V. PHAEDRUS.
Flourished about 15 A.D.
Phaedrus, born in Thrace, came to Rome as a slave, and was set free by Augustus. Under Tiberius he was the victim of political persecution on account of some verses offensive to Sejanus. He published five books of fables (with occasional anecdotes) largely imitated from Aesop.
His style is fluent, his tone lively and sometimes coarse, his diction correct, his verse skilful.—Teuffel, Schwabe, and Warr, History of Roman Literature, vol. 2, p. 30.
For Reference: Teuffel, Schwabe, and Warr, History of Roman
Literature, vol. 2, p. 29 ff.
Metre: Iambic Trimeter, B. 370, 1, 2; A. & G. 618, a, b.
1. Aesopus: a famous writer of fables, born in Phrygia about 600 B.C. He is said to have been liberated from slavery, to have lived at Sardis and to have been Croesus' ambassador to Delphi, where he was murdered by the angry townspeople, who hurled him over a precipice. Babrius, a Greek who lived about 100 B.C., made a comprehensive collection of Aesopian fables which Phaedrus imitated with considerable closeness. 5-7. 'Let no one censure me for representing trees as speaking; it is merely the play of fancy and a fable.'
2. 4. latro: the robber wolf. 7. Qui: how? Qui is the old ablative of the relative, interrogative, and indefinite pronouns.
4. 1. devocat: allures. 3. Tanto…melior: 'That is good!' See Lex. under tantus, I, C, 3, a, b. 4. prosecutus: and went on to say. See Lex. underprosequor, II, B. 5. unde: equivalent to a quo. 7. dignum ff.: with a double meaning. 10. namque: for, a strengthened nam.
5. This story is also told by Cicero, De Oratore, 2. 352 ff., and by others. 1, 2. Quantum…superius: an earlier fable (4. 23) relates how Simonides, shipwrecked and destitute, was received most hospitably by one of his admirers. 4. Simonides: the renowned Greek lyric poet of Ceos. His ode upon those who fell at Thermopylae was especially famous. Sterling translates: