3 (return) [ Some of these fables had, no doubt, in the first instance, a primary and private interpretation. On the first occasion of their being composed they were intended to refer to some passing event, or to some individual acts of wrong-doing. Thus, the fables of the “Eagle and the Fox” and of the “Fox and Monkey” are supposed to have been written by Archilochus, to avenge the injuries done him by Lycambes. So also the fables of the “Swollen Fox” and of the “Frogs asking a King” were spoken by Æsop for the immediate purpose of reconciling the inhabitants of Samos and Athens to their respective rulers, Periander and Pisistratus; while the fable of the “Horse and Stag” was composed to caution the inhabitants of Himera against granting a bodyguard to Phalaris. In a similar manner, the fable from Phædrus, the “Marriage of the Sun,” is supposed to have reference to the contemplated union of Livia, the daughter of Drusus, with Sejanus the favourite, and minister of Trajan. These fables, however, though thus originating in special events, and designed at first to meet special circumstances, are so admirably constructed as to be fraught with lessons of general utility, and of universal application.] 4 (return) [ Hesiod. Opera et Dies, verse 202.] 5 (return) [ Æschylus. Fragment of the Myrmidons. Æschylus speaks of this fable as existing before his day. ὡς δ’ ἐστὶ μύθων τῶν Διβυστικῶν λογος. See Scholiast on the Aves of Aristophanes, line 808.] 6 (return) [ Fragment. 38, ed. Gaisford. See also Mueller’s History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, vol. i. pp. 190–193.] 7 (return) [ M. Bayle has well put this in his account of Æsop. “Il n’y a point d’apparence que les fables qui portent aujourd’hui son nom soient les mêmes qu’il avait faites; elles viennent bien de lui pour la plupart, quant à la matière et la pensée; mais les paroles sont d’un autre.” And again, “C’est donc à Hésiode, que j’aimerais mieux attribuer la gloire de l’invention; mais sans doute il laissa la chose très imparfaite. Esope la perfectionne si heureusement, qu’on l’a regarde comme le vrai père de cette sorte de production.”—_Bayle. Dictionnaire Historique_.] 8 (return) [ Plato in Phædone.] 9 (return) [ Apologos en! misit tibi Ab usque Rheni limite Ausonius nomen Italum Præceptor Augusti tui Æsopiam trimetriam; Quam vertit exili stylo Pedestre concinnans opus Fandi Titianus artifex. _Ausonii Epistola_, xvi. 75–80.] 10 (return) [ Both these publications are in the British Museum, and are placed in the library in cases under glass, for the inspection of the curious.]