Phaedrus
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Related to Phaedrus: Plato
Phaedrus
Phaedrus (fēˈdrəs), fl. 1st cent. A.D., Latin writer, a Thracian slave, possibly a freedman of Augustus. He wrote fables in verse based largely on those of Aesop. The prose collections of fables that were popular throughout Western Europe in the Middle Ages were probably derived from Phaedrus.
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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Phaedrus
Born circa 15 B.C. in Macedonia; died circa A.D. 70 in Rome. Latin fabulist.
Phaedrus was a slave and later a freedman of the emperor Augustus. Of his five books of Aesopian Fables in iambic verse, 134 fables have been preserved. In the later books, Phaedrus expanded the range of the traditional genre by introducing moral judgments, anecdotes, and other new material. Phaedrus was plebeian in outlook, and he devoted much attention to social motifs. His style is rather dry and the narrative is invariably subordinate to the moral.
REFERENCES
Fedri Babrii: Basni. Translated by M. L. Gasparov. Moscow, 1962.Gasparov, M. L. Antichnaia literaturnaia basnia (Fedr i Babrii). Moscow, 1971.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Phaedrus
?15 bc--?50 ad, Roman author of five books of Latin verse fables, based chiefly on Aesop
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005