Home › Tyrtaeus

Tyrtaeus

Tyrtaeus
Activity (s)	poet.
Birth	^Seventh century BC. AD
Writing language	Ancient Greek
Genre (s)	Poetry military.
Major works
elegies

Tyrtaeus (in ancient Greek / is a poet Spartan the ^seventh century BC. BC According to Eusebius of Caesarea , it reached its apogee during the Olympics 612 - 609 BC. AD

Biography

The origin of Tyrtaeus is unknown. The Souda actually a Spartan by birth, or Ionian of Miletus. The Attic orators , Plato and Pausanias make a Athenian. Like his poems are in Ionic Half of Homer and dorismes , it is probable that he really was spartan. He was contemporary with the second war of Messinia , the Souda placing its peak of 640 to 636 BC. AD

All other data Tyrtaeus are uncertain. Some ancient authors think that in particular Tyrtaeus instituted the pederasty in Sparta. He died at Sparta in the respect, prestige and glory. According to tradition, anti-Spartan (reported by the scholiast of the Laws of Plato and Pausanias Work

It remains the work of Tyrtaeus fragments of eleven elegies in the old sense of the word - these poems were composed in elegiac couplets alternating between a dactylic hexameter and pentameter. These fragments are mixed: for some elegies, we have one and only to , for others, the fragments are more important. The first elegy is the only one we have reached directly, preserved on a papyrus , the others are transmitted by later writers.

Like Homer , Tyrtaeus sings the warlike, the pleasures and winner due to the misfortune of the vanquished. He wants to drive the fear of death and glorifies the beautiful death of the young man killed in battle. But this honor is reserved for more noble warriors, it can now be sought and achieved by all. These are the Spartans as a whole who must show their valor, and not some hero. Being Spartan is already part of the elite. Tyrtaeus goes further in his famous elegy IX, he said he did not consider, to judge a man, his merits in the race or fight, or his physical appearance, or his literary talents, or even his social rank, would that royalty. Not according Tyrtaeus, this is nothing, only the account valor in combat, because:

"This is the true merit ( / edge), this is the best and most beautiful prizes to be won

among men for a young warrior

and it is a common good for the city and for all the people

a warrior, legs apart, take place at the forefront

continuously, has lost all memory of the shameful flight

exposing his life and his brave heart

and motionless beside him, encouraging words from his neighbor:

this is the man who shows himself brave in war. "

(Trans. Edmond Levy)

It is a revolution against the Bibliography

Edmond Levy , Sparta: social and political history until the Roman conquest, Seuil, coll. "Points History, Paris, 2003 ( ISBN 2-02-032453-9 ) ;
Irenaeus Henri Marrou , History of Education in Antiquity. The Greek world, Seuil, coll. "Points ^History", 1st ed. 1948;
Werner Jaeger, Paideia, The formation of the Greek man, Gallimard 1988 (Ch. Education State Spartans p. 109 to 132) ( ISBN 2-07-071231-1 )
Suzanne Said, Monique and Alain Le Trdi Boulluec, History of Greek literature, Presses Universitaires de France, coll. "Quadriga", Paris, 1997 ( ISBN 2-13-053916-5 ) .