The Origin of The Epimythium

The Origin of the Epimythium
Author(s): B. E. Perry
Source: Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 71
(1940), pp. 391-419
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Vol. lxxi] The Origin of the Epimythium 391
XXVIII.-The Origin of the Epimythium

B. E. PERRY
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
When the moral of a fable stands apart at the end, which is not
always the case, we have what is properly called an 'epimythium.'

Herein the author, speaking in his own person, explains to us-often
against our will and Minerva's-what the preceding story means in
terms of general principles. He makes an application that is always

general or gnomic, never specific; and he does so usually in the
spirit of an interpreter. In the manuscripts the epimythium is
often called the Xvots, or 'solution', as if the foregoing fable were a
riddle to be solved. I state these obvious facts about the typical
epimythium for the sake of distinctions that will have to be made
later on.
Epimythia, as I have defined them, are attached to a large

majority of the Greek prose fables that have come down to us
under the name of Aesop.' Phaedrus also makes frequent, though

by no means regular, use of them, and it is certain that some at
least of the epimythia in Babrius originated with the author himself.
Previous to the time of Phaedrus, however, no fables equipped with
typical epimythia are extant in collections.2 Since so many of these

epimythia, or author's morals, are superfluous, and their effect that
of an anticlimax to an otherwise dramatic story, one wonders why

and under what circumstances they ever came to be attached to
Aesopic fables. Hitherto no satisfactory explanation has been
1 These are cited below according to their number in the edition by E. Cham
Aesopi Fabulae (2 vols.; Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1925). All references to Phaedrus
are to the text by J. P. Postgate, Phaedri Fabulae Aesopiae (Oxford, Clarendon Press,
1919). Babrius is cited from the text of 0. Crusius, Babrii Fabulae Aesopeae (editio
maior; Leipzig, Teubner, 1897).
2 Apart from the Rylands papyrus (see page 400), we have no collections that
antedate Phaedrus. In literature, where the conditions are very different, in that a
context is provided, I find only three generalized epimythia before the time of Phaedrus
and of these only one (Hor. Epist. i.10.39ff.) is fully typical; the others are in fragments
of Ennius and Lucilius. See below, pp. 395f. Epimythia were probably regular in
prose collections by the second century after Christ, but the passages in Philostratus
(Vita Apoll. v.14) and Lucian (Bacchus 8), which have been cited in support of this,
do not prove it. Lucian definitely refers to the specific or personal type of application,
which is as old as the fifth century B.C. (see p. 394), and Philostratus may very well,
though not certainly, have the same thing in mind.
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offered, although the notion has prevailed that epimythia as we
know them were invented by rhetoricians or schoolmasters, either

for the purpose of instructing the young, or through a perverse
fondness for exercising their didactic talents. Such motives were
no doubt operative to some extent among scribes and editors in a
late stage of the tradition; but they do not, as it happens, provide

us with the real clue to the origin of the epimythium. That clue
is to be found in the history of fable-writing in antiquity; and,
although the outlines of this history, as known to us, are scanty,
they are nevertheless sharp enough to enable one to trace the rise
of the epimythium in a fairly clear, as well as in a new light. Looking at the matter in this way, we shall find that the epimythium,
insofar as it consists in a final moral or application without regard
to the manner of its conveyance or to whether it happens to be
general or specific, was conventional in one form or another in

fables from the earliest times; that, on the other hand, insofar as it
is an author's moral fully generalized-and this is the most distinctive thing about the typical epimythium as it appears in our extant
collections it is descended directly from the promythium, which
it imitates; and, finally, that the promythium, instead of being
intended as an explanation of the fable, was originally nothing
more than an index-heading in a handbook of reference.

