The facts as best we know them: Aesop went to Delphi to consult the Oracle, was unimpressed, made an insult in the form of a fable. The Delphians knew he could spread bad publicity, so they took a cup from their temple and planted it in his baggage (a cup - the same planted evidence that cost Thomas More his head). Aesop literally took the fall by a method of execution called precipitation.
Taking artistic liberty, I’d like to depict Aesop as an early martyr for atheisim. As he’s flung into space, what Greek can I put in his word balloon for “Bullshit!” - ?
What’s the straight dope on “Aesop” being a translation of “Aethiop,” and I should draw him as an African?
Interesting. Wikipedia says it’s not clear Aesop even ever existed.
My parents have an old copy of Aesop’s Fables. I recall reading the introduction when I was younger, and it provided a different tale of how he died. It said that he once went to visit some village and was unimpressed, so he compared them to big sticks floating on water; from far out, they appear to be something, but up close, they’re nothing; so too, he said, the villagers were nothing to write home about. In response, they threw him off the cliff.
A cup didn’t cost Thomas More his head – it was (according to Robert Bolt’s play, A Man for All Seasons, at any rate) false witness by Richard Rich regarding what More said about the power of Parliament to decklare the King supreme head of the Church in England. (Although there was a bit about a cup offered as a bribe by Averill Menscen – which turns out to be true – it wasn’t used as evidence against him.)
A cup WAS responsible for Joseph’s brother Benjamin being accused of theft in chapters 42 and 43 of Genesis None of this is relevant to your question, though. Sorry about that. It’s a n aside on an aside.
Apollo controlled the Oracle. If Aesop wasn’t impressed by her abilities, he was therefore doubtful of the divine nature of Apollo. That would be my guess.
I’m not a native Greek speaker but I’ll take a shot at the first part.
The literal translation of “bullshit” into Greek would be σκατά ταύρου (scata tauro) but that doesn’t really mean the same thing in Greek.
A better word would probably be μαλακίες (malakies) though it doesn’t translate directly as it has more of a masturbatory meaning. I was under the impression that the English word “malarkey” came from this (and/or related words like malakas and malakia) but dictionary.com doesn’t agree with me.
My grandparents came from Greece and my father didn’t learn English until he went to kindergarten. Unfortunately he died when I was young and I didn’t learn a lot of the language, and a lot of what I know comes from working in my uncle’s restaurant as a teenager, which means I mostly know a lot of Greek swear words. But you can start with my poor translation until someone who knows the language better decides to show up.
Wikipedia has a section about Aesop’s appearance and the possibility of Ethiopian origin:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
The anonymously authored Aesop Romance (usually dated to the 1st or 2nd century AD) begins with a vivid description of Aesop’s appearance, saying he was “of loathsome aspect… potbellied, misshapen of head, snub-nosed, swarthy, dwarfish, bandy-legged, short-armed, squint-eyed, liver-lipped—a portentous monstrosity,”[25] or as another translation has it, “a faulty creation of Prometheus when half-asleep.”[26]
That is a very long stretch, even to extrapolate from skepticism about the oracle to skepticism Apollo, and even if he was skeptical about Apollo it was (a) more likely to be about the extent of the god’s powers and honesty rather than his existence; and (b) it would probably be because he felt that certain other gods or goddesses were more important, powerful, reliable, or just more well disposed to Aesop. (One of the key things about Greek gods was, they were not always, or even usually, on your side, and they did not always behave honestly or fairly.)
Atheism is not really a concept that applies to the ancient mind set (or anyone’s mind set before the 18th century Enlightenment, really), although one could make a case that the Greek atomists, Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, and Epicurus’ followers, were atheists of a sort (and at least they were real people). I don’t think any of them were martyred for it, though. Socrates was accused of not worshiping the gods, and put to death, in part, on that pretext, but he denied the charge.
Very valid points, and according to what I’ve read* Aesop cited Jupiter in his defense arguments (given, as you’d expect, in the form of a fable).
So atheism was probably not in Aesop’s awareness; it certainly wasn’t what Luther had in mind when he protested the (German for “bullshit”) of indulgences, or Akhenaten’s
when he tried to streamline Egyptian religion and undercut the priests’ power. But the all acted to curtail, somewhat, the fleecing of the gullible.
I think I’ll use Jenny McCarthy as my model for the Delphic oracle.
*on one of my favorite sites, executed today; and its supporting links. But my filter threw up a warning so I won’t put it here.