Life
The Byzantine encyclopaedia Suda has two entries for Tyrtaeus, summarizing conflicting reports that were current at that time. The first of them as follows:
Tyrtaeus, son of Archembrotus, a Laconian or Milesian elegiac poet and pipe-player. It is said that by means of his songs he urged on the Lacedaemonians in their war with the Messenians and in this way enabled them to get the upper hand. He is very ancient, contemporary with those called the Seven sages, or even earlier. He flourished in the 35th Olympiad (640–37 BC). He wrote a constitution for the Lacedaemonians, precepts in elegiac verse, and war songs, in five books.The second entry states that the Spartans took him as their general from among the Athenians in response to an oracle.
The floruit given in the first entry is perhaps too early since Jerome offers a date of 633–32. Modern scholars are less specific: dates for the Second Messenian War and hence for Tyrtaeus are given as broad approximations, such as "the latter part of the 7th century" and "any time between the sixties and the thirties" of the seventh century. The claim in Suda's second entry that Tyrtaeus was a Spartan general is made also by Athenaeus and Strabo.
Some of the other issues raised by Suda are addressed under the following headings.
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