It will be noticed that this reply of Æsop to the question of the King was evasive, though the vanity of the latter probably prevented his remarking it. He does not declare the King to be the happiest man, but leaves it to be inferred that, assuming happiness to be attained by men during life (which Solon denied), then was Crœsus pre-eminent over all others in that respect. It must be admitted that the answer does not display the character of Æsop in the best light as a moralist, however much it may exalt his reputation as a courtier. There probably was a good deal of the fox in his nature, and this, not less than his wisdom, enabled him to maintain his position at the Court of this vain and wealthy potentate.
CHAPTER VIII
THE ÆSOPIAN FABLES
'Brevity is the soul of wit.'
Shakespeare: Hamlet.
It has been asserted that this same Æsop, if not a mythical personage, is at least credited with much more than is his due, and that it is only around his name that have clustered the various fables attributed to him, like rich juicy grapes round their central stalk, or, to use a more appropriate image, like swarming bees round a pendent branch. Others have endeavoured, with less or more feasibility, to prove that most of what are called Æsopian fables had their origin in the far East – 'The inquisitive amongst the Greeks,' say they, 'travelled into the East to ripen their own imperfect conceptions, and on their return taught them at home, with the mixture of fables and ornaments of fancy'29– that the ideas first propounded in India and Arabia were thus carried westward; that Æsop appropriated them and gave them forth in a modified form and in a new dress. Scholars and investigators differ in their views regarding the truth, or the extent of the truth, of these allegations, and display much erudition in their attempts to settle the question. It would appear that Æsop has indubitably the credit of certain fables of which he was not the inventor, as they were in vogue at a period anterior to the era in which he flourished. It is equally proved, on the other hand, that genuine Æsopian or Grecian fables have been attributed to Eastern sources, and are found included in collections of Eastern fables compiled in the earlier years of the Christian era. All this is only what might be expected, and does not affect to any serious extent the credit for ingenuity and originality of either Æsop or other early fabulists. Doubtless Æsop did get some of the subjects of his fables from foreign sources, but he melted them in the crucible of his mind – he distilled their very essence, and handed us the precious concentrated spirit. If he had done nothing more, that was good.
It is well known, of course, that there were fables of a very excellent kind before the time of Æsop. Amongst the Æsopian fables supposed to be borrowed from the Jātakas are The Wolf and the Crane, The Ass in the Lion's Skin, The Lion and Mouse, and The Countryman, his Son and the Snake. And Plutarch30 asserts that the language of Hesiod's nightingale to the hawk (spoken three hundred years before the era of Æsop) is the origin of the beautiful and instructive wisdom in which Æsop has employed so many tongues. Thus:
'Poor Philomel, one luckless day,
Fell in a hungry falcons way.
"If he her life," she said, "would spare,
He should have something choice and rare."
"What's that?" quoth he. "A song," she says,
"Melodious as Apollo's lays,
That with delight all nature hears."
"A hungry belly has no ears,"
Replied the hawk, "I first must sup,"
And ate the little siren up.
When strength and resolution fail,
Talents and graces nought avail.'31
Archilochus also wrote fables before Æsop;32 and even anterior to these is the fable of The Belly and the Members, and those given in Holy Scripture. But, without question, Æsop was a true inventor of fables, for it is not to be believed for a moment that Greek genius (and this was the genius of Æsop, whatever his parentage) was not equal to such a task.
Doubtless many later, as well as earlier, fables are included under the general designation of 'Æsopian,' by virtue of their resembling in the characteristics of brevity, force and wit the inventions of the sage.
Æsop in all probability did not write out his fables; they were handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. At length they were collected together, first by Diagoras (400 B.C.), and later by Demetrius Phalereus, the Tyrant of Athens (318 B.C.), under the title of 'The Assemblies of Æsopian Fables,' long after the sage's death. This collection was made use of both by the Greek freedman Phædrus, during the reign of Augustus, in the early years of the Christian era, and later by Valerius Babrius, the Roman (230 A.D.). Later again, towards the end of the fourth century, a number of them were translated into Latin by Avienus.
The Æsopian fables are distinguished by their simplicity, their mother-wit and natural humour. A score of examples exhibiting these qualities might be cited. A few, not the best known, will suffice:
The Wolf and the Shepherds.– 'A wolf peeping into a hut where a company of shepherds were regaling themselves with a joint of mutton – "Lord," said he, "what a clamour would these men have raised if they had caught me at such a banquet!"'
