Aesop (Aisopos)

Aesop, Aisopos, OK. VI. BC. e., Greek fabulist. He attributed the overwhelming majority of Greek fables written in prose. We have no reliable information about his life. The first mention of IE, classified at the latest by the seven wise men, we find in Herodotus. Probably, in VI. BC. e. established the first (not preserved) biography E., later, by the time of the Roman version of which Life fabulist Aesop, also known as a novel about Aesop, provided E. slave of Phrygia, a servant of Xanthus of Samos. After his release he became samniyskim adviser, later served as a well-known for its wealth of Croesus king of Lydia.

He also visited Babylon, and died at Delphi, which had quarreled with the priests of Apollo, which he later avenged, but led to glory. E. was recognized as the creator of the classic fable of the animals. Fables attributed to E., linked to the ancient oral folk tradition, traces of which we find in the archaic Greek poets (Hesiod, Archilochus). Their themes and forms have been over the centuries many edits and changes. Created, most likely in the Ionian dialect and transferred to the Attic stage, they got here and the final processing in the middle of V in. BC. e. were known as Aesop's Fables. The first publisher of fables E. Demetrius was Falernian.

Aesop's Fables were the first reading in the Greek school, which led to their inclusion in collections and anthologies. In V. BC. e. started a literary treatment of Aesop's fables, giving them a metric. First attempts may be made Socrates in the form of elegiac distiha; Callimachus presented them in a more appropriate form of iambic. The last step in the development of fables E. in Ancient Greece was the work of the Babri. Aesop's Fables were readable and in Byzantium; edition, which became the basis for all later, was a monk Maxim Planud ca. 1300 g. Distinguishing features of fables E. are brevity, simplicity, absence of rhetorical ornaments. Usually resulting from the content of morality, placed either in the end, or - rarely - in the beginning of the work.

Scenes fables E. taken from life. They were an expression of common sense of ordinary people, and sometimes protest against social injustice. They reflect the ethics submission was common in ancient societies. There is no place of love, sacrifice, dedication, force prevails over the law, and in the world win a trick and deception. The form of these teachings is painted a peculiar sense of humor. Another group includes etiological fable, then there are those that explain the existence of certain phenomena in the life of animals and humans. Fables E. had a tremendous influence on world literature and had many imitators. In the Latin language in iambic verse they were transferred to the turn of I in. BC. e. and I in. n. e. Phaedrus, c.. 400 g. n. e. collection of fables E. issued air.