play was first represented, consisted of fifty persons, on the events which preceded it, viz., the "Laius," the from the levelling doctrines of the day. Pollux informs "Edipus," and the "Sphinx." Some critics, how-us, that the tragic chorus, up to the time when this ever, make the last to have been a satyric drama. -3. Hipoai ("The Persians"). This piece is so called because the chorus is composed of aged Persians. The subject is purely an historical one: it is the defeat of the naval armament of Xerxes. This play was performed eight years after the battle of Salamis, and it has been considered by some a defect that so recent an event should have been represented on the stage. But, as Racine has remarked in the preface to Bajazet, distance of place supplies the want of distance of time. The scene is laid at Susa, before the ancient structure appropriated to the great council of state, and near the tomb of Darius. The shade of this monarch comes forth from the sepulchre, for the purpose of counselling Xerxes to cease from the war against a people whom the gods protect. The piece contains great beauties; every instant the trouble of the Persians increases, and the interest augments. By some it has been supposed to have been written with a political intent, the poet endeavouring, by an animated description of the pernicious effects of an obstinate pride, and by filling the spectators with a malignant compassion for the vanquished Xerxes, indirectly disposing them to break off the war which Themistocles wished to prolong. 4. 'Ayauéuvov ("Agamemnon"). This prince, returning from the siege of Troy with his female captive Cassandra, is assassinated by Clytemnestra and Ægisthus. The part of Cassandra, who predicts the woes that are about to fall upon the house of Agamemnon, forms the chief interest of the piece, and is one of the finest that has ever been conceived. The commencement of this tragedy is somewhat languid, but as the play proceeds all is movement and feeling. 5. Xonoópot ("The Choëphora"). This drama is so entitled, because the chorus, composed of female Trojan captives, slaves of Clytemnestra, are charged with the office of bringing the liquor for making libations at the tomb of Agamemnon (xon, a libation, and pépw, to bring). The subject of the piece is Orestes avenging the death of Agamemnon on Clytemnestra and her paramour. When this horrible deed has been accomplished, the parricide is delivered over to the Furies, who disturb his reason. "The spirit of Eschylus," observes Potter, "shines through this tragedy; but a certain softening of grief hangs over it, and gives it an air of solemn magnificence." The characters of Orestes and Electra are finely supported.-6. Evμévides (“The Eumenides,” or "Furies"). This play derives its name from the circumstance of the chorus being composed of Furies who pursue Orestes. The latter pleads his cause before the Areopagus, and is acquitted by the vote of Minerva. This drama is remarkable for its violation of the unity of place, the scene being first laid at Delphi and afterward at Athens. Müller has written a very able work on the scope and character of this production, in which he discusses incidentally some of the most important points connected with the Greek drama. As regards the object which the poet had in view when composing the piece, he considers it to be a political one. Eschylus was a zealous partisan of Aristides, and opponent of Themistocles, and evident symptoms of this partiality are to be found in some of his plays. As an Athenian citizen and patriot, the poet on every occasion recommends to his countrymen temperance and moderation in their enjoyment of democratic liberty, and in their ambitious schemes against ESCULAPIUS, son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis, the rest of Greece. The party of Themistocles had and god of the healing art. Pausanias (2, 26) gives made themselves obnoxious, in these respects, to the three different accounts of his origin, on which our limpatriotic feelings of Eschylus; and a demagogue its forbid us to dwell. The one of these that has been named Ephialtes, having attacked the authority of the followed by Ovid makes Coronis to have been unfaithvenerable court of the Areopagus, the poet in this play ful to Apollo, and to have been, in consequence, put to of the Eumenides appeared in its defence, and strove death by him, the offspring of her womb having been to save this excellent institution, though ineffectually, | first taken from her and spared. Apollo received the ness. ESCULAPIUS In all these different points of view. information respecting the unfaithfulness of Coronis. | same idea. He is the sun, without strength at the from a raven, and the angry deity is said by Apollodo- close of autumn. rus to have changed the colour of the raven from white we find Esculapius corresponding to the Egyptian dito black, as a punishment for his unwelcome officious-vinities; to Horus, to Harpocrates, to Sem, and to the As Coronis, in Greek, signifies a crow, hence god of the earth, Serapis. Egypt was always famed another fable arose that Esculapius had sprung from for the knowledge possessed by its priests of the healan egg of that bird, under the figure of a serpent. The ing art; and it always represented its great deities, the first of the accounts given by Pausanias makes the symbols of the power of nature, as endued with a healbirthplace of Esculapius to have been on the borders ing influence. (Creuzer's Symbolik, par Guigniaut, of the Epidaurian territory; the second lays the scene vol. 2, p. 337 and 170, seqq.) Isis receives, in inin Thessaly; the third in Messenia. Esculapius was scriptions, the epithet of "salutary." (Gruter, p. 83. placed, at an early age, under the care of the centaur-Fabrett., p. 470.-Reines, col. 1, n. 132.) Serapis, Chiron. Being of a quick and lively genius, he made whose name frequently occurs by the side of that of his such progress as soon to become not only a great phy-spouse, had, at Canopus, a city already famous by its sician, but at length to be reckoned the god and invent- temple of Hercules, a sanctuary no less renowed for or of medicine, though the Greeks, not very careful of the wonderful cures performed within it, and of which consistency in the history of those early ages, gave to a register was carefully preserved. (Strabo, 801.Apis, son of Phoroneus, the glory of having invented Compare Creuzer, Dionys., 1, p. 122, and Guigniaut's the healing art. Esculapius accompanied Jason in dissertation on the god Serapis, "Sur le Dieu Serapis his expedition to Colchis, and in his medical capacity et son origine," p. 20 and 22.) Both of these diviniwas of great service to the Argonauts. He married ties, in the scenes figured on the monuments, bear ser Epione, whom some call Lampetia, by whom he had pents, or agathodemons, as the emblems of health two sons, Machaon and Podalirius, and four daughters, they carry also the chalice, or salutary cup of nature, Hygiea, Egle, Panacea, and Iaso, of whom Hygiea, surrounded by serpents, and which formed, perhaps, the goddess of health, was the most celebrated. In the fab- most ancient idol connected with their worship. (Creuulous traditions of antiquity, Esculapius is said to have zer's Symbolik, par Guigniaut, vol. 1, p. 818, seqq.) restored many to life. According to Apollodorus (3, One thing at least is certain, that these sacred ser10, 3), he received from Minerva the blood that flow-pents were nourished in their temples as living images ed from the veins of Medusa, and with that which pro- of these deities of health. (Guigmaut's Serapis, p. ceeded from the veins on the left, he operated to the 19, seqq.) The nurture of these national fetichs condestruction of men, while he used that which was ob- sisted in cakes of honey, and such was also the food In fact, the god of tained from the veins on the right for the benefit of of the serpents consecrated to the powers beneath the his fellow-creatures. (Compare Heyne, ad Apollod., earth, the divinities of the dead. 1. c.) With this last he brought back to the light of medicine is, at the same time, a telluric power; and Escuday Capaneus and Lycurgus, according to some, or it is he that causes the mineral waters, the sources of Eriphyle and Hippolytus according to others, or, as health, to spring from the bosom of the earth. other ancient authorities state, Hymenæus, and Glau- lapius, then, is identical, in his essence, with the Cacus the son of Minos. Jupiter, alarmed at this, and nopic Serapis: like him, he has for a symbol a vase fearing, says Apollodorus, lest men, being put in pos- surrounded by serpents, and he was originally this session of the means of triumphing over death, might same vase, the sacred Canopus. (Compare Creuzer, It is curious to observe the cease to render honour to the gods, struck Esculapius Dionys., p. 220.