in spite of his sacred character as ambassador, executed
him as a public criminal. This cruel death of Aesop was not unavenged.
The citizens of Delphi were visited with a series of calamities, until
they made a public reparation of their crime; and, "The blood of Aesop"
became a well-known adage, bearing witness to the truth that deeds of
wrong would not pass unpunished. Neither did the great fabulist lack
posthumous honors; for a statue was erected to his memory at Athens, the
work of Lysippus, one of the most famous of Greek sculptors. Phaedrus
thus immortalizes the event:

Aesopo ingentem statuam posuere Attici,
Servumque collocarunt aeterna in basi:
Patere honoris scirent ut cuncti viam;
Nec generi tribui sed virtuti gloriam.

These few facts are all that can be relied on with any degree of
certainty, in reference to the birth, life, and death of Aesop. They
were first brought to light, after a patient search and diligent
perusal of ancient authors, by a Frenchman, M. Claude Gaspard Bachet de
Mezeriac, who declined the honor of being tutor to Louis XIII of
France, from his desire to devote himself exclusively to literature. He
published his Life of Aesop, Anno Domini 1632. The later investigations
of a host of English and German scholars have added very little to the
facts given by M. Mezeriac. The substantial truth of his statements has
been confirmed by later criticism and inquiry. It remains to state, that
prior to this publication of M. Mezeriac, the life of Aesop was from the
pen of Maximus Planudes, a monk of Constantinople, who was sent on an
embassy to Venice by the Byzantine Emperor Andronicus the elder, and who
wrote in the early part of the fourteenth century. His life was prefixed
to all the early editions of these fables, and was republished as late
as 1727 by Archdeacon Croxall as the introduction to his edition of
Aesop. This life by Planudes contains, however, so small an amount of
truth, and is so full of absurd pictures of the grotesque deformity
of Aesop, of wondrous apocryphal stories, of lying legends, and gross
anachronisms, that it is now universally condemned as false, puerile,
and unauthentic.[101] It is given up in the present day, by general
consent, as unworthy of the slightest credit. G.F.T.

PREFACE

THE TALE, the Parable, and the Fable are all common and popular modes
of conveying instruction. Each is distinguished by its own special
characteristics. The