Fables are short stories which teach a lesson and are often about animals. The supposed author of these Fables, Aesop, is thought to have lived from 620 to 560 B.C., but his place of birth is uncertain. Whether he came from Ethiopia, Phrygia, Samos, Athens, Sardis or Thrace, we do not know, but some early writers say that he was the slave of a citizen named Iadmon at Samos, in what is now Greece. Descriptions of Aesop, the man, and an extensive biography of his life are attributed to Planudes who wrote The Life and Fables of Aesop in the 13th century. "...A Greek Orthodox humanities scholar, anthologist, and theological polemicist," born in 1260 according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Planudes' Fables were a translation and revision of the Latin text by Phadedrus. It was Planudes' revised fables which were first translated into English by William Caxton in 1484. Planudes descibes Aesop as a "black man" and notes that his name comes from the Greek word Aethiops which means Ethiopia. In his 1715 translation from Planudes' Greek text, William Dugard describes Aesop as one whom "Nature had gratified with an ingenious mind, but the Law had enslaved." He was endowed with a large head, bowed legs and a large belly. "His visage [was of] black hue."

Aesop - creator of fables

According to Herodotus, writing about 200 years later, Aesop met his end violently, being thrown over a precipice by the people of Delphi. Exactly how and why this happened is uncertain. One writer says it was due to the biting sarcasm in the Fables; another says that he embezzled money given to him by King Croesus of Lydia; and yet another version has it that Aesop stole a silver cup.

Aesop had undoubtedly been freed by his master, Iadmon, for he later lived at the court of King Croesus, and it was here that he met the great Athenian statesman and scholar, Solon. A relative of Solon was Peisistratus, ruler of Athens, and Aesop visited his court, where he was able to persuade the citizens to allow their ruler to keep his throne. He did this by telling them the Fable of the Frogs Desiring a King, and such was Aesop's eloquence that Peisistratus was able to remain as dictator.

There are some writers who deny the existence of such a person as Aesop, and it is true that we have but scanty details of his life and work. Even his appearance is in dispute. According to a monk of Constantinople, named Maximus Planudes, writing in the 14th century, Aesop was an ugly, deformed dwarf, and the famous marble statue at the Villa Albani in Rome shows him in this guise. But Plutarch, writing some 1,300 years earlier, says nothing about his appearance. Indeed, the Athenians are said to have put up a noble statue in honor of Aesop.

By the time of the Middle Ages, three collections of the so-called Aesop's Fables existed: one put together by the monk Maximus Planudes in the 14th century; another published in Heidelberg in 1610; and a manuscript discovered in Florence, dating back probably to the 13th century. The Greek collection made by Maximus Planudes was published in Milan 1480, together with a Latin translation by an Italian scholar named Ranuzio. Today, Aesop's Fables can be read in more than 250 languages. The work was first printed in English by William Caxton in 1484, from his own translation made from the French.

Aesop told his stories to many people and they were passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth and were not written down for over two hundred years. Animals in Aesop's fables are always treated in an abstract or impersonal manner and are never given names. However, depending on the translator, the stories are often humorous and entertaining. Children read fables as a part of literature, but Aesop used the fable as a means of political and social criticism. His fables have meaning for us today, but to assure that the reader understands the message, a moral is added to the fable.