Gaius Julius Phaedrus (; grc-gre, Φαῖδρος; Phaîdros) was a 1st-century CE

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

fabulist and the first versifier of a collection of Aesop's fables into Latin. Few facts are known about him for certain and there was little mention of his work during

late antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English h ...

. It was not until the discovery of a few imperfect manuscripts during and following the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

that his importance emerged, both as an author and in the transmission of the fables.

Biography

A recent statement of the few facts that past scholars have tried to deduce from autobiographical hints given by Phaedrus in his poems has summarised them as follows:

He was born in Macedonia, probably in Pydna, about 15 BCE, came to Rome as a slave and was freed by
Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
. He probably had some teaching function between then and the time of
Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...
, under whom the first book of his poems appeared. Envious competitors interpreted the morals of some fables as being critical of the regime and he was tried by
Sejanus Lucius Aelius Sejanus (c. 20 BC – 18 October AD 31), commonly known as Sejanus (), was a Roman soldier, friend and confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius. Of the Equites class by birth, Sejanus rose to power as prefect of the Praetorian ...
, probably at the time of the latter’s fall. In the prologue to his third book, we find Phaedrus pleading with a certain Eutychus to intercede on his behalf. Surviving the turbulent times into old age, possibly under
Caligula Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), better known by his nickname Caligula (), was the third Roman emperor, ruling from 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the popular Roman general Germani ...
and
Claudius Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54) was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Drusus and Antonia Minor ...
, he produced two more books and died towards the middle of the first century CE.

There is, however, no evidence to support any of this and certain facts conflict with the traditional account. What Phaedrus had to say about himself might as plausibly be reinterpreted to prove that he was born in Rome and spent the whole of his life there as a free citizen.

Work

Phaedrus is now recognized as the first writer to compile entire books of fables in Latin, retelling the Aesopic tales in ''senarii'', a loose iambic metre. The dates of composition and publication are unknown. However,

Seneca the Younger Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (; 65 AD), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, dramatist, and, in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca was born ...

, writing between 41 and 43 CE, recommended in a letter to Claudius' freedman

Polybius Polybius (; grc-gre, Πολύβιος, ; ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , which covered the period of 264–146 BC and the Punic Wars in detail. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed ...

that he turn his hand to Latinising Aesop, 'a task hitherto not attempted by Roman genius' (''Ad Polybium'' 8.3). This suggests that nothing was known of Phaedrus' work at that date. By the mid-80s

Martial Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman poet from Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of ''Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 and ...

was imitating him and mentions his mischievous humour (''improbi jocos Phaedri''). The next reference is a homage by his fellow fabulist Avianus near the start of the 5th century, who claims the five books of fables as one of his sources in the dedication of his own work. A 9th century manuscript of the fables of Phaedrus was only discovered in France towards the end of the 16th century. This was published in 1596 by Pierre Pithou as ''Fabularum Aesopiarum libri quinque'' and was followed by two more editions before century's end. Near the beginning of the 18th century, a manuscript of the 15th-century bishop Niccolò Perotti was discovered at

Parma Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, music, art, prosciutto (ham), cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 inhabitants, Parma is the second m ...

containing sixty-four fables of Phaedrus, of which some thirty were previously unknown. These new fables were first published in 1808, and their versions were afterwards superseded by the discovery of a much better preserved manuscript of Perotti in the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...

, published in 1831. Scholars realised that Phaedrus' work had also served as the basis for Mediaeval fable collections that went by the name of

Romulus Romulus () was the legendary founder and first king of Rome. Various traditions attribute the establishment of many of Rome's oldest legal, political, religious, and social institutions to Romulus and his contemporaries. Although many of these ...

and at the start of the 20th century the Swedish scholar Carl Magnus Zander (1845–1923) reconstructed 30 additional fables from their prose recensions there. What had survived of Phaedrus' five books in Pithou's manuscript was of unequal length and seemed to indicate that material has been lost. This was supported by the apology in the prologue to the first book for including talking trees, of which there are no examples in the text that survives although there was one in the Perotti appendix. In fact only 59 out of 94 in the Pithou manuscript were even animal fables. The author's aim at the start was to follow Aesop in creating a work that "moves one to mirth and warns with wise advice". As the work progressed, however, he widened his focus and now claimed to be "refining" Aesopic material and even adding to it. In later books we find tales of Roman events well after the time of Aesop such as "Tiberius and the slave" (II.5) and "Augustus and the accused wife" (III.9), as well as the poet's personal reply to envious detractors (IV.21); there are also anecdotes in which Aesop figures from the later biographical tradition (II.3; III.3; IV.5; and items 9 and 20 in Perotti's appendix). Finally he makes a distinction between matter and manner in the epilogue to the fifth book, commenting that ::I write in Esop’s style, not in his name, ::And for the most part I the subject claim. ::Tho' some brief portion Esop might indite, ::The more I from my own invention write, ::The style is ancient but the matter’s new. He also claims a place in the Latin literary tradition by echoing well-known and respected writers. It is to be noticed, however, that where Phaedrus and the slightly earlier poet

