The traditional concept of the Greek “novel” has been considerably expanded in the last few years, so that now included in the genre are works that were once classed merely as “prose fiction,” “prose narrative,” or at most, “works on the fringe,” and the like. Clearly, the typology of the genre is, as it used to be, extremely rich, and these types are in turn highly mixed in nature. Such is the case with what have been traditionally called the Life of Alexander, Life of Aesop, and also the Life of Secundus or Life of Homer. What these works have in common is that they all belong to a so-called “open tradition,” where orality plays a crucial, if unclear, role, and this is why they have been considered “popular biographies.” They are “fluid texts,” inasmuch as what we are left with is a series of versions or recensiones of a story whose unique origin is uncertain; that is to say, it is hard to believe that they all derive from a single Urtext. They are “living” texts, which grow, intercross, change, and undergo a string of metamorphoses, but which, for centuries, have always been able to adapt successfully to differing narrative contexts. They are all anonymous, and it seems their circulation, literary status, origin, and destination were different to those of other “canonical” novels. Nevertheless, the importance of this type of novel in the ancient world is beyond doubt, as is the fact that the perception of their literariness was different from our own.
The group has certain features in common, such as the essentially episodic composition that combines oral and written material from different dates and with blatant anachronisms, some of which circulated independently both before and afterwards. However, they also differ as to the historical accuracy of the character, though it is true that the latter is a more important criterion for us moderns than it was for the ancients. The “hybrid” nature of the genre is what has led to terms such as “historical novel,” “biographical novel,” “fictional biography,” “romanticized biography,” “novelistic biography,” and, in the case of the Life of Aesop, also “comical” or “satirical novel,” as it shares aspects of content and ideology with the comical and satirical novel that is known to us, above all, through Petronius’ Satyrica and Apuleius’ Metamorphosis, though it also differs from them in not being a first-person narrative such as the Milesia. All these biographical writings share some type of moralism and didactic purpose. Moreover, the structure of the Life of Aesop has important points in common with the biographies, but it cannot be said that it is similar to the bioi of Plutarch. The fact that the text does not mention the childhood and youth of Aesop brings it close to the Gospels or the Apocryphal Acts, that is, to the genre of praxeis. Aware as I am of the mixed nature of the work, I intend to study its compositional structure, treating it simply as “text.” The study will enable a better understanding of the genre and a more adequate literary evaluation of the work, whatever it may be. A study of the language and style would naturally be useful, though there is no space for it here (cf. Ruiz-Montero 2010).
There are three written versions of the work: recensio G, usually dated from the first/second century AD, which occupies a single manuscript from the tenth/eleventh century; recensio W, from the fourth century AD, which has a long manuscript tradition—some 15 codices containing the whole or part of the Life and including two translations into Latin; and the c. 1300 AD Byzantine version of Planudes, which is dependent on W (for the history of the text and its problems, see the introductions by Perry 1952, 1–32; Papathomopoulos 1989; 2010, 33ff; Ferrari 1997, 41–45; the Life of Planudes has been edited by Karla 2001). There are also seven papyri from the second/third century AD to the sixth/seventh century AD, one of which, P.Oxy. 1800 (late second century AD), is part of a different tradition to G and W (Lamedica 1985). Version G is 42 pages long, as opposed to the 27-page version W in the old 1952 edition of Perry, who assumed that W was a “school version” of G, whose language it “corrects” and “improves” to make it more standard, and whose content it alters, by removing certain episodes and adding others which must have been taken from the supposedly original archetype. The latter, according to Perry, would be dated between 30 BC and the first century AD (Perry 1952, 5 n.16; Adrados 1979, 674, assumed a third century BC archetype because of the Cynic thematics). In the study that follows, I shall focus on the oldest of the versions, recensio G. PBerol. 11628 (second/third century AD), which is close to G, as the terminus ante quem of recensio G.
