Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/447

TYRTjEUS. 4si To the great champion of Messenia, during this war, we may Oppose, on the side of Sparta, another remarkable person, less striking as a character of romance, but more interesting, in many ways, to the historian, I mean, the poet Tyrtseus, a native of Aphidna3 in Attica, an inestimable ally of the Lacede- monians during most part of this second struggle. According to a story, which, however, has the air partly of a boast of the later Attic orators, the Spartans, disheartened at the first euccesses of the Messenians, consulted the Delphian oracle, and were directed to ask for a leader from Athens. The Athenians complied by sending Tyrtseus, whom Pausanias and Justin represent as a lame man and a schoolmaster, despatched with a view of nominally obeying the oracle, and yet rendering no real assistance. 1 This seems to be a coloring put upon the story by later writers, but the intervention of the Athenians in the matter, in any way, deserves little credit. 2 It seems more probable that the legendary connection of the Dioskuri with Aphidnas, celebrated at or near that time by the poet Alkman, brought about, through the Delphian oracle, the presence of the Aphidnasan poet at Sparta. Respecting the lameness of Tyr- taeus, we can say nothing : but that he was a schoolmaster (if we are constrained to employ an unsuitable term) is highly probable, for in that day, minstrels, who composed and sung poems, were the only persons from whom the youth received any men- Mr. Clinton calls the third Messenian war, in 490 B. c., I see no adequate proof (see Fast. Hell. vol. i. p. 257). The poem of Ehianus was entitled Mr<7;?vta/ca. He also composed Qsa- cakiKu., 'H2.ia.Ku, 'xaiiid. See the Fragments, they are very few, in Diintzer's Collection, pp. 67-77. He seems to have mentioned Nikoteleia, the mother of Aristomenes (Fr. ii. p. 73) : compare Pausan. iv. 14, 5. I may remark, that Pausanias, throughout his account of the second Mes- seniati war, names king Anaxander as leading the Lacedsemonian troops ; but he has no authority for so doing, as we see by iv. 15, 1. It is a pure calculation of his own, from the Traripuv ira-fpef of Tyrtseus. 1 Pausan. iv. 15, 3; Justin, iii. 5, 4. Compare Plato, Legg. ii. p. 630, Diodor. xv. 66 ; Lycurg. cont. Leokrat. p. 1 62. Philochorus and Kallisthc- nes also represented him as a native of Aphidnas in Attica, which Strabo controverts upon slender grounds (viii. p. 362) ; Philochor. Fr. 56 (Didot). 'Plutarch, Theseus, c. 33; Pausan. i. 41, 5 ; Welcker, A.lkman. Fragra p. 20.