The extended exhortation of Tyrtaeus fr. 11 W urges the audience to take up their shield and spears and fight in a defensive fashion, ‘placing foot against foot, leaning chest on chest’ (v. 31). The overt message of the poem is clear: do not shirk nor run away, but rather stand firm and fight. Within the poem, Tyrtaeus weaves a more subtle message, describing a hoplite group which derives its defining characteristics through possession of a stalwart, ‘passive’ courage and a shield with a ‘belly’ (v. 24).Footnote 1 The cohesion that this poem calls for and reproduces through its use of the second person plural and description of close, hoplite fighting, however, is disrupted by the last four lines of the poem, which form a jarring address that sit uneasily alongside the remainder of the poem. In West's text they read:
But you, light-armoured men, throw your great boulders, cowering here and there under a shield and hurling your polished spears against the enemy, as you stand near to the fully armoured men.Footnote 3
Fr. 11 W opens by reminding the audience that they are the ‘genos of unconquerable Heracles’ (vv. 1–2); v. 35 seems to call on another group, one that is not a part of the genos.Footnote 4 West's rendition presents two problems, one with respect to the verb πτώσσω, the other with the apparent status of the γυμνῆτες. Both of these problems can be removed by an emendation proposed by Hartung in 1859, which also has the positive advantage of producing a coherent passage with a clear function in the poem's rhetoric.Footnote 5
West's text follows MSS SMA with Dindorf's correction of πανοπλιοισι(ν) to πάνοπλοισιν (v. 38). He retains the reading of πλησίον over the alternative of ἐγγύθεν from the BP MSS.Footnote 6 As it stands, the τε in v. 37 joins the participles πτώσσοντες (v. 36) and ἀκοντίζοντες (v. 38), both of which then become dependent on βάλλετε (v. 36). Thus πτώσσοντες becomes part of the poet's command to the γυμνῆτες – ‘throw great boulders, while cowering and hurling javelins’ (vv. 36–7). The problem with this reading is that the γυμνῆτες are actually told to be cowardly within a piece of martial exhortation which elsewhere urges men not to run but to stand among the πρόμαχοι (vv. 11–34, esp. 21–34). Though some translators take πτώσσοντες neutrally as ‘crouch’, Tyrtaeus' strong intertext with Homer negates this possibility unless we allow special pleading.Footnote 7 In both the Iliad and the Odyssey, πτώσσω is negative, denoting trembling or cowering out of fear; in the Iliad it is a reproach on heroes' behaviour, when they stand near the back instead of among the πρόμαχοι (4.340, 371: καταπτώσσοντες; 5.634), and in the Odyssey it is used for the behaviour of a beggar before his social betters (17.227, 18.363).Footnote 8 πτώσσοντες cannot be neutral, but must instead comment on the reproachful behaviour of the γυμνῆτες. Though some scholars have thought that the γυμνῆτες are not a part of the notional Heraclidae addressed at the beginning of the poem (v. 1) and that πτώσσοντες flags this out-group status of the γυμνῆτες, this view raises some difficult questions.Footnote 9 One may wonder why they are introduced in the first place, especially if they are told to be craven. And what purpose does it serve to draw attention to this group of social outcasts, thus diminishing the unity of the fighting forces, in a poem which seeks to create martial cohesion?Footnote 10
Hartung, however, suggests that we read ξυστοῖσί τ' (‘and javelins’) instead of ξεστοῖσίν (polished [spears]) in line 37.Footnote 11 He argues for this emendation by comparing Tyrtaeus' lines with the description of a battle in the Cyropaedia, where Xenophon offers a list of weapons: ἔνθα δὴ δεινὴ μάχη ἦν καὶ δοράτων καὶ ξυστῶν καὶ μαχαιρῶν (‘there, then, was a terrible battle with spears, javelins, and daggers’; 7.1.33).Footnote 12 Though Xenophon's text is later, it still gives us a parallel listing of two types of spears and a third weapon. P. Oxy. 3316 reveals a further parallel within Tyrtaeus' own work: fragment 23a also links ξυστός and ἀκοντίζω – πολλοὶ δὲ ξυστοῖσιν ἀκοντισ
[ (‘and many will throw (?) javelins’; v. 12), with a possible reading of ἀκοντισ[ουσι(ν) for the broken line.Footnote 13 By replacing ξεστοῖσίν with ξυστοῖσί τ', the double τε can now connect two nouns – δούρασι and ξυστοῖσι – instead of two participles, and we are no longer required to take πτώσσοντες with βάλλετε.Footnote 14 Instead we are able to align it with γυμνῆτες and insert a comma after πτώσσοντες, so that the text now reads:
But you, light-armoured men, though cowering here and there behind your shields, throw great stones while hurling spears and javelins at the enemy, as you stand near to the fully armoured men.
