The Eagle and the Beetle

[4] In ancient times the story became the basis for an ironical Greek proverb, 'the dung beetle serving as midwife to the eagle' (ὁ κάνθαρος αετòν μαιεύεται), taken from a line of Aristophanes Lysistrata.

This was recorded by Erasmus in his Adagia (1507), along with a Latin alternative, Scarabaeus aquilam quaerit (a dung beetle hunting an eagle), used of a weaker person taking on a powerful adversary.

[5] Where Erasmus told the story at length, Andrea Alciato devoted a short Latin poem to yet another variation in his Emblematum Liber (1534) under the title A mimumus timiendum (Even the least are to be feared).

"[6] Hieronymus Osius also dealt with the subject in Latin verse, drawing the same moral,[7] and also told the story at greater length in his Phryx Aesopus (1564).

Robert Dodsley told it at some length in his collection of Select Fables of Esop (1761), but accompanied it with scathing comments regarding its truth to life.