-Symbolik, par Guigniaut, vol. 1, p. with thunder. The common account makes this to 415 and 818, seqq.) Apollo, strong analogy that exists between the Oriental worhave been done on the complaint of Pluto. enraged at the loss of his son, destroyed the Cyclopes ship of Serapis, and the Grecian ideas, rites, and usawho had forged the thunderbolts of Jove, for which ges in the case of Esculapius. At Egium, in Achaia, offence the monarch of the skies was about to hurl near the ancient temple of Ilithyia, were to be seen the him into Tartarus, but, on the supplication of Latona, statues of the god and goddess of health, Asclepius banished him for a season from Olympus, and compel- (ÆEsculapius) and Hygiea. (Pausan., 7, 23.) At Tiled him to serve with a mortal (vid. Admetus and tane, a city of Sicyonia, the first settler of which was, Amphrysus). Thus far we have traced the Greek ac- according to tradition, Titon, brother of the Sun, Alexcounts respecting Esculapius. If, however, a careful anor, the son of Machaon and grandson of Esculapius, inquiry be instituted, the result will be a decided con- had erected a temple to this deity. His statue, at this viction that the legend of Esculapius is one of Orient-place, was almost entirely enveloped in a tunic of white al origin. According to Sanchoniathon, Esculapius was the same with the Phoenician Esmun, the son of Sydyk, called "the just," and the brother of the seven Cabiri. (Sanchon., Frag., ap. Euseb., Præp. Evang., Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 13.) Hence P. 39. the meaning of Esmun, which signifies "the eighth." (Compare the Schmoun, or Mendes, of Egypt.) The seven Cabiri are the seven planets; and, in the Egyptian mythology, Phtha is added to them as the eighth. Phtha and Esculapius, then, are identical, and the latter, like the former, though added to the number of the Cabiri, becomes in a mysterious sense their parent and guide. (Creuzer's Symbolik, vol. 2, p. 285 and 336.) In Esmun-Esculapius, then, we have a solar deity, personified in his beauty and his weakness, for he is the same with the youth of Berytus, who mutilated himself and was placed in the number of the gods, and in this quality he receives the name of Pæan or Pæon, "the physician." He becomes identified also with the beauteous Apollo, for whose son he passes among the Greeks; while, as a mutilated deity, he is the same with the Phrygian Atys, the fair Adonis, and the chained Hercules of the Tyrians, all varied forms of the wool, with a mantle thrown over it, so that the face, 59 its walls the most sacred mysteries. (Pausan, 3, 22. The statue of Hygiea, at Egium in Achaia, could only be viewed by the priests. (Pausan., 7, 24.) No female was allowed to be delivered, and no sick persons were permitted to die, within the environs of the temple at Epidaurus. (Pausan., 2, 27.) The temple at Tithorea was surrounded by a hedge, in the vicinity of which no edifice could be erected. The hedge was forty stadia from the building itself. (Pausan., 10, 32.) Most of these temples stood in healthy situations. That of Cyllene, for example, was situate on Cape Hyrmine, in one of the most fertile and smiling countries in the Peloponnesus; while that of Epidaurus, erected, like the former, in the immediate neighbourhood of the sea, was surrounded by hills covered with the thick foliage of groves. (Pausan., 2, 27. - Compare Villoison, Prolegom., p. LIII., and Chandler's Travels, ch. 53, p. 223.) Others again were built near rivers, or in the vicinity of mineral springs; and it would appear from Xenophon (Mem., 3, 13), that the temple of Esculapius at Athens contained within it a source of warm water. The worship rendered to Esculapius had for its object the occupying the imagination of the sick by the ceremonies of which they were witnesses, and the exciting them to a sufficient degree in order to produce the desired result. For an account of these ceremonies, and the mode of curing that was generally adopt temple at Epidaurus for the purpose of sleeping therein, and recovering health by the means which the god of health would indicate in a dream to the invalids. (Compare Sprengel, Gesch. der Medicin., vol. 1, p. 107, seqq.) The ancient Esculapius, introduced at an early period into the religion of Samothrace, appeared at first in Greece under a form closely assimilated to that of the vase-gods, dwarfs, or pigmies, that were accustomed to be enveloped in garments, and to which was attributed a magic influence. (Creuzer's Symbolik, par Guigniaut, vol. 2, p. 310, seqq.) In these mysterious idols, the richness of hidden meaning was as great as the mode of decking the exterior was whimsical. The spirit of the old Pelasgic belief would seem, however, to have been continually employed in decomposing, as it were, this body of ideas united in one particular symbol, and in individualizing each for itself. It was thus that, by degrees, there arose round the god of medicine a cortége of genii, of both sexes, regarded either as his wives, or as his sons and daugh- | ters, or even as his grandchildren. In the sculptured representations of Esculapius, to which the development of Grecian art had subsequently given birth, we find the figure of Jove, a little modified, becoming the model of this deity.. And yet, though the Grecian perception of the beautiful led them to deviate, in general, from the grosser representations of the Pelasgic worship, we find them, in the present case, still re-ed, consult Sprengel, Hist. de la Medicine, vol. 1, p. taining an attachment for the ancient, and, at the same time, more significant and mysterious images. Hence, by the side of the new deity is placed one of his personified attributes, under the figure of an enveloped dwarf. In every quarter, where the Asclepiades (vid. that article) taught the principles of the healing art, or cured diseases in the temples of their master and reputed father, Esculapius and his good genii were celebrated as saving divinities, on votive tablets, inscriptions, medals, and gems. The Romans, too, in the year of their city 461, in order to be delivered from a pestilence, sent a solemn embassy to Epidaurus to obtain the sacred serpent nourished at that place in the temple of Esculapius. A temple was likewise erected to this deity on an island in the Tiber, where the sacred reptile had disappeared among the reeds. (Val. Max., 1, 8, 2.) Not content with this, however, they resolved to have also a family of Asclepiades, and they pretended to have found it in the house of Acilius.The principal and most ancient temples of Esculapius ('Aoλícia), were those at Titane in Sicyonia (Pausan., 2, 11); at Tricca in Thessaly (Strabo, 438); at Tithorea in Phocis, where he was revered under the name of Archegetes (Pausan., 10, 32); at Epidaurus (Pausan., 2, 26); in the island of Cos (Strabo, 657); at Megalopolis (Pausan., 8, 32); at Cyllene in Elis (Pausan., 6, 26); and at Pergamus in Asia Minor (Pausan., 2, 26). Among all these temples, that of Epidaurus was at first the most celebrated, for it was from this city that the worship of Esculapius was carried into Sicyonia, and also to Pergamus and Cyllene. 'Pausan., 2, 10.) It appears, however, that the temple of Cos became in time the most famous of all, since the Epidaurians, on one occasion, sent deputies thither. (Pausan., 3, 23.) At a more recent period, Egea, in Cilicia, could boast of a temple of Esculapius which was held in high repute. It was here that Apollonius of Tyana practised many of his impostures. (Philostr., Vit. Apollon., 1, 7.) Constantine destroyed this temple in his zeal for Christianity. (Euseb., Vit. Constant., ed. Reading, 3, 56.) Almost all these edifices were regarded as sanctuaries, which none of the profane could approach except after repeated purifications. Epidaurus was called the sacred country (Pausan., 2. 26), a name which also appears on its medals. (Eckhel, Doctr. Num. Vet., vol. 2, p. 290. Villonson, Prolegom., p. LII.) The temple at Asopus took the appellation of Hyperteleaton, as if it concealed within - 154, seqq.-Esculapius was sometimes represented either standing, or sitting on a throne, holding in one hand a staff, and grasping with the other the head of a serpent: at his feet a dog lay extended. (Pausan., 2, 27. Compare Montfaucon, Antiquité expliq., vol. 1, pt. 2, pl. 187, 188.) At Corinth, Megalopolis, and Ladon, the god was represented under the form of an infant, or rather, perhaps, a dwarf, holding in one hand a sceptre, and in the other a pine-cone. (Pausan., 2, 10.) Most generally, however, he appeared as an old man with a flowing beard. (Pausan., 10, 32.) On some ancient monuments we see him with one hand applied to his beard, and having in the other a knotted staff encircled by a serpent. (Minucius Felix, ed. Elmenhorst., p. 14.) He oftentimes bears a crown of laurel (Antichita d'Ercol., vol. 5, p. 264, 271.