The participle πτώσσοντες is now part of the address to the γυμνῆτες and identifies an aspect of their current behaviour: they are cowering behind their shields. They are then given a positive instruction, appropriate to their role and standing.Footnote 15 The γυμνῆτες are part of the larger group, and have a well-defined function, which they are now exhorted to perform. While they are cowering at present, they must nevertheless throw their rocks and hurl their javelins; the participle both introduces their shameful behaviour and dismisses it with the introduction of the main verb.
They are still, however, of lesser status than the πάνοπλοι, a textual hierarchy that matches visual and spatial hierarchy within the phalanx itself. Though we are accustomed to the image of the equalizing, bronze phalanx, van Wees has argued that even in the Classical period not all hoplites bore the same level of armament: the wealthy, ‘leisure-class’ hoplites wore the full panoply, while the ‘working-class’ hoplites wore as much armour as they could afford, providing they had a shield and spear.Footnote 16 The amount of armour worn was a status symbol as much as a means of protection. The relationship between the γυμνῆτες and πάνοπλοι in fr. 11 parallels that between van Wees's leisure- and working-class hoplites; the πάνοπλοι and leisure-class hoplites hold the front ranks (the πρόμαχοι of vv. 4 and 12) while the γυμνῆτες and working-class hoplites form the supportive mass, ‘standing near’ (πλησίον ἱστάμενοι, v. 38) to the πάνοπλοι. The spatial and social hierarchies visible in the phalanx formation are thus replicated in the text: the fully armoured πάνοπλοι are the πρόμαχοι; the men holding the front ranks are those mentioned first and form the focus of the bulk of the poem. The γυμνῆτες come second, the mass of the phalanx that has met the basic requirements for membership in the warrior-elite group of the phalanx. Their behaviour prevents them from being full members; they cower, while the πάνοπλοι stand. The γυμνῆτες, however, have not fled and are thus still members of the group, included (albeit in a denigratory fashion) by the address, not ostracized.
Though one might expect a direct command on the model of ‘do not cower, but fight’, considering Tyrtaeus' fairly blunt style, in the Iliad (κατα-)πτώσσοντες often forms part of an address to another hero along with a form of τίς/τί, an elliptical address designed to serve as a command to stop shirking and to fight. Iliad 4.340 has τί καταπτώσσοντες (‘why do you cower in the back?’) and v. 371 in the same book τίπτε πτώσσεις (‘Why do you cower?’), while 5.633–4 reads τίς τοι ἀνάγκη | πτώσσειν (‘Why must you cower?’). Of the four negative exhortations that include (κατα-)πτώσσω, only Nestor's extended address to the heroes in Book 7 does not include a form of τίς/τί (πτώσσοντας in v. 129). There appears to be a pattern, whereby one hero demands why another hero hangs back and then shames the latter into fighting through an extended commentary on his father or behaviour (Il. 4.338–48, 370–400; 5.633–46). Tyrtaeus' address to the γυμνῆτες modifies this to fit the condensed address of exhortative elegy; instead of a question and digression on their fathers or past behaviour, the γυμνῆτες are qualified by πτώσσοντες and told to fight anyway. The basic form is still the same though: a participle of πτώσσω introduces an exhortation to fight, whether framed through persuasion or a command.
Hartung's emendation therefore allows us to take πτώσσοντες directly with γυμνῆτες and to place it within the Homeric model where πτώσσω introduces an exhortation to fight. Such a formulation makes the γυμνῆτες a part of the addressed audience, one distinguished but not ostracized, and maintains the cohesion of the address and the world of the poem better. Fr. 11 is notionally equalizing; though in actuality it maintains a hierarchy between the better-armed elites who held the honourable front ranks and the less well armed (including the γυμνῆτες), the poem does not advertise this hierarchy, but avoids it until the address to the γυμνῆτες in vv. 35–8. If πτώσσοντες must go with βάλλετε, the address makes no sense; why are the γυμνῆτες introduced at all, if they are ordered to be cowards while fighting? Rather, by qualifying γυμνῆτες with πτώσσοντες, Tyrtaeus urges the addressees to fight even though they are cowering, to stand up and fight as the πάνοπλοι and the remainder of the addressed audience are imagined as doing. Each party within the larger, unified group thus has its proper role to play. In the rhetoric of the poem, such a reading is clearly preferable to one which breaks the addressees into groups of insiders and outsiders.
