16 Paıdeía
opment in order that his influence on the people may be beneficial and
noble.^34As the example set by Dante, Luther, and those who composed the King James
Bible suggests, Goethe’s claim can be applied not just to drama but to poetry
in general—and similarly to a prose so elevated in tone that it transcends the
form. The Greeks shared Goethe’s conviction. That is why they habitually em-
ployed the same word—ıdıō ́tēs—to point out both the private individual and
the writer of ordinary prose. In their world, political life was anything but
prosaic; and for them, poetry was public speech par excellence. As the Greeks
recognized, the propagation of the works of a particular poet had public con-
sequences of untold importance. The soul of Spartan verse was to become the
soul of the Spartan people.
Of the examples of Spartan poetry surviving in his own time, Plutarch
remarked, “They were for the most part eulogies of those who had died on
Sparta’s behalf, celebrating their happiness; censure of those who had fled
in battle, depicting their painful and unfortunate lives; and professions and
boasts of virtue of a sort proper for the different age-groups.” Although he
acknowledges that the Spartans were quite familiar with the Iliad of Homer
and his O dyssey, Plato claims that they regarded these works as depicting the
Ionian, not the Laconian way of life. Plutarch attributes to Lycurgus the dis-
covery in Crete and propagation elsewhere of the Homeric epics. But there is,
in fact, no indication that young Spartans ever followed the normal Greek
practice of memorizing extended passages selected from Homer; they seem,
instead, to have concentrated on the verses of Tyrtaeus. When on campaign,
the Spartans would chant this poet’s songs as they marched. In the evening
after dinner, they would first raise the paean, and then each, in turn, would
sing something by Tyrtaeus—with the polemarch acting as judge and award-
ing extra meat to the victor.^35
The poetry of Tyrtaeus did much to reinforce the exaggerated piety that
was the foundation of Spartan morale. In one of his poems, the bard praised
Lacedaemon as a law-abiding community, well-ordered, possessing eunomía.
In a passage replete with allusions to oracles, to prophecy, and to men dear to
the gods, he justified the Spartans’ control over their vast domain by an appeal
to divine right, singing,
The son of Kronos, husband to splendidly crowned Hera,
Zeus himself gave this city to the sons of Heracles,