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Perry's Index to the Aesopica

Fables exist in many versions; here is one version in English:

THE DELPHIANS AND THEIR ANCESTORS

The people of Delphi said to Aesop, 'Who were our ancestors?' Aesop replied, 'They were slaves. And if you are ignorant of this story, it is about time you learned it! Long ago it was the custom that whenever the Greeks captured a city, they would send one tenth of the spoils to Apollo. So they would send ten oxen out of every hundred, the same with goats, and the same with other things: money, women, men. Since you are the descendants of those men and women, you are deprived of your freedom, like slaves in bondage. That is your origin, and thus you have become the slaves of all the Greeks.'

Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
NOTE: New cover, with new ISBN, published in 2008; contents of book unchanged.

 


Perry 382: Gibbs (Oxford) 504 [English]


You can find a compilation of Perry's index to the Aesopica in the gigantic appendix to his edition of Babrius and Phaedrus for the Loeb Classical Library (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1965). This book is an absolute must for anyone interested in the Aesopic fable tradition. Invaluable.