Aesopus

Aesōpus, i, m., = Αἴσωπος.

• Aesop, the Greek fabulist of Phrygia, in the time of Croesus; cf. Phaedr. 5 prol. The difference between Aesopic and Libystic fables, v. under Aesopicus.—Cf. Quint. 5, 11, 19; Gell. 2, 29.—
• II A tragic actor, friend of Cicero: noster Aesopus, Cic. Fam. 7, 1; Hor. Ep. 2, 1, 82; cf. Cic. Tusc. 4, 25; id. Div. 1, 37.

Aesōpus, ī, m. (Αἴσωπος), I) der bekannte griechische Fabeldichter aus Phrygien, zur Zeit des Krösus, (um die Mitte des 6. Jahrh. v. Chr.), nach dem später alle Fabeln äsopische genannt wurden, s. Quint. 5, 11, 19. Gell. 2, 29. – Dav. a) Aesōpicus, a, um (Αἰσωπικός), in äsopischer Art gedichtet, Aesopicae fabulae, Fabeln, in denen Tiere u. leblose Gegenstände, hingegen Libysticae (nach Art einer gewissen Libys gedichtet), in denen Menschen u. Tiere handelnd eingeführt sind, Isid. 1, 39, 2. – b) Aesōpīus od. Aesōpēus, a, um (Αἰσώπειος), äsopisch, Aesopei logi, Sen. ad Polyb. 8, 3 (= 27, 1). – Form Aesōpius (mit kurzem i, Αἰσώπιος), Auson. ep. (XVI) 2, 78. p. 176 Schenkl. – II) Claudius od. Clodius Aesopus, ein tragischer Schauspieler in Rom, Zeitgenosse und Freund Ciceros, in seinem Fache ebenso ausgezeichnet wie Roscius als Komiker, s. Hor. ep. 2, 1, 82. Cic. de div. 1, 80. Quint. 11, 3, 111. Trotzdem er vielen Aufwand machte (Plin. 10, 141), hinterließ er doch seinem Sohne (Cic. ad Att. 11, 15, 3) ein sehr großes Vermögen, das dieser, wie wenn es eine Last wäre (Val. Max. 9, 1, 2), durch tolle Verschwendung so schnell als möglich los zu werden suchte, s. Plin. 9, 122. Hor. sat. 2, 3, 239.

Æsōpus, ī, m. (Αἴσωπος), ¶ 1 Ésope [célèbre fabuliste] : Quint. 5, 11, 19 ¶ 2 [tragédien, ami de Cicéron]: Cic. Fam. 7, 1, 2 ; Tusc. 4, 55.

aesopus, i. f.
古寓言家之名。

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Aeso'pus

(Αἴσωπος), a writer of Fables, a species of composition which has been defined " analogical narratives, intended to convey some moral lesson, in which irrational animals or objects are introduced as speaking." (Philolog. Museum, i. p. 280.) Of his works none are extant, and of his life scarcely anything is known. He appears to have lived about B. C. 570, for Herodotus (2.134) mentions a woman named Rhodopis as a fellowslave of Aesop's, and says that she lived in the time of Arnasis king of Egypt, who began to reign B. C. 569. Plutarch makes him contemporary with Solon (Sept. Sap. Conv. p. 152c.), and Laertius (1.72) says, that he flourished about the 52th Olympiad. The only apparent authority against this date is that of Suidas (s. v. Αἴσωπος); but the passage is plainly corrupt, and if we adopt the correction of Clinton, it gives about B. C. 620 for the date of his birth; his death is placed B. C. 564, but may have occurred a little later. (See Clinton, Fast. Hell. vol. i. pp. 213, 237, 239.)

Suidas tells us that Samos, Sardis, Mesembria in Thrace, and Cotiœum in Phrygia dispute the honour of having given him birth. We are told that he was originally a slave, and the reason of his first writing fables is given by Phaedrus. (iii. Prolog. 33, &c.) Among his masters were two Samians, Xanthus and Iadmon, from the latter of whom he received his freedom. Upon this he visited Croesus (where we are told that he reproved Solon for discourtesy to the king), and afterwards Peisistratus at Athens. Plutarch (de sera Num. Vind. p. 556) tells us, that he was sent to Delphi by Croesus, to distribute among the citizens four minae a piece. But in consequence of some dispute arising on the subject, he refused to give any money at all, upon which the enraged Delphians threw him from a precipice. Plagues were sent upon them from the gods for the offence, and they proclaimed their willingness to give a compensation for his death to any one who could claim it. At length Iadmon, the grandson of his old master, received the compensation, since no nearer connexion could be found. (Hdt. 2.134.)

