Tyrtaeus

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Tyrtaeus

(tərtē`əs), fl. 7th cent. B.C. at Sparta, Greek elegiac poet. Fragments of his martial elegies in Dorian Greek, which were written to spur Spartan soldiers to victory, are extant. An Athenian legend relates that Athens sent Tyrtaeus, a lame schoolmaster, to Sparta when Sparta needed help in war.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Tyrtaeus

Ancient Greek poet of the second half of the seventh century B.C. Born in Athens or Laconia. Lived in Sparta.

In his elegies, written in the Ionic dialect, Tyrtaeus condemned cupidity and discord, called for unity, and extolled Sparta’s past glory and bravery in battle. Tyrtaeus was among the first to speculate on the origins of the state in its existing form and on ways to preserve it for the welfare of the entire citizenry.

WORKS

Anthologia lyrica Graeca, fase. 1. Edited by E. Diehl. Leipzig, 1954.
In Russian translation:
In V. V. Latyshev. Na dosuge. St. Petersburg, 1898.

REFERENCES

Iarkho, V., and K. Polonskaia. Antichnaia lirika. Moscow, 1967. Pages 26–28.
Snell, B. Tyrtaios und die Sprache des Epos. Göttingen, 1969.

Tyrtaeus

(fl. 7th century B.C.) elegist; roused Spartans to Messenian triumph. [Gk. Hist.: Brewer Dictionary, 1111]

See: Inducement

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References in periodicals archive ?

And the line does appear, as we shall see; but well before then, about six months after the catastrophe of 1 July, it is Horace's ultimate model, the late seventh-century BC Spartan poet, Tyrtaeus, who is quoted (fragment 10, lines 27-30), in the anonymous article "Our Heroic Dead" (16.3 [1916: 5]):

From Parmenius to Paton: 350 Years of Classical Learning in (and about) Newfoundland

The issue of when the phalanx acquired depth, absent in the phalanx of Tyrtaeus (seventh century) and the sine qua non of a true phalanx, is not addressed.

Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Classical Greece

The Spartan poet Tyrtaeus wrote, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]: "You should reach the limits of virtue / before you cross the border of death." What a noble aim!

To reach the limits of virtue

The poets Tyrtaeus, Archilochus, and Alcaeus, the historians Thucydides and Polybius, the philosopher Melissus, the playwright Sophocles: all were soldiers, most of them commanders.

Athens vs. Sparta: the academic-military divide

The hoplite phalanx with special references to the poems of Archilochos and Tyrtaeus. Annual of the British School at Athens, 42:76-138, 1947.

A historiography on the war in ancient Greece: from the "account-battles" to the historical-cultural approach/A historiografia sobre a guerra na Grecia antiga: dos "relatos-batalha" a abordagem historico-cultural

Thus, in a world where moral conformity and a strong sense of duty dominate, he declares: "We prefer for example Goethe to Korner and Sappho to Tyrtaeus; we would give many patriots for one artist, considering that civic virtue is more easily to be had than lyric genius" ("Victor Hugo," p.

Cosmopolitan republican Swinburne, the immersive poet as public moralist

This title refers us directly to Odes 3.2.13 even though the line originally occurs in Tyrtaeus fr.

Celebrating the past: horace's odes as aide memoire

Hall severely damages his own credibility when he undercuts a significant class of evidence that he also makes abundant use of "the fact that we lack secure, independent evidence for the date of Tyrtaeus' poetry and cannot even be sure if he was an individual historical personality as opposed to a name attached to a longer cumulative poetic tradition" (p.

A History of the Archaic Greek World ca. 1200-479 BCE

There was, however, no objection to a national poet like Tyrtaeus who united Sparta and prepared it for war against external enemies.

Claudia Baracchi. Of Myth, Life and War in Plato's Republic

In the middle of his summary of Ephorus' account of the foundation of Tarentum, Strabo quotes five lines of Tyrtaeus (which it is reasonable to assume that he is also reproducing from Ephorus).

SIMONIDES, EPHORUS, AND HERODOTUS ON THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE

Greek tradition after Tyrtaeus' time claimed that he was an Athenian or Milesian schoolmaster who was sent to Sparta in reluctant compliance with an oracle to strengthen Spartan morale.

Tyrtaeus

He maintains that the secondary literature has failed to appreciate sufficiently not only that Laches' definition of courage is thoroughly traditional, deriving from Homer and Tyrtaeus (sections 4.3, 4.4), but also that Nicias's definition is not Socratic but rather sophistic and Promethian, connected with Periclean humanism (sections 5.1-5.3).