Aesop
-620--564 · Greek · Ancient Greece
For younger readers
Nobody is quite sure whether Aesop was a real person. The old Greek stories say he was a slave who was so good at telling stories that he was set free. Whether or not that is true, hundreds of tiny animal stories have his name on them, and people have been telling them for about two and a half thousand years.
Life
Aesop may never have existed. The Greeks said he was an enslaved man of extraordinary cleverness who won his freedom by telling stories, and that he lived around the sixth century BC, but no writing of his survives and the first collections were assembled centuries after his supposed death. What is certain is that a very large body of short animal fables, each ending in a plain moral, gathered around his name and has stayed there for two and a half thousand years.
Moments from their life
-620
Nobody is certain he existed
Aesop is said to have been born around 620 BC, and that is where the certainty ends. No writing by him survives, no contemporary mentions him by name, and the first collection of his fables was assembled centuries after his supposed death.
-600
An enslaved man on Samos
The tradition holds that he was enslaved on the island of Samos, owned first by a man called Xanthus and then by one called Iadmon, and that he was remarkably ugly and remarkably clever.
-590
Talking his way free
He is said to have won his freedom through cleverness, and specifically by telling stories that made a point his owner could not argue with.
-560
An adviser to kings
Later Greek writers place him at the court of King Croesus of Lydia, sent on diplomatic errands and settling disputes by telling a story rather than making an argument.
-564
Thrown from a cliff at Delphi
The tradition says the people of Delphi took offence at something he said, planted a stolen golden cup in his luggage, and threw him from a cliff. A plague was said to have followed.
-320
The first collection
Demetrius of Phalerum assembled the first known collection of the fables around 320 BC, roughly two hundred and forty years after Aesop supposedly died. That book is itself lost.
1484
Printed in English
William Caxton printed the fables in English in 1484, one of the earliest books produced on an English printing press. They have not been out of print since.
1952
Numbered and catalogued
Ben Edwin Perry catalogued the fables attributed to Aesop and gave each one a number. There are around six hundred, and many are certainly older than Greece, appearing in Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts.
Things you might not know
- No writing by Aesop survives. Every fable we have was written down by someone else, often hundreds of years later.
- The fables are so old that some appear in Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts written before Aesop was supposedly born.
- Almost every fable is under three hundred words. That brevity is why they have survived: they are easy to remember and easy to retell.
In their words
- “No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.”
Stories
Ages 3-8
The Tortoise and the Hare
A hare laughs at a tortoise for being slow, so the tortoise challenges him to a race. The hare is so far ahead that he lies down for a nap, and wakes up to find the tortoise has already finished.
3 min readAesopRead itAges 4-9
The Ant and the Grasshopper
A grasshopper sings all summer from the top of a dry stalk while the ants below him carry grain into a bank, one piece at a time. Then the field goes grey, the frost comes, and he knocks on their door. The ant asks him what he was doing all summer. He tells her the truth.
4 min readAesopRead itAges 4-9
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
A bored shepherd boy shouts that a wolf is coming, twice, for the fun of watching the village run up the hill. When a wolf actually comes, he shouts again and nobody moves.
3 min readAesopRead it
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