The fabulist Aesop is a ubiquitous character in the Greek oral and written tradition; his slavery in Samos and death in Delphi is reported back in Herodotus (2.134.3f.f) and Aristophanes (Wasps 1446ff.). His floruit was c. 570 BC. Aristotle introduces him as a public orator in Samos (Arist., Rh. 1393–1394 also links Aesop to local traditions in Delphi; see Perry 1952, 211–241; Jedrkiewicz 1989, 41–68; Luzzatto 1988 and 1996; Jouanno 2006, 9–14; Papathomopoulos 2010, 16–21). There is, however, no evidence of a biography of Aesop being written as early as the fifth century BC, as some have contended, though there may well have been a collection of fables which were attributed to him.1 On the other hand, the possible existence of a Hellenistic biography preceding the edition of his fables does not presuppose that such a biography was similar to that contained in G: we are dealing with parallel traditions that are, however, mutually intersecting (Adrados 1979, 664ff.).
The peculiarities of the text make editing it very difficult. The modern editions of Papathomopoulos (1991, revised 2010; quotations are from this later edition) and Ferrari (1997) notably improved Perry’s classical edition (see the reviews by Adrados 1993 and 1998; Haslam 1992; Van Dijk 1994).
From a compositional point of view, there are two clear thematic blocks: the first is the adventures of Aesop as a slave (1–90); in the second, Aesop, who is now free, serves as the counselor of peoples and kings up to his death in Delphi (91–142). The first block comprises two sections, the second block three.
The work is not a mere collection of anecdotes and fables, nor is it a juxtaposition of scenes with no predetermined plan by an author with very little literary pretensions, as Zeitz (1936, 229), Perry (1952, 2–3) and others (e.g. Holzberg 1992, 33 ff) believe. That its overall structure may be compared to a fable has also been noted.2 However, it is Holzberg (1992) who has argued most strongly for a “unitarian” study of the text, contending that there is a carefully designed plan on the part of the author. This plan was based on the two following structural principles: (1) varying deployment of three types of Aesopic logoi, and (2) three-stage development of the story lines (exemplified in the climatic episodes between Chapters 68–74, 78–80, and 81–91). The three types of Aesopic logoi are:
The logoi A and B are used in the episodes where Aesop is a slave in Xanthus’ household (20–91) and in Babylon and Egypt (101–123). Type C is employed in those chapters that relate how Aesop helps the Samians to keep Croesus at bay (91–100), and in the Delphian chapters (124–142), the effect in the Samian section being always positive, in the Delphian always negative. Holzberg proposes the following scheme: A/B − C(+) − A/B − C(−). He has also noted the importance of irony and contrast between the scenes, something which, as we shall see, is especially clear in the responsion between the beginning and end of the work. Holzberg’s conclusions have been accepted and built upon in subsequent studies (Merkle 1996; Van Dijk 1995 classifies fables inserted in the novel). Of special interest is the comparison with the gospels, especially the gospel of Mark, made by Pervo (1998) and Shiner (1998) (see also Thomas 1998), as texts that contain the sayings and deeds of their protagonists in the service of a particular ideology.
I propose another methodology for studying the construction of the plot and devices of the author. The first thing that strikes the reader is the repetitive and monotonous nature of the episodes in the Life. The prime compositional technique of the novel is thus repetition, one of whose types is antithesis or contrast. This repetition is especially clear if we analyze the narrative morphology of the work from a functional perspective, that is, by adopting the well-known methodology employed by Propp (1977) in his study of the Russian folktale and by citing its terminology and designations.3 I distinguish between (1) narrative elements that move the plot along and that Propp terms basic functions of the plot, which can be performed in a variable fashion and grouped in sequences (there are also nexi between functions and sequences); and (2) other elements that perform a variety of functions: definition of characters, motivation for the plot, imbrication of the work in a particular social or ideological context, etc. I begin with the first.
Chapters 1–19 conform to a kind of introduction that Holzberg labels “Vorgeschichte.” They begin with a description of the protagonist in three respects and stages of his life: physical (1); intellectual (the episode of the figs 2–3, which Hunter [2010, 242] observes is shaped as an exemplary tale, a fable with its epimythion, in a type of “ring composition” with the moral at the end of the novel); and moral (the meeting with the minister of Isis, 4–6). The episode of the figs (2–3) in which Aesop is falsely accused and saved by his natural cunning is a short sequence showing a weakened villainy (A) and its liquidation (K): Aesop acts as his own helper. The episode is part of a larger sequence with similar functions: Lack (a) (Aesop is dumb) and liquidation (K), thanks to Isis, who restores his voice.
