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Aesop ( ; , ''Aisōpos'', c. 620–564 BCE) was an Ancient Greek fabulist or story teller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as ''Aesop's Fables''. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day. Many of the tales are characterized by animals and inanimate objects that speak, solve problems, and generally have human characteristics. Scattered details of Aesop's life can be found in ancient sources, including Aristotle, Herodotus, and Plutarch. An ancient literary work called ''The Aesop Romance'' tells an episodic, probably highly fictional version of his life, including the traditional description of him as a strikingly ugly slave () who by his cleverness acquires freedom and becomes an adviser to kings and city-states. Older spellings of his name have included ''Esop(e)'' and ''Isope''. Depictions of Aesop in popular culture over the last 2500 years have included several works of art and his appearance as a character in numerous books, films, plays, and television programs. ==Life== The earliest Greek sources, including Aristotle, indicate that Aesop was born around 620 BCE in Thrace at a site on the Black Sea coast which would later become the city Mesembria. A number of later writers from the Roman imperial period (including Phaedrus, who adapted the fables into Latin) say that he was born in Phrygia.〔''Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World'' (hereafter ''BNP'') 1:256.〕 The 3rd-century poet Callimachus called him "Aesop of Sardis,"〔Callimachus. ''Iambus'' 2 (Loeb fragment 192)〕 and the later writer Maximus of Tyre called him "the sage of Lydia."〔Maximus of Tyre, Oration 36.1〕 From Aristotle〔Aristotle. (''Rhetoric'' 2.20 ).〕 and Herodotus〔Herodotus. (''Histories'' 2.134 ).〕 we learn that Aesop was a slave in Samos and that his masters were first a man named Xanthus and then a man named Iadmon; than he must eventually have been freed, because he argued as an advocate for a wealthy Samian; and that he met his end in the city of Delphi. Plutarch〔Plutarch. ''On the Delays of Divine Vengeance''; ''Banquet of the Seven Sages''; (''Life of Solon'' ).〕 tells us that Aesop had come to Delphi on a diplomatic mission from King Croesus of Lydia, that he insulted the Delphians, was sentenced to death on a trumped-up charge of temple theft, and was thrown from a cliff (after which the Delphians suffered pestilence and famine); before this fatal episode, Aesop met with Periander of Corinth, where Plutarch has him dining with the Seven Sages of Greece, sitting beside his friend Solon, whom he had met in Sardis. (Leslie Kurke suggests that Aesop himself "was a popular contender for inclusion" in the list of Seven Sages).〔Kurke 2010, p. 135.〕 Problems of chronological reconciliation dating the death of Aesop and the reign of Croesus led the Aesop scholar (and compiler of the Perry Index) Ben Edwin Perry in 1965 to conclude that "everything in the ancient testimony about Aesop that pertains to his associations with either Croesus or with any of the so-called Seven Wise Men of Greece must be reckoned as literary fiction," and Perry likewise dismissed Aesop's death in Delphi as legendary;〔Perry, Ben Edwin. Introduction to ''Babrius and Phaedrus'', pp. xxxviii-xlv.〕 but subsequent research has established that a possible diplomatic mission for Croesus and a visit to Periander "are consistent with the year of Aesop's death."〔''BNP'' 1:256.〕 Still problematic is the story by Phaedrus which has Aesop in Athens, telling the fable of the frogs who asked for a king, during the reign of Peisistratos, which occurred decades after the presumed date of Aesop's death.〔Phaedrus 1.2〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Aesop」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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