The literary history of the fable in ancient times is marked by
three successive periods of development, each of them conditioned
by a different outlook on the part of the authors concerned. In the
earliest period fables are related by Greek writers only incidentally,
either with reference to a specific situation, when the telling of the
tale is represented as an act of Aesop or of someone else, or as the
author's own illustration of an idea that he is seeking to convey.
In other words, the written fable in classical times exists only in a
context and is not told as an end in itself. Naturally, this use of
the fable was never abandoned, but was as common in later antiquity as ever before or since. In classical times, however, this
was almost the only way in which an Aesopic fable would find its
way into literature.3 In the second period of fable-writing, which
corresponds roughly with the Alexandrian age, fables were gathered
I Socrates in Plato's Phaedo (61 B) says that while in prison he put a number of
Aesop's fables into poetry, and Diogenes Laertius (II.5.42) quotes the beginning of one
of them: Aic7rwirs 7ror' EXee KopItsOos duTv ve,uovr& I u7/ KptvPLP aIpPeT7p Xao8tKWg
It may well be doubted whether or not this is genuine. Archilochus seems to have used
fables occasionally in personal satire; cf. fr. 89 (Bergk).
into collections by scholarly compilers for the convenience of writers

and speakers who would use them in the same way in which earlier
writers had used them, i.e. as occasional illustrations in a speech or
an essay. It was not until the third period, ushered in by Phaedrus

and Babrius (or shortly before), that the compilers of fable-collections
came to regard their productions, even when written in prose, as
to some extent literature in its own right, as something to be read
for its own sake rather than to be used merely for reference. Such
authors, however humble their pretensions, were no longer writing
exclusively for the benefit of litte'rateurs who wished to make use of

their materials, but were addressing themselves also to the general
reading public. It is only under these new conditions that the
rise of the epimythium, as an explanation contributed by the author
in his own person for the reader's edification, is historically plausible.
But this new outlook was by no means the only factor that con-
tributed to the birth of the epimythium. Other maieutic conditions

were present in the form of long-standing conventions in the writing
and telling of fables; and, in order to make these clear, it will be
necessary to consider each of the three periods of fable-writing,
which have just been defined, in greater detail and with special
reference to those elements in the fable which are antecedent and
akin to the later epimythium. In so doing it will not be practical
to adhere strictly to one period at a time in our description; now
and then, for the sake of historical continuity, we shall digress far
enough to trace a convention of earlier times, when first mentioned,
into the later periods.
The first period extends from the earliest times down to approximately the end of the 4th century B.C., when Demetrius of Phalerum
compiled the first known collection of Aesopic fables, entitled,

according to Diogenes Laertius (v.5.80), our only source of information on the subject, Xo6ycov AwcrELrwv ovvaTyw&yat and consisting of
one book only. Previous to the time of Demetrius, fables more or
less closely approximating the Aesopic type, and in some cases
ascribed to Aesop, are related incidentally by Hesiod, Archilochus,
Stesichorus, Aeschylus, Herodotus, Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plato,
and Aristotle. In these fables the application, except in a few cases
where it is not given or not preserved, is always specific, never
generalized. Aesop, or some other character, is represented as
having related this or that fable on a particular occasion, in order
to convince his hearers, or to illustrate the particular situation in
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which he or his audience found themselves. At the end the narrator

points the tale by adding something like "Thus you too . . ." or
"Likewise I. . . ." So Aristotle in his Rhetoric (II.20) tells us that

when the people of Himera had chosen Phalaris as their general
with autocratic powers and were considering the advisability of
giving him a bodyguard also, Stesichorus opposed the plan and
in the course of his argument related to them the fable of the
horse who, in order to get rid of his rival, the stag, allowed a man
to put a bit and bridle on him and ride him, thereby becoming
enslaved to the man. After relating this fable to the Himeraeans,
Stesichorus added: "Likewise you too watch out (OVf4W 3 KaL VLEtS,
e+71, 6paTE) lest, in your desire to take vengeance on your enemie

you suffer just what the horse did; for you have already accepted
the bit and bridle by appointing a dictator, and if you allow him
to get on your back you will forthwith become slaves to Phalaris."

This fable is one of two that Aristotle cites as typical of the species
(Xo6yot, otov ot' Aiao-rEtot KatL A3VKoL); the other, which follows immediately, is one which Aesop, according to Aristotle, related to the
Samians when he was pleading the case of a politician on trial for
embezzlement. Here too, in the story of the fox and her ticks,
the application is specific and the analogies are pointed out in detail.
This is true also of Xenophon's fable of the dog and the sheep,4 of
Herodotus' story of the flute player and the fishes,5 of the two actvot
in Sophocles' Ajax (1141ff.),6 of a Sybaritic anecdote in Aristophanes'
Wasps (1432),7 and of Plato's Aesopic fable about pleasure and pain
in the Phaedo (60 c). Moreover, the same procedure as described
above is followed in nine of the eleven fables related by Aesop in

the ancient biography of him,8 a biography which, by the very nature
of its context, was bound to employ this style of application, inasmuch as it represented Aesop always as reacting to particular
situations, never as preaching in the abstract.