The compression and humour of this fable are remarkable, and the obvious moral is: 'That men are apt to condemn in others what they practise themselves without scruple.'
The Dog and the Crocodile bids us be on our guard against associating with persons of an ill reputation. 'As a dog was coursing the banks of the Nile, he grew thirsty; but fearing to be seized by the monsters of that river, he would not stop to satiate his drought, but lapped as he ran. A crocodile, raising his head above the surface of the water, asked him why he was in such a hurry. He had often, he said, wished for his acquaintance, and should be glad to embrace the present opportunity. "You do me great honour," returned the dog, "but it is to avoid such companions as you that I am in so much haste."'
Again, The Snake and the Hedgehog. 'By the intreaties of a hedgehog, half starved with cold, a snake was once persuaded to receive him into her cell. He was no sooner entered than his prickles began to be very annoying to his companion, upon which the snake desired he would provide himself another lodging, as she found, upon trial, the apartment was not large enough to accommodate both. "Nay," said the hedgehog, "let them that are uneasy in their situation exchange it; for my own part, I am very well contented where I am; if you are not, you are welcome to remove whenever you think proper!"'
The fable (or rather story, for it is more an anecdote than a fable) of Mercury and the Sculptor reads like a joke of yesterday. In Mr. Cross's 'Life of George Eliot,' it is recorded that the great novelist (in a conversation with Mr. Burne-Jones) recalled her passionate delight and total absorption in Æsop's fables, the possession of which, when a child, had opened new worlds to her imagination, and she laughed till the tears ran down her face in recalling her infantine enjoyment of the humour of this story, as follows:
'Mercury once determined to learn in what esteem he was held among mortals. For this purpose he assumed the character of a man, and visited in this disguise the studio of a sculptor. Having looked at various statues, he demanded the price of two figures of Jupiter and Juno. When the sum at which they were valued was named, he pointed to a figure of himself, saying to the sculptor: "You will certainly want much more for this, as it is the statue of the messenger of the gods, and the author of all your gain." The sculptor replied, "Well, if you will buy these, I'll fling you that into the bargain."'
Again, take The Bull and the Gnat, intended to show that the least considerable of mankind are seldom destitute of importance:
'A conceited gnat, fully persuaded of his own importance, having placed himself on the horn of a bull, expressed great uneasiness lest his weight should be incommodious; and with much ceremony begged the bull's pardon for the liberty he had taken, assuring him that he would immediately remove if he pressed too hard upon him. "Give yourself no uneasiness on that account, I beseech you," replied the bull, "for as I never perceived when you sat down, I shall probably not miss you whenever you think fit to rise up."'
Here, again, the humour is exquisite; but, indeed, that is a characteristic of nearly all the fables ascribed to Æsop.
The fable does not readily lend itself to the expression of pathos. Perhaps the only really pathetic fable is that of The Wolf and the Lamb, and it is also one of the very best. In this there is a touch of genuine pathos, unique in its character. Hesiod's Hawk and Nightingale,33 and The Old Woodcutter and Death, as told by La Fontaine, are not wanting in pathos.
The applicability of the fables of Æsop to the circumstances and occurrences of every-day life, in the highest walks as in the humblest – for the nature in both is human, after all – gives them peculiar value. This, and their epigrammatical character, so conspicuous in the best, combined with the humorous turn that is given to them, impresses them upon the memory.
In such repute have the Æsopian fables always been held, that the most learned men in all ages have occupied themselves in translating and transcribing them. Socrates relieved his prison hours in turning some of them into verse.34 In the days of ancient Greece, not to be familiar with Æsop was a sign of illiteracy.35
We have seen how other of the ancients collected and disseminated them. Coming down to later times, one of the first printed collections was by Bonus Accursius (1489,) from a MS. in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. To this was prefixed the Life by Planudes, written a century before. Another edition of the same was published by Aldus in 1505. The edition of Robert Stephens, published in Paris in 1546, followed; then came the enlarged collection by Neveletus, from the Heidelberg Library, in 1610. Later, Gabriele Faerno's 'One Hundred Fables' are Æsop given in Latin verse. So also with most of the collections by modern fabulists, La Fontaine, Sir Roger L'Estrange, Dr. Samuel Croxall, La Motte, Richer, Brettinger, Bitteux – they are all largely Æsop, with added pieces of later invention.
