[36] Herodotus (ii. 134) makes him contemporary with King Amasis of Egypt, the beginning of whose reign is placed in 569 B.C.; Plutarch (Sept. Sap. Conv., 152) makes him contemporary with Solon, who is reputed to have been born in 638 B.C.; and Diogenes Laertius (i. 72) says that he flourished about the fifty-second Olympiad, i.e. 572-569 B.C. Compare Clinton, Fast. Hell. i. 237 (under the year B.C. 572) and i. 239 (under B.C. 534).
[37] One at Heidelberg in 1610, and the other at Paris in 1810. There is a complete edition of all these fables, 231 in number, by T. Gl. Schneider, Breslau, 1812.
[38] See the editions by De Furia, Florence, 1809; Schneider, in an appendix to his edition of Æsop’s Fables, Breslau, 1812; Berger, München, 1816; Knoch, Halle, 1835; and Lewis, Philolog. Museum, 1832, i. 280-304.
[39] Bentley, loc. cit.; Tyrwhitt, De Babrio, etc., Lond., 1776. The editions of the newly-found MS. are by Lachmann, 1845; Orelli and Baiter, 1845; G. C. Lewis, 1846; and Schneidewin, 1853.
[40] It was first edited by Pithou, in 1596; also by Orelli, Zürich, 1831. Comp. Oesterley, ‘Phædrus und die Æsop. Fabel im Mittelalter.’
[41] By Silvestre de Sacy, in his edition of Kalilah and Dimnah, Paris, 1816; Loiseleur Deslongchamps, in his ‘Essai sur les Fables Indiennes, et sur leur Introd. en Europe,’ Paris, 1838; Professor Benfey, in his edition of the Pañca Tantra, Leipzig, 1859; Professor Max Müller, ‘On the Migration of Fables,’ Contemporary Review, July, 1870; Professor Weber, ‘Ueber den Zusammenhang indischer Fabeln mit Griechischen,’ Indische Studien, iii. 337 and foll.; Adolf Wagener, ‘Essai sur les rapports entre les apologues de l’Inde et de la Grèce,’ 1853; Otto Keller, ‘Ueber die Geschichte der Griechischen Fabeln,’ 1862.
[42] J. Gilchrist, ‘The Oriental Fabulist, or Polyglot Translations of Æsop’s and other Ancient Fables from the English Language into Hindustani, Persian, Arabic, Bhakka, Bongla, Sanscrit, etc., in the Roman Character,’ Calcutta, 1803.
[43] Joasaph is in Arabic written also Yūdasatf; and this, through a confusion between the Arabic letters Y and B, is for Bodisat. See, for the history of these changes, Reinaud, ‘Memoire sur l’Inde,’ 1849, p. 91; quoted with approbation by Weber, ‘Indische Streifen,’ iii. 57.
[44] The Buddhist origin was first pointed out by Laboulaye in the Debats, July, 1859; and more fully by Liebrecht, in the ‘Jahrbuch für romanische und englische Literatur,’ 1860. See also Littré, Journal des Savans, 1865, who fully discusses, and decides in favour of the romance being really the work of St. John of Damascus. I hope, in a future volume, to publish a complete analysis of St. John’s work; pointing out the resemblances between it and the Buddhist lives of Gotama, and giving parallel passages wherever the Greek adopts, not only the Buddhist ideas, but also Buddhist expressions.
[45] Pope Benedict XIV. in ‘De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonisatione,’ lib. i. cap. 45; Regnier, ‘De ecclesiâ Christi,’ in Migne’s Theol. Curs. Compl. iv. 710.