4 Mem. ii.7.13-14; see note 17.
5 Hdt. i.141. Here the application takes an unusual form in that it is Herodotus,
and not the narrator of the fable (Cyrus), who points out the specific analogies.
6 See below, p. 396 and note 27. On certain fixed conventions of the atvos, including
OVTco discussed below, see E. Fraenkel, "Zur Form der AIPov," Rheinisches Museum
N.S. LXXIII (1920-24), 366-370.
7 Cf. note 17 and p. 399.
8 Cf. A. Westermann, Vita Aesopi (Brunsvigae, G. Westermann, 1845), p. 33,
line 17; 43.10ff.; 52.16ff.; 54.2f. and 26ff.; 56.1ff. and 18ff.; 57.12ff. Introducing the
application of these fables we find such phrases as aXX&a rv (+ imperative), KacycW,
0A,uWS (cWraaV6rwc) TE Ka&YC, w`-TE Kal crv, etc.

The specific (usually personal) application, which was the only
kind used in the classical period, obviously could not survive in
a collection of fables where each was told for its own sake without any context. But in almost any other kind of book it was
natural, particularly in history, oratory, satire, or epigram. In

post-Alexandrian literature examples are to be found in Horace,9
Livy,10 Diodorus,1" Dio Chrysostom,12 Plutarch,13 and Lucian.'4
Moreover, since a literary work may provide the context or setting

for a fable which a mere collection cannot supply, we may expect
to find in literature not only specific applications of the kind cited
above, but also generalized morals. That the latter do not occur
in authors before Ennius, and thereafter only rarely, may be due
in part to accident; but there were few preachers, in the manner of
the Roman satirists, previous to the Alexandrian age, and it is only

when an author is writing about ethical or philosophical values in
general that he is likely to give a general rather than a specific

application to a fable that has been cited for illustration. At the
end of his long fable about the crested lark, Ennius adds: hoc erit
tibi argumentum semper in promptu I ne quid expectes amic

quod tute agere possies.15 And still more like the typical epimythium of the collections, though perhaps contemporary with it,
is the moral given by Horace to the fable of the horse and the stag
(Epist. i.10.39ff.): sic qui pauperiem veritus potiore metallis J liber-
tate caret, dominum vehet improbus atque I serviet aeternum, quia

parvo nesciet uti. Literary precedents of this kind may possibly
have been present to the minds of those who first added epimythia
to collected fables; but, if so, this is not an influence that can be

traced objectively, nor, in view of the scarcity of such precedents,
9 Horace, Serm. II.3.320: haec a te non multum abludit imago (Damasippus
applying to Horace the fable of the frog puffing herself up to equal a cow). Cf. Epist.
I.7.34.
10 Livy II.32.
11 Diodorus Siculus xix.25.7 and xxxiII.7.6.
12 Orat. xiI.9 and xxxiii.16.
13 Coriolanus 6; cf. Aratus 30 and 38.
14 Nigrinus 32; Hermotimus 84; Bacchus 8. The specific application survives here
and there in the collections when it is quoted from the mouth of Aesop or someone else
who is said to have told the fable on a particular occasion. But all this comes within
the fable itself as reported by the author and is not, like the epimythium, the latter's
own addition. So Phaedrus I.2: 'vos quoque, o cives,' ait, I 'hoc sustinete, maius ne
veniat, malum'; Append. 10: et tu . . . vide ne.
15 Saturae 57ff.; see J. Vahlen, Ennianae Poesis Reliquiae (Leipzig, Teubner, 1903),
p. 209.
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[1940
is it likely to have been an active one. On the other hand, certain

