socrates and aesop in plato’s phaedo

Socrates and Aesop in Plato’s Phaedo

MARK L. MCPHERRAN

Department of PhilosophySimon Fraser University8888 University Drive

Burnaby, B.C.Canada, V5A 1S6

Office: 778-782-3343Fax: 778-782-4443

Email: [email protected]

I begin with a famous scene from the end of the Apology. Starting off atApology 40c, Socrates attempts to console the ‘friendly jurors’ that death isnot to be feared on the grounds that it is good. It is good because atdeath, the soul either enters a state akin to eternal dreamless sleep or, ifcertain ta legomena are true, death results in Socrates’ soul migrating intoa Hades, where his soul can interrogate the great and famous dead forever,without fear of any further fines or death penalties. Death appears to re-sult in Socrates returning to an underworld agora for no divine revela-tions, but merely the rewards of more elenctic philosophizing. He will findthere, at least, a more high-class set of interlocutors, including Orpheus,Museus, Hesiod and Homer, to name a few. This outcome, he affirms,would be an ‘inconceivable happiness’ (Apology 41c). Moreover, apart fromapplying his method to the claims of such gigantic figures, he also imagineshaving pleasurable conversations with others who are just as famous, there-by allowing him to compare his unjust verdict and fate with the varioussimilar injustices these men have suffered; for example, Ajax and Pala-medes (Ap 41a–b).1

So, then, let us take this last observation to establish the likelihoodthat in his last days in prison, Socrates was in a mood to compare his fateto those famous figures from the past who suffered in ways comparable tohimself. What, then, does it allow us to say about the opening pages of

apeiron, vol. 45, pp. 50–60©Walter de Gruyter 2012 DOI 10.1515/apeiron-2011-0010

1 Ajax was driven mad by the injustice he suffered when he was cheated of the armorof Achilles in a competition with Odysseus. He consequently committed suicide. Pa-lamedes was stoned to death after Achilles hid gold in his tent and had him accusedof treason on the basis of a forged letter.

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the Phaedo? I think this means that when Socrates interprets the famousdream that commands him to make poetry as possibly not just encoura-ging him to keep on philosophizing, but as also commanding him to makepopular poetry, since he is ‘no myth maker himself’ (Phaedo 61b), he willpick on an author to versify, whose works he knows and admires for theirwisdom-bearing substance. After all, we are told that Socrates knows thetales of Aesop ‘by heart’, and so this may seem like the natural explanationfor his attraction to such stories (Phd 61b). However, more importantly –and in line with my observations from the Apology – he will choose anauthor whose fate is strikingly similar to his own (Phd 60c–61b). Thus,Socrates will put into verse the fables of Aesop. We shall discuss moreabout this in a moment. For now, let us take note of the fact that Socrateshas not chosen a lightweight; Aesop’s fables have stood the test of time, sothat even now as we speak, his ‘sour grapes’ still applies when people failto obtain some desired good and so downgrade that good. Why, there wasonce even a series of cartoons entitled ‘Aesop and Son’ on the Bullwinkleand His Friends TV show (you may go to YouTube and enjoy).

For the details of Aesop’s life, we have the Life of Aesop, a narrativedating from the first century CE, but which draws on a tradition thatdates back at least as far as 500 BCE. This is a tradition that both Socratesand Plato may well have been acquainted with. However, since the oldestversion of the Life (somewhere in the first century CE) antedated Plato’slife by so many years, we cannot say with confidence that Plato was awareof it. ‘There is contemporary evidence, however, that Aesop’s story wasknown at the time Plato was writing. Aesop is mentioned in Herodotus’Histories ii 134.1-4, and in such a way that it is clear that Aesop wasreasonably well known and that Herodotus believed that Aesop had actu-ally existed,’ (Clayton 2008, 315). I am indebted to Clayton 2008, 315–317, and The Life of Aesop, Translated by Sir Roger L’Estrange, http://aesopus.web.fc2.com/table/Life.html for my account of Aesop’s life. Notetoo that Aristophanes’ play, Wasps (1446–1449), refers to the accusationof theft made by the Delphians against Aesop in such a way as to suggestthat the story is familiar to his audience. Moreover, one of his charactersin Birds (471–475)holds that another character who has not read Aesop isignorant. Finally, Aristotle is aware of the name of Aesop’s master,Xanthus, in the Constitution of the Samians (Fr 573 Rose) and even refersto Aesop’s death in the Constitution of the Delphians (Fr 487 Rose). Thus,we may conclude that Socrates and Plato knew of the Life of Aesop insome form (written or oral) especially given the many similarities we canfind between Aesop in Life and Socrates in Phaedo.