'Æsop has been agreed by all ages since his era for the greatest Master in his kind, and all others of that sort have been but imitations of his original.'36
Of the popularity of Æsop's fables in book form during last century and the beginning of this, we can scarcely form any conception in these days of cheap literature in such variety and excellence. Along with the Bible and 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' Æsop may be said to have occupied a place on the meagre bookshelf of almost every cottage.
The editions of Æsop in English are innumerable, but the most noteworthy, in the different epochs from the age of the invention of printing downwards have been: Caxton's collection (1484); the one by Leonard Willans (1650); that by John Ogilby (1651); Sir Roger L'Estrange's edition (1692); Dr. Croxall's collection (1722); that of Robert Dodsley (1764); and the Rev. Thomas James's Æsop (1848).
It is remarkable that the majority of those who have busied themselves in translating and editing Æsop have won fame and (shall we say?) immortality through that circumstance alone. Take the names in order of time, and it will be seen that the men are remembered chiefly or only (most of them) by reason of their association with the Æsopian fables: Demetrius Phalereus, Phædrus, Babrius, Avienus, Planudes, Bonus Accursius, Neveletus, even down to La Fontaine, L'Estrange,37 Croxall, and James. The Æsopian fable has indeed a perennial life, and its votaries have rendered themselves immortal by association therewith.
Writers of much erudition, and in many countries, have vied with each other in learned research in this branch of literature, and in endeavours to trace the history of fable. Among the French we have Pierre Pithou (1539-96), editor of the first printed edition of Phædrus; Bachet de Meziriac, who wrote a life of Æsop (1632); Boissonade, Robert, Edelestand du Meril (1854); Hervieux and Gaston Paris. Of German writers there are Lessing, Fausboll, Hermann Oesterley, Mueller, Wagener, Heydenreich, Otto Crusius (1879), Benfey, Mall, Knoell, Gitlbauer; Niccolo, Perotti, Archbishop of Siponto (1430-80), and Jannelli, among the Italians; amongst Jewish writers, Dr. Landsberger. Of English writers we have Christopher Wase, Alsop, Boyle, Bentley, Tyrwhitt, Rutherford, James, Robinson Ellis, Rhys-Davids, G. F. Townsend, and last but not least, Joseph Jacobs, in his scholarly 'History of the Æsopic Fable.'
CHAPTER IX
PHÆDRUS AND BABRIUS
'United, yet divided, twain at once —
sit two kings of Fable on one throne.'
Cowper: The Task (altered).
Phædrus, who wrote the fables of Æsop in Latin iambics, and added others of his own, was born at the very source of poetic inspiration, on Mount Pierius, near to the Pierian spring, the seat of the Muses, in Thrace, at that time a portion of the Roman province of Macedonia, and of which Octavius, the father of Augustus Cæsar, was Proconsul, during the last century before the Christian era. Like Æsop, he too was a slave in early youth, but being taken to Rome, he was manumitted by Augustus, and occupied a place in the household of that Emperor. Here he acquired the pure Latinity of his style, and in later years wrote the well-known fables in the collection that bears his name. His fables are in five books, and were published during the reign of Tiberius and subsequent emperors.
In the prologue to his third book, addressed to Eutychus,38 he thus alludes to his birthplace, and disavows all mercenary aims in his literary pursuits:
'Me – whom a Grecian mother bore
On Hill Pierian, where of yore
Mnemosyne in love divine
Brought forth to Jove the tuneful Nine.
Though sprung where genius reigned with art,
I grubb'd up av'rice from my heart,
And rather for applause than pay,
Embrace the literary way —
Yet as a writer and a wit,
With some abatements they admit.
What is his case then, do you think,
Who toils for wealth nor sleeps a wink,
Preferring to the pleasing pain
Of composition, sordid gain?
But hap what will (as Sinon said
When to King Priam he was led),
I book the third shall now fulfil,
With Æsop for my master still,
Which book I dedicate to you
As both to worth and honour due.