There seems no reason to doubt this story about the compensation, and we have now stated all the circumstances of Aesop's life which rest on any authority. But there are a vast variety of anecdotes and adventures in which he bears the principal part, in a life of him prefixed to a book of Fables purporting to be his, and collected by Maximus Planudes, a monk of the 14th century. This life represents Aesop as a perfect monster of ugliness and deformity; a notion for which there is no authority whatever. For he is mentioned in passages of classical authors, where an allusion to such personal peculiarities would have been most natural, without the slightest trace of any such allusion. He appears for instance in Plutarch's Convivium, where though there are many jokes on his former condition as a slave, there are none on his appearance, and we need not imagine that the ancients would be restrained from such jokes by any feelings of delicacy, since the nose of Socrates furnishes ample matter for raillery in the Symposium of Plato. Besides, the Athenians caused Lysippus to erect a statue in his honour, which had it been sculptured in accordance with the above description, would have been the reverse of ornamental. Works

The notices however which we possess of Aesop are so scattered and of such doubtful authority, that there have not been wanting persons to deny his existence altogether. " In poetical philosophy," says Vico in his Scienza Nuova, " Aesop will be found not to be any particular and actually existing man, but the abstraction of a class of men, or a poetical character representative of the companions and attendants of the heroes, such as certainly existed in the time of the seven Sages of Greece." This however is an excess of scepticism into which it would be most unreasonable to plunge : whether Aesop left any written works at all, is a question which affords considerable room for doubt, and to which Bentley inclines to give a negative. Thus Aristophanes (Aristoph. Wasps 1259) represents Philocleon as learning his Fables in conversation and not out of a book, and Socrates who turned them into poetry versified those that "he knew, and could most readily remember." (Plat. Phaed. p. 61b; Bentley, Dissertation on the Fables of Aesop, p. 136.)

However this may be, it is certain that fables, bearing Aesop's name, were popular at Athens in its most intellectual age. We find them frequently noticed by Aristophanes. One of the pleasures of a dicast (Vesp. 566) was, that among the candidates for his protection and vote some endeavoured to win his favour by repeating to him fables, and some Αἰσώπου τί γέλοιον. Two specimens of these γέλοια or drolleries may be read in the Vespae, 1401, &c., and in the Aves, 651, &c. The latter however is said by the Scholiast to be the composition of Archilochus, and it is probable that many anecdotes and jests were attributed to Aesop, as the most popular of all authors of the kind, which really were not his. This is favourable to Bentley's theory, that his fables were not collected in a written form, which also derives additional probability from the fact that there is a variation in the manner in which ancient authors quote Aesop, even though they are manifestly referring to the same fable. Thus Aristotle (De Part. Anim. 3.2) cites from him a complaint of Momus, " that the bull's horns were not placed about his shoulders, where he might make the strongest push, but in the tenderest part, his head," whilst Lucian (Nigr. 32) makes the fault to be " that his horns were not placed straight before his eyes." A written collection would have prevented such a diversity.

Besides the drolleries above mentioned, there were probably fables of a graver description, since, as we have seen, Socrates condescended to turn them into verse, of which a specimen has been preserved by Diogenes Laertius. Again, Plato, though he excluded Homer's poems from his imaginary Republic, praises the writings of Aesop. By him they are called μῦθοι (Phaed. pp. 60, 61 ), though an able writer in the Philological Museum (i. p. 281) thinks that the more ancient name for such fictions was αἶνος, a word explained by Buttmann (Lexilogus, p. 60, Eng. transl.), " a speech full of meaning, or cunningly imagined" (Hom. Od. 14.508), whence Ulysses is called πολύαινος in reference to the particular sort of speeches which mark his character. In Hesiod (Op. et Dies, 200), it has passed into the sense of a moral fable. The αἶνοι or μὐθοι of Aesop were certainly in prose :--they are called by Aristophanes λόγοι, and their author (Hdt. 2.134) is Αἴσωπος ὁ λογόποιος, λόγος being the peculiar word for Prose, as ἔπη was for verse, and including both fable and history, though afterwards restricted to oratory, when that became a separate branch of composition.

