Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/166

144 144 HISTORY OP THE on to tell) * the eagle was so regardless of her engagement, that she ate the fox's cubs. The fox could only call down the vengeance of the gods, and this shortly overtook her ; for the eagle stole the flesh from an altar, and did not observe that she bore with it sparks which set fire to her nest, and consumed both that and her young ones. It is clear that Archilochus meant to intimate to Lycambes, that though he was too powerless to call him to account for the breach of his engagement, he could bring down upon him the chastisement of the gods. Another of Archilochus's fables was pointed at absurd pride of rankf. In like manner Stesichorus cautioned his countrymen, the Hime- reeans, against Phalaris, by the fable of the horse, who, to revenge him- self on the stag, took the man on his back, and thus became his slave {. And wherever we have any ancient and authentic account of the origin of the JEsopian fable, we find it to he the same. It is always some action, some project, and commonly some absurd one, of the Samians, or Delphians, or Athenians, whose nature and consequences iEsop describes in a fable, and thus often exhibits the posture of affairs in a more lucid, just, and striking manner than could have been done by elaborate argument. But from the very circumstance, that in the Greek fable the actions and business of men are the real and prominent object, while beasts are merely introduced as a veil or disguise, it has nothing in common with popular legendary stories of beasts, nor has it any con- nexion with mythological stories of the metamorphoses of animals. It is exclusively the invention of those who detected in the social habits of the lower animals points of resemblance with those of man ; and while they retained the real character in some respects, found means, by the introduction of reason and speech, to place them in the light required for their purpose. § 15. It is probable that the taste for fables of beasts and nume- rous similar inventions, found their way into Greece from the East; since this sort of symbolical and veiled narrative is more in harmony with the Oriental than with the Greek character. Thus, for example, the Old Testament contains a fable completely in the style of /Esop (Judges, ix. S). But not to deviate into regions foreign to our purpose, we may confine ourselves to the avowal of the Greeks themselves, contained in the very names given by them to the fable. One kind of fable was called the Libyan, which we may, therefore, infer was of African origin, and was introduced into Greece through Cyrene. To this class belongs, j^Esop. f See Gaisford, fr. 39. X Arist. Rhet. ii. 20. The fable of Menenius Agrippa is similarly applied ; but it is difficult to believe that the ainos, so applied, was known in Latium at that time and it 3eems probable that the story was transferred from Greece to Rome.
 * Coraes, Jliifei aI/tuxum ffuva.yuyn,z. i. Aristoph. Av. 651, ascribes the fable