Babrius

(Βάβριος) or Babrias (Βαβρίας). The compiler of a comprehensive collection of Aesop's fables in choliambic metre. The book is probably to be assigned to the beginning of the first century B.C. Until 1842 nothing was known of Babrius but fragments and paraphrases, bearing the name of Aesopus. (See Aesopus.) But in that year a Greek, Minoides Minas, discovered 123 of the original fables in the monastery on Mt. Athos. In 1857, he brought out 95 more, the genuineness of which was disputed by Cobet and other scholars. These were edited by Lewis in 1859, and are included in Bergk's Anthologia Lyrica, 4th ed. (1883). Babrius has been edited also by Lachmann (Berlin, 1845), and, with additions from the Bodleian and Vatican MSS., by Gitlbauer (Vienna, 1882). The style of Babrius is simple and pleasing, the tone fresh and lively. The fables of Phaedrus (q.v.) were imitated, with considerable closeness to the original, from the μῦθοι or μυθίαμβοι of Babrius. An excellent text, with dissertations, notes, and lexicon, is that of Rutherford (London, 1883).