“At last they adopted the following expedient: There was at Athens a certain teacher of grammar, whose name was Tyrtæus, who appeared to possess the smallest degree of intellect, and who was lame in one of his feet. This man they sent to Sparta, who at one time instructed the principal persons in what was necessary for them to do, and at another time instructed the common people by singing elegies to them, in which the praise of valour was contained, and verses called _anapæsti_.”[c] [Sidenote: [_ca._ 660-610 B.C.]] This seems to be a colouring put upon the story by later writers, and the intervention of the Athenians in the matter in any way deserves little credit. It seems more probable that the legendary connection of the Dioscuri with Aphidnæ, celebrated at or near that time by the poet Alcman, brought about, through the Delphian oracle, the presence of the Aphidnæan poet at Sparta. Respecting the lameness of Tyrtæus, we can say nothing: but that he was a schoolmaster (if we are constrained to employ an unsuitable term) is highly probable, for in that day, minstrels, who composed and sung poems, were the only persons from whom the youth received any mental training. Moreover, his sway over the youthful mind is particularly noted in the compliment paid to him, in after-days, by king Leonidas: “Tyrtæus was an adept in tickling the souls of youth.” We see enough to satisfy us that he was by birth a stranger, though he became a Spartan by the subsequent recompense of citizenship conferred upon him; that he was sent through the Delphian oracle; that he was an impressive and efficacious minstrel, and that he had, moreover, sagacity enough to employ his talents for present purposes and diverse needs; being able, not merely to reanimate the languishing courage of the baffled warrior, but also to soothe the discontents of the mutinous. That his strains, which long maintained undiminished popularity among the Spartans, contributed much to determine the ultimate issue of this war, there is no reason to doubt; nor is his name the only one to attest the susceptibility of the Spartan mind in that day towards music and poetry. The first establishment of the Carneian festival, with its musical competition, at Sparta, falls during the period assigned by Pausanias to the Second Messenian War: the Lesbian harper, Terpander, who gained the first recorded prize at this solemnity, is affirmed to have been sent for by the Spartans pursuant to a mandate from the Delphian oracle, and to have been the means of appeasing a sedition. In like manner, the Cretan Thaletas was invited thither during a pestilence, which his art, as it is pretended, contributed to heal (about 620 B.C.); and Aleman, Xenocritus, Polymnastus, and Sacadas, all foreigners by birth, found favourable reception, and acquired popularity, by their music and poetry. With the exception of Sacadas, who is a little later, all these names fall in the same century as Tyrtæus, between 660 B.C.-610 B.C.