ABSTRACT
Aesop, the most famous fabulist of all time, is a figure shrouded in mystery. The story that Aesop met his end at Delphi, where he was sentenced to death and pushed off a cliff because he insulted the Delphians, is already current in the 5th century BC. When Socrates turns Aesop into verse as he is awaiting execution, he seems attracted by their earthy wisdom. But the ancient thinkers who are most attracted to the fable are more interested in their ability to use them as rhetorical devices which can be used in persuading a public audience of some point of view. Though the real Aesop is obscure and inaccessible, we still have an ancient account of him in a Life of Aesop which bears, in its earliest version, the title The Book of Xanthus the Philosopher and His Slave Aesop.
