The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

[Born in Phrygia, about B.C. 620. Died about B.C. 560.] The reputed author of the fables to which his name has been for centuries attached. According to the general account, he was originally a slave, and gained much notice for his wit, and especially for his talent of communicating useful maxims in the form of apologues. His talent procured him favour at the court of Crœsus. He is said to have been thrown from the top of a rock and killed, by the priests of Delphi. His fables, at first preserved by tradition, were at a later period converted into Greek and Latin verse by Babrias and Phædrus. We have them in Greek prose, told naturally and in the utmost simplicity. In stature Æsop is described as small and hump-backed, with a prominent stomach and pointed head, yet the intellectual expression of his countenance is not that usually given to dwarfs. [From the very remarkable half-figure in marble in the Villa Albani, at Rome; the whole of which is of great antiquity. It has been maintained that Æsop was not deformed, inasmuch as the circumstance is not mentioned by writers, before the time of the Greek monk, Planudes Maximus. There are, however, traditions affirming his deformity, and Plutarch, in his Feast of the Sages, makes him sit upon a low stool at the feet of Solon. The countenance has a thoughtful and elevated expression. Lysippus sculptured the portrait of Æsop to be placed amongst the sages of Greece at Athens. Phædrus refers to this work, and the celebrity of the man is fixed by the fact that the court sculptor of Alexander employed himself upon his statue.]