That the impression produced by Tyrtaeus at Sparta,
therefore, with his martial music, and emphatic exhorta-
tions to bravery in the field, as well as union at home,
should have been very considerable, is perfectly consistent
with the character both of the age and of the people; espe-
cially as he is represented to luive appeared pursuant to
the injunction of the Delphian oracle. From the scanty
fragments remaining to us of his elegies and anapaests,
however, we can satisfy ourselves only of two facts: first,
that the war was long, obstinately contested, and dangerous
tp Sparta as well as to the Messenians; next, that other
parties in Peloponnesus took part on both sides, especially
on the side of the Messenians. So frequent and
harassing were the aggressions of the latter upon of the ^
the Spartan territory, that a large portion of Spartam
the border land was left uncultivated: scarcity wcond
ensued, and the proprietors of the deserted farms, Mesfcenian
driven to despair, pressed for a redivisionof the

• Seethe tveatiee of Plutarch, De 118«, Ac. ; 88. p. 1143. Plato, Bep,
Muaick, pauim, especially o.l7, p. lii. p. 390 i Arist. PoL vUL 6, 6-3,
VOL. n. 2 »



434 HI8T0BT OF GBBEOB. Tabt U,

landed property in the state. It was in appeasing these
discontents that the poem of Tyrtseus ciSled Eunomia.