Aesop is presented in Life as resembling Socrates physically. He wassnub-nosed, hunch-backed, big-lipped, potbellied, and bandy-legged with along, misshapen head, who was generally ugly to behold; he was also cleverjust like Socrates. However, unlike Socrates, he was a slave who was mute.

Socrates and Aesop in Plato’s Phaedo 51



By employing his cleverness—despite his inability to speak—he performeda service for a priestess of the goddess Isis, helping her to return to theroad after she had become lost. Later, while Aesop napped, the priestesscalled on Isis to reward Aesop with great wealth, or to at least grant himthe power of speech. Isis and the nine Muses then appeared before thesleeping Aesop. Isis removed the impediment that prevented Aesop fromspeaking and ‘persuade[d] the Muses as well to confer on him each some-thing of her own endowment. They conferred on him the power to devisestories and the ability to conceive and elaborate tales in Greek’, which wasnot his native tongue, since he was a Phrygian (Life of Aesop 7).

When his overseer learned that Aesop could speak, he became afraidbecause Aesop might then report his cruel treatment to their owner, andso he sold him to a slave trader for almost nothing. The slave trader thensold Aesop, again for almost nothing, to the philosopher Xanthus. Thelongest section of the Life portrays Aesop’s time in Xanthus’ service, andhere Aesop repeatedly demonstrated his intellectual superiority toXanthus, despite the latter’s own self-estimates and the fact that he was aphilosopher by training. Socrates thus remains true to form by picking ona somewhat genuine ‘philosopher’, as opposed to a fake one, to providethe substance of his versifying.

Although Aesop often made Xanthus look foolish, he also providedassistance to Xanthus in his bid to escape a number of problems thatemerged because of his lack of intelligence and practical wisdom, with theconstant goal of obtaining his own freedom. Finally, when Xanthusneeded Aesop to interpret an omen for the people of Samos, Aesop forcedXanthus to free him. The omen signified that Croesus, king of the Ly-dians, intended to conquer the Samians. Here, Aesop employed his practi-cal intelligence to get Croesus to make peace instead. For this, the Samianshonored Aesop who, in turn, built a shrine to the Muses in acknowledg-ment of his debt to them; however, the shrine did not include a sectionfor Apollo, which turned out to be a fatal move. Here, recall that Socratestoo is skilled at the interpretation of oracles, particularly the one providedby Apollo, but unlike Aesop he honors and serves Apollo.

After some years Aesop, decided to travel and give lectures to audi-ences for a fee. His travels eventually brought him to Babylon, where Ly-curgus was king. He served Lycurgus as an advisor and adopted a son, whobetrayed him and eventually had Aesop sentenced to death. The man as-signed to execute Aesop secretly imprisoned him instead, and later he wasfreed from imprisonment in order to help Lycurgus outsmart King Necta-nabo of Egypt. Aesop chastised, but then forgave, his son and then re-sumed his travels, desiring to see Delphi. Soon, he demonstrated his intel-ligence to the people of Delphi, but they did not honor nor pay him. Forthis, he responded with abuse and insults. The people of Delphi thenfeared that he would spread his criticisms of them throughout Greece, and

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so hid a golden cup from the temple of Apollo in his baggage. Shortlythereafter, he was unjustly arrested for stealing the cup, was imprisoned,tried for impiety, and then sentenced to death. His reply to this was to tellthem the fable of the Frog and the Mouse (see Number 4 below). Whenhe attempted to escape his death, he was thrown over a cliff and waskilled. No wonder, then, that according to Libanius, the death of Aesopseemed dreadful to Socrates (Ap 181). The Life concludes with a reportthat Delphi suffered a famine and was punished by the peoples of Greece,Babylon, and Samos for their treatment of Aesop.