—Maffei, Gemm. ant., 2, n. 55), while at his feet are placed, on one side, a cock, and, on the other, the head of a ram ; on other occasions, a vulture or an owl. Frequently a vase of circular form is seen below his statues (Eriz20, Discorso, &c., p. 620), or, according to others, a serpent coiled up. (Buonarotti, Osservazioni, &c., p. 201.) At other times he has his body encircled by an enormous serpent. (Theodoret. affect. curat. disp.Op., ed. Shulze, vol. 4 and 8, p. 906.) Among all the symbols with which Esculapius is adorned, the serpent plays the principal part. The gems, medals, and other monuments of antiquity connected with the worship of this deity, most commonly bear such an emblem upon them. (Spanheim, Epist. 4, ad Morell., p. 217, 218, ed. Lips., 1695.-Compare Knight's Inquiry into the Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology, § 25.-Class. Journ., vol. 23, p. 13.) ESEPUS, a river of Mysia, in Asia Minor, rising in Mount Cotylus, and falling, after a course of 500 stadia, into the Propontis, to the east of the Granicus. Strabo (582) conceives, that Homer extended the boundaries of Priam's kingdom to this river. Chishull (Travels in Turkey, p. 59) makes the modern name to be the Boklu, but Gossellin gives it as the Sataldere (French Strabo, vol. 4, p. 187, not.) ESERNIA, a city of Samnium, in the northern part of the country, and not far from the western confines. It was situate about twelve miles northwest of Bovianum, and is mentioned by Livy (Epit., 16) as having been colonized about the beginning of the first Punic war. The same writer (27, 10) speaks of it as one of those colonies which distinguished themselves by ESOPUS. their firm adherence to the Roman power during the war with Hannibal. It was subsequently recolonized by Augustus and Nero (Front., de Col), but Strabo (239 and 249) makes it a very inconsiderable place, The having suffered materially in the Marsic war. modern Isernia is supposed to represent Æsernia. ÆSION. Vid. Supplement. ESON, son of Cretheus and Tyro. He succeeded his father in the kingdom of Iolchos, but was deÆson became the throned by his half-brother Pelias. father, by Alcimede, of the celebrated Jason, the leader of the Argonauts. Through fear of the usurper, Jason was intrusted to the care of the centaur Chiron, and brought up at a distance from the court of Pelias. On his arriving at manhood, however, he came to Iolchos, according to one account, to claim his inheritance; but, according to another, he was invited by Pelias to attend a sacrifice to Neptune on the seashore. The result of the interview, whatever may have been the cause of it, was an order from Pelias to go in quest of the golden fleece. (Vid. Jason.) During the absence of Jason on this well-known expedition, the tyranny of Pelias, according to one version of the story, drove Eson and Alcimedes to self-destruction; an act of cruelty, to which he was prompted by intelligence having been received that all the Argonauts had perished, and by a consequent wish on his part to make himself doubly secure, by destroying the parents of Jason. He put to death also their remaining child. (Apollod., 1, 9, 16, seqq.-Diod. Sic., 4, 50.-Hygın., 24.) Ovid, however, gives quite a different account of the latter days of Eson. According to the poet (Met., 7, 297, seqq.), Jason, on his return with Medea, found his father son still alive, but enfeebled by age; and the Colchian enchantress, by drawing the blood from his veins and then filling them with the juices of certain herbs which she had gathered for the purpose, restored The daughters of him to a manhood of forty years. Pelias having entreated Medea to perform the same operation on their aged father, she embraced this opportunity of avenging the wrongs inflicted on Jason and his parents by the death of the usurper. (Vid. Pelias.) his name was rendered peculiarly famous. The rep The utation for wisdom which he enjoyed, induced Crosus, king of Lydia, to invite him to his court. At the period fabulist obeyed the call, but, after residing some time at Sardis, again journeyed into Greece. of his second visit, the Athenians are said to have been oppressed by the usurpation