Ancient Greek and Latin Collections

Unlike with later collectors, editors, and authors of tales, such as Charles Perrault, the Grimm brothers, and H. C. Andersen, it is not possible to establish an authoritative canon of stories attributable to Aesop, nor does there exist a standard version of Greek or Latin fables in the Aesopic style.

The first mentioned collection of fables attributed to Aesop is said to have been compiled in Athens by one Demetrius Phalareus about 300 B.C., but this work is no longer extant. It did not survive later than about 900 A.D., and it is not known how many stories this collection contained, nor which specific fables it included.

The oldest surviving collection of Aesopic fables was recorded in Rome in Latin iambic verse by Phaedrus during the first century A.D. Phaedrus was born as a slave about 15 B.C. in Thrace; at a young age moved to Italy, where he gained his freedom; and died about 50 A.D. Divided into five books, Phaedrus’s collection contains some 94 fables. The opening lines of his prologue are instructive : “Aesop is my source. He invented the substance of these fables, but I have put them into finished form.... A double dowry comes with this, my little book: it moves to laughter, and by wise counsels guides the conduct of life. Should anyone choose to run it down, because trees too are vocal, not wild beasts alone, let him remember that I speak in jest of things that never happened” (Perry, Babrius and Plraedrus, p. 191). Later editors relied heavily on Phaedrus as a source for their “Aesop’s fables.”

The oldest extant collection of Aesopic fables in Greek was authored by Babrius (sometimes identified as Valerius Babrius) in the second century A.D. Apart from the deduction from his linguistic style that he was a Hellenized Roman, nothing is known about the person Babrius. His collection included more than 200 fables, 143 of which are still extant in their original verse form, with an additional 57 having survived in prose paraphrases. Like the collection of his predecessor Phaedrus, Babrius’s Aesopic fables also served as a source for later editors.

Among the many classical authors who used Aesop-like stories in their own works, none is more important than the Roman satirist and poet Horace (65-8 B.C.). In fact, one of the most famous of all fables attributed to Aesop, “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse” (no. 141), was first recorded by Horace in his Satires (book 2, no. 6). The context is revealing, showing how traditional fables were used in classical Roman society. The narrator relates that from time to time a man named Cervius would tell fables to his friends, and whenever one of them would “forget the dreads of wealth, he’d tell this one.” The narrator continues by recounting the now-familiar fable in full. Some 200 years later Babrius recorded “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse” in his collection of Aesopic fables, and it has been credited to Aesop from that time forth.