Before Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) and Plato (c.428-c.348 B.C.), before Buddha (VI or V c. B.C.) and Confucius (551-479 B.C.), in an age when the calendar had ten months, the year had 354 days, and people told time with a sun dial, Aesop (end of VII, beginning VI c. B.C.) told his fables. He was born into slavery in the ancient country of Phrygia (now Turkey) and earned freedom by exposing the foibles and failings of human character through the telling of “beast tales”. In the year 560 B.C., when ...