of Pisistratus, and to console them under this state of things, Esop is related to have invented for them the fable of the frogs petitioning Jupiter for a king. The residence of Esop in Greece at this time would seem to have been a long one, if any argument for such an opinion may be drawn from a line of Phædrus (3, 14), in which the epithet of senex is applied to the fabulist during the period of this his stay at Athens. He returned, however, eventually to the court of the Lydian monarch. Whether the well-known conversation between Esop and Solon occurred after the return of the former from his second journey into Greece, or during his previous residence with Croesus, cannot be satisfactorily ascertained: the latter opinion is most probably the more correct one, if we can believe that the interview between Solon and Croesus, as mentioned by Herodotus (1, 30, seqq.), ever took place. It seems that Solon had offended Croesus by the low estimation in which he held riches as an ingredient of happiness, and was, in consequence, treated with cold indifference. (Herod., 1, 33.) Esop, concerned at the unkind treatment which Solon had encountered, gave him the following advice: "A wise man should resolve either not to converse with kings at all, or to converse with them agreeably." To which Solon replied, "Nay, he should either not converse with them at all, or converse with them usefully." (Plut., Vit. Sol., 28.) The particulars of Esop's death are stated as follows by Plutarch (de sera numinis vindicta, p. 556.-Op., ed. Reiske, vol. 8, p. 203). Croesus sent him to Delphi with a large amount of gold, in order to offer a magnificent sacrifice to Apollo, and also to present four mine to each inhabitant of the sacred city. Having had some difference, however, with the people of Delphi, he offered the sacrifice, but sent back the money to Sardis, regarding the intended objects of the king's bounty as totally unworthy of it. The irritated Delphians, with one accord, accused him of sacrilege, and ESÕPUS, I. a celebrated fabulist, who is supposed he was thrown down the rock Hyampea. (Larcher, Hist. makes him to have been hurled from the rocks called to have flourished about 620 B.C. d'Herod., Table Chronol., vol. 7, p. 539.) Much un- Phædriades, but the remark is an erroneous one, since certainty, however, prevails both on this point, as well these rocks were too far from Delphi, and the one from as in relation to the country that gave him birth. which he was thrown was, according to Lucian, in the Some ancient writers make him to have been a Thra- neighbourhood of that city. (Phalaris prior.-Op., cian. (Compare Mohnike, Gesch. Lat. Gr. und R., ed. Bp., vol. 5, p. 46.-Compare Larcher, Hist. d' Hevol. 1, p. 291.) Suidas states that he was either of rod., vol. 7, p. 539.) Apollo, offended at this deed, Samos or Sardis; but most authorities are in favour sent all kinds of maladies upon the Delphians, who, in of his having been a Phrygian, and born at Cotyæum. order to free themselves, caused proclamations to be All appear to agree, however, in representing him as made at all the great celebrations of Greece, that if of servile origin, and owned in succession by several there was any one entitled so to do, who would demasters. The first of these was Demarchus, or, ac- mand satisfaction from them for the death of Esop, cording to the reading of the Florence MS., Timar- they would render it unto him. In the third generachus, who resided at Athens, where Esop, conse- tion came a Samian, named Iadmon, a descendant of quently, must have had many means of improvement one of the former masters of the fabulist, and the Delwithin his reach. From Demarchus he came into the phians, having made atonement, were delivered from And we are also inpossession of Xanthus, a Samian, who sold him to the evils under which they had been suffering. Such Jadmon, a philosopher of the same island, under whose is the narrative of Plutarch. roof he had for a fellow-slave the famous courtesan formed, that, to evince the sincerity of their repentIadmon subsequently ance, they transferred the punishment of sacrilege, for Rhodope. (Herod., 2, 134.) gave him his freedom, on account of the talents which the time to come, from the rock Hyampea to that he displayed, and Esop now turned his attention to named Nauplia. Other accounts, however, inform us, foreign travel, partly to