Aesop Semi-legendary figure of ancient Greek literature, fabulist who lived in the 6th century BC. e. Country: Greece

1. Biography of Aesop
2. Various Accounts of Aesop's Life
3. The Aesop's Fables Collection
4. The Legend and Legacy of Aesop

Biography of Aesop

Aesop was a semi-legendary figure in ancient Greek literature, known for his fables. He lived in the 6th century BC, although it is uncertain whether he was a historical figure or a fictional character. There is no scholarly tradition about his life. Herodotus mentions that Aesop was a slave of a man named Iadmon from the island of Samos, but was later freed and lived during the reign of the Egyptian king Amasis. According to Herodotus, Aesop was killed by the Delphians, and Delphi paid a ransom to his descendants for his death.

Various Accounts of Aesop's Life

Different accounts of Aesop's life emerged over time. Herakleides Pontikos, writing over a hundred years later, claimed that Aesop was from Thrace and was a contemporary of the philosopher Pherecydes. However, these claims were based on unreliable deductions from Herodotus' account. Aristophanes, in his play "The Wasps," provides details about Aesop's death, including the story of a thrown cup that led to his accusation and his fable about the eagle and the beetle being told before his death. This claim was later repeated as a historical fact. Other writers, such as Plato and Alexid, incorporated Aesop into the legend of the Seven Sages and King Croesus. The image of Aesop as an ugly, wise, and cunning "Phrygian slave" became a popular depiction in European tradition.

The Aesop's Fables Collection

Under the name of Aesop, a collection of fables, consisting of 426 short stories, was compiled in prose. It is believed that during the time of Aristophanes, a written collection of Aesop's fables was known in Athens, where children were taught from it in school. These were prose retellings without any artistic embellishments. In reality, the so-called Aesop's collection included fables from various eras. In the 3rd century BC, Demetrius of Phaleron recorded Aesop's fables in ten books, but this collection was lost after the 9th century AD. In the 1st century AD, the freedman of Emperor Augustus, Phaedrus, translated these fables into Latin iambic verse, while Avian, around the 4th century AD, translated 42 fables into Latin elegiac couplets. Despite their moderate artistic level, Avian's fables were popular in the Middle Ages. The Latin versions of many of Aesop's fables, along with later tales and medieval fabliaux, were compiled into the so-called "Romulus" collection. In the 6th century, Babrius, a Roman of Syrian origin, composed Aesop's fables in Greek choliambic verse. His works had a significant influence on later fabulists.

The Legend and Legacy of Aesop

In the absence of reliable information, legends about Aesop's life emerged. In the Middle Ages, an anecdotal biography of Aesop was created in Byzantium, which was mistakenly considered a reliable source of information about him. According to this biography, Aesop was portrayed as a slave who was constantly mistreated by fellow slaves, overseers, and owners, but he cleverly retaliated against his tormentors. This biography did not originate from authentic Aesop traditions and was not of Greek origin. Its source was a Jewish story from the 6th century BC about the wise Ahikar, which was part of the legends surrounding King Solomon. Martin Luther discovered that Aesop's fable book consisted of older and newer fables, and that the traditional image of Aesop was a product of "poetic storytelling."

Aesop's fables have been translated (often adapted) into many languages, including famous adaptations by Jean de La Fontaine and Ivan Krylov. A complete translation of all of Aesop's fables into Russian was published in 1968.