Aesop ~ of Aesop’s Fables fame ~ was a slave.
Like the last slaves freed in the United States on 19 June 1865, Juneteenth, Aesop too had his freedom day. In his life he passed from owner to owner as a slave until his intellect won his freedom. Plutarch, a priest at Delphi, reports that after gaining his freedom Aesop was employed by King Croesus of Lydia. The king sent Aesop to Delphi to negotiate terms regarding Apollo’s oracle. The people of Delphi didn’t like Aesop’s talk ~ his logic ~ and took matters into their own hands. Plutarch reports the people of Delphi killed the famed-fabalist by forcing him over a cliff … more on Aesop in a moment.
A fable is a story with animals talking; civilization is a story with the animal human talking. The civilization story always begins with the same premise: things were once bad and then changed and people (tribes, clans, and nations) called it good; and always within the story of civilization, providing a seemingly visceral and vital role, is the slave. Essentially, civilization was designed by many and built by slaves.
Slavery is usurpation and usurpation is slavery. A citizen without rights is a slave; similar to a subject, they lack agency power to appeal to a higher law than the current sovereign. A (rightful) citizen, however, has agency to appeal to power in the form of written constitutions.

Oh yeah ~ back to Aesop the slave. There are lots of thoughts on where he came from; some say a northern Dorian settlement on the Black Sea, some Phrygia in modern-day Turkey, and even others Ethiopia; most likely it looks like he hailed from the Samos and Miletus area on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. This eternal debate is easily solved by genetic fiat: according to DNA, we’re all out of Africa.
Ah, there we are ~ Aesop the human.
Bonus Video
Aesop’s The Lion & The Mouse
Next up in the series War Cry Heal Union:
27 June 2014: War Cry ~ Cheatham’s Hill, 27 June 1864.
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner