotations of uncertain
source. There is also a papyrus, now in Berlin, on
which are preserved about a dozen more or less
complete lines and isolated words from another
sixty lines. Two Spartan marching songs are
quoted by later authors but their attribution to
Tyrtaeus is doubtful.

SOURCE 3: Wikipedia, Tyrtaeus.

Traditional accounts of his life, on which we rely for biographical details, were almost entirely deduced from
his poetry or were simply fiction, as for example an account by Pausanias of his supposed transformation
from a lame, stupid school teacher in Athens to the mastermind of Spartan victories against the Messenians.

Nevertheless, the Byzantine encyclopedia the Suda has two entries for Tyrtaeus, summarizing conflicting
reports that were current at that time. The first of them runs as follows:

Tyrtaeus, son of Archembrotus, a Laconian or Milesian elegiac poet and pipe-player. It is said that by means
of his songs he urged on the Lacedaemonians in their war with the Messenians and in this way enabled them
to get the upper hand. He is very ancient, contemporary with those called the Seven sages, or even earlier.
He flourished in the 35th Olympiad (640–37 BC). He wrote a constitution for the Lacedaemonians, precepts in
elegiac verse, and war songs, in five books.

The second entry states that the Spartans took him as their general from among the Athenians in response to
an oracle. The floruit given in the first entry is perhaps too early since Jerome offers a date of 633–32.
Modern scholars are less specific: dates for the Second Messenian War and hence for Tyrtaeus are given as
broad approximations, such as "the latter part of the 7th century" and "any time between the sixties and the
thirties" of the seventh century. The claim in the Suda's second entry that Tyrtaeus was a Spartan general is
made also by Athenaeus and Strabo.
SOURCE 4: P. Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia (2nd ed.), Routledge, London & New York, 1979, p.46.
By about the mid-seventh century ‘original’ epic poetry was beginning to lose its fascination for singers and
audiences like and was being challenged by the new personal genres of elegy and lyric, in which Sparta was
excellently represented by Tyrtaios (c.650) and Alkman (c.600) respectively. Apart from citing a few
acceptable mythological precedents, including the first surviving version of the conflated myths of the ‘Dorian
invasion’ and the ‘Return of the Herakleidai’, Tyrtaios devoted himself to the present in a pragmatic fashion.
Through a skilful fusion of old and new, both in language and in ideas, he advocated a moral and political ideal
to which future generations of military-minded Spartans paid more than lip-service.

SOURCE 5: Wikipedia, Tyrtaeus.

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 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. 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, and he gave practical advice on weapons, armour and tactics.
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.
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.

SOURCE 6: Aristotle, Politics 1306b36- SOURCE 7: K. Welch, ‘Spartan Society’ in J.