extend the sphere of his own that Æsop offended the people of Delphi by compaknowledge, and partly to communicate instruction to ring them to floating sticks, which appear at a disothers. The vehicles in which this instruction was tance to be something great, but, on a near approach, conveyed were fables, the peculiar excellence of which dwindle away into insignificance, and that he was achas caused his name to be associated with this pleas-cused, in consequence, of having carried off one of the ing branch of composition through every succeeding period. Æsop is said to have visited Persia, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Greece, in the last of which countries ESONIDES, a patronymic of Jason, as being descended from Æson. Suidas vases consecrated to Apollo. The scholiast on Aristophanes (Vesp., 1486) informs us, that Esop had ir. ritated the Delphians by remarking of them, that they 61 an imitation of some of those ascribed to sop, and that they in no respect bear the marks of an Arabian invention. (Compare the observations of Erpenius, in the preface to his edition of Lokman, 1615.)-With respect to the person of Esop, it has been generally supposed that the statement of Planudes, which makes him to have been exceedingly deformed, his head of a conical shape, his belly protuberant, his limbs distorted, &c., was unworthy of credit. Visconti, however, supports the assertions of Planudes in this particular, from the remains of ancient sculpture. (Iconografia Greca, vol. 1, p. 155.) The best editions of Esop are the following: that of Heusinger, Lips., 1741, 8vo; that of Ernesti, Lips., 1781, 8vo; that of Coray, Paris, 1810, 8vo; and that of De Furia, Lips., 1810, 8vo.-II. An eminent Roman tragedian, and the most formidable rival of the celebrated Roscius, though in a different line. Hence Quintilian (11, 3) remarks, "Roscius citatior, Esopus gravior fuit, quod ille comadias, hic tragadias egit." His surname was Clodius, probably from his being a freedman of the Clodian or Claudian family. He is supposed to have been born in the first half of the seventh century of Rome, since Cicero, in a letter written A.U.C. 699 (Ep. ad Fam., 7, 1), speaks of him as advanced in years. Some idea of the energy with which he acted his parts on the stage may be formed from the anecdote related by Plutarch (Vit. Cic., 5), who informs us, that on one occasion, as Esopus was performing the part of Atreus, at the moment when he is meditating vengeance, he gave so violent a blow with his sceptre to a slave who approached, as to strike him lifeless to the earth. A circumstance mentioned by Valerius Maximus (8, 10, 2) shows with what care Esopus and Roscius studied the characters which they represented on the stage. Whenever a cause of any importance was to be tried, and an orator of any eminence was to plead therein, these two actors were accustomed to mix with the spectators, and carefully observe the movements of the speakers as well as the expression of their countenances. Esopus, like Roscius, lived in great intimacy with Cicero, as may be seen in various passages in the correspondence of the latter. He appeared for the last time in public on the day when the theatre of Pompey was dedicated. A.U.C. 699, but his physical powers were unequal to the effort, and his voice failed him at the very beginning of an adjuration, “Si sciens fallo." (Čic., Ep. ad Fam., 7, 1.) He amassed a very large fortune, which his son squandered in a career of the most ridiculous extravagance. It is this son of whom Horace (Sat., 2, 3, 239) relates, that he dissolved a costly pearl in vinegar, and drank it off. Compare the statement of Pliny (9, 59)-III. An engraver, most probably of Sigæum. The time when he lived is uncertain. In connection with some brother-artist, he made a large cup, with a stand and strainer, dedicated by Phanodicus, son of Hermocrates, in the Prytaneum at Sigæum. (Consult the remarks of Hermann, über Bockh's Behandlung der Griech. Inschrift., p. 216–219.)