Tyrtée

Tyrtée (in Greek old Τυρταῖος / Tyrtaĩos ) is a poet Spartan seventh century BC According to Eusèbe de Césarée, he reached his apogee during the Olympiade 612 - 609 av. J. - C.

Biography

The origin of Tyrtée is unknown. The Souda makes of it a Spartan of birth, or a Ionie N of Milet. The Speakers attics, Plato and Pausanias make a Athénien of it. As its poems are in Ionien interfered with homerisms and dorisms, it is probable that he was really Spartan. He is contemporary second war of Messénie, the Souda placing his apogee of 640 with 636 av. J. - C.

All the other data relating to Tyrtée are dubious. According to a tradition anti-Spartan, (paid by the scholiaste of the Laws of Plato and Pausanias 15,6), it was an obscure schoolmaster, little engaging, lame and one-eyed. He did not have any success near the women, and moreover, the exaltation of its spirit entirely dedicated to the worship of lyric poetry, made doubt, even its contemporaries, of his mental health and its intelligence. Tyrtée was the first schoolmaster of the history to which texts refer.

Always according to this tradition, it was 32 years old when that a delegation of Spartans arrived at Athens. They had just consulted the oracle of Delphes, because Sparte in a difficult situation, was beaten by the Messénie NS, its troops were discouraged and desperate. The Pythie had advised with delegated sparte to require of the Athenians a man who could help them of his councils. For the latter it was an good occasion to lower the pride of their rivals, and by contempt and derision, they decided to send Tyrtée as a general to them.

But this lame schoolmaster knew, by his songs of walk and his martial elegies, to record courage of the soldiers lacédémoniens. Electrified by its worms, they were armed for the combat, and went ahead of of their Messéniens enemies: the battle was terrible, long and bloody, but Sparte remained finally victorious.

In testimony of recognition, Sparte granted to him, at the time of a triumphal ovation, the established among and the title of citizen of Sparte. If the preceding data are hardly verifiable, this last assertion appears suspect, Xénophon not quoting it in the list from abroad having received this honor.

Always according to the tradition, he was the first Greek schoolmaster in his new city of adoption, which until there did not have any. It is certain that it played a great part in the definition of the educational political of the young Spartans. The speaker Lycurgue explains thus in his Against Léocrate (105-107):

“It is of public notoriety in Greece which the general that they took in our city was Tyrtée, thanks to which, with a perspicacity which carried well beyond the adversities of then, they demolished their enemies and reflect at the point their system of education. ”

Certain ancient authors think in particular that Tyrtée instituted the Pédérastie in Sparte. He died in Lacédémone in the respect, prestige and glory.

Work

There remains to us work of Tyrtée of the fragments of eleven elegies, with the old direction of the term - these poems were composed in elegiac distiches making alternate a Hexamètre dactylic and a Pentamètre. These fragments are unequal: for some elegies, we have one and single towards, for others, the fragments are more important. The first elegy is the only one to be to us directly parvenu, preserved on a papyrus, the others are transmitted by posterior authors.

Tyrtée is the official poet of Sparte. The speaker attic Lycurgue thus explains in its Against Léocrate (107) why before leaving to shift, the soldiers meet in front of the royal tent to listen to a recitation of the elegies of Tyrtée. Its importance comes from what it knew to adapt the Homeric ideal , based on the knighthood and personal glory, in a political ideal (of the city) and collective.

Like Homère, Tyrtée sings the warlike value, the pleasures due to the winner and misfortune of overcome. He wants to drive out the fear of dead and glorifie the beautiful death of the young man killed as a combatant. But this honor is not reserved to the noble warriors any more, it can from now on be required and reached by all. They are the Spartans as a whole who must show their valiancy, and either some heroes. To be Spartan, it is already to belong to the elite. Tyrtée goes further: in its famous elegy IX, he states not to hold account, to judge a man, of his merits to the race or the fight, neither of his physical appearance, neither of his literary talents, nor even of his social status, would be this the royalty. Not, according to Tyrtée, all that is nothing, only valiancy with the combat counts, because:

“Here the true merit (ἀρετή/ aretế ), here best and the most beautiful price to gain

among the men for a young warrior

and it is a community property for the city and for all the people

which a warrior, the drawn aside legs, is continuously held in the forefront

, lost all to remember the ashamed escape

by exposing his life and his valiant heart

and, motionless beside him, encourages by words its neighbor:

here is the man who is valorous with the war. ”

(transl. Edmond Levy)

It is well a traditional revolution compared to l'ἀρετή, the agonistic ideal of Homère, evoked in the first towards then rejected. The ideal of the warrior is from now on civic, collective, the ideal of the phalange where all fight side by side and not that of the individual combat between two champions. From this point of view, Tyrtée is not only the cantor of Sparte, but of all the city-States, which want to be, like says it Périclès in its Funeral oration for deaths of the Peloponnese , a “generalized aristocracy”.

Random links: