Page "Tyrtaeus" Paragraph 13

The constitution mentioned by Suda seems to be the Eunomia mentioned by Aristotle.

Surviving only in a few fragments, it seems to have emphasized the role of divine providence in the development of the state and of its government.

Eventually the Spartans emerged from the Second Messenian War with their constitution intact, either because victory made change unnecessary or because " religious propaganda " of the kind promoted by Tyrtaeus stemmed the pressure for change.

According to Suda, both his " constitution " () and his " precepts " () were composed in elegiac couplets, but Pausanias also mentions " anapests ", a few lines of which, quoted by Dio Chrysostom and attributed to Tyrtaeus by a scholiast, could have belonged to the so-called " war songs " (), of which nothing else survives.

According to Philodemus, who presented it as a little-known fact, Tyrtaeus was honoured above others because of his music, not just his verses, Pollux stated that he introduced Spartans to three choruses based on age ( boys, young and old men ) and some modern scholars in fact argue that he composed his elegies in units of five couplets each, alternating between exhortation and reflection, in a kind of responsion similar to Greek choral poetry.

Ancient commentators included Tyrtaeus with Archilochus and Callinus as the possible inventor of the elegy.

In fact one fanciful explanation of his lameness is that it alludes to the elegiac couplet, one verse of which is shorter than the other.