Aesop

Aesop is the name traditionally given to a legendary figure credited with a collection of fables from ancient Greece. The fables are short tales, often with animals that speak and act like humans, and each ends with a moral lesson. The historicity of Aesop himself is uncertain; modern scholars generally treat him as a possibly composite or mythical figure rather than a reliably documented person.

Biographical traditions place him in the 6th century BCE, with claimed origins in Phrygia, Thrace, Samos, or Aegina, and sometimes describe him as a slave who earned his freedom and served in various courts, even being executed for insolence. However, these details are varied and inconsistent, and no contemporary sources survive.

The fables were preserved and expanded by later writers. In classical times, Phaedrus (Roman, 1st century CE) and Babrius (Greek, 2nd century CE) compiled collections; in the 17th century, Jean de La Fontaine popularized many of the tales in French. The fables cover themes such as cunning versus strength, humility, honesty, and the consequences of folly; they are notable for their concise narrative form and clear morals.

Legacy: Aesop’s fables have a broad cultural influence, shaping moral instruction, rhetoric, and literature. Today, the name Aesop is used as a label for the traditional corpus of fables rather than a single canonical author; the precise authorship and dates remain matters of scholarly debate.