The parallels and contrasts between the lives and deaths of Socratesand Aesop, much greater and more subtle than those I have indicated,have been explored by other scholars (Clayton 2008; cf. Compton 2006,Kurke 2006 and 2011). Instead, the task I undertake in this essay is to seeif an examination of the vast Aesopian material can reveal likely candi-dates for Socratic versifying. As far as I can ascertain, no one has at-tempted this project, perhaps because even the most promising of resultscould remain highly speculative. Nonetheless, students often ask which ofAesop’s fables Socrates might have been versifying, and so the task seemswarranted on pedagogical grounds.

There are hundreds of fables credited to Aesop, and my criteria ofselection are simple. (1) I include those fables that can be best interpretedas bearing on Socrates’ own fate at the hands of the Athenians. I groundthis criterion on the observation I drew from the Apology that Socrates isin a mood to reflect on his fate. Moreover, according to Diogenes Laertius,Socrates ‘…composed a fable of Aesop, not very skillfully, beginning “Judgenot, ye men of Corinth,” Aesop cried, “Of virtue as the jury courts de-cide”’ (DL II.42). It is unfortunate that I cannot find the Aesopian fablewhich might have served as the inspiration for these two lines of verse,but from theses we can at least affirm that some of Socrates’ versifyingwas done on the basis of fables bearing on unjust convictions and virtuein general.2 Hence, (2) I also include those fables that make reasonableanalogical contact with Socratic moral theory. In both cases, the fablemust not be so long nor complicated as to resist versifying.

Now, someone could present an objection that these criteria wouldhave to be jettisoned if we gave full weight to Socrates’ breezy claim thatthe fables he versified were the ‘first that’ he ‘came upon’ among thosethat were ‘ready to hand’ and ‘familiar’ to him (Phd 61b). This remark, ifnot ironic and playful, suggests a procedure that is a good deal less deliber-

2 Although the testimony of Diogenes Laertius is generally held to be unreliable andless than weighty, the fact that Diogenes is critical of Socrates’ verses strongly suggeststhat he had a text before him or had seen and remembered a text. Certainly, it couldalso be possible that the text was spurious.




ate on Socrates’ part than my criteria assume.3 However, note that So-crates also tells us that he knows (êpistamên) the tales of Aesop ‘by heart’.If Socrates had the entire range of Aesopian fables at his ready disposal,and he was there in prison with his unjust death looming, then in view ofthe evidence of the Apology I provided, we can fairly assume that Socrates’choice of fables was unlikely to be a random affair. In addition, my criteriaare warranted by the Diogenes Laertius quote we just saw above. In short,we may affirm that the first verses Socrates ‘came across’ were of the kindI uncovered. Moreover, he would surely expect that his only written workwould be revered by his circle, and so he would wish to leave them notwith idle tales exemplifying irrelevant morals, but with verses reflective ofSocratic philosophy and the price it cost.4

The chosen fables based on the abovementioned criteria are listed be-low:

1. The Wolf and the Lamb (Perry 1952, 155; cf. Perry 16 for the samestory with a cat and a rooster; in Gagarin and Woodruff 1995, 146).

Watching a lamb drink from a river, a wolf wanted a reasonable ex-cuse (aitia) to dine upon him. So he stood upstream and accused the lambof muddying the water and not letting him drink. The lamb answeredthat he drank only with the tip of his lips and that he would not havedisturbed the water upstream as he was drinking downstream. Since thisexcuse failed, the wolf said, ‘But last year you slandered my father.’ Whenthe lamb answered that he was not even born yet at that time, the wolfsaid to him, ‘Even though you have a good supply of answers, shall I noteat you up?’