Aesop’s meeting with the minister of Isis (6–8) gives rise to a series of three functions (the first function of the donor, D; the hero’s reaction, E; receipt of a magical agent, F) whose outcome is what Propp calls “receipt of magical agent,” granted by a helper or donor, here Isis and the Muses, through the priestess who acts as intermediary. As an extra reward, the nine Muses endow him the best eloquence (ton ariston logon, 7), that is, the invention of logoi and the composition (ploke) and creation (poieseis) of Greek mythoi. This is the birth of Aesop the logopoios, a hero with new qualities to add to that of his inborn cunning. The reward, or the wedding, of the hero, W, may be the endpoint of many folktales or, as here, merely of sequences. The scheme of these two sequences would be as follows:
However, Aesop is more dangerous when he has a voice, so that, through the functions of trickery (η) and complicity (θ), he is once more falsely accused (villainy, A) and is only saved from death by the compassion of a character (misfortune is made known, B; liquidation, K), well-known motifs in both folklore and the novel (cf. Xen. Eph. 2.11.3–9 with Konstantakos 2008, II 413 ff) that will arise again in the Babylon section (IV). The scheme of the third sequence of this section would be:
The commuting of Aesop’s death to being sold to a slave trader (15) is a typical motif in love novels (e.g. it is a characteristic of the chain of sequences featuring Anthia in the Ephesiaca, though there are examples in all the novels; see Ruiz-Montero 1988, 147–148) and will function as a link between sections. As we see in the love novels, the travels connect the two sections. Aesop’s sale into slavery as a victimized hero will prompt a chain of episodic sequences beginning in Samos. However, before the sale, a brief lexical issue (13) anticipates the later lexical play between Aesop and Xanthus. This play, such as the episode of the bread basket (17–19) in the trader’s house, is a way of defining the character, i.e. is a static element in the plot, though fundamental to the work as a whole. Aesop is taken to Ephesus and to Samos (20), providing a new link to the second section of the work: Aesop’s stay in Samos.
The selling of Aesop as a slave to Xanthus (25–27) is the next villainy (A) that will frame the remaining episodes of this sequence, whose denouement is the freeing of Aesop by Xanthus (80). The Samian section comprises two developments: Aesop and Xanthus, as a slave, and Aesop and the Samians, now freed. In the first, the questions Xanthus asks Aesop (25–27) in the selling episode are an instance of lexical ambiguity which gives rise to a series of juxtaposed episodes based on a variety of linguistic misunderstandings which are repeated by means of a cumulative technique. Recall that the accumulation of anecdotes is typical of the biographical genre. The bulk of these episodes are based on a lexical ambiguity, as when Xanthus orders Aesop to serve water apo tou balaneiou (40): the master means “after the bath,” but the slave understands “from the bath” (cf. the game with de in Cicero’s response to his accuser in Quint., 6.86: Dic, M. Tulli, si quid potes de Sexto Annali), and the same is true when Aesop must give the food to whoever loves him (44–50), buy the best (51) or the worst (54–55) in the world; or as when he tells the city strategos that he does not know where he is going (65) and Xanthus that there is just one man in the bath (66) (these and other episodes can be regarded as expanded chreiai; see Shiner 1998).
Other episodes are instances of literal interpretations of Xanthus’ orders, as when Xanthus orders Aesop to fetch the bottle for the bath (38) or the washbasin (40); the episode of the pig’s legs (42–43) is based on this same premise. Finally, the lentils episode is an instance of the misuse of grammatical number (39). In all four cases, Aesop teaches Xanthus a lesson in grammatical correctness, either by playing with the singular or plural of a word (39) or teaching him to use the right expression, saying “no” neither more nor less than he should, in the remaining examples. Aesop’s didactic intent (paideuso ton philosophon, 38) is crucial in all these cases, an intent expressed by the forms didaxei (43) and deixo (50; 51). Aesop in this manner displays his ability in the use of language, which is a reflection of his age and takes back to the philosophical tradition, as we see in Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Rh. 1404ff. make frequent observations on enigma and metaphor, simile, homonyms, and the use of singular and plural; the tradition is followed by several Peripatetical treatises Peri geloiou, as is seen especially in Ps. Demetr. 137–189; Cic., De orat. 2.59–2.71; Quint. VI.). Word play is a feature of section II.1, but is absent from the rest.
The structure of the second part of this section is carefully designed. There are three episodes that progress climactically and in which Aesop displays his cunning: the drinking of the sea (69–73), the interpretation of the epitaph (78–80), and the interpretation of the prodigy (semeion) before the assembly of Samians (81–91). The episodes are instances of three difficult tasks being accomplished (M N). The three are part of an initial lack of freedom (lack, a), which will only be regained with the help of the Samians (liquidation, K). Aesop operates here as his own helper and as that of Xanthus. In all three episodes, we can see an anticipation game: Chapter 80 is an anticipation of Aesop’s freedom, his mantic powers (91), and his final assault on the Delphians (125); Aesop’s speech on kairos (88) is, by contrast, an anticipation of his end in Delphi. Chapter 91 provides a transition to section III and, at the same time, is an anticipation of the following villainy by Croesus (92).
The structure of section II.2 is as follows:
The triplicate nature of the episode is typical of folklore.
Section II has the greatest number and variety of examples of Aesop’s wisdom: wordplay, divination and difficult tasks, etiological tales, fables, and other didactic material; the section is dominated by static episodes, whose main function is to define both the secondary characters and Aesop. Such is the purpose of episodes such as the sexual relation with Xanthus’ wife, who is unnamed (75–76) (an episode retained in W, contained in G originally, though the passage is removed) or Xanthus’ sophistic speech on why he urinates while walking (28).
With no links but by means of juxtaposition we pass on to the third section of the work, which begins with two felonies committed by King Croesus: in the first, he demands tributes of the Samians (92, villainy, A), who seek advice from Aesop (misfortune is made known, B), who in turn tells them a fable (93–94) and thereby operates as a helper (beginning counteraction, C = receipt of a magical agent, F). Aware of the deed, Croesus now sends an emissary to demand the arrest of Aesop (96), which is the announcement of a second villainy (A, B). Aesop presents himself voluntarily before Croesus (departure, ¡) and uses his eloquence (F) to impress the king, thus saving his life and helping to release the Samians (100, liquidation, K). Upon his return (!), the Samians dedicate a Aisopeion (W) to Aesop as a reward. The scheme of both sequences is as follows:
In the second sequence, it is clear that Aesop acts once more as his own helper and also as that of the Samians as a result of the magic gift he received from the Muses. In this section, there are only fables, one of them (99) with Aesop in peril of his life, a peril which adds some suspense to the plot but which is soon dissipated (100). The sequence is rounded off very neatly with the dedication of the Aisopeion. The statues of the Muses and of himself which Aesop has erected here excite the anger of Apollo (orge, 100), as Aesop forgets the god; this creates some fresh suspense and stands as a kind of violation or transgression of a religious law, which will only be punished at the end of the novel.
This section represents the akme of the rise of Aesop and of the narrative. Next, Aesop decides to travel around the world (101), and his travels, which bring him first to Babylon, provide the link to the next section.
In Babylon, the action begins with Aesop being honored for his intelligence, with King Lycurgus putting him in charge of his administration (101). It is Aesop himself who sends problemata philosophias to other kings (102). Moreover, it is here that Aesop adopts a child, Ainos (in W) or Helios, who, irritated at Aesop for erotic reasons, brings a false accusation against him to the king, who believes him and sentences Aesop to death (104). The relevant functions are now deceit (h) and complicity (q), functions which precede a villainy (A), which in this case is mitigated (B), as Aesop is secretly saved (104), just as in section I. After a while, Lycurgus is given a problem by King Nectanebus of Egypt (105): the construction of a special tower, for which he will pay a great deal of tributes if he is unable to build it. Thus, we have the villainy, A, of yet another villain, a villainy which is here assimilated to a difficult task, M. After his initial despair, the king, whose counselors are unable to help him (B = N neg.), learns that Aesop is alive (107, B = exposure of the villain, Ex) and releases him (K); Helios is punished (punishment, U) and Aesop is reinstated (108, W). Aesop then agrees to resolve the problem (108, C = F) and leaves for Egypt (111, ¡). Once he has arrived, Nectanebus poses the hero two riddles, a kind of difficult task (M), which Aesop resolves successfully (113–115, solution, N). Finally, he also resolves the problem of the tower (116, K = N), together with three other problems (117–118; 119–120; 121–122, M N). Then Aesop returns to Babylon (!), where Lycurgus honors him with a golden statue in the company of the Muses (W).
