The ancient Greek Aesop is the mind behind timeless stories like “The Tortoise and the Hare.” His fables are as ancient as they are timely. The four Aesopic tales in this selection offer simple, memorable lessons that always find their mark.
Born a Storyteller
No one knows where Aesop was born, or if he even existed. The few available facts about his life and works remain shrouded in mystery. Possibly born a slave around 620 B.C., he spent many years in Samos, a Greek island in the eastern Mediterranean. He eventually obtained his freedom, probably because he was a clever enough speaker to impress powerful kings, merchants, and philosophers.According to Phaedrus (circa 15 B.C.–circa A.D. 50), another Greek storyteller who compiled the first volume of his stories, Aesop often put his storytelling to use in political matters. When the ruler Pisistratus subverted Athens’s democracy to establish himself as a monarch in 546 B.C., many Athenians decried their loss of freedom. To appease their spirits, Aesop told them a story about a colony of frogs who ask the Greek god Zeus for a king. Zeus gives them a piece of timber, which the frogs unthinkingly take for a ruler. When they recognize its apparent uselessness, they begin treating the plank disrespectfully, insulting and stomping on it.