Following the example of Socrates, Demetrius Phalereus (B. C. 320) turned Aesop's fables into poetry, and collected them into a book : and after him an author, whose name is unknown, published them in Elegiacs, of which some fragments are preserved by Suidas. But the only Greek versifier of Aesop, of whose writings any whole fables are preserved is Babrius, an author of no mean powers, and who may well take his place amongst Fabulists with Phaedrus and La Fontaine. His version is in Choliambics, i. e. lame, halting iambics (χῶλος, ἴαμβος), verses which foilow in all respects the laws of the Iambic Trimeter till the sixth foot, which is either a spondee or trochee, the fifth being properly an iamlbus. This version was made a little before the age of Augustus, and consisted of ten Books, of which a few scattered fables only are preserved. Of the Latin writers of Aesopean fables, Phaedrus is the most celebrated. The Fables Currently Extant

The fables now extant in prose, bearing the name of Aesop, are unquestionably spurious. Of these there are three principal collections, the one containing 136 files, published first A. D. 1610, from MSS. at Heidelberg. This is so clumsy a forgery, that it mentions the orator Demades, who lived 200 years after Aesop, and contains a whole sentence from the book of Job (γυμνοὶ γὰρ ἤλθομεν οἱ πάντες, γυμνοὶ οὖν ἀπελευσόμεθα). Some of the passages Bentley has shewn to be fragments of Choliambic verses, and has made it tolerably certain that they were stolen from Babrius. The other collection was made by the above mentioned monk of Constantinople, Maximus Planudes. These contain at least one Hebraism (βοῶν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ : compare e. g. Eccles. 11.1, εἶπον ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ μου), and among them are words entirely modern, as βούταλις a bird, βούνευρον a beast, and also traces of the Choliambics of Babrius. The third collection was found in a MS. at Florence, and published in 1809. Its date is about a century before the time of Planudes, and it contains the life which was prefixed to his collection, and commonly supposed to be his own.

Bentley's dissertation on Aesop is appended to those on Phalaris. The genuineness of the existing forgeries was stoutly maintained by his Oxford antagonists (Preface to Aesopicaram Fabularum Delectus, Oxford 1628); but there is no one in our day who disputes his decision. Theory of the Oriental Origin of Aesop's Fables

It remains to notice briefly the theory which assigns to Aesop's fables an oriental origin. Among the writers of Arabia, one of the most famous is Lukman, whom some traditions make contemporary with David, others the son of a sister or aunt of Job, while again he has been represented as an ancient king or chief of the tribe of Ad. " Lukman's wisdom" is proverbial among the Arabs, and joined with Joseph's beauty and David's melody. [See the Thousand and One Nights (Lane's translation), Story of Prince Kamer-ez-Zeman and Princess Budoor, and Note 59 to chapter x.] The Persian accounts of this Lukman represent him as an ugly black slave, and it seems probable that the author of the Life engrafted this and other circumstances in the Oriental traditions of Lukman upon the classical tales respecting Aesop. The fables ascribed to Aesop have in many respects an eastern character, alluding to Asiatic customs, and introducing panthers, peacocks, and monkeys among their dramatis personae. All this makes it likely that the fables attributed both to Lukman and Aesop are derived from the same Indo-Persian source. Editions

The principal editions of Aesop's Fables are:-- 1. Buono Accorso, end of the 15th century

The collection formed by Planudes with a Latin translation, published at Milan by Buono Accorso at the end of the 15th century. 2. Stephanus (1546)

Another edition of the same collection, with some additional fables from a MS. in the Bibliothèque du Roi at Paris, by Robert Stephanus, 1546. 3. Nevelet (1610)

The edition of Nevelet, 1610, which added to these the Heidelberg collection, published at Frankfort on the Main. Other Editions

These have been followed by editions of all or some of the Fables, by Hudson at Oxford (1718), Hauptmann at Leipzig (1741), Heusinger at Leipzig (1756), Ernesti at the same place (1781), and G. H. Schaefer again at Leipzig (1810, 1818, 1820). Francesco de Furia added to the above the new fables from the Florentine MS., and his edition was reprinted bY Coray at Paris (1810). All the fiables have been put together and published, 231 in number, by J. G. Schneider, at Breslau, in 1810. [G.E.L.C]

Aeso'pus

a Greek historian.