Section IV has two narrative sequences; in the first of them, the initial villainy is interrupted by another villainy, this time against Lycurgus, in which Aesop, the victimized hero of the previous sequence, after being found alive, becomes the helper of Lycurgus in this second sequence, just as he was with the Samians. The two sequences can be illustrated as follows:
A cursory glance shows the repetition of functions in both sequences, as well as the high frequency of the M–N pairing in this section, which has a strong folk character (e.g. the cruelty of Lycurgus in 106, already mentioned in 104), comparable only to section II.2. It is also clear that the resolution of the prodigy before the Samians (91), the narration of the fable before Croesus in Sardis (99), and the solution of the riddles before Nectanebus (105 ff.) in Egypt are structurally equivalent. Furthermore, the sequences of sections III and IV follow similar structural patterns, with clearly marked and rounded endings.
The basis to this section is the story of the Babylonian counselor Ahikar, which was transmitted both orally and in written form and whose text may date back to the seventh century BC and can be read in a fifth-century-BC Aramaic papyrus (there are comparable characters in Daniel, Joseph, and Mardocheus from the Old Testament and Apollonius in the History of Apollonius, King of Tyre; for his relation to the Life, see Luzzatto 1994; Konstantakos 2008, I 319 ff.; II 403 ff.). The episode, then, has a strong folk character and may have influenced the biography of Aesop from an early stage.
A fresh journey, this time to Delphi, helps link this section to the last section in the novel.
In two speeches at Delphi, Aesop accuses the Delphians of living off the tributes paid by the rest of the Greeks (125–126), something that first angers the Delphians and then the authorities: Aesop is the victim of a conspiracy and is condemned to death (127). However, the narration of the execution is deferred and presented climactically; Aesop twice tries to avoid his death by telling two pairs of fables (the text of the fable of the daughter raped by her father [ch. 141] appears in W), but in this case his eloquence lets him down. A man who has saved Xanthus on numerous occasions, the Samians, and Lycurgus, is now unable to save himself.
From a structural point of view, this episode is different from the rest because of its markedly religious content. At the end of section II, there was already a reference to Apollo’s wrath with Aesop (100), so that we were expecting the god’s punishment, which is usual in these cases. The Life explains the death of Aesop in Delphi by means of the aition of the wrath of Apollo, but in the end, there is a mingling and overlapping of divine punishment and the unholy punishment inflicted by the Delphians which, because it is unholy, will also be punished: the plague suffered by the Delphians and the oracle of Apollo demanding expiation is the text’s two-line clue to this. The later expedition against Delphi is another final aition. Like the ritual pharmakos, in the older version of the story, Aesop was able to die guiltless. In the novel, Apollo is both the instigator and the avenger of his death, which may appear absurd unless we acknowledge there is no distinction between the pharmakos who causes the impurity and the pharmakos of the ritual whose task it is to remove it.4 The text appears to combine an episode of ancient ritual origin with a kind of literary rationalization, of which there are examples in the work of other archaistic second-century-AD authors, such as Xen. Eph. 1.2.1; 3.11.5, and Paus. 7.23.3; 26, 9, etc., the motif of divine wrath being as ancient as Il. 1.1. The truth of the matter is that Aesop’s piety is underlined both at the beginning of the novel, with the priestess of Isis (5–6), and also in the last episode, where Aesop first takes refuge in the temple of the Muses (134) and then invokes Apollo as witness to his unfair death (142). In all of this, there is an insistence on the unholy nature of the Delphians and on the innocence of Aesop: Aesop is finally avenged but, compared to the amplificatio of the narration of his death, these events are hardly mentioned. Indeed, what traditionally may have been a single fable (thus in Calim fragment 192 Pfeiffer; more details in Luzzatto 1988; 1996, 1317; Plut., De Sera, 556f–557a also presents Aesop as innocent) is in this section converted into three pairs of them: one pair before a friend in prison (129–131) and another two pairs before the Delphians.