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...

adapted the same fable to satirical themes, they often used different versions of it. In Horace a crow (''cornicula'') is the subject of The Bird in Borrowed Feathers; in Phaedrus it is a jackdaw (''graculus''). In the case of The Horse that Lost its Liberty, Phaedrus has it disputing with a boar and Horace with a stag. Neither do they agree in their account of The Frog and the Ox. Horace follows the story found in Greek sources; the frog's motivation is different in Phaedrus, and it is his version that Martial follows later. Moreover, in following the model of Aesop, the enfranchised slave, Phaedrus' satire is sharper and restores "the ancient function of the fable as a popular expression against the dominant classes". Another commentator points out that "the Aesopian fable has been a political creature from its earliest origins, and Phaedrus, (who was La Fontaine's model), though more openly subversive, has claims to be the first proletarian satiric poet".

Editions

The fables of Phaedrus soon began to be published as school editions, both in the original Latin and in prose translation. Since the 18th century there have also been four complete translations into English verse. The first was by

Christopher Smart Christopher Smart (11 April 1722 – 20 May 1771) was an English poet. He was a major contributor to two popular magazines, ''The Midwife'' and ''The Student'', and a friend to influential cultural icons like Samuel Johnson and Henry Fiel ...

into

octosyllabic The octosyllable or octosyllabic verse is a line of verse with eight syllables. It is equivalent to tetrameter verse in trochees in languages with a stress accent. Its first occurrence is in a 10th-century Old French saint's legend, the '' Vie ...

couplets (London 1753). Brooke Boothby's "The Esopean Fables of Phedrus" were included in his ''Fables and Satires'' (Edinburgh, 1809) and also used octosyllables but in a more condensed manner: ::What Esop taught his beasts in Greek, ::Phedrus in Latin made them speak: ::In English, I from him translate, ::And his brief manner imitate. It was followed by the Reverend Frederick Toller's ''A poetical version of the fables of Phædrus'' (London, 1854). These were translated more diffusely into irregular verses of five metrical feet and each fable was followed by a prose commentary. The most recent translation by P. F. Widdows also includes the fables in the Perotti appendix and all are rendered into a free version of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse. Phaedrus versions were translated individually by a variety of other poets into different languages. A small selection in various poetic forms appeared in the ''Poems & Translations'' (London 1769) of Ashley Cowper (1701–88). There were many more poems distinctively styled in La Fontaine's Fables; others followed by

Ivan Krylov Ivan Andreyevich Krylov (russian: Ива́н Андре́евич Крыло́в; 13 February 1769 – 21 November 1844) is Russia's best-known fabulist and probably the most epigrammatic of all Russian authors. Formerly a dramatist and journali ...

in Russian;

Gregory Skovoroda Hryhorii Skovoroda, also Gregory Skovoroda or Grigory Skovoroda ( la, Gregorius Scovoroda; uk, Григорій Савич Сковорода, ''Hryhorii Savych Skovoroda''; russian: Григо́рий Са́ввич Сковорода́, ...

and

Leonid Hlibov Leonid Ivanovych Hlibov ( uk, Леонід Іванович Глібов ; 5 March 1827 – 10 November 1893) was a Ukraine, Ukrainian poet, writer, teacher, and civic figure. Life Hlibov was born in Veselyi Podil, Khorol, Ukraine, Khorol county, ...

in Ukrainian; and a more complete collection by Volodymyr Lytvynov in 1986.Osnovy Publishing
/ref>

References

External links

Pithou's editio princeps
(Troyes: Jean Oudot, 1596) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Phaedrus 1st-century Roman poets 1st-century Latin writers Fabulists Silver Age Latin writers Imperial Roman slaves and freedmen

Biography

Work

Editions

References

Further reading

External links