of the standardized phrases by which the specific application was
introduced in literary fables of the first two periods have obviously
been carried over into the epimythia of collections dating from the
third period.16 I refer to orwco or oVircs often followed by Kal and, in

earlier times, by a pronoun of the second person (which is naturally
discarded in the later generalized epimythia), and aTap oivV Kat bya-g
0r, ya s) .
It is with the words oVTco t5' KacL NUElS, KTX. (translated above) that
Stesichorus, in Aristotle, applies his fable of the horse and the stag
to the Himeraeans. Menelaus, addressing Teucer in the Ajax of
Sophocles (1147), adds oivrc Se KaS . . . at the end of his short
parable; and the same words, except for ov in place of a, are
used by Philocleon in Aristophanes' Wasps (1432) in directing his
Sybaritic tale against the prosecutor.'7 The first epigram of Callimachus consists entirely of a story about Pittacus which ends with
the exhortation: oVTo Kac afV, ALwv, TJV KaTda cavurov EXa. Here ALwv
is the reading given by Diogenes Laertius (i.4.80); but the Palatine
Anthology (vii.89), perhaps rightly, has -y' hrv, which would make
the application general in meaning though personal in form. Likewise tibi in the passage of Ennius cited above seems to be generic,
although we cannot be sure of it; and the same applies to the words
sic tu illos fructos quaeras with which Lucilius points what was
presumably the fable of the ant and the grasshopper.18 Transition
from the strictly personal to the generic sense of the second-person
pronoun is, of course, very natural. Later oViTw, without the pronoun, introduces the generalized morals of two fables in Plutarch,19
and the same writer also has ovTcws OVV Kal . . . irp6S u,uas in a specific
application.20 Further, oviTcos is used in the only well-preserved
16 The epimythia of the later collections probably owe these phrases not to fables
scattered in literature, but to collections of the Alexandrian period, wherein they were
used by speakers in the fable itself; see below, p. 397 and note 24.
17 OVrw ae KaL aov raparpeX' es ra llTrraXov. A somewhat different type of ending,

in which oiVrwo is used in summing up the main action or thought of the preceding fable
and is followed by a personal application or exhortation, is typified by the following
passage in Aristophanes' Lysistrata (794f.): OVTC,) Tas yvpaZKas I'36EXVUXO7 KeLKVOs, r/AeJs T
o' 'v 'TTOY. This type, with oV,rw, is used also in Lys. 816 (personal application forestalled by interruption); Xenophon Mem. ii.1.34 and ii.7.13; Plato Rep. 621 B. oVTw
is also not infrequently used in summarizing statements at the ends of fables in Class I,
e.g. Cham. 164 and 252.
18 Lucilius 561 (ed. F. Marx).
19 Sept. Sap. Cony. 14 (Mor. 157 B); Qutaest. Conv. I.1.5 (614 E).
20 Coriolanus 6.

moral of the Rylands papyrus (here put into the mouth of the last
speaker in the fable, hence not really an epimythium), and there
are possible traces of it in another moral of the same text.2' It
thus appears that ovcrw or ovirws was commonly used to introduce the
application of a fable from the fifth century B.C. down to the second
century after Christ. Moreover, it may not be entirely fanciful
to note that the pronoun of the second person, which accompanies
it in the literal meaning in the earliest period, takes on a generic
sense under the special conditions of satire and epigram in the
Alexandrian period (Callimachus, Ennius, Lucilius, Horace) and
is dropped entirely in Plutarch, Lucian, and the oldest of our
extant prose collections (Class I).22 But while the specific form
merges gradually into the pattern of a typical generalized epi-
mythium (e.g. ovcrw iroXXot . . . Chambry 126), ovcrw or ovcrws

constant. In Class I, which seems to date from the second or
third century after Christ, about 82 fables in a total of approximately 230 have epimythia beginning with one of these words;
whence it appears that this convenion in the epimythia of our oldest
prose collection is traditional and derived from the specific applica-
tions of an earlier day. On the other hand, the formula O XO&yos 8Xo
which occurs in Class I almost as frequently as ovrw (-Gws), and for
which there are equivalents in Phaedrus, has no antecedents in
the literary fable and is probably derived from the promythia of

