[Footnote I.2: _Pisistratus the Tyrant_)--Ver. 5. From Suidas and Eusebius we learn that Æsop died in the fifty-fourth Olympiad, while Pisistratus did not seize the supreme power at Athens till the first year of the fifty-fifth. These dates, however, have been disputed by many, and partly on the strength of the present passage.] [Footnote I.3: _A Water-Snake_)--Ver. 24. Pliny tells us that the “hydrus” lives in the water, and is exceedingly venomous. Some Commentators think that Phædrus, like Æsop, intends to conceal a political meaning under this Fable, and that by the Water-Snake he means Caligula, and by the Log, Tiberius. Others, perhaps with more probability, think that the cruelty of Tiberius alone is alluded to in the mention of the snake. Indeed, it is doubtful whether Phædrus survived to the time of Caligula: and it is more generally believed that the First and Second Books were written in the time of Augustus and Tiberius.] FABLE III. THE VAIN JACKDAW AND THE PEACOCK. That one ought not to plume oneself on the merits which belong to another, but ought rather to pass his life in his own proper guise, Æsop has given us this illustration:-- A Jackdaw, swelling[4] with empty pride, picked up some feathers which had fallen from a Peacock, and decked himself out {therewith}; upon which, despising his own {kind}, he mingled with a beauteous flock of Peacocks. They tore his feathers from off the impudent bird, and put him to flight with their beaks. The Jackdaw, {thus} roughly handled, in grief hastened to return to his own kind; repulsed by whom, he had to submit to sad disgrace. Then said one of those whom he had formerly despised: “If you had been content with our station, and had been ready to put up with what nature had given, you would neither have experienced the former affront, nor would your ill fortune have had to feel {the additional pang} of this repulse.” [Footnote I.4: _A Jackdaw, swelling_)--Ver. 4. Scheffer thinks that Sejanus is alluded to under this image.] FABLE IV. THE DOG CARRYING SOME MEAT ACROSS A RIVER. He who covets what belongs to another, deservedly loses his own. As a Dog, swimming[5] through a river, was carrying a piece of meat, he saw his own shadow in the watery mirror; and, thinking that it was another booty carried by another {dog}, attempted to snatch it away; but his greediness {was} disappointed, he both dropped the food which he was holding in his mouth, and was after all unable to reach that at which he grasped.