The time when Aesopus lived is uncertain, and even his existence has been doubted. (Barth, Adversar. 2.10.) Mai, in the preface to his edition, contended that the work was written before 389, A. D., because the temple of Serapis at Alexandria, which was destroyed by order of Theodosius, is spoken of in the translation (Jul. Valer. 1.31) as still standing. But serious objections to this inference have been raised by Letronno (Journ. des Sarans, 1818, p. 617), who refers it to the seventh or eighth century, which the weight of internal evidence would rather point to. The book is full of the most extravagant stories and glaring mistakes, and is a work of no credit. Works Life of Alexander the Great

He wrote a life of Alexander the Great.

The original is lost, but there is a Latin translation of it by Julius Valerius [Valerius Julius], of which Franciscus Juretus had, he says (ad symmach. Ep. 10.54), a manuscript. Editions

It was first published, however, by A. Mai from a MS. in the Ambrosian library, Milan, 1817, 4to., reprinted Frankfort, 1818, 8vo. The title is Itinerarium ad Constantinum Augustum, etc. : accedunt Julii Valerii Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis, etc. [A.A]

Aeso'pus, Clau'dius

or Clo'dius, the most celebrated tragic actor at Rome in the Ciceronian period, probably a freedman of the Clodia gens. Horace (Hor. Ep. 2.1. 82) and other authors put him on a level with Roscius. (Fronto, p. 44, ed. Niebuhr.) Each was preeminent in his own department; Roscius in comedy, being, with respect to action and delivery (pronuntiatio), more rapid (citatior, Quintil. Inst. Or. 11.3.111); Aesopus in tragedy, being more weighty (gravior, Quintil. l.c.). Aesopus took great pains to perfect himself in his art by various methods. He diligently studied the exhibition of character in real life; and when any important trial was going on, especially, for example, when Hortensius was to plead, he was constantly in attendance, that he might watch and be able to represent the more truthfully the feelings which were actually displayed on such occasions. (V. Max. 8.10.2.) He never, it is said, put on the mask for the character he had to perform in, without first looking at it attentively from a distance for some time, that so in performing he might preserve his voice and action in perfect keeping with the appearance he would have. (Fronto, de Eloq. 5. 1, p. 37.) Perhaps this anecdote may confirm the opinion (Dict. of Ant. s. v. Persona), that masks had only lately been introduced in the regular drama at Rome, and were not always used even for leading characters; for, according to Cicero (de Div. 1.37), Aesopus excelled in power of face and fire of capression (tantum ardorem vultuum atque motuum), which of course would not have been visible if he had performed only with a mask. From the whole passage in Cicero and from the anecdotes recorded of him, his acting would seem to have been characterised chiefly by strong emphasis and vehemence. On the whole, Cicero calls him summus artifex, and says he was fitted to act a leading part no less in real life titan on the stage. (Pro Sext. 56.) It does not appear that he ever performed in comedy. Valerius Maximus (8.10.2) calls Aesopus and Roscius both "ludticrie artis peritissimos viros," but this may merely denote the theatrical art in general, including tragedy as well as comedy. (Comp. ludicrae tibiae. Plin. II. N. 16.36.) Fronto calls him (p. 87) Tragicus Aesopus. From Cicero's remark, however, (de Off. 1.114), it would seem that the character of Ajax was rather too tragic for him. (Comp. Tusc. Quaest. 2.17, 4.25.)

