I am known only for the genre of fables ascribed to me. I was a slave for someone called Xanthus , I was also a contemporary of Croesus and Peisistratus in the mid-sixth century BC in ancient Greece. My "Aesop's Fables" are still taught as moral lessons and used as subjects for various entertainments, especially children's plays and cartoons.
I was at one point freed from slavery and eventually died at the hands of the Delphians. The obscurity shrouding my life has led some scholars to doubt my existence altogether, notably because there is no fixed body of my work (well here I am!)I was pushed of a cliff, after being sentenced to death for insulting the Delphians. I relate all my fables to the cruel and wonderful realities of life.
"The superiority of the Fable over the Tale
or the Parable. The fabulist is to create a laugh, but yet,
under a merry guise, to convey instruction".
I visited Athens, where I told the fable of 'The Frogs Who Desired a King' to dissuade the citizens from attempting to depose Peisistratus for another ruler. A contrary story, however, I spoke up for the common people against tyranny through my fables, which incensed Peisistratus, who was against free speech.
"Better to have no rule, than cruel rule".
Some of my fables today have been re-written by an English Rev. George Fyler Townsend (1814-1900) and Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914). Without them you may not have ever understood the morals and stories that make up my understanding of life.