1307a2 (V, vi)
Discords also arise when some are too poor
and others are well off. And this particularly
happens in war-Time; for this occurred in
Sparta at about the time of the Messenian War;
and this is clear from Tyrtaeus’ poem called
Eunomia; for some were in such distress
because of the war that they demanded a
redistribution of land.
SOURCE 8: P. Bradley, Ancient Greece. Using
Evidence, Edward Arnold Australia, Kew East,
1981, p.57.
During the seventeen-year-long
conflict Tyrtaeus, a poet from Ionia,
inspired the Spartans with his martial
poems and songs.
Rise ye sons of heroic Sparta, ye
sons of warrior fathers
With your shield on the left protect
you
And with your right your spear hurl
boldly
Spare not in the least your lifeblood
For this is not like to Spartans!
Lawless et. al., Societies From The Past, Nelson,
South Melbourne, 1998, p. 185.
Tyrtaeus, a Spartan poet of the 7th century, describes
the Spartan army and the spirit of holding the line
against all odds. Such songs were sung for
generations in Sparta and formed a part of the
education of Spartans of all ages.
For it is fine to die in the front line,
A brave man fighting for his fatherland,
And the most painful fate’s to leave one’s town
And fertile farmlands for a beggar’s life,
Roaming with mother dear and aged father,
With little children and with wedded wife.
He’ll not be welcome anywhere he goes,
Bowing to need and horrid poverty,
His line disgraced, his handsome face belied;
Every humiliation dogs his steps.
This is the truth: the vagrant is ignored
And slighted, and his children after him.
So let us fight with spirit for our land,
Die for our sons, and spare our lives no more.
You young men, keep together, hold the line,
Do not start panic or disgraceful rout.
Keep grand and valiant spirits in your hearts,
Be not in love with life – the fight’s with men!
Do not desert your elders, men with legs
No longer nimble, by recourse to flight:
SOURCE 9: Wikipedia, Tyrtaeus.
Confusion about his place of origin could
have had several causes. It might have been
due to ancient assumptions that Sparta was too
"spartan" ever to have produced a talented
poet of its own, or because Tyrtaeus didn't
compose in the Doric dialect or vernacular of
Sparta (unlike his near contemporary, Alcman)
but imitated the conventional literary dialect of
Homer, which was Ionian. Ancient Athenian
propaganda might also have played a role. One
ancient source even listed his Athenian deme,
Aphidnae, but there was also a place of that
name in Laconia. Variations on his Athenian
origin and his deformity are found in numerous
ancient sources, including Diogenes Laertius,
who said that the Athenians regarded him as
deranged, and Porphyry, who labelled him
"one-eyed", and Justin, who believed that he
was sent to the Spartans by the Athenians as a
deliberate insult. 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 not wishing to help
the Spartans in their war, which would have
required a more capable individual. Even a
luminary such as Plato gave credence to the
poet's Athenian origin and yet Tyrtaeus wasn't
listed by Herodotus among the two foreigners
ever to have been awarded Spartan citizenship.
The poet's tone of authority when addressing
the Spartan warrior class, and the occasional
Doric word in his vocabulary, indicate that he
was in fact Laconian. However, the picture is
complicated by modern doubts about the
authenticity of the extant verses, some or all
being dated by various scholars to the fifth or
fourth century BC. A theory that "Tyrtaeus"
was in fact a fifth century Athenian was posited
by Eduard Schwartz as early as 1899.
SOURCE 12: P. Roberts, Excel HSC Ancient
History (rev. ed.), Pascal, Glebe, 2001, p.108.
The port, Tyrtaeus, wrote elegies which
are the main evidence for seventh-century BC
Spartan history.
Tyrtaeus inspired Spartans to regain
their lost ideals and military efficiency. He
proposed the following;
i. Eunomia, or good order;
ii. Citizen loyalty;
iii. Training soldiers to fight without
fear;
iv. All Spartans to serve the state and
demos.
SOURCE 10: L.F. Fitzhardinge, The Spartans,
Thames & Hudson, London, 1980, p.124.
Except for the songs, Tyrtaeus wrote in the
elegiac metre evolved from the hexameter in
Ionia a generation earlier, and in the Ionian
dialect appropriate to that metre. Perhaps for
this reason, as well as from reluctance to
allow any poet to Sparta, Plato in the Laws
calls him an Athenian who became a Spartan
citizen, and later a fable was elaborated that
when the Messenian war was at first going
badly the Spartans were advised by the
Delphic oracle to seek a general from Athens.
The Athenians, not wanting either to disobey
the oracle or to see Sparta increase her
power, sent in derision a lame schoolmaster,
whose poems inspired the Spartans to victory.
If we were to accept that this story had any
basis, we might perhaps guess that Tyrtaeus
was not a schoolmaster but a drill sergeant
imported at the suggestion of the oracle to
teach the Spartans the new technique of
warfare the nearer exponents of which, such
as Argos, were hostile. It is, however, more
likely that he was a native Spartan, as an
SOURCE 11: M. Whitby (ed.), Sparta,
Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2002,
p.204.
In his poems Tyrtaeus spoke of the excessively
harsh treatment that they inflicted on the
Messenians: “like donkeys weighed down by
heavy burdens, they brought to their masters
half of the fruits of the earth, a grievous
necessity”. As for the obligation of mourning,
this is attested in the following passage: “They
cry for their masters, both themselves and
their wives, when the sad inevitability of death
strikes one of them.”
SOURCE 13: L.F. Fitzhardinge, The
Spartans, Thames & Hudson, London, 1980,
p.126.
War holds no glamour for Tyrtaeus. It is grim
business, as he shows in his graphic
description of an old soldier ‘whose joints are
no longer supple’, deserted by the younger
men who should have covered him, lying with
white hair and grizzled beard in the dust
gasping out his life as he clutches at his
bleeding groin. Nor is there room for direct
intervention of the gods; courage is something
a man must impose on himself, not something
inspired from outside, a function of his own
SOURCE 14: L.F. Fitzhardinge, The Spartans, SOURCE 15: M. Whitby (ed.), Sparta, Edinburgh
Thames & Hudson, London, 1980, pp.125-6.
Tyrtaeus’s exhortations seem at first sight
conventional and even commonplace. His
vocabulary is almost entirely Homeric; hardly
more than a score of words in more than 150
lines are not found in Homer, and stock
epithets and metrical clichés abound, in a
way that suggests that the dialect was learnt,
not native. But a closer reading shows how
by new combinations of familiar words and
by subtle shifts of meaning Tyrtaeus is
constantly inculcating values very different
from those in his model, values of which his
poems are the first surviving expression.
Fear not the number of the enemy,
nor be afraid, but let each man hold
his shield straight towards the front …
Of those who are bold enough to
advance shoulder to shoulder to close
quarters against the van of the enemy
fewer are killed, and they save the folk
behind, but all the merit of cowards is
lost …
It is easy to stab the fugitive in cruel
war in the midriff from behind, and
shameful is the corpse that lies in the
dust with its wounds behind. So let a
man stand firm, legs apart, and both
feet rooted to the ground, biting his
lip with his teeth, covering thighs and
shins below and breast and shoulders
in the hollow of his broad shield, and
brandish his great spear in his right
hand and shake the terrible crest
above his head. Let him learn to fight
by doing droughty deeds, and not stay
out of range when he has a shield.
Rather let him come close and taking
one of the foe smite him hand to hand
with great spear or sword, setting foot
by foot and pressing shield to shield,
bringing crest close to crest and helm
to helm and breast to breast let him
fight his man, grasping the hilt of his
University Press, Edinburgh, 2002, p.7.
After a bitter struggle, which was followed within a
couple of generations by a long revolt, Messenia was
secured, though the crisis inspired both the poetry of
Tyrtaeus, which attempted to inspire patriotic ardour in
the Spartan youth, and some constitutional reforms
which came to be associated with the shadowy figure
of Lycurgus.
SOURCE 16: L.F. Fitzhardinge, The Spartans,
Thames & Hudson, London, 1980, p.126.
In another poem Tyrtaeus expressly rejects the
aristocratic ideals of physical excellence (such
as that represented by the Olympic games,
where Spartan victors had been frequent since
the end of the first Messenian war), eloquence
or wealth:
I would not celebrate a man nor give him
a place in my tale for speed of foot or
wrestling, not though he had the stature
and strength of the Cyclopes or beat the
Thracian North Wind at running, not if he
were lovelier of form than Tithonus or
had greater riches than Midas or
Cinyras, not if he were more kingly than
Pelops Tantalus’s son or more honeyed of
tongue than Adrastus, not if he were
famous for everything save stubborn
courage; for no man is good in war
unless he steels himself to the sight of
bloody death and reaches out to smite
the foe at close quarters
This is true merit, this the best prize
among men and fairest for a young man
to win. This is a common good for the
city and all its people, when a man
stands in the front line unyielding,
putting shameful flight right out of his
mind, staking his life and his enduring
heart, and standing by the next man
encourages him with his words. This is
the good soldier, at once he turns to flight
the rough ranks of the foe, and eagerly
he stems the wave of battle.