Like Roscius, Aesopus enjoyed the intimacy of the great actor, who calls him noster Aesopus (ad Fam. 7.1), noster familiaris (ad Qu. Frat. 1.2, 4); and they seem to have sought, from one another's society, improvement, each in his respective art. During his exile, Cicero received many valuable marks of Aesopus's friendship. On one occasion, in particular, having to perform the part of Telamon, banished from his country, in one of Accius's plays, the tragedian, by his manner and skilful emphasis, and an occasional change of a word, added to the evident reality of his feelings, and succeeded in leading the audience to apply the whole to the case of Cicero, and so did him more essential service than any direct defence of himself could have done. The whole house applauded. (Pro Sext. 56.) On another occasion, instead of " Brutus qui libertatem civium stabiliverat," he substituted Tullius, and the audience gave utterance to their enthusiasm by encoring the passage " a thousand times" (millies revocatum est, Pro Sext. 58). The time of his death or his age cannot be fixed with certainty; but at the dedication of the theatre of Pompey (B. C. 55), he would seem to have been elderly, for he was understood previously to have retired from the stage, and we do not hear of his being particularly delicate : yet, from the passage, ill-health or age would appear to have been the reason of his retiring. On that occasion, however, in honour of the festival, he appeared again; but just as he was coming to one of the most emphatic parts, the beginning of an oath, Si sciens fallo, etc., his voice failed him, and he could not go through with the speech. He was evidently unable to proceed, so that any one would readily have excused him: a thing which, as the passage in Cicero implies (ad Fam. 7.1), a Roman audience would not do for ordinary performers. Aesopus, though far from frugal (Plin. Nat. 10.72), realized, like Roscius, an immense fortune by his profession. He left about 200,000 sesterces to his son Clodius, who proved a foolish spendthrift. (V. Max. 9.1.2.) It is said, for instance, that he dissolved in vinegar and drank a pearl worth about £8000, which he took from the ear-ring of Caecilia Metella (Hor. Sat. 2.3, 239 ; V. Max. 9.1.2; Macr. 2.10; Plin. Nat. 9.59), a favourite feat of the extravacant monomania in Rome. (Compare Sutet. Calig. 37; Macr. 2.13.) The connexilon of Cicero's son-in-law Dolabella with the same lady no doubt increased the distress which Cicero felt at the dissolute proceedings of the son of his old friend. (Ad Att. 11.13.) [A.A]

Aesōpus

(Αἴσωπος). A famous writer of fables, the first author who created an independent class of stories about animals, so that in a few generations his name and person had become typical of that entire class of literature. In course of time, thanks to his plain, popular manner, the story of his own life was enveloped in an almost inextricable tissue of tales and traditions, which represent him as an ugly hunchback and buffoon. In the Middle Ages these were woven into a kind of romance. A Phrygian by birth, and living in the time of the Seven Sages, about B.C. 600, he is said to have been at first a slave to several masters, till Iadmon of Samos set him free. That he next lived at the court of Croesus, and being sent by him on an embassy to Delphi, was murdered by the priests there, is pure fiction. Under his name were propagated in all parts of Greece, at first only by tradition in the mouth of the people, a multitude of prose tales teaching the lessons of life under the guise of fables about animals. We know how Socrates, during his last days in prison, was engaged in turning the fables of Aesop into verse. The first written collection appears to have been made by Demetrius of Phalerum, B.C. 300. The collections of Aesop's Fables that have come down to us are, in part, late prose renderings of the version in choliambics by Babrius (q.v.), which still retain here and there a scrap of verse; partly products of the rhetorical schools, and therefore of very different periods and degrees of merit. A good text of the version by Babrius is that of Schneidewin (1865), and of Hartung with German notes and a translation (1858). See also Rutherford's edition of Babrius (London, 1883).

Aesōpus, Clodius

A great tragic actor at Rome, a contemporary of Quintus Roscius (q.v.), and, like him, on intimate terms with Cicero. Aesopus appeared upon the stage for the last time at the dedication of Pompey's theatre in B.C. 55. He left a large fortune to his son, who wasted it in luxury and dissipation, on one occasion dissolving a pearl worth $40,000, and swallowing it, in order to outdo the famous exploit of Cleopatra.

Aesopus Aesopus, the chronicler

• Hdt. 2.134