In certain American folktales, Dundes (1980) has found the following sequence: Interdiction / Violation / Consequence / Attempted Escape; an etiological element can be added at the end of the sequence. Now, the same scheme can be found underlying the Delphi section, which can be symbolized thus:
This fifth section recalls the Sardis section (93) with the presence of fables in the face of death, but the result is different. The presence of the authorities (archontes) is also common to both episodes. As in section II.2, the ending is climactic and closed, and intensified by the punishment of the Delphians. Tragic irony is present here and is strongly bound up with contrast, as we shall show later. All of this confirms the presence of an author.
The events narrated in section V are from the earliest stages of the Aesop biography, as is section II.2. At some point, to this nucleus would be added sections III and IV. The material involved here is traditional in character, transmitted orally and/or in written form, which the author then develops and extends. Sections I and II.1 are the latest and show a predominance of literary material, chiefly from the comic and school tradition. The second block of the plot (sections III, IV, and V) is exactly half as long as the first, which means that the narrative tempo is faster.
The sections of the work tend to be linked by means of on-running threads (I–II; III–IV–V) or juxtaposition (II–III), techniques that are both typical of a literature genuinely oral in origin or which seeks to imitate it. The threading technique is as old as the Odyssey, but can also be found in the Ephesiaca and the Ass, and extends as far as the picaresque novel.
As in the repetition of episodes, functions, and narrative sequences, the recurrence of thematic motifs in the novel is continual, creating a chain of cross-references which lend the work a structure and ideological unity, so that the lexis eiromene frequently employed by the author converts the text into a kind of diegesis eiromene, so to say, a device commonly used in archaic literature. This phenomenon can be seen in both echoes of the same words in nearby episodes and the repetition of ideas and scenes at different stages of the plot, all of which give the text a special narrative rhythm. A few examples are discussed in the following text:
Example I. One of the ideas that underlies the whole of the novel is the discrepancy between appearance and reality. This can be seen in Aesop himself, who is ugly on the outside but who has an inner beauty, all of which is hyperbolically portrayed at the start of the work (Papademetriou 1997; Ruiz-Montero and Sánchez Alacid 2003): his ugliness is alluded to reiteratively in sections I and II, and compared to that of animals or a variety of objects (7; 11; 14; 15; 16; 19; 21; 27; 29; 30; 31; 37; 87; 88); Aesop is dubbed teras in Samos (88) and teras and ainigma in Sardis (98).5 Described by his companions at the beginning as periergos (“meddling”), he will prove to Xanthus that it is possible to be aperiergos in 56–64, although he is killed precisely for being a meddler. The correlation between final scenes and analogous initial ones underlines the work’s unity. Thus, the questions the Delphians ask Aesop about their origins (126) recall Xanthus’ initial interrogation of Aesop about his own origin (25). It is only at the end that we know who Aesop really is; the words of Aesop’s friend in jail (“How could you insult them in their own land and city, being in their hands? What happened to your education [paideia]? And to your learning [philologon]? You have given counsel to cities and peoples but you have been foolhardy when it comes to yourself.” [130]) echo Aesop’s own questions to Xanthus when the latter wishes to commit suicide because of the failure of his philosophy: “Master, what happened to your philosophy? To the pride of your education (paideia)? What happened to your belief in self-control (enkrateia)?” (85). The prudent Aesop has become as vain and imprudent a scholar as Xanthus, something the author shows by means of verbal repetitions. As is the case with Xanthus, Aesop’s philosophy has been of no use to him. His own tongue has been his undoing, rendering him a walking example of his own doctrine, expressed in 54–55. He has become a living paradox. The irony and contrast, both dramatic in origin, are clear here. Like a new Oedipus who resolves all enigmas but that of his own existence, Aesop’s destiny is the answer to the question posed at the very heart of the novel: “Master, is everything possible for the human being?” Xanthus replied: “Who started talking about the human being? What a creature is this, so skilled (panourgos) and able (dynatos) in all things!” (69.2–3). Significantly, the adjective panourgos is later applied to Aesop (122) and to the perfidious behavior of the Delphians (127). As for the verb dynamai, which is especially frequent and significant in the work at the end (128), Aesop himself admits he has no way of saving himself and wonders how, being mortal, he will be able (dynesomai) to elude what awaits him, in such a way that we think of Alexander converted into a philosopher by Ps.-Callisthenes (Ruiz-Montero and Fernández Zambudio 2009).