— IV. Vid. Supplement. Lad no land, like other people, on the produce of which to support themselves, but were compelled to depend for subsistence on the remains of the sacrifices. Determined to be revenged on him, they concealed a consecrated cup amid his baggage, and, when he was some distance from their city, pursued and arrested him. The production of the cup sealed his fate, and he was thrown from the rock Hyampea, as already mentioned. As they were leading him away to execution, he is said to have recited to them the fable of the eagle and beetle, but without producing any effect. The memory of Esop was highly-honoured throughout Greece, and the Athenians erected a statue to him (Phedrus, 2, Epil., 2, seqq.), the work of the celebrated Lysippus, which was placed opposite those of the seven sages. It must be candidly confessed, however, that little, if anything, is known with certainty respecting the life of the fabulist, and what we have thus detailed of him appears to rest on little more than mere tradition, and the life which Planudes, a monk of the fourteenth century, is supposed to have given to the world; a piece of biography possessing few intrinsic claims to our belief. Hence some writers have doubted whether such an individual as Esop ever existed. (Compare Visconti, Iconografia Greca, vol. 1, p. 154, where the common opinion is advocated.) But, whatever we may think on this head, one point at least is certain, that none of the fables which at present go under the name of Esop were ever written by him. They appear to have been preserved for a long time in oral tradition, and only collected and reduced to writing at a comparatively late period. Plato (Phædon. -Op., pt. 2, vol. 3, p. 9, ed. Bekker) informs us, that Socrates amused himself in prison, towards the close of his life, with versifying some of these fables. (Compare Plut., de Aud. Poet., p. 16, c., and Wyttenbach, ad loc.) His example found numerous imitators. A collection of the fables of Esop, as they were called, was also made by Demetrius Phalereus (Diog. Laert., 5, 80), and another, between 150 and 50 B.C., by a certain Babrius. (Compare Tyrwhitt, Dissert. de Babrio, Lond., 1776, 8vo.) The former of these was probably in prose; the latter was in choliambic verse (vid. Babrius). But the bad taste of the grammarians, in a subsequent age, destroyed the metrical form of the fables of Babrius, and reduced them to prose. To them we owe the loss of a large portion of this collection. Various collections of sopian fables have reached our times, among which six have attained to a certain degree of celebrity. Of these the most ancient is not older than the thirteenth century; the author is unknown. It is called the collection of Florence, and contains one hundred and ninety-nine fables, together with a puerile life of the fabulist by Planudes, a Greek monk of the fourteenth century. The second collection was made by an unknown hand in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The monk Planudes formed the third collection. The fourth, called the Heidelberg collection, together with the fifth and sixth, styled, the former the Augsburg collection, the latter that of the Vatican, are the work of anonymous compilers. These last three contain ÆSTI, a nation of Germany, dwelling along the many of the fables of Babrius reduced to bad prose. southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea. Hence the Besides the collections which have just been enumer- origin of their name, from the Teutonic Est, "east," ated, we possess one of a character totally distinct as indicating a community dwelling in the eastern part from the rest. It is a Greek translation, executed in of Germany. (Compare the English Essex, i. e., the fifteenth century by Michael Andreopulus, from a Æstsexia.) They carried on a traffic in amber, which Syriac original, which would appear itself to have been was found in great abundance along their shores. nothing more than a translation from the Greek, by a This circumstance alone would lead us to place them Persian named Syntifa. (Schöll, Hist. Lat. Gr., vol. in a part of modern Prussia, in the country probably 1, p. 253.)-As regards the question, whether the fa- beyond Dantzic. Tacitus calls their position "the bles of the Arabian Lokman have served as a proto- right side of the Suevic" or Baltic "Sea." It is incortype for those of Esop, or otherwise, it may be re-rect to assign them to modern Esthonia. Either this marked, that, in the opinion of De Sacy (Biographie Universelle, vol. 24, p. 631, s. v. Lokman), the apologues of the Arabian fabulist are nothing more than last is a general name for any country lying to the east, or else the Esthians of Esthonia came originally from what is now Prussia. The Estii worshipped |