Tyrtaios

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Greek hoplites, scene from the Chigi jug

Tyrtaios ( Greek  Τυρταῖος , Latinized Tyrtaeus , Germanized earlier Tyrtaeus ) was a Greek poet of elegance from the 7th century BC. He worked in Sparta at the time of the Second Messenian War . Tyrtaios' Kampfparänesen (calls to fight) had the aim of bringing the army to maximum performance and thus to victory. In peacetime, his elegies were intended to consolidate state order by extolling the Spartan constitution. Plato was extremely appreciative of Tyrtaius, describing him as the most divine poet and a wise and capable man. At the time of Tyrtaios, Sparta was the cultural center of Greece, where other poets such as Alkman , Terpander of Antissa , Thaletas of Gortyn and Polymnestus of Colophon were active. This bloom of Sparta took place in the middle of the 6th century BC. An end.

origin

The origin of Tyrtaios cannot be proven with certainty. According to ancient sources, Tyrtaius could have been a Spartan, an Athenian, or a Milesian . Neither the name Tyrtaios nor that of his father allow concrete conclusions to be drawn about the homeland of the poet. The question of origin is made even more difficult by the fact that he wrote in the Doric dialect.

The Suda shows that Tyrtaios was the son of Archembrotos and that he came from Sparta or Miletus. Another indication of the origin of Miletus would be the great similarity in content and language with the elegies of Callinos of Ephesus .

A number of Athenian sources, on the other hand, attempt to capture Tyrtaios for Athens:

According to Pausanias , the Spartans - on the basis of an oracle from Delphi - should have called in an Athenian as an advisor in the fight against the Messenians. The Athenians did not want to send them their best husband, but neither did they want to turn the Spartans away. So they sent Tyrtaios, a not very bright schoolmaster who is said to have limped too. In the battle of the Spartans against the Messenians , Tyrtaius would not have fought, but would have encouraged the fighters in symposia before the battle.

“ Homeland and all citizens value the hero as a jewel,
who, with his legs apart, stands steadfast in the
battle, even rejecting any thought of shameful fleeing. "

In Plato, Tyrtaios is also seen as an Athenian. But he is said to have become a fellow citizen of the Spartans and to have been extremely proud of it. Also Lycurgus makes Tyrtaios a native of Athens. Like Pausanias, he describes how the Spartans needed a leader against the Messenians. Thereupon they went to the Oracle of Delphi, where Apollo advised them to take a leader from the ranks of the Athenians. This is said to have been Tyrtaios.

This theory about the origin of Tyrtaios is not without its problems, however, because there are some arguments against it: The fact that Spartan troops, such as Pausanias and Lykurgos report, subordinated themselves to a foreign leader in the Second Messenian War does indeed appear strange. In fact, there is only one documented case of comparable naturalization in Sparta. This is the seer Tisamenos from Elis (son of Antiochus), who is also said to have been called in to support the Spartans on the basis of an oracle. The legend of the alleged Attic birth might be related to the emergency train of Kimon with a contingent hoplites v in 462nd Have stood BC. In that case it would have been added much later. The poet's roots can therefore best be read in the language of his works: Usually an elegy contains Ionic and Aeolian elements, but only in Tyrtaios do Doric forms appear. That seems to be the surest argument for his Sparta origin.

Lifetime

According to the Suda, Tyrtaius was a contemporary of the so-called Seven Wise Men , possibly even earlier. He had his Akmé in the 35th Olympiad (640–636 BC). Accordingly, it would have to be between 680 and 676 BC. To be born in BC. In one of his poems, Tyrtaius mentions that King Theopompus lived two generations before him. That would support the date of birth calculated from the Suda:

“ To our king of yore, the friend of the gods Theopompus,
who won large areas for us in Messenia;
Messinia is good to sow and plant trees.
For nineteen years the struggling fathers of our
past had to contend with long-standing courage for this area
.
At last in the twentieth year they left the fat
corridors and fled down from the ithomic heights. "

Accordingly, Tyrtaios is believed to have been between 680 and 600 BC. Lived in Sparta at the same time as Kallinos, who came from Ephesus.

Works

A list of the poems can be found in the Suda. She names five books of poetry kept in Alexandria , a Politeia for the Lacedaemonians , then the Eunomia and Paränese mentioned by Aristotle and Strabo in elegiac form. About 200 verses of Tyrtaios' poems have survived today. Mainly these have been passed down through literary evidence and partly through papyrus finds.

In terms of content, the poems primarily reflect central values ​​of the archaic period. In this context, the struggle in the collective and the introduction of the phalanx are especially important. The phalanx has also already been mentioned with him.

A poem that was already known to have been called Eunomia in antiquity is mentioned in the politics of Aristotle . It deals with the emergence of the Spartan society and reports that the Heraclides received the city as a gift from Zeus . A papyrus fragment can be assigned to this poem:

“It was Zeus himself, the Kronide, the husband of the wreath-adorned
Hera , to whom the city was given to you, Heraclids;
We had once followed them from Erineos 'lofty heights down
to Pelops' spacious island. "

More about the content of the Eunomia can be found in Plutarch and Diodorus . In this poem, too, it is particularly pointed out that all men should work for the community.