Pleased, if you read; if not, content,
As conscious of a sure event,
That these my fables shall remain,
And after-ages entertain.'39
His object, as he declares, was to expose vice and folly; in pursuing it he did not escape persecution, for Sejanus, the arbitrary minister of Tiberius (who had now succeeded to the imperial purple), took mortal offence at certain of the apologues which he suspected applied to himself, and, 'informer, witness, judge and all,' laid the iron hand of power heavy upon the fabulist. Phædrus, whose early years of slavery had left no taint of servility upon his character, was too independent to stoop to insolent power, and resented the treatment to which he was subjected. Thus beset, and probably largely owing to this cause, his last years were spent in poverty. Amidst the infirmities of age he compares himself to the old hound in his last apologue, which being chastised by his master for his feebleness in allowing the boar to escape, replied, 'Spare your old servant! It was the power, not the will, that failed me. Remember rather what I was than abuse me for what I am.' A lesson which even at the present day may sometimes find its application. Phædrus prophesied his own immortality as an author, and his boast was that whilst Æsop invented, he (Phædrus) perfected.
Babrius,40 a Latin, did for the Æsopian fable, in Greek choliambics, what Phædrus, a Greek, accomplished for them in Latin iambics. He is believed to have lived in the third century A.D., and to have composed his fables in his quality of tutor to Branchus, the young son of the Emperor Alexander Severus.41 His collection of Æsopian fables in two books was known to ancient writers, who refer to him and quote his apologues, but, like other literary treasures, it was lost during the Middle Ages. Early in the seventeenth century, Isaac Nicholas Neveletus, a Swiss, published (1610) an edition of the fables of Æsop, containing not only those embraced in the work of Planudes, but additional fables from MSS. in the Vatican Library, and some from Aphthonius and Babrius. He further expressed the opinion that the latter was the earliest collector and writer of the Æsopian fables in Greek. Francis Vavassor, a French Jesuit, followed with comments on Babrius on the same lines; so also another Frenchman, Bayle, in his 'Dictionnaire Historique'; Thomas Tyrwhitt and Dr. Bentley in England, and Francisco de Furia in Italy, also espoused the idea first suggested by Neveletus, and adduced further proofs in support of it. Singularly enough, the accuracy of the forecast of these scholars was established by the discovery in 1840, by M. Minoides Menas, a Greek, at the Convent of St. Laura on Mount Athos, of a veritable copy of Babrius in Greek choliambic verse. The transcript of Menas was first published in Paris in 1844. The first English edition was edited by Sir George Cornewall Lewis in the original Greek text, with Latin notes, and afterwards (1860) translated into English by the Rev. James Davies, M.A., and they now form the most trustworthy version of the Æsopian fables.
CHAPTER X
THE FABLE IN HISTORY AND MYTH
'Full of wise saws.'
Shakespeare: As You Like It.
'Fables,' says Aristotle, 'are adapted to deliberate oratory, and possess this advantage: that to hit upon facts which have occurred in point is difficult; but with regard to fables it is comparatively easy. For an orator ought to construct them just as he does his illustrations, if he be able to discover the point of similitude, a thing which will be easy to him if he be of a philosophical turn of mind.'42
The truth of this is exemplified in the use which has been made of the apologue by orators in all ages, but especially in early times.
The following instances of the application of fables to particular occasions are recorded. The fable of The Belly and the Members, which is reputed to be the oldest in existence, is of sterling excellence, as well as of venerable antiquity.43 Its lucid moral is truth in essence. The logic of its conclusion is as invulnerable as the demonstration of a proposition in Euclid. There is no gainsaying it, turn it how we may, and, with all due deference to Montaigne, only one moral is deducible from it. This is solid bottom ground and bed rock, safe for chain-cable holding; safe for building upon, however high the superstructure. Striking use was made of it by Menenius Agrippa when the rabble refused to pay their share of the taxes necessary for carrying on the business of the State.
In the 'Coriolanus' of Shakespeare, Menenius, the Roman Consul, is introduced in character,44 and recounts the apologue to the disaffected citizens of Rome. Thus the dramatist, in his superb way:
Men. Either you must
Confess yourselves wondrous malicious,
Or be accused of folly. I shall tell you
A pretty tale: it may be you have heard it;
But since it serves my purpose, I will venture
To stale 't a little more.
1 Cit. Well, I'll hear it, sir; yet you must not think
to fob off our disgrace with a tale; but, an 't please you,
deliver.
Men. There was a time when all the body's Members
Rebelled against the Belly; thus accused it:
That only like a gulf it did remain
I' the midst o' the body, idle and inactive,
Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing
Like labour with the rest; where th' other instruments
Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,
And, mutually participate, did minister
Unto the appetite and affection common
Of the whole body. The Belly answered:
1 Cit. Well, sir, what answer made the Belly?
Men. Sir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile,
Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus —
For, look you, I may make the Belly smile
As well as speak – it tauntingly replied
To the discontented Members, the mutinous parts
That envied his receipt: even so most fitly
As you malign our senators, for that
They are not such as you.
