Phaedrus (c. 15 BCE – 50 CE) lived in ancient Rome. A slave by birth, he became a freedman in the household of the Emperor Augustus.

He was familiar with the works of Greek and Roman writers and was the first person to translate into Latin and put into verse whole books of the Greek prose fables then circulating and attributed to Aesop. Though others before him had rendered fables into verse and used them in their work, Phaedrus considered himself a pioneering artist, and believed his poems would give him immortal fame. His fables became very popular in Europe during the Middle Ages.

In the 18th century, a manuscript was discovered in Parma that contained sixty-four fables by Phaedrus; thirty of these were new.

So here they are, these wise and witty tales from long ago