TheLife of Aesopis an entertaining yet profound account of Aesop's life dating from the first to second centuriesad. Although it is widely agreed that theLife of Aesopmay be read as a ‘metafable’, there has been, in my view, a widespread and perversely negative interpretation of the supposed moral of this life story: that ‘pride comes before a fall’. This supposed moral is not borne out by the ending, in which Aesop's prophecies of doom prove to be correct, the Delphians are thrice punished for executing Aesop, and Aesop himself achieves everlasting fame as a storyteller. In this paper, I will argue that a more fitting moral for theLife of Aesopis that ‘even the weakest may find a means to avenge a wrong’. This is the moral that accompanies the quintessentially Aesopic fable of the dung beetle, the hare, and the eagle in which a tiny dung beetle triumphs over a powerful adversary. This fable is pointedly narrated by Aesop to the Delphians just before he is put to death. By reading theLife of Aesopas an exposition of this fable, I will demonstrate that Aesop, just like the dung beetle, is not the loser but the ultimate victor.

中文翻译：

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蜣螂的胜利：伊索生活的道德（Vita G）

这伊索的一生对伊索从一世纪到二世纪的生活进行了有趣而深刻的描述广告. 尽管人们普遍认为，伊索的一生可能被解读为“元寓言”，在我看来，对这个人生故事的所谓寓意有一种广泛而反常的负面解释：“骄傲在堕落之前出现”。这种假定的道德并没有得到结局的证实，其中伊索的厄运预言被证明是正确的，德尔菲人因处决伊索而受到三次惩罚，而伊索本人则作为一个讲故事的人获得了永恒的名声。在本文中，我将论证一个更适合于伊索的一生是“即使是最弱的人也可能找到报复错误的方法”。这是典型的甲虫、野兔和鹰的典型伊索寓言中的寓意，其中一只小甲虫战胜了强大的对手。在他被处死之前，伊索向德尔斐人专门讲述了这个寓言。通过阅读伊索的一生作为对这个寓言的阐述，我将证明伊索就像蜣螂一样，不是失败者，而是最终的胜利者。