SOURCE 17: M. Whitby (ed.), Sparta, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2002, pp.36-7.
The fragments of Tyrtaeus must certainly demonstrate the existence of serious internal troubles; both the title
of one poem, Eunomia, and the precious if perplexing scrap quoted from it about Spartan institutions, are clear
pointers. His reference, too, to Theopompus and a Messenian war is our finest anchor for seventh-century
chronology, given the general consensus that Tyrtaeus flourished about the mid-point in the century and the
fact that Aristotle or others probably found in his poetry the statement Theopompus and Polydorus overlapped
as kings.
Activities:
1. True or false? Write a T or F in the space provided.
(a) The painting on the ceramic vase in Source 1 is an example of the military theme popular
in Sparta.

(b) Tyrtaeus wrote his poems about the time of the Peloponnesian Wars. (Source 2)

(c) From Source 3 Tyrtaeus was either born in Laconia (Sparta) or Milesia).
(d) Source 4 states that in the mid-7th century BCE elegies and lyric poetry became popular in
Sparta.

(e) In Source 5 Tyrtaeus wrote about government, battles and the military.
(5 marks)

2. From the Sources, what do we know of Tyrtaeus’ life?

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3. From the Sources, what do we know about the time in which Tyrtaeus wrote his poems?
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4. What were the themes of Tyrtaeus’ poetry? Give some examples from his works.
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5. Which sources are the most useful in informing us about Tyrtaeus and his poetry? Why?
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6.Who was Tyrtaeus? What do we know of his life and works? In your response consider:
 The different theories as to who Tyrtaeus was;
 The topics and themes of Tyrtaeus’ poetry;
 How Tyrtaeus’ times influenced his writing
 How representative Tyrtaeus was of Spartan life and values.
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