We remarked earlier that, together with the technique of anticipation, the author works a certain amount of suspense into the telling of his story. These techniques are not, however, as advanced here as in the Greek love novels; the degree of suspense for the audience is here lower, since the material is traditional and largely well known. The surprise is rooted less in the pragmata than in the lexis (logoi); it affects the persona, the protagonist himself, a character omnipresent in the scene, a character in search of his own identity, comparable to the heroes of the Ass and the Metamorphoses of Apuleius. Like Alexander, Aesop is the traditional trickster, the typical seeker of solutions, who becomes a victimized hero. Hence his ambivalence. The metabole from dystychia to eutychia in Sardis is only apparent and transitory, because the latter changes back to dystychia in Delphi. Not completely, however, as there will be a claim that Aesop is innocent and he will be avenged by the gods (Aesop is revived in the comic tradition; see Perry 1952, text 45; Andreassi 2001, 220 ff.; Sanchis Llopis 1996). To the moral (epimytion) of the plot there is thus added an aition (compare Chapter 133 with the epimytion of the fable narrated by Aesop in Arist., Rh. 1393–1394).
Example II. Another constant in the narrative is Aesop’s cunning. A large number of episodes are based on riddles or questions referred to as zetemata, problemata, erotesis, erotemata, or even logoi (119.6), which surface in both the Samos and the Babylon sections. The context for these questions is usually a banquet, in keeping with a tradition that reaches the schools of rhetoric and literature via comedy and philosophy.6 In the Life, there are at least 18 episodes of this kind, which are responses to three basic types of questioning and whose content is divided between etiological tales (33; 67; 68), riddles (25; 35–37; 47–48; 54–55; 77; 78; 113; 115; 120; 121), or inquiries about the human being (56–64; 69; cf. with the theseis of Theon 120), which are also present in the previous types.
We referred earlier to the chreiai, but there are other instances of the author’s use of school material. As instances of progymnasmata, we can cite the etiological diegemata (33; 68), the enkomion and psogos to the tongue (54; 56), the ekphraseis of the two paths (95), and, of course, the fables (mythoi) that are attested to in all three school levels (Cribiore 2001, 205; for mythological material combined with maxims of the Seven Sages, see 208; Theon 73 cites the “Aesopic” fables alongside those of other nations) and are called logoi in the novel, just like the tales and the different speeches, which are all examples of the Muses’ initial gift to Aesop (7). The fable Aesop relates in Sardis (99) is the logoi concerning human fortune sought by Croesus. It should also be noted that, in resolving the prodigy before the assembly at Samos, Aesop acts as an accomplished political orator, delivering three classical-style deliberative speeches, citing kairos as the ability to speak well and the knowledge of when to be silent, after a Gorgian conceit that also appears in the Empire. Aesop thus combines sophia and paideia, as did Xanthus, whose official wisdom he supplants from section IV on. Aesop’s journeys in the last two sections are not just a trace of a traditional motif in the biographies of philosophers, but an echo of the journeys of the Sophists which were so popular in the period (Xanthus disserts before his students in the akroateria [37; 43; 44; 68], in the agora [22.8–9], or in the banquets [44; 47; 51; 55; 68]; the presence of the masses, their shouts, and their exclamations recall contemporary declamation).
The content of the novel has clear links with Plutarch’s Banquet of the Seven Sages, whose degree of archaism has been correctly noted (see Jedrkiewicz 1997, 101–121; Plutarch shows a good knowledge of Aesop, whose fables he cites often, at times providing unique Greek examples). Now, archaism is typical of the Second Sophistic. The importance of paideia in the work, the scholarly origin of the bulk of its material, the links to cultivated authors in the Empire, and the references to different manifestations typical of the Second Sophistic need also to be underlined. The Aesop of the Life embodies several different personalities and traditions: the cunning hero of folklore, the Eastern-style courtly sage, the witty slave of comedy, the parasite who produces laughter in mime, the fabulist of tradition, and the ritual pharmakos.
The text is an instance of the interaction, which was clear in the imperial period, between oral tradition and rhetorical tradition, the latter already a mixed and multifaceted affair, since orality was not just restricted to the material of the work but could be seen in the modes of performance and, possibly, in those of transmission: the importance of the banquet scenes in the Life, the continual play of question and answer and the very delivery of the speeches and fables, all resonate with orality.
Though the Life cannot, it seems, be ascribed to any philosophical “orthodoxy,” the very heterodox character of the work, its bitter moral,7 and its mixture of genres place it within the vicinity of the Cynic tradition, a question that requires further investigation. We do not know what audience or means of transmission the author has in mind, but the work may be linked to the Cynic literature of the empire (a work of entertainment for Cynic circles? See Ruiz-Montero, forthcoming) and should be seen as an important link in the chain of Greek satire, whose history it can illuminate. Precisely because it is part of that tradition, it is risky to jump to chronological conclusions, since the work is flanked by Petronius and Lucian; but neither can it be said that it is closer to Lucian than to Plutarch, an author with whose work it shares important aspects of content and terminology. The ideas expounded in the Life are not those of the pepaideumenoi of Plutarch and Chariton, but it may well have been aimed at a less “popular,” i.e. less uncultivated, audience than has been assumed. The work would appear to broaden the horizons of recipients of the literature of entertainment and to beg the idea that the levels of audience were not so rigid and were more diversified than is traditionally assumed for the reception of the novel.8 The Life of Aesop presents the paradoxes and enigmas of human existence by means of a paradoxical personage, a veritable teras, a monster or living enigma: in this work, Aesop poses the last of his riddles to be resolved. The mixture of seriousness and comedy is a fact in both this Life and ours.
1 The assumption is that of West 1984, who adduces the analogy of the biographical tradition surrounding Homer, though he was to criticize the traditional Volksbuch theory of Zeitz 1936 and others. The theory has been defended more forcefully by Luzzatto 1988 and 1996, who underlines the cultivated character of the Aesop tradition, something to be very much borne in mind.
2 Nojgaard 1964, I, 142 ff.; Holzberg 2003. Adrados 1979, 108 ff. sees the continual agones between Aesop and another character as the basis of composition of the Life, concluding that this is what would give birth to the comic–realist novel.
3 Propp’s methodology has been applied to the Greek love novels by Ruiz-Montero 1988; a reduced English version is in Ruiz-Montero 1981. For the present analysis, I use Ruiz-Montero and Sánchez Alacid 2005.
4 The conclusion of Nagy 1979, 283. He thinks (290 n. 2.1) that the fables show that the Vita is archaic in content, if not in diction, but we shall return to this apparent archaism; he also believes that Chapters 6–7 are early, unlike Wiechers 1960.
5 The fact that in section V there are no allusions to this ugliness, and it appears only in 123 in section IV, implies that the motif was stressed and reinterpreted at a later date. It would seem to be a comic and rhetorical treatment of a theme traditional in philosophy, and exemplified in Socrates.
6 The same terminology and context in Plut., Quaest. Conv., 686c; Conv. sept. sap., 148d; 152c; 156e, etc. We know that the same line of investigation was already being pursued by Arist., Rh.,1394a2; see Schultz 1914; Dörrie 1966; and Cribiore, 2001, 209, for a high level of the rhetorical school. On the zetesis ton griphon, see Athen., 13.448b ff. In 13.565, Diogenes is seeking the sense of hippopornos, a term which appears in Life 32: see Ruiz-Montero 2010. Moreover, the same equivalence of philologoi and philosophoi (cf. 47.1–2 with 68.1–3) can be read in Plut., 776b–779c. It is worth noting that neither philologia nor philologos appears in Lucian.
7 Compare the tone of Babr. I prol. 15–20. Apparently, only Babr. II prol. 2, and Vita 7 and 79.6 use heurema with epsilon. One other coincidence: in II prol. 9–12 Babrius uses the plural poiéseis (the same as griphoi, according to him), as in Life 7.
8 Karla 2009, 23, suggests a listening public which could not read, but does not dismiss the idea of another more cultivated audience. Gallo 1996 classed as “paraliterature” the biographies of Alexander and Segundus, works intended for a popular audience but rhetorical and pseudo-philosophical in inspiration.
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