Text editions and translations

  • Bruno Snell , Zoltan Franyó , Herwig Maehler (eds.): Early Greek poets. Part 1: The early elegists (= writings and sources of the Old World. Vol. 24,1). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1971, pp. 16-27 (text and translation)
  • Martin Litchfield West (Ed.): Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati. Volume 2, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1992, ISBN 0-19-814096-7 , pp. 169-184 (critical edition)

literature

Overview presentations and introductions

Investigations

  • Werner Jaeger : Tyrtaios about the true ἀρετή . Special edition from the meeting reports of the Prussian Academy of Sciences Phil.-Hist. Class. 1932. XXIII. Berlin 1932.
  • Joachim Latacz : Battle parenesis, battle representation and battle reality in the Iliad, in Kallinos and Tyrtaios. Munich 1977.
  • Mischa Meier : Aristocrats and Damods. Investigations into the inner development of Sparta in the 7th century BC And on the political function of the poetry of Tyrtaios . Stuttgart 1998.
  • Helena P. Schrader : Are they singing in Sparta? Lincoln 2006.

reception

  • Mischa Meier: Tyrtaios - The creation of a picture. In: Antike und Abendland 49, 2003, pp. 157–182

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Albrecht von Blumenthal: Tyrtaios 1. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE). Volume VII A, 2, Stuttgart 1948, Sp. 1956.
  2. ^ Plato, Laws 629 from.
  3. ↑ a b c Andreas Bagordo: Tyrtaios. In: Zimmermann: Die Literatur der Archaischen und Klassischen Zeit , p. 161.
  4. ^ Andreas Bagordo: Tyrtaios. In: Zimmermann: The literature of the archaic and classical times , p. 160.
  5. ↑ a b Suda Tau 1205, sv Tyrtaios ( online ).
  6. ↑ Joachim Latacz: Battle parenesis, battle representation and battle reality in the Iliad , with Kallinos and Tyrtaios. P. 1; Albrecht von Blumenthal: Tyrtaios 1. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VII A, 2, Stuttgart 1948, Sp. 1945.
  7. ↑ Pausanias, Description of Greece 4, 15, 6/4, 16, 2.
  8. ^ ML West: Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati. Vol. 2: Tyrtaios fragment 12 West = fragment 9 Diehl at E. Diehl: Anthologia Lyrica Graeca. quoted from Oswyn Murray : Das early Greece , Munich 1982, ISBN 3-423-04400-4 , p. 171.
  9. ^ Plato, Laws. 629 from.
  10. ^ Lycurgus, Speech against Leocrates 105.
  11. ↑ Herodotus , Histories 9, 33, 3 and 9, 33, 5; see. Albrecht von Blumenthal: Tyrtaios 1. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VII A, 2, Stuttgart 1948, Sp. 1944.
  12. ^ Albrecht von Blumenthal: Tyrtaios 1. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE). Volume VII A, 2, Stuttgart 1948, Sp. 1944.
  13. ↑ Some accusatives of the I. declension on -ᾶς and a future tense on -εῦμεν ; see. Albin Lesky: History of Greek Literature. P. 145.
  14. ^ Suda Tau 1205, keyword Tyrtaios ( online ); Andreas Bagordo: Tyrtaios. In: Zimmermann: The literature of the archaic and classical times. P. 160.
  15. ↑ Theopompus was king of Sparta in the second half of the 8th century BC. Chr. Cf. Albrecht von Blumenthal: Tyrtaios 1. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VII A, 2, Stuttgart 1948, Sp. 1945.
  16. ^ Martin L. West: Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati. Vol. 2: Tyrtaios fragment 5 West (= Tyrtaios fragment 4 in Zoltan Franyó, Bruno Snell: Early Greek poet. )
  17. ^ Albrecht von Blumenthal: Tyrtaios 1. In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE). Volume VII A, 2, Stuttgart 1948, Sp. 1945.
  18. ^ Martin L. West: Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati , vol. 2: Tyrtaios fragment 12 West , verse 21.
  19. ^ Aristotle, Politics 1306 b.
  20. ^ Papyrus fragment POxy 2824, verses 12-16 = Martin L. West: Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati. Vol. 2: Tyrtaios fragment 2 West .
  21. ^ Martin L. West: Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati. Vol. 2: Tyrtaios-Fragment 2 West Vers 13-16 (= Tyrtaios-Fragment 2 in Zoltan Franyó, Bruno Snell: Early Greek Lyricists. )
  22. ↑ Plutarch, The Life of Lykurgus 6,6.
  23. ↑ Diodor , Bibliotheke historike 7, 12, 6.
personal data
SURNAME Tyrtaios
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tyrtaeus; Tire
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Elegance poet
DATE OF BIRTH 7th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 7th century BC Chr.