gracefulness; and where he offers any remarks, they generally show the
author to be a man of judgment and observation. Valerius Maximus is
chargeable with no affectation of style, but is sometimes deficient in
that purity of language which might be expected in the age of Tiberius,
to whom the work is addressed. What inducement the author had to this
dedication, we know not; but as it is evident from a passage in the ninth
book, that the compliment was paid after the death of Sejanus, and
consequently in the most shameful period of Tiberius's reign, we cannot
entertain any high opinion of the independent spirit of Valerius Maximus,
who could submit to flatter a tyrant, in the zenith of infamy and
detestation. But we cannot ascribe the cause to any delicate artifice,
of conveying to Tiberius, indirectly, an admonition to reform his
conduct. Such an expedient would have only provoked the severest
resentment from his jealousy.----

PHAEDRUS was a native of Thrace, and was brought to Rome as a slave. He
had the good fortune to come into the service of Augustus, where,
improving his talents by reading, he obtained (249) the favour of the
emperor, and was made one of his freedmen. In the reign of Tiberius, he
translated into Iambic verse the Fables of Aesop. They are divided into
five books, and are not less conspicuous for precision and simplicity of
thought, than for purity and elegance of style; conveying moral
sentiments with unaffected ease and impressive energy. Phaedrus
underwent, for some time, a persecution from Sejanus, who, conscious of
his own delinquency, suspected that he was obliquely satirised in the
commendations bestowed on virtue by the poet. The work of Phaedrus is
one of the latest which have been brought to light since the revival of
learning. It remained in obscurity until two hundred years ago, when it
was discovered in a library at Rheims.----