Being a slave automatically made him an African is a Western conceit. Slaves were of all races and cultures, even within the same race and culture as Greek cities often pillaged and plundered one another.
The much later tradition depicts Aesop as a black African from Ethiopia was derived from Planudes, a Byzantine scholar of the 13th century based on The Aesop Romance and conjectured that Aesop might have been Ethiopian, given his name.
I prefer to rely on earlier sources(such as Aristotle) While either o neither could be true I believe the simplest explanation was he was of Mediterranean extraction. Meaning his heritage was most likely a hybrid of all cultures in the Mediterranean area. Including the possibility of African bloodline.
“Being a slave automatically made him an African is a Western conceit.”
Who said being a slave automatically made him African? Certainly wasn’t me. I said he was a slave, and that slaves were commonly foreigners taken as captives or imported from foreign lands, which is absolutely true in the time and place I am speaking of.