Thaletas

Thaletas or Thales of Crete (Greek: Θαλῆς or Θαλήτας) was an early Greek musician and lyric poet.

The position of Thaletas is one of the most interesting, and at the same time most difficult points, in that most interesting and difficult subject, the early history of Greek music and poetry. The most certain fact known of him is that he introduced from Crete into Sparta certain principles or elements of music and rhythm, which did not exist in Terpander's system, and thereby founded the second of the musical schools which flourished at Sparta. He was a native of Crete, and, according to the best writers, of the city of Gortyna.

In compliance, according to tradition, with an invitation which the Spartans sent to him in obedience to an oracle, he removed to Sparta, where, by the sacred character of his paeans, and the humanizing influence of his music, he appeased the wrath of Apollo, who had visited the city with a plague, and composed the factions of the citizens, who were at enmity with each other. At Sparta he became the head of a new school (katastasis) of music, which appears never afterwards to have been supplanted, and the influence of which was maintained also by Xenodamus of Cythera, Xenocritus of Locris, Polymnestus of Colophon, and Sacadas of Argos.

How uncertain were the traditions followed by the generality of the ancient writers respecting the date of Thaletas, is manifest from the statements of Suidas, that he lived before the time of Homer, of Demetrius Magnes, that he was "very ancient, about the time of Hesiod and Homer and Lycurgus," and of the many other writers, who make him contemporary with Lycurgus, and even an elder contemporary. In nearly all the accounts of the removal of Thaletas to Sparta, he is said to have gone thither at the invitation of Lycurgus, who used his influence to prepare the minds of the people for his own laws; while some even speak of him as if he were a legislator, from whom Lycurgus derived some of his laws. These accounts, which Aristotle condemns as anachronisms, can easily be explained.

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