On the invitation of Crœsus he fixed his residence at Sardis, and was employed by that monarch in various difficult and delicate affairs of state. In his discharge of these commissions he visited the different petty republics of Greece. At one time he is found in Corinth, and at another in Athens, endeavoring, by the narration of some of his wise fables, to reconcile the inhabitants of those cities to the administration of their rulers. One of these missions, undertaken at the command of Crœsus, was the occasion of his death. Having been sent to Delphi with a large sum of gold for distribution among the citizens, he was so indignant at their covetousness that he refused to divide the money and sent it back to his master. The Delphians, enraged at this treatment, accused him of impiety and, in spite of his sacred character as ambassador, executed him as a public criminal. But the great fabulist did not lack posthumous honors, for a statue was erected to his memory at Athens, the work of Lysippus, one of the most famous of Greek sculptors. These few facts are all that can be relied on with any degree of certainty in reference to the birth, life, and death of Æsop. * * * * * The fable on pages 197-200 is a translation of La Fontaine’s metrical version of one of the most popular of the Æsop Fables. La Fontaine, who died at Paris in 1695, was a popular writer of drama and the most noted of the French fabulists. Following this, on pages 201-214, are fables from the Russian of Kriloff, a writer who for nearly twenty years was one of the librarians at the Imperial Public Library at St. Petersburg, in which city he died in 1844. ÆSOP’S FABLES [Illustration] ÆSOP’S FABLES THE WOLF AND THE LAMB ONE day a Wolf and a Lamb happened to come at the same time to drink from a brook that ran down the side of the mountain. The Wolf wished very much to eat the Lamb, but meeting her as he did, face to face, he thought he must find some excuse for doing so. So he began by trying to pick a quarrel, and said angrily: “How dare you come to my brook and muddy the water so that I cannot drink it? What do you mean?” The Lamb, very much alarmed, said gently: “I do not see how it can be that I have spoiled the water. You stand higher up the stream, and the water runs from you to me, not from me to you.” “Be that as it may,” said the Wolf, with a snarl, “you are a rascal all the same, for I have heard that last year you said bad things of me behind my back.” “Dear Mr. Wolf,” cried the poor Lamb, “that could not be, for a year ago I was not born; I am only six months old.” Finding it of no use to argue any more, the Wolf began to snarl and show his teeth. Coming closer to the Lamb, he said, “You little wretch, if it was not you it was your father, so it’s all the same”; and he pounced upon the poor Lamb and ate her up. THE FOX AND THE LION