Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day.

An ancient literary work called The Aesop Romance tells an episodic, probably highly fictional version of his life, including the traditional description of him as a strikingly ugly slave (δοῦλος) who by his cleverness acquires freedom and becomes an adviser to kings and city-states.

Depictions of Aesop in popular culture over the last 2,500 years have included many works of art and his appearance as a character in numerous books, films, plays, and television programs.

[14] Scholars long dismissed any historical or biographical validity in The Aesop Romance; widespread study of the work began only toward the end of the 20th century.

Later he travels to the courts of Lycurgus of Babylon and Nectanabo of Egypt – both imaginary rulers – in a section that appears to borrow heavily from the romance of Ahiqar.

With a surge in scholarly interest beginning toward the end of the 20th century, some attempt has been made to determine the nature and content of the very earliest fables which may be most closely linked to the historic Aesop.

[39] Popular perception of Aesop as black was to be encouraged by comparison between his fables and the stories of the trickster Br'er Rabbit told by African slaves in North America.

"[40] The traditional role of the slave Aesop as "a kind of culture hero of the oppressed" is further promoted by the fictional Life, emerging "as a how-to handbook for the successful manipulation of superiors.

In that mixture of live action and animation, Aesop tells fables that differentiate between realistic and unrealistic ambition and his version there of "The Tortoise and the Hare" illustrates how to take advantage of an opponent's over-confidence.

Based on a script by British playwright Peter Terson (1983),[43] it was radically adapted by the director Mark Dornford-May as a musical using native African instrumentation, dance and stage conventions.

Even when Europeans were expelled from Japan and Christianity proscribed, this text survived, in part because the figure of Aesop had been assimilated into the culture and depicted in woodcuts as dressed in Japanese costume.

For ... he checks greed and rebukes insolence and deceit, and in all this some animal is his mouthpiece—a lion or a fox or a horse ... and not even the tortoise is dumb—that through them children may learn the business of life.

For it combines animals with men to make a chorus about Aesop, composed of the actors in his fables; and the fox is painted as leader of the chorus.With the advent of printing in Europe, various illustrators tried to recreate this scene.

In France there was I. Baudoin's Fables d'Ésope Phrygien (1631) and Matthieu Guillemot's Les images ou tableaux de platte peinture des deux Philostrates (1637).

[55] Paul Zanker describes the figure as a man with "emaciated body and oversized head ... furrowed brow and open mouth", who "listens carefully to the teachings of the fox sitting before him.

He has pulled his mantle tightly around his meager body, as if he were shivering ... he is ugly, with long hair, bald head, and unkempt, scraggly beard, and is clearly uncaring of his appearance.

"[56] Some archaeologists have suggested that the Hellenistic statue of a bearded hunchback with an intellectual appearance, discovered in the 18th century and pictured at the head of this article, also depicts Aesop, although alternative identifications have since been put forward.

[60] The 3rd-century-BCE poet Poseidippus of Pella wrote a narrative poem entitled "Aesopia" (now lost), in which Aesop's fellow slave Rhodopis (under her original name Doricha) was frequently mentioned, according to Athenaeus 13.596.

[63] The fabulist then makes a cameo appearance in the novel A True Story by the 2nd-century satirist Lucian; when the narrator arrives at the Island of the Blessed, he finds that "Aesop the Phrygian was there, too; he acts as their jester.

"[64] Beginning with the Heinrich Steinhowel edition of 1476, many translations of the fables into European languages, which also incorporated Planudes's "Life of Aesop", featured illustrations depicting him as a hunchback.

The 1687 edition of Aesop's Fables with His Life: in English, French and Latin[65] included 31 engravings by Francis Barlow that show him as a dwarfish hunchback, and his facial features appear to accord with his statement in the text (p. 7), "I am a Negro."

"Aesop, poet of the fables" is in the El Escorial gallery and pictures him as an author leaning on a staff by a table which holds copies of his work, one of them a book with the name Hissopo on the cover.

Sir John Vanbrugh's comedy "Aesop"[72] was premièred at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, London, in 1697 and was frequently performed there for the next twenty years.

Johann Michael Wittmer's Aesop Tells His Fables (1879) depicts the diminutive fabulist seated on a high pedestal, surrounded by an enraptured crowd.

A. D. Wintle's Aesop (London: Gollancz, 1943) was a plodding fictional biography described in a review of the time as so boring that it makes the fables embedded in it seem "complacent and exasperating.

In John Vornholt's The Fabulist (New York: Avon, 1993), "an ugly, mute slave is delivered from wretchedness by the gods and blessed with a wondrous voice.

In a plot containing "some of the most nonsensical screen doings of the year," he becomes entangled with the intended bride of King Croesus, a Persian princess played by Merle Oberon, and makes such a hash of it that he has to be rescued by the gods.

[citation needed] Written by Helene Hanff, it was broadcast on Hallmark Hall of Fame with Lamont Johnson playing Aesop.

The three-act play was by Guilherme Figueiredo and has been performed in many countries, including a videotaped production in China in 2000 under the title Hu li yu pu tao or 狐狸与葡萄.