Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1211

Rh doubtless began with remarking the anarchical movement among the Spartan citizens, and by expressing the concern with which he viewed it. But, as in general the elegy seeks to pass from an excited state of the mind through sentiments and images of a miscellaneous description to a state of calmness and tranquillity, it may be conjectured that the poet in the Eunomia made this transition by drawing a picture of the well-regulated constitution of Sparta, and the legal existence of its citizens, which, founded with the divine assistance, ought not to be destroyed by the threatened innovations; and that at the same time he reminded the Spartans, who had been deprived of their lands by the Messenian war, that on their courage would depend the recovery of their possessions, and the restoration of the former prosperity of the state. This view is entirely confirmed by the fragments of Tyrtaeus, some of which are distinctly stated to belong to the Eunomia. In these the constitution of Sparta is extolled, as being founded by the power of the gods; Zeus himself having given the country to the Heracleids, and the power having been distributed in the justest manner, according to the oracles of the Pythian Apollo, among the kings, the gerons in the council, and the men of the commonalty in the popular assembly." (Hist. of the Lit. of Anc. Greece, vol. i. p. 111.)

But Tyrtaeus is still more celebrated for the compositions by which he animated the courage of the Spartans in their conflict with the Messenians,

The poems were of two kinds; namely, elegies, containing exhortations to constancy and courage, and descriptions of the glory of fighting bravely for one's native land; and more spirited compositions, in the anapaestic measure, which were intended as marching songs, to be performed with the music of the flute. The former are called, or , or simply; the latter  or. Both classes of compositions, we are told, he used to recite or sing to the rulers of the state in private, and to bodies of the citizens, just as he might happen to collect them around him, in order to stimulate them to the prosecution of the war (Paus. iv. 15); and with the same songs he animated their spirits on the march and on the battle field. He lived to see the success of his efforts in the entire conquest of the Messenians, and their reduction to the condition of Helots. (Paus. iv. 14. § 3.)

It thus appears that the period when Tyrtaeus flourished was precisely coincident with the time of the second Messenian War; for the history of which, indeed, his poems appear to have been the only trustworthy authority that the ancients possessed, although it is very doubtful how far the later writers on the subject, such as Myron and Rhianus, adhered to the information they obtained from that source. (See Grote, Hist, of Greece, Pt. ii. c. 7, vol. ii. pp. 556, foll.) The time of the war, according to Pausanias (iv. 15, § 1) was B. C. 685—668; but Mr. Clinton and Mr. Grote agree in the opinion that this date is too high. (Clinton, F. H. s. a. 685; Grote, l. c. p. 558). Suidas places Tyrtaeus at the 35th Olympiad, and also indicates his time by saying that he was contemporary with the so-called Seven Wise Men, and also older. At all events, he lived during the period of that great development of music and poetry, which took place at Sparta during the seventh century, B. C., although we have no distinct account of his relation to the other musicians and poets whose efforts contributed to that development. The absence of any statement of a connection between him and Terpander or Thaletas is easily explained by the fact that he was not, properly speaking, a lyric poet. Besides his anapaestic war-songs, his compositions, so far as we are informed, were all elegiac, and his music was that of the flute. He is expressly called by Suidas.

The estimation in which Tyrtaeus was held at Sparta, as long as the state preserved her independence, was of the highest order. Even in his own time, his poems were used in the instruction of the young, as we learn from the orator Lycurgus (l. c.), who goes on to say that the Lacedaemonians, though they made no account of the other poets, set such value upon this one, that, when they were engaged in a military expedition, it was their practice to summon all the soldiers to the king's tent, that they might hear the poems of Tyrtaeus. Athenaeus also (xiv. p. 630, f.) tells us that, in time of war, the Lacedaemonians regulated their evolutions by performing the poems of Tyrtaeus, and that they had the custom in their camps, that, when they had supped and sung the paean, they sang, each in his turn, the poems of Tyrtaeus. Pollux (iv. 107) ascribes to Tyrtaeus the establishment of the triple choruses, of boys, men, and old men. The influence of his poetry on the minds of the Spartan youth is also indicated by the saying ascribed to Leonidas, who, being asked what sort of a poet Tyrtaeus appeared to him, replied, "A good one to tickle the minds of the young." (Plut. Cleom. 2.)

The extant fragments of Tyrtaeus are contained in most of the older and more recent collections of the Greek poets, and, among the rest, in Gaisford's Poetae Minores Graeci, Schneidewin's Delectus Poëseos Graecorum, and Bergk's Poetae Lyrici Graeci. The best separate editions are those of Klotz, Bremae, 1764, 8vo., reprinted, with a German translation by Weiss, Altenb. 1767, 8vo.; of Franke, in his edition of Callinus, 1816, 8vo.; of Stock, with a German translation and historical introduction, Leipz. 1819, 8vo.; of Didot, with an elegant French translation, a Dissertation on the poet's life, and a modern Greek version by Clonaras, Paris, 1826, 8vo.; and of N. Bach, with the remains of the elegiac poets, Callinus and Asius, Lips. 1831. There are numerous translations of the fragments into the European languages, a list of which, and of the other editions, will be found in Hoffmann's Lexicon Bibliographicum Scriptorum Graecorum. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. pp.17, foll.; Müller, Dorier, passim, see Index, Hist. of Lit. of Greece, vol. i. pp. 110—112; Ulrici; Bode; Bernhardy, Grundriss d. Griech. Litt. vol. ii. pp. 341—347; Clinton, Fast. Hell. s. a. 683; Grote, History of Greece, loc. sup. cit.)  TZETZES. 1., a Greek grammarian of Constantinople. The period when he flourished may be gathered from his own statement, that he wrote one hundred years after Michael Psellus (Chil. xi. 719), and from the fact that he dedicated his Homeric Allegories to 