^ESOP. 7 



practice of augury. On a day of peculiar solemnity amongst them, 

 an eagle had snatched away a ring upon which the arms of the town 

 were engraven, and, after having carried it to a considerable distance, 

 dropped it at last into the bosom of a slave. To explain this mys- 

 terious omen the philosophers of Samos were consulted, and, amongst 

 others, Xanthus, the master of ^Esop, who immediately applied to 

 him for assistance. When all the sages of the island had been com- 

 pletely perplexed, Xanthus arose, at the instigation of jEsop, in an 

 assembly of his countrymen, confessing his ignorance, and recommend- 

 ing them to his long-tried slave, as a man peculiarly gifted by the gods 

 with wisdom, for a solution of the augury. .ZEsop was accordingly 

 summoned to the assembly, but declined to enter upon the subject. 

 He alleged the unworthiness of his condition, and the serious effects of 

 his master's permanent displeasure against him, should the interpreta- 

 tion of the augury interfere with any of his designs. This objection 

 was of course overruled, by his immediate manumission through the 

 interference of the assembly, on which he is reported to have addressed 

 them as follows: " The eagle," said ^Esop, " is a royal bird, and sig- 

 nifies a great king ; the dropping of your signet into the bosom of a 

 slave, or one who has no power over himself, denotes the loss of your 

 liberties : if you are not particularly vigilant in the conducting your 

 affairs, this omen will but too shortly be realized." The event was 

 answerable to ^Esop's solution of the augury; for, shortly after, 

 Crojsus, king of Lydia, commissioned ambassadors to demand a tri- 

 bute, as a token of submission to him, from the Samians; and the 

 successful interpreter of the oracle was called to the debate, which 

 such a demand naturally produced. *' The path of liberty," observed His honours, 

 the now honoured sage, " is narrow and rugged at the entrance ; but 

 the further you advance on it, the plainer and the smoother it shall be 

 found." This noble sentiment decided the Samians : a defiance was 

 pronounced against the Lydian monarch, and his embassy dismissed 

 with contempt. When Crcesus learnt these circumstances, -and that 

 one man, recently a slave, had, by a few words only, induced the 

 boldness of this measure, he sent to the Samians, offering them peace 

 and independence, on condition of their delivering up ^Esop, the insti- 

 gator to the threatened war. To this the sage himself offered his 

 instant acquiescence, but first admonished the Samians on the im- 

 providence of purchasing peace by sending away those counsellors in 

 whom consisted their chief defence ; and on this, it is said, he first 

 introduced the well-known fable of the Wolves and the Sheep who 

 gave up their only defenders, the Dogs. This apologue, so well 

 applied, determined the people again to resist the demands of Crcesus ; 

 a tribute of regard for ^Esop which emboldened him to a patriotic 

 step for the future stability of their state, which is not exceeded in 

 personal courage or address in all history. He suddenly departed 

 from Samos, and presented himself at the Lydian camp. " I come Success at 

 not here, great king," said he to Croesus, " in the condition of a man ^^ Ly 



