The Belly and the Members

The Belly and the Members is one of Aesop's Fables and is numbered 130 in the Perry Index. It has been interpreted in varying political contexts over the centuries.

There are several versions of the fable. In early Greek sources it concerns a dispute between the stomach and the feet, or between it and the hands and feet in later Latin versions. These grumble because the stomach gets all of the food, refusing to supply them with nourishment. They see sense when they realise that they are weakening themselves. In Mediaeval versions, the rest of the body becomes so weakened that it dies, and later illustrations almost monotonously portray an enfeebled man expiring on the ground. The present understanding is that the tale's moral supports team effort and recognition of the vital part that all members play in it. In more authoritarian times, however, the fable was taken to affirm direction from the centre.

Research points to early Eastern fables dealing with similar disputes. Most notably there is a fragmentary Egyptian papyrus going back to the 2nd millennium BCE that belongs to the Near Eastern genre of debate poems; in this case the dispute is between the Belly and the Head. It is thus among the first known examples of the body politic metaphor.

There is a scriptural use of the concept of co-operation between the various parts of the body by Paul of Tarsus, who was educated in both Hebrew and Hellenic thought. In his first letter to the Corinthians, he shifts away from the fable's political application and gives it the spiritual context of the body of the Church. The metaphor is used to argue that this body represents a multiplicity of talents co-operating together. While there may still be a hierarchy within it, all are to be equally valued for the part they play:

The Latin historian Livy leads the way in applying the fable to civil unrest. It is recounted in the context of a revolt in the 6th century BCE, which a member of the Roman senate is said to have calmed by telling the story. The same fable was later repeated in Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus.

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