The story shows that even a just defense has no strength against thosewhose purpose is to do injustice. This fable would appeal to Socrates in-sofar as he might, first, compare the wolf to Meletus, a man who wishesto ‘dine upon him’ for a reasonable, legal excuse. The lamb is then analo-gous to Socrates, representing the kind of comparison he himself onceused before in the Charmides, when he likened himself to an innocentfawn sitting beside a ravenous lion (Charmides 155d). The accusation of‘muddying the water’ can then be taken to be symbolic of the informalcharges of teaching sophistic and natural science as well as Meletus’ chargeof corrupting the youth. Socrates’ defense against those charges was anattempt to deny that his lips had uttered such things or that he had ‘mud-died’ the moral waters of the Athenian polis by harming its youth. Heclaims to have stood aloof from the high-sounding ‘upstream’ things stu-died by the natural scientists. Next, the ‘slandered my father’ charge is

3 Thanks to John Ferarri for raising this point.4 The Diogenes quote would indicate that Socrates’ verses were written down, rather

than just committed to what Socrates knew might be a very temporary memory.

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analogous to the formal charge that Socrates teaches the youth to not re-cognize the gods of the Athenian state, which is akin to slandering the‘fathers’ of Athens. As with the lamb, Socrates takes himself to have beenunjustly convicted of this charge by accusers who are determined to dohim unjust harm. Although it is difficult to imagine what this story wouldlook like in poetic verse, it is not at all difficult to imagine Socrates ashaving had the ingenuity and poetic ability to do so.

2. The Farmer and the Stork (Perry 1965, 23)In the furrows of his field, a farmer fixed a thinspun net and caught

thecranes, those enemies of new‑sown land. A limping stork besought

him thus (for with the cranes a stork too had been taken): ‘I’m not acrane, I don’t destroy the seed, I’m a stork, my color plainly marks meout, and storks are the most loyal and dutiful of all winged creatures; Inurse my father and care for him when he is ill.’ The man replied: ‘SirStork, what way of life you’re pleased to live I do not know, but this I doknow: I caught you with those who lay waste to my work; die, therefore,you shall in their company, for in their company I caught you.’

This story shows that when you consort with bad men, you will behated just as they are, even though you yourself do no injury to thoseabout you. In his defense against the informal charges of engaging in so-phistic and natural science, Socrates protests that he is a victim of mista-ken identity; that he is being lumped in with men who teach things thathe does not teach and who are suspected of atheistic belief (Ap 18a–20c).He does not take fees as the Sophists do, and he has no part in the teach-ings of the natural scientists. As for the charge of corrupting the youth,Socrates deploys an argument that holds that one would never knowinglyassociate with bad men, since one would then risk being harmed by them(24c–26a). As it turns out, Meletus cannot even offer up any witness tohis having corrupted the youth; not a single one of them or their relatives(33c–34b). Socrates sees himself as our crane, a swan of Apollo, in fact(Phd 84d–85b), one who does not destroy the ‘seed’ of Athens (i.e., itsyouth) but one who has been loyal to Athens and a dutiful, winged crea-ture in the service of Apollo. Furthermore, even though he has consortedwith bad men, such as Alcibiades, Critias and Charmides, he has beenconfused with such cranes and unfairly held responsible for their corrup-tion.

3. Dr. Heron’s Fee (Perry 1965, 115)Once a wolf had a bone lodged in his throat. e promised a heron that

he would give him a suitable fee if the latter would let his neck downinside and draw out the bone, thus providing a remedy for his suffering.The heron drew out the bone and forthwith demanded his pay. The wolfgrinned at him, baring his sharp teeth, and said, ‘It’s enough pay for your




medical services to have taken your neck out of a wolf’s mouth safe andsound.’