1 Cit. Your Belly's answer? What!
The kingly-crowned head, the vigilant eye,
The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,
Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,
With other muniments and petty helps
In this our fabric, if that they —
Men. What then? —
'Fore me this fellow speaks! – what then? what then?
1 Cit. Should by the cormorant Belly be restrained,
Who is the sink o' the body —
Men. Well, what then?
1 Cit. The former agents, if they did complain,
What could the Belly answer?
Men. I will tell you,
If you'll bestow a small – of what you have little —
Patience awhile, you'll hear the Belly's answer.
1 Cit. Ye're long about it.
Men. Note me this, good friend,
Your most grave Belly was deliberate,
Not rash, like his accusers, and thus answered:
'True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he,
'That I receive the general food at first,
Which you do live upon; and fit it is,
Because I am the storehouse and the shop
Of the whole body; but, if you do remember,
I send it through the rivers of your blood,
Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain,
And through the cranks and offices of man.
The strongest nerves, and small inferior veins,
From me receive that natural competency
Whereby they live; and though that all at once,
You, my good friends – ' This says the Belly, mark me.
1 Cit. Ay, sir; well, well.
Men. 'Though all at once cannot
See what I do deliver out to each,
Yet I can make my audit up, that all
From me do back receive the flour of all,
And leave me but the bran.' What say you to 't?
1 Cit. It was an answer. How apply you this?
Men. The senators of Rome are this good Belly,
And you the mutinous Members; for examine
Their counsels and their cares; digest things rightly,
Touching the weal o' the common, you shall find
No public benefit which you receive
But it proceeds or comes from them to you,
And no way from yourselves. What do you think?
The oldest fable in Holy Scripture, having been spoken or written about six centuries before the time of Æsop, is that of The Trees in Search of a King, recounted by Jotham to the men of Shechem, and directed against Abimelech,45 wherein it is shown that the most worthless persons are generally the most presuming:
'And all the men of Shechem assembled themselves together, and all the house of Millo, and went and made Abimelech king, by the oak of the pillar that was in Shechem. And when they told it to Jotham, he went and stood in the top of Mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried and said unto them, Hearken unto me, ye men of Shechem, that God may hearken unto you. The Trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the Olive-tree, Reign thou over us. But the Olive-tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to wave to and fro over the trees? And the Trees said to the Fig-tree, Come thou, and reign over us. But the Fig-tree said unto them, Should I leave my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to wave to and fro over the trees? And the Trees said unto the Vine, Come thou, and reign over us. And the Vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to wave to and fro over the trees? Then said all the Trees unto the Bramble, Come thou, and reign over us. And the Bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow; and if not, let fire come out of the Bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.'
The Samians had impeached their Prime Minister for embezzling the money of the Commonwealth, and would have put him to death. Æsop, addressing the assembled councillors, introduced the fable of The Fox and the Hedgehog into his oration, as an argument to dissuade them from their purpose.
'A fox, swimming across a rapid river, was carried by the current into a deep ravine, where he lay for a time bruised and sick, and unable to move. A swarm of hungry flies46 settled upon him. A hedgehog, passing by, compassionated his sufferings, and would have driven away the flies that were tormenting him. "Pray do not molest them," cried the fox. "How is this?" asked the hedgehog. "Do you not want to be rid of them?" "By no means," replied the fox; "for these flies are now full of blood, and sting me but little, and if you rid me of these which are already satiated, others more hungry will come in their place, and will drink up all the blood I have left." Thus also, O Samians, this man no longer injures you, for he is wealthy; should you, however, put him to death, others who are poor will come, who will exhaust you by filching the public money.'
Such a plea in arrest of judgment would hardly suffice in these later days.
