22 Paıdeía
rejection of Priam’s appeal to prudence and in his decision to meet Achilles
alone in single combat apart from the forces of Troy.^46
To reinforce his celebration of bravery in the city’s cause, Tyrtaeus added
encouragement and an admonition—for, in the end, justice was to be done:
the brave would be rewarded and the cowardly, punished. Even death would
lose its sting. What made this achievement possible was not the activity of the
poet in calling to mind the feats of the heroes. Here, too, Tyrtaeus broke with
Homer. If death was to rule no more, it was because of the public memory
guaranteed by the continued existence of the pólıs itself. While ordinary Spar-
tans were buried in a manner both simple and frugal, wrapped in the purple
cloak worn in battle and crowned with olive leaves, the city’s champions were
treated like the demigods honored in her hero cults.^47 As Tyrtaeus puts it,
And he who falls in the front ranks and gives up his spirit
So bringing glory to the town, the host, and his father
With many a wound in his chest where the spear from in front
Has been thrust through the bossy shield and breastplate:
This man they will lament with a grievous sense of loss
The young and the old and the city entire.
His tomb and his children will be noted among human kind
And the children of his children and his lineage after them.
Never will his shining glory perish, and never his name,
For he will be an immortal though under the earth, the man
Who excels all others in standing his ground in the fight
For his children and land, he whom the raging Wargod destroys.^48Tyrtaeus then devoted the final ten lines of this remarkable poem to recount-
ing the honors that were customarily showered on those brave men fortunate
enough to survive. By the end, it has become evident that courage in battle
confers on a man all of the advantages normally attributed to the qualities and
faculties conventionally admired.
But if he eludes the doom of death, which lays bodies out,
And, conquering, seizes by spearpoint the shining object of prayer
All will honor him, the young together with the old,
And he will enter Hades after enjoying many delights
Having grown old in distinction among the men of the town.
Nor will any wish him harm, denying him reverence or right.
And all—the young, those his own age, and those
Older than he—will yield him place on the seats.
This virtue a man should attempt with whole heart to attain,
Straining for the heights and never ceasing from war.^49