This story shows that you will get no good in return for giving aid toscoundrels; in fact, you will do well not to suffer some injury yourself inthe process. As with the preceding analysis, this story might serve as thebasis for versification on the grounds that Socrates was unjustly convictedfor performing a valuable service to Athens in service to Apollo. He was agift to Athens, trying to offer a service analogous to that of a physician inorder to heal the souls of its citizens above and beyond the call of normalcivic responsibility (30d–31c). For this risky mode of conduct, he mustnow pay the ultimate penalty, as proposed by the wolf-like Meletus.

4. The Frog and the Mouse (Gibbs 2002)5A mouse asked a frog to help her get across the river. The frog tied

the mouse’s front leg to her own back leg using a piece of string and theyswam out to the middle of the stream. The frog then turned traitor andplunged down into the water, dragging the mouse along with her. Themouse’s dead body floated up to the surface and was drifting along whena kite flew by and noticed something he could snatch. When he grabbedthe mouse he also carried off her friend the frog. Thus the treacherousfrog who had betrayed the mouse’s life was likewise killed and eaten.

People who do harm to others destroy themselves in the bargain. Inthe Apology, after Socrates’ counter-penalty to the death penalty is de-feated, he chastises his prosecutor as well as the jurors who voted for hisdeath; he then offers a prophecy to the effect that they will now suffereven more from being examined and chastised by harsher, younger criticsthan he (38c–39d). Hence, this fable would appeal to Socrates as encapsu-lating the sort of lesson of instant karma he himself outlined in this sec-tion of his defence speech.The fact that this fable was offered by Aesop tothe Delphians after he was unjustly condemned to death for impiety (seeabove) would make it even more appealing.

5. The Fir Tree and the Bramble (Perry 1965, 81)The fir tree and the bramble fought against each other. The fir tree

praisedhimself in many ways: ‘I’m handsome, tall, and well‑proportioned. I

grow straight up, with my top grazing the clouds. I am the main pillar ofthe house and the keel of the ship. How can you, a lowly thistle, compareyourself with so great a tree?’ The bramble answered her and said: ‘If youwill call to mind the axes that are always cleaving you, to be a bramble willseem better even in your reckoning.’

5 See http://www.mythfolklore.net/3043mythfolklore/reading/aesop/pages/15.htm.

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Indeed, a distinguished man may have greater fame than a lesser man,but he also faces greater danger. As with the preceding fable, this storyemphasizes the danger of engaging in useful activities in the public arena.Socrates could have found this an attractive story because he could use itto make the point he made in the Apology about the dangers of engagingin public partisan politics. There, he says that his daimonion’s constantopposition to his trying to engage in politics seemed to him rational onreflection, since if he had managed to do so, he would have perished longbefore and benefited no one (Ap 31d).

6. The North Wind and the Sun (Perry 1952, 46; in Gagarin and Woo-druff 1995, 147)

The North Wind and the Sun were quarreling over who had thegreater power. Thus, they decided to let whichever of them could strip theclothes off a man who was traveling by be the victor. The North Windwent first and blew violently; he blew harder when the man pulled hisclothes around him. However, the man became distressed by the cold andput on an outer garment. Hence, the North Wind became tired and al-lowed the Sun to take his turn. The Sun first shone moderately; when theman removed his outer cloak, he increased the heat until the man wasunable to bear it, took off his clothes, and went for a swim in a river thatwas flowing by.

This story shows that persuasion is often more effective than resortingto violence. This fable is good grist for Socrates’ versifying in relation tohis fondness for argumentation as opposed to coercion, which is a con-stant theme of the dialogues and in Xenophon (e.g., the end of the Char-mides, Mem. 3.11). His clearest praise comes at Crito 46b, when he tellsCrito that ‘Not now for the first time, but always, I am the sort of manwho is persuaded by nothing except the argument (tô logô) that seems bestto me when I reason (logizomenô) about the matter.’

