because he composed so large a number (all framed in the same
mould, and conformed to the same fashion, and stamped with the
same lineaments, image, and superscription) as to secure to
himself the right to be considered the father of Greek fables,
and the founder of this class of writing, which has ever since
borne his name, and has secured for him, through all succeeding
ages, the position of the first of moralists.[7]

The fables were in the first instance only narrated by Aesop, and
for a long time were handed down by the uncertain channel of oral
tradition. Socrates is mentioned by Plato[8] as having employed
his time while in prison, awaiting the return of the sacred ship
from Delphos which was to be the signal of his death, in turning
some of these fables into verse, but he thus versified only such
as he remembered. Demetrius Phalereus, a philosopher at Athens
about 300 B.C., is said to have made the first collection of
these fables. Phaedrus, a slave by birth or by subsequent
misfortunes, and admitted by Augustus to the honors of a
freedman, imitated many of these fables in Latin iambics about
the commencement of the Christian era. Aphthonius, a rhetorician
of Antioch, A.D. 315, wrote a treatise on, and converted into
Latin prose, some of these fables. This translation is the more
worthy of notice, as it illustrates a custom of common use, both
in these and in later times. The rhetoricians and philosophers
were accustomed to give the Fables of Aesop as an exercise to
their scholars, not only inviting them to discuss the moral of
the tale, but also to practice and to perfect themselves thereby
in style and rules of grammar, by making for themselves new and
various versions of the fables. Ausonius,[9] the friend of the
Emperor Valentinian, and the latest poet of eminence in the