The confusion about his place of origin, which emerged by the 5th century BC, may have had several causes. It has been suggested that the depictions of Tyrtaeus as a lame schoolmaster from Athens were invented to denigrate Sparta, which in the views of Athenians could not have had a talented poet of its own. According to Pausanias, the Athenians sent the lame, mentally defective teacher-poet to Sparta as a compromise, wishing to obey the oracle which had demanded an Athenian, but unwilling to help the Spartans in their war with a more capable individual. Yet, Tyrtaeus was not listed by Herodotus among the two foreigners ever to have been awarded Spartan citizenship. One ancient source even listed Aphidnae as his supposed Athenian deme, but there was also a place of that name in Laconia.