7. Heracles and the Ox‑Driver (Perry 1965, 31)An ox‑driver was bringing his wagon home from the village when it

fell into adeep ravine. Instead of doing something about it, as the situation re-

quired, he stood by idly and prayed for help to Heracles, the god whomhe really worshipped and held in honor. Suddenly Heracles appeared inperson beside him and said: ‘Take hold of the wheels. Lay the whip onyour oxen. Pray to the gods only when you are doing something to helpyourself. Otherwise your prayers will be useless.’

In Book I of his Memorabilia, Xenophon discusses Socrates’ attitudetowards divination. According to his account, Socrates advised his studentsto act on their own judgment when there was no doubt about the mostprudent course of action, and only then consult an oracle in cases of un-certainty. If the issue was the subject of some craft such as carpentry, then




the expert should be listened to; otherwise, divination might be rightlyemployed. It is irrational to think that all matters are suitable for merelyhuman judgment, but ‘it is no less irrational to seek the guidance of hea-ven in matters which men are permitted by the gods to decide for them-selves by study’ (I.1.6-9).This fable makes the same point, making it a sui-table Socratic material for versifying.

8. The Butcher and the Ape (Perry 1965, 265)Someone saw an ape hanging in a butcher’s shop among the other

commoditiesand viands, and asked what the flavor was like; whereupon the butcher

replied in jest: ‘It tastes as bad as it looks.’ This, I suppose, has been toldmore for the sake of a laugh than with regards the truth; for I have oftenmet with handsome persons who were scoundrels, and have known manywith ugly features to be the best of men.

This fable would have been dear to Socrates for the same reasonAesop was drawn to compose it for both men were intelligent and loversof wisdom, but not physically attractive in the least. Socrates constantlyemphasizes the soul-body distinction, to the advantage of the former andat the expense of the latter, finding the soul vastly superior in value (e.g.,Cr 47e–48a). In the Theaetetus, Socrates and Theodorus find Theaete-tus ‘amazingly gifted’, even though he resembles Socrates (143e–144b),and in the Symposium’s encomium of Socrates (214a–222c), we hear ofhis resemblance to a Silenus, but are told that he possesses god-like fea-tures.

9. Preposterous Leadership (Perry 1965, 175)Once a snake’s tail decided that the head ought no longer to go first

and refused to follow its lead in creeping along. ‘Let it be my turn now,’it said, ‘to lead the way.’ ‘Keep still,’ said the other members, ‘how canyou lead us, poor wretch, without any eyes or nose, the means by whichall living creatures move on their way and guide each limb?’ However,they could not dissuade the tail from its purpose, and the rational partof the body succumbed to the irrational. Thereafter, the hinder partsruled the foremost ones; the tail became the leader, dragging the wholebody along in blind motion. When it fell into a hollow pit and bruisedits spine on the sharp rocks, the tail, which had been so self-willed be-fore, became submissive and turned to supplication saying: ‘Mistress head,save us, if you will. It was an evil strife that I ventured on, and evil hasbeen the consequence. If you’ll put me where I was at first I’ll be moreobedient and you’ll not worry about getting into trouble again under myleadership.’

This fable would appeal to Socrates for the obvious reason that heconstantly emphasized the need for the mind to rule the lower appetitesof the body, and not vice versa.

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10. From Cobbler to Physician (Perry 1965, 209-210)A bungling cobbler, desperately in want, had resorted to practicing

medicine in a strange locality. Peddling what he falsely called an ‘antidote’,he established a reputation for himself using verbal advertising tricks. It sohappened that when the king’s minister lay gravely ill and all but gone,our physician was called in, whereupon, the king of the city, to test hisskill, called for a cup. He poured water into it, but pretended to mix poi-son with the ‘antidote’. He then ordered the man to drink it off himself,for a reward that he displayed. In mortal fear, the cobbler then confessedthat his high standing as a physician was not due to any knowledge of theart but to the gullibility of the crowd. The king then summoned an assem-bly and said to the people: ‘How crazy you are, you may judge for your-selves. You have no hesitation about putting your lives at the mercy of aman to whose care no one in want of shoes ever trusted his feet.’

