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About Aesop
By Peace | July 13, 2006
Aesop is the most famous among all tellers of fables, and deservedly so. Born around 620BC, he was a native of Phrygia in Asia Minor and was described as “flat-nosed… with lips, thick and pendulous and a black skin from which he contracted his name (Esop being the same with Ethiop ).”
He began life as a slave but his second master reportedly gave him his freedom as a reward for his learning and wit.
Once freed, Aesop travelled widely, visiting Corinth, Athens and elsewhere. On the invitation of King Croesus, he remained in Sardis, the capital of Lydia, and served the wealthy king by giving advice on state affairs. During his service, he had the opportunities to meet up with learned men and great sages, including Solon the great lawgiver. Aesop so impressed the king with his wit that the latter applied to him an expression which had since become a proverb,”The Phrygian has spoken better than all.”
On one of his missions, he went to Delphi with a large sum of gold for her citizens. But he was so turned off by their greed that he refused to divide the money and sent it back to the king instead. Enraged, the Delphians took a golden bowl from the temploe of Apollo and hid it in his baggage, before accusing him of theft and sacrilege. They sentenced him without a fair trial and threw him off a cliff.
Two hundred years after his death, a statue of Aesop was placed at Athens in front of those of the Seven Sages of Greece, in honour of the great man whose name and fables live on.
