nd of the "Fox and Monkey" are supposed to have been written
by Archilochus, to avenge the injuries done him by Lycambes. So also the
fables of the "Swollen Fox" and of the "Frogs asking a King" were spoken
by Aesop for the immediate purpose of reconciling the inhabitants of
Samos and Athens to their respective rulers, Periander and Pisistratus;
while the fable of the "Horse and Stag" was composed to caution the
inhabitants of Himera against granting a bodyguard to Phalaris. In a
similar manner, the fable from Phaedrus, the "Marriage of the Sun," is
supposed to have reference to the contemplated union of Livia, the
daughter of Drusus, with Sejanus the favourite, and minister of Trajan.
These fables, however, though thus originating in special events, and
designed at first to meet special circumstances, are so admirably
constructed as to be fraught with lessons of general utility, and of
universal application.]

[Footnote 4: Hesiod. Opera et Dies, verse 202.]

[Footnote 5: Aeschylus. Fragment of the Myrmidons. Aeschylus speaks of
this fable as existing before his day. See Scholiast on the Aves of
Aristophanes, line 808.]

[Footnote 6: Fragment. 38, ed. Gaisford. See also Mueller's History of
the Literature of Ancient Greece, vol. i. pp. 190-193.]

[Footnote 7: M. Bayle has well put this in his account of Aesop. "Il n'y
a point d'apparence que les fables qui portent aujourd'hui son nom
soient les memes qu'il avait faites; elles viennent bien de lui pour la
plupart, quant a la matiere et la pensee; mais les paroles sont d'un
autre." And again, "C'est donc a Hesiode, que j'aimerais mieux attribuer
la gloire de l'invention; mais sans doute il laissa la chose tres
imparfaite. Esope la perfectionne si heureusement, qu'on l'a regarde
comme le vrai pere de cette sorte de production." M. Bayle. Dictionnaire
Historique.]

[Footnote 8: Plato in Phoedone.]

[Footnote 9:

Apologos en! misit tibi Ab usque Rheni limite Ausonius nomen Italum
Praeceptor Augusti tui Aesopiam trimetriam; Quam vertit exili stylo
Pedestre concinnans opus Fandi Titianus artifex. Ausonii Epistola, xvi.
75-80.]

[Footnote 10: Both these publications are in the British Museum, and are
placed in the library in cases under glass, for the inspection of the
curious.]

[Footnote 11: Fables may possibly have been not entirely unknown to the
mediaeval scholars. There are two celebrated works which might by some
be classed amongst works of this descr