The fable of The Frogs petitioning Jupiter for a King was spoken by Æsop to the Athenians in order to reconcile them to the mild yoke of the usurper Pisistratus, against whom, after they had raised him to the supreme power, the people began to murmur. 'The Commonwealth of Frogs, a discontented, variable race, weary of liberty, and fond of a change, petitioned Jupiter to grant them a king. The good-natured deity, in order to indulge this their request with as little mischief to the petitioners as possible, threw them down a log. At first they regarded their new monarch with great reverence, and kept from him at a most respectful distance; but perceiving his tame and peaceable disposition, they by degrees ventured to approach him with more familiarity, till at length some of them even ventured to climb up his side and squat upon him, and they all conceived for him the utmost contempt. In this disposition, they renewed their request to Jupiter, and entreated him to bestow upon them another king. The Thunderer in his wrath sent them a crane, who no sooner took possession of his new dominions than he began to devour his subjects one after another in a most capricious and tyrannical manner. They were now more dissatisfied than before; when applying to Jupiter a third time, they were dismissed with the reproof that the evil they complained of they had imprudently brought upon themselves, and that they had no remedy now but to submit to it with patience.'
Plutarch, in his account of 'The Feast of the Sages' at the Court of Periander, King of Corinth (himself one of the seven), narrates the incident of Alexidemus, natural son of the Tyrant of Miletus, who, having taken offence at being placed lower at the table than 'Æolians, and Islanders, and people known to nobody,' was ridiculed by Æsop, who related to the assembled guests the fable of The Arrogant Mule mortified. 'The lion,' said he, 'gave a feast to the beasts. The horse and the ass sent excuses, the one having to bear his master a journey, and the other to turn the mill for the housewife; but, in order to honour the hospitality of the forest king, they sent their son, the mule, in their stead. At table a dispute arose about precedence, the mule claiming the higher place in right of his parent the horse, which the ox and others disputed, asserting that the mule had no just pretensions to the dignity claimed. At length, argument having run high, the mule would fain have been content with the seat reserved for the ass; but even this was now denied him, and, as a punishment for his presumption, he was thrust to the lower end, as one who, instead of meriting consideration, was nothing but a base mongrel.'
It is said that when Æsop was being taken to the rock Hyampia, there to be sacrificed, he predicted that the hand of retributive Justice would smite his persecutors for their inhumanity; and, reciting the fable of The Eagle and the Beetle, he warned them that the weakest may procure vengeance against the most powerful in requital of injuries inflicted. 'A hare, being pursued by an eagle, retreated into the nest of a beetle, who promised her protection. The eagle repulsed the beetle, and destroyed the hare before its face. The beetle, remembering the wrong done it, soared to the nest of the eagle and destroyed her eggs. Appealing to Jupiter, the god listened to the petition of his favourite bird, and granted her leave to lay her eggs in his lap for safety. The beetle, seeing this, made a ball of dirt, and, carrying it aloft, dropped it into the lap of the god, who, forgetting the eggs, shook all off together.'
The Piper turned Fisherman was spoken by Cyrus (King of Persia) at Sardis to the Ionians and Æolians on the occasion of their sending ambassadors, offering to become subject to him on the same terms as they had been to Crœsus. But he, when he heard their proposal, told them this story: 'A piper seeing some fishes in the sea, began to pipe, expecting that they would come to shore; but finding his hopes disappointed, he took a casting-net, and enclosed a great number of fishes, and drew them out. When he saw them leaping about, he said to the fishes: "Cease your dancing, since when I piped you would not come out and dance."' Cyrus told this story to the Ionians and Æolians because the Ionians, when Cyrus pressed them by his ambassador to revolt from Crœsus, refused to consent, and now, when the business was done, were ready to listen to him. He therefore, under the influence of anger, gave them this answer.47
The fable of The Horse and the Stag was rehearsed by Stesichorus to the citizens of Himera48 with a view to stimulating them to beware of the encroachments of Phalaris the Tyrant, whom they had chosen general with absolute powers, and were on the eve of assigning him a body-guard. 'The stag, with his horns, got the better of the horse, and drove him clean out of the pasture where they used to feed together. So the horse craved the assistance of man; and in order to receive the benefit of his help, suffered him to put a bridle on his neck, a bit in his mouth, and a saddle upon his back. By this means he entirely defeated his enemy. But guess his chagrin when, returning thanks, and desiring to be dismissed, he received for answer: "No! I never knew before how useful a drudge you were; and now that I have found what you are good for, you may depend upon it I will keep you to it." Look to it, then' (continued Stesichorus), 'lest in your wish to avenge yourselves on your enemies you suffer in the same way as the horse; for already, through your choice of a commander with independent power, you have the bit in your mouths; but if you assign him a body-guard, and permit him to mount into the saddle, you will become, from that moment forth, the slaves of Phalaris.'