They sent to Athens and obtained Tyrtaeus.

A popular but fabulous account [149] describes him as a lame teacher of grammar, and of no previous repute.

His songs and his exhortations are said to have produced almost miraculous effects.

I omit the romantic adventures of the hero Aristomenes, though it may be doubted whether all Grecian history can furnish passages that surpass the poetry of his reputed life.

I leave the reader to learn elsewhere how he hung at night a shield in the temple of Chalcioecus, in the very city of the foe, with the inscription, that Aristomenes dedicated to the goddess that shield from the spoils of the Spartans--how he penetrated the secret recesses of Trophonius--how he was deterred from entering Sparta by the spectres of Helen and the Dioscuri--how, taken prisoner in an attempt to seize the women of Aegila, he was released by the love of the priestess of Ceres--how, again made captive, and cast into a deep pit with fifty of his men, he escaped by seizing hold of a fox (attracted thither by the dead bodies), and suffering himself to be drawn by her through dark and scarce pervious places to a hole that led to the upper air.