Aelian, Varia Historia

Ἄννων ὁ Καρχηδόνιος ὑπὸ τρυφῆς ἐν τοῖς ἀνθρώπων ὅροις οὐκ ἠξίου διαμένειν, ἀλλʼ ἐπενόει φήμας ὑπὲρ ἑαυτοῦ κατασπείρεσθαι κρείττονας ἢ κατὰ τὴν φύσιν, ἥνπερ οὖν ἔλαχεν. ὄρνιθας γάρ τοι τῶν ᾠδικῶν παμπόλλους πριάμενος ἔτρεφεν ἐν σκότῳ αὐτούς, ἓν διδάσκων μάθημα λέγειν ʽθεός ἐστιν Ἄννων.ʼ ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐκεῖνοι μίαν φωνὴν ταύτην ἀκούοντες ἐγκρατεῖς ταύτης ἐγένοντο, ἄλλον ἄλλοσε διαφῆκεν, οἰόμενος διαρρεύσειν τῶν ὀρνίθων τὸ ὑπὲρ ἑαυτοῦ μέλος. οἳ δὲ τὸ πτερὸν ἀπολύσαντες ἅπαξ καὶ ἐλευθερίας λαβόμενοι καὶ ἐς ἤθη τὰ σύντροφα αὐτοῖς ἐλθόντες, τὰ οἰκεῖα ᾖδον καὶ τὰ τῶν ὀρνίθων ἐμουσούργουν, μακρὰ χαίρειν εἰπόντες Ἄννωνι καὶ μαθήμασι τοῖς ἐν τῇ δουλείᾳ.

Hanno the Carthaginian, out of vanity, did not think fit to stay within human bounds, but contrived to have reports spread abroad about himself greater than befitted the nature that had fallen to his lot. For he bought a great many songbirds and kept them in the dark, teaching them one lesson, to say “Hanno is a god.” When they, hearing this one phrase, had mastered it, he let them go, one this way and another that, thinking that the birds' song about him would spread far and wide. But they, once they had spread their wings and gained their freedom and returned to their native haunts, sang their own songs and made the music of birds, bidding a long farewell to Hanno and to the lessons of their slavery.