'Tyrtaeus and Horace present dying for one's country as glorious, but Homer shows its true cost.' How far do you agree with this statement? In your answer you should refer to the texts you have studied.
Model answer
At first sight the statement seems fair. Tyrtaeus opens his poem by declaring that 'it is a fine thing for a brave man to die, falling among the front-line fighters while he fights for his fatherland', and he says that the young man is 'beautiful when he falls'. Horace goes further, calling death for one's country 'sweet' as well as 'fitting', and promising that Virtue opens heaven 'to those who do not deserve to die'. Both poems were written to persuade: Tyrtaeus to make Spartan citizens hold the line in the war against the Messenians, Horace to encourage young Romans in the spirit of Augustus' revival of old Roman values. Naturally they emphasise glory.
Homer, by contrast, constantly shows the cost of war. In Iliad 22 Priam imagines the fall of Troy - his sons killed, his daughters dragged away, and his own dogs tearing his body - and Hecuba bares the breast that fed Hector. Homer describes the washing-troughs where Trojan women washed their clothes 'in the old days of peace'. When Hector dies, his soul goes to Hades lamenting the youth it has lost, and the city mourns as if Troy were already burning. In Book 24 Priam has lost most of his fifty sons, and Achilles weeps for the father he will never see again. Virgil, too, in Aeneid 2 shows the price of war through the slaughter of Polites before his father's eyes and Priam's headless body lying on the shore.
However, the statement is too simple. Tyrtaeus does not hide the ugliness of death: his old man dies 'clutching his bloody groin', 'his body stripped naked', and the young man must bite his lip in fear. Horace's soldier is swept by 'bloody rage ... through the middle of the slaughter'. Homer, meanwhile, honours glory: Hector refuses to die 'without glory', and Achilles boasts that 'we have won great glory'. Most strikingly, Homer gives Priam an argument very like Tyrtaeus' - that everything is fitting for a young man killed in battle, but an old man's death is most pitiful - yet Priam uses it to beg his son not to fight. Even Aeneas in Aeneid 2 feels that it is 'beautiful to die in arms', before learning that his duty is to survive.
In conclusion, I partly agree. Tyrtaeus and Horace emphasise glory because their poems have a persuasive public purpose, while Homer's epic gives a voice to grieving families and so shows the cost more fully. But all these poets show both sides: the lyric poets admit the horror, and Homer admires the glory. The real difference lies in genre, audience and purpose rather than in a simple contrast between glorifying and criticising war.
Explanation
Top answers compare the poets closely rather than writing about each separately, and they notice complications: Tyrtaeus' graphic realism, Horace's violent imagery, Homer's genuine admiration of glory and the striking parallel between Tyrtaeus and Priam's speech in Iliad 22. Explaining the differences through genre, audience and purpose is what lifts an answer into Level 5.
