His existence is related through Herodotus that he was a slave of Iadmon of Samos who met with violent death by the inhabitants of Delphi. Herodotus does not give the cause of his death, although legend offers many explanations, one being that like Socrates, he offended the sensibilities of the people and died a martyr. Another is that as the treasurer of Croesus, he embezzled public monies and so incurred capital punishment. Other sources say that he defended a Samian demagogue, recorded in Aristotle's Rhetoric and he dined with the Seven Sages of Greece with Periander at Corinth. Supposedly, he presented the Fable of the Frogs Demanding a king to Peisistrattus, which could e the germ of Aristophanes, Frogs. He gained a collection of lore, explaining his existence, much like Herakles which was embellished upon and circulated well into Middle Ages: he was ugly and deformed according to the preface written by Maximus Planudes. Aesop appears as a figure within Plutarch's Symposium of the Seven Sages, in which jokes are made on his origins as a slave. Athens commissioned a public statute by Lysippus that showed no deformity.
Aesop's fables appear in Aristophanes, Wasps and cited in Plato's Phaedo by Socrates. They were alwso transcribed by Demetrius of Phaelerum (345-283 BCE) into ten books, Lopson Aisopeion Sunagogai, which has been lost. Babrius, the tutor to the son of Alexasnder Severus, translated the fables into choliambic in the third century CE. Phaedrus, a freedman of Augustus, anthologised another collection in Latin which was widely circulated throughout the Middle Ages and Avinus produced another anthology of 42 Latin elegiacs in the fourth century.
Probably, the Fables accompanied Alexander on his way east, entering India where they mingled with early folk tales. Similar tales existed in India at the time. The most widely recognized collection of tales ar the Jataka. However, an earlier collection of The Perfections of Buddha began by Asvagosha, who died after he ahd completed the thirthy-fourth tale. The tales were meant to express the divinity fo Buddha in his various incarnations. The Jataka Tales, possibly originated in Ceylon around 241. They present commentary on the gathas, moral verse, composed by Buddhaghosa school of the fifth century. The tales are coupled, presenting a Story of the Present which introduces a reflection of Buddha's past life, reflecting A Story of the Past which relates folklore introducing a moral lesson based on the former incarnations o the Buddha: Lion and Crane; Monkey and Crocodile.