This, I dare say exemplifies how gullibility provides an income for im-postors. Again, this fable would appeal to Socrates because it is a constanttheme of the Socratic dialogues (especially the Protagoras and Gorgias) thatthe Sophists falsely advertise themselves through ‘verbal trickery’ and false‘advertising’ to have a technê of persuasion analogous to that of medicine,allowing them to appear to a physician before a ‘gullible crowd’ (Gorgias449a–461b). However, as Socrates argues, it appears as though they haveno technê, but only a ‘knack’; moreover, students who ‘put their lives atthe mercy of such men’ are making a potentially disastrous mistake.

At this point, readers might be thinking that almost any Aesopianfable could be grist for Socrates’ moralizing mill, and hence, my selectionsare more a matter of personal taste than my criteria might make themseem. To meet this challenge I obviously cannot parade all the hundredsof fables I have not listed past the reader for comparison, but here is one:

11. War and His Bride (Perry 1965, 87).When the gods were marrying and each had been joined with a mate,

after all the others came War, whose turn to choose was last in the draw-ing of the lots. He married Insolence, who alone was left for him to take.The love he felt for her was most unusual, so they say, and even now hefollows everywhere she goes. Thus, let not Insolence ever come among thenations or cities of men, finding favor with the crowd; for after her,straightway War will be at hand.

It is, of course, possible that Socrates might have put this fable to verse,but in view of my criteria, I find it much less likely than those I havechosen after a careful inspection of every available candidate. Hence, I feelconfident that when at last the poems of Socrates are finally recoveredfrom the bottom of some dusty amphora, at least one of them will turnout to have been based on one of the charming fables we have now exam-ined, hopefully to our delight and edification. This paper is a revised ver-




sion of one that was presented to the 4th West Coast Plato Workshop,Lewis & Clark College, May, 21–22, 2011. I would like to thank my com-mentator, John Ferarri, and my audience for their many helpful com-ments.

Appendix

Hermes on SaleA sculptor was trying to sell a marble statue of Hermes, which he had

just carved. Two men came along and were thinking of buying it; one ofthem wanted it for a gravestone, since his son had recently died, and theother, an artisan, intended to set it up as an image of the god himself. Itwas late in the day, and the sculptor had not yet sold his statue, althoughhe agreed to show it to the buyers again when they came in the morning.In his sleep that night, the sculptor saw Hermes himself at the gate ofdreams, saying: ‘So, then, my fate is being weighed in your balances: itremains to be seen whether you will make me a corpse or a god.’

I include this fable because of Socrates’ interest in dreams of divineorigin.

Surfeited at LastA mouse fell into a pot of soup which had no lid. Choked by the

grease and gasping for his life, he said: ‘I’ve done my eating, and my drink-ing, I’ve had my fill of all delights; the time has come for me to die.’ Thisshows that one can be like that gluttonous mouse among men if one failsto renounce what is sweet but injurious.

As with fable number 9, this story would appeal to Socrates in view ofhis constant emphasis on the need for the mind to rule the appetites ofthe body, and not vice versa.

Bibliography

Layton, E. W. ‘The Death of Socrates and the Life of Aesop,’ Ancient Philosophy 28(2008) 311–328.

Compton, T. Victim of the Muses. Cambridge, MA: Center for Hellenic Studies,2006.

Gagarin, M. and Woodruff, P. Early Greek Political Thought from Homer to theSophists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Gibbs, L. Aesop’s Fables. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.Kurke, L. ‘Plato, Aesop, and the Beginnings of Mimetic Prose,’ Representations 94

(2006) 6–52.Kurke, L. Aesopic Conversations: Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue, and the Inven-

tion of Greek Prose. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.Perry, B. E. Babrius and Phaedrus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965.

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socrates and aesop in plato’s phaedo

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