CHAP. VII.

Æsop.

Æsop died in the 50th Olympiad, about 560 or 570 years before Christ. He was by birth a Phrygian, and appears to have been sold as a slave at Athens, where he had some opportunities of cultivating his talents by the aid of the masters whom he served.

Having been enfranchised by Idmon or Iadmon, and established some reputation, he was engaged in the service of Cræsus king of Lydia; he lost his life in the execution of a commission with which he was entrusted by that monarch, being slain at Delphi, for having in consequence of a dispute with the Delphians, satirized their conduct and sent back some money to Cræsus which the king had employed him to distribute among them.

The Grecian philosophy which took its rise in lower Asia, about the time of Æsop, flourished greatly under the auspices of Thales,

Pittacus, Bias, Periander, Solon, and other sages.

Æsop conspired most usefully with the views of these great men: his mode of instruction by fables was particularly adapted to the improvement of rude and uncivilized ages, and was free from the loose and seductive allurements of the Heathen mythology.

Æsop has been generally represented as the inventor of this species of composition, but Quintilian * supposes it to have been first discovered by Hesiod. We have an account, however, of an apologue in Scripture, which has pretensions to a higher antiquity than Hesiod, if we place him in the remotest æra to which he has been assigned; the fable, which Jotham related to the men of Shechem†, having been composed probably before the time of Samuel, the reputed author of the Book of Judges, who was born, A. M. 2868. The Heathens highly approved the fables of Æsop, Socrates turned them into verse, and Phædrus

* De Instit. Orat. lib. i. c. 9. lib. v. c. 11.

+ Judges ix. See also 2 Kings xiv. 9.

pro

Suidas in Zagar. Plutarch NS TO 101, p. 66. Edit. Wyttenbach. Plato Phæd. p. 60. Alcibiad. p. 123. Edit.

Serran.

L

duced a work in imitation of them. Livius Andronicus, however, who lived about the time of the second Punic war, had before written fables at Rome. Diogenes relates that Æsop being asked by Chilo, one of the what God was doing, answered, making the lofty low, and the low lofty*.

seven sages,

Neveletus first published a complete collection of Fables under the name of Æsop, from the Palatine library, alphabetically arranged, to the number of one hundred and thirty-six, with a latin translation: another collection, containing a hundred and forty-nine, was printed at Venice by Aldus Manutius, in 1505, but it has been questioned whether either of these collections contains the genuine fables of Esop as originally composed by him, or whether, indeed, any of the subsequent editions, which have been published with encreasing number of fables, exhibit his authentic productions. Some have even disputed the existence of Æsop, and others, from a supposed similitude of names, have confounded him with Asaph, a prophet, con

Vid. Hesiod. Xenoph. EXA, lib. vi. Platon. Phæd. Fascicul. Test. Græ. ad Hist. et Plilog. Pertin. Edit. Rotterd.

temporary with David *.

Some Hebrew

fables were published at Venice in 1545, and Plantavitius mentions a Hebrew Version of Æsop's Fables +.

Martin Luther translated some of the fables of Æsop into German, he was invited by Melancthon to complete the work, but was prevented by other engagements. The Romanists took occasion from thence to accuse Luther of not holding the Sacred Writings in higher estimation than the fables of Æsop.

* Jacob. Shadt. in Compen. Hist. Jud. p. 88. Carpzov. in Theol. Jud. Introd. c. 8.

† Bibl. Rabbin, p. 571.

CHAP. VIII.

On Eschylus.

ÆSCHYLUS, the son of Euphorion, was an Athenian; he is by some placed in the 65th and by others in the 70th Olympiad. Stanley, who draws his conclusion from the Arundelian marbles, assigns him to the 63d Olympiad. In general he is described to have flourished about 500 or 525, and to have died about 467 years before the birth of Christ. Few particulars of his life are known. He appears to have distinguished himself at the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Platea. Like many of his countrymen he gave offence to the people, possibly by adopting the Egyptian, in preference to the Grecian theogony. He was accused also of divulging the Eleusinian mysteries, and of exhibiting prophane and terrific representations of the furies on the stage; but effecting his escape from the rage of the populace, he