While these particulars of Æsop’s life rest on rather dubious authority, it is certain that as a fable-writer he was deservedly appreciated in ancient Greece. At Athens, Æsop’s Fables became indispensable to a polite education. Their author does not appear to have committed them to writing; they passed from mouth to mouth for generations, undergoing more or less change. Hence we have left only the substance of those pointed stories over which the Athenians went into transports, and which Socrates amused himself by turning into verse during his imprisonment. The young folks of every age, with whom Æsop has always been a favorite, would applaud the Athenians for placing the statue of the world’s great fabulist before those of their Seven Sages.
When the people of Samos were on the point of executing a public officer who had robbed the treasury, they were induced to spare the offender by Æsop’s spicy fable of
THE FOX AND THE HEDGEHOG.
A Fox, while crossing a river, was driven by the stream into a narrow gorge, and lay there for a long time unable to get out, covered with myriads of horse-flies that had fastened upon him. A Hedgehog, who was wandering in that direction, saw him, and taking compassion on him, asked if he should drive away the flies that were so tormenting him. But the Fox begged him to do nothing of the sort.
“Why not?” asked the Hedgehog.
“Because,” replied the Fox, “these flies that are upon me now are already full, and draw but little blood; but should you remove them, a swarm of fresh and hungry ones will come, who will not leave a drop of blood in my body.”—James.
Progress of Greek Prose.—An impetus was given to the development of Greek prose by the praiseworthy efforts of Pisistratus (537-527 B.C.), who gathered the first library in Greece, collected and edited the poems of Homer, and imitated his kinsman Solon in laboring to elevate the literary taste of the people. During his administration and that of his sons Hippias and Hipparchus, also patrons of letters, prose literature took deep root throughout the Ionian colonies, where history and philosophy had many representatives.
The style of these early writers was for the most part fragmentary, dry, and inelegant. It soon improved, however, grew into favor, and in the hands of the profound thinkers, fluent historians, and persuasive orators of Greece, was wrought into models which are still the admiration of the world.
EARLY PROSE WRITERS.
PHILOSOPHERS.