Aesop novel
The Aesop novel or book of the philosopher Xanthos and his slave Aisopus is an ancient novel that has a legendary tale of the life of the poet Aesop as its content.
content
In the novel, Aesop is a slave of Phrygian origin on the island of Samos . Its owner is the philosopher Xanthos. Aesop is initially mute, but after being kind to a priestess of Isis , the goddess not only loosens his tongue, but gives him the gift of storytelling, which he uses to sometimes help his master and sometimes confuse him and to fool. After the citizens of Samos had dissolved the meaning of a sign, he was released and became the ambassador between the Sami and King Croesus of Lydia . His travels take him to the courts of the imaginary king Lycurgus of Babylon and the last Egyptian pharaoh Nectanebo .
The story ends with Aesop's trip to Delphi and his death: Aesop had made fun of the citizens and priesthood of Delphi, and in revenge a gold bowl from the temple was smuggled into his luggage. When he was about to leave, the bowl was promptly found by tax collectors and Aesop was accused of hierosyly , the robbery of the temple, sentenced to death and thrown from a rock.
The judicial murder takes revenge on the residents of Delphi when an epidemic breaks out there. The Oracle of Delphi finally proclaims that the blood debt must be paid, which is not easy since Aesop had no relatives. Eventually a descendant of the original owner is found and the plague ends.
In the novel, Aesop's verdict seems balanced by the fact that Aesop had previously been guilty of hubris by replacing the image of the leader of the Muses, Apollo, with his own image. With Plutarch he actually did not hand over gifts of Croesus for the citizens of Delphi, but rather sent them back to Sardis because they were neither worthy nor needy of the gifts. He was then tried for temple robbery. The plagues that began after Aesop's execution did not end until two generations later, when Iadmon, a grandson of Aesop's old owner, came to Delphi and was able to take the atonement.
Text transmission
The text of the Aesop novel has come down to us in two pre-Byzantine reviews G and W as well as a Byzantine review Pl edited by Maximos Planudes . Papyrus fragments from the 2nd to 7th centuries have survived, which prove that obscene episodes from the traditional versions G and Pl as well as some codices of Group W were erased. Due to various omissions or insertions in the different versions, it is assumed that Review W is closest to the original version of the novel. It is believed that this is a popular book from the early imperial era. However, the roots of the substances processed in it go back much further.
The edition of the Aesop novel with Aesop's fables in one volume, so that the Aesop novel appears as the introduction to the fables, does not appear until the 11th century and is a characteristic of Byzantine editions.
literature
- Niklas Holzberg (Ed.): The Aesop novel. Motif history and narrative structure (= Classica Monacensia . Vol. 6). With the collaboration of Andreas Beschorner and Stefan Merkle, Narr, Tübingen 1992, ISBN 3-8233-4865-5 .
- Maria Jagoda Luzzatto: Aisop novel. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 1, Metzler, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-476-01471-1 , column 359 f.
- P. Marc: The tradition of the Aesopromant. In: Byzantinische Zeitschrift 19 (1910), pp. 383-421
- Ben E. Perry : Studies in the Text History of the Life and Fables of Aesop. Philological monographs of the American Philological Association 7. Haverford, Penn. 1936
- Anton Wiechers: Aesop in Delphi. Contributions to classical philology 2. Hain, Meisenheim 1961
Web links
- Vita Aesopi - online resources on the Aesop novel
Individual evidence
- ↑ Plutarch moralia 3.556 F, 557 AB