Æsop's Fables
A NEW REVISED VERSION
FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES
WITH UPWARDS OF 200 ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
HARRISON WEIR, JOHN TENNIEL, ERNEST GRISET
AND OTHERS
NEW YORK
FRANK F. LOVELL & COMPANY
142 and 144 Worth Street
Copyright, 1884,
By R. WORTHINGTON.
LIFE OF ÆSOP.
The Life and History of Æsop is involved, like that of Homer, the mostfamous of Greek poets, in much obscurity. Sardis, the capital of Lydia;Samos, a Greek island; Mesembria, an ancient colony in Thrace; andCotiæum, the chief city of a province of Phrygia, contend for thedistinction of being the birthplace of Æsop. Although the honor thusclaimed cannot be definitely assigned to any one of these places, yetthere are a few incidents now generally accepted by scholars asestablished facts, relating to the birth, life, and death of Æsop. Heis, by an almost universal consent, allowed to have been born about theyear 620 B.C., and to have been by birth a slave. He was ownedby two masters in succession, both inhabitants of Samos, Xanthus andJadmon, the latter of whom gave him his liberty as a reward for hislearning and wit. One of the privileges of a freedman in the ancientrepublics of Greece was the permission to take an active interest inpublic affairs; and Æsop, like the philosophers Phædo, Menippus, andEpictetus, in later times, raised himself from the indignity of aservile condition to a position of high renown. In his desire alike toinstruct and to be instructed, he travelled through many countries, andamong others came to Sardis, the capital of the famous king of Lydia,the great patron in that day, of learning and of learned men. He met atthe court of Crœsus with Solon, Thales, and other sages, and isrelated so to have pleased his royal master, by the part he took in theconversations held with these philosophers, that he applied to him anexpression which has since passed into a proverb, "μᾶλλονὁ Φρύξ"—"The Phrygian has spoken better than all."
On the invitation of Crœsus he fixed his residence at Sardis, and wasemployed by that monarch in various difficult and delicate affairs ofstate. In his discharge of these commissions he visited the differentpetty republics of Greece. At one time he is found in Corinth, and atanother in Athens, endeavoring, by the narration of some of his wisefables, to reconcile the inhabitants of those cities to theadministration of their respective rulers, Pariander and Pisistratus.One of these ambassadorial missions, undertaken at the command ofCrœsus, was the occasion of his death. Having been sent to Delphiwith a large sum of gold for distribution among the citizens, he was soprovoked at their covetousness that he refused to divide the money, andsent it back to his master. The Delphians, enraged at this treatment,accused him of impiety, and, in spite of his sacred character asambassador, executed him as a public criminal. This cruel death of Æsopwas not unavenged. The citizens of Delphi were visited with a series ofcalamities, until they made a public reparation of their crime; and "Th