Alexandrian collections.23
That which has been said above concerning ovcrw and ovirws is true
also of the more striking phrase aTap O0W' KaL vaS . . . This first
occurs in Aristotle (Rhet. ii.20), where it is quoted from Aesop at
21 See C. H. Roberts, Catalogue of the Greek and Latin Papyri in the John Ryland
Library (Manchester, University Press, 1938), iii.119ff. (no. 493). For further information concerning this text, whose writing is dated in the first half of the first century
after Christ, see p. 400 and, on the volume as a whole, the learned and comprehensive
review by W. A. Oldfather, A.J.P. LXI (1940), 211-221. Of the two passages referred
to above, the first is quoted below on page 400; the second is in line 131 of the papyrus,
which reads as follows in the moral uttered by the last speaker in the fable: . . . Ws
oVisv 64EXoS ViOTepoV. The editor states that probably two lines have been lost following
these words.
22 For a brief account of the various recensions of the Greek prose fables ascribed
to Aesop, see my Studies in the Text History of the Life and Fables of Aesop (Haverford,
Amer. Philol. Assn., 1936), 73ff. The recension which I call Class I has often been
called the 'Augustana' after one of its principal manuscripts; its versions may be distinguished from the others in Chambry's edition by the fact that the MSS cited for
them are designated by P (Pa Pb Pc etc.) and that they are regularly printed first.
23 See below, p. 412.
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the beginning of the latter's application of his fable to the Samians:
aTap o0v KaL vmas, E'4n7, ci a'VpES 2a'AoL, ovros 1u4v o'VSEv ETL /Xca-rTEL. Late
we find it in the Rylands papyrus, where it is used by one or more
of the speakers within the fable itself, apparently in gnomic or
quasi-gnomic utterances; 24 and in Class I, besides introducing the
epimythia of 9 fables (with ry,as substituted for v ,uas) ,25 it survives

in one fable, significantly, in its original personal form. This fable,
number 86 in Chambry, tells how a father demonstrated the power
of unity to his sons by inviting them to break first a bundle of rods
and afterwards one rod at a time. When the experiment has been
made, the father sums up the moral of the fable in the following
words: aTap oiv Kal V/.4ElS, C 1ral6ES, eav /EV 0,uO4pOv?7TE, aXELPWTOL
EXOpoS fOEOaOE r Ea v SeaoTaSaa7TE, EbaXWToL. But this dramatic utt

ance, which should have concluded the fable, and probably did
conclude it in some earlier collection, is here followed by an author's
epimythium which states the same idea in weaker and more abstract
terms. Incidentally, this typical conflict between the epimythium
on the one hand and the dramatic and virtually gnomic ending of
a fable on the other is one indication of the late and spurious
character of epimythia as such; in many cases they have been

awkwardly superimposed on fables whose morals, by a convention
of long standing, of which we shall say more presently, had already

been conveyed clearly and effectively by the dramatic or epigrammatic technique. But to return to the phrase beginning with aTap,
let us note in conclusion that this formula in the epimythia of Class I
(9 times) is derived from the specific application (with v,as or byEls)

as it appears in Aristotle, though probably through the medium of
Alexandrian collections, where, as in the Rylands papyrus and in
the significantly exceptional fable 86, the phrase was conventional
in the mouth of one of the characters in the fable.
Neither in early Greek literature nor in the collections of later
antiquity do we find any appreciable distinction made between

what one thinks of as a typical Aesopic fable on the one hand, and
24 The passages as printed by the editor are as follows: arap ouv Kal v7r[ in line 125;
OVV Ka[. . ]v[ in 143; a[. J,u[. OwV u[ in 151; and arap o lI[ovros ecre] in 91. The presence
of this phrase in the papyrus text somewhat enhances the undemonstrable, but otherwise not improbable, hypothesis that Demetrius of Phalerum, a Peripatetic by education, was its author; for a&rap etc. is used by Aristotle (Rhet. ii.20) and may have become
conventional among his followers also in the telling of fables.
25 In Chambry nos. 23, 53, 60, 164, 203 (codd. Pb Pf Ph and G), 247, 252, 285,
and 357.

on the other, a clever or sententious saying quoted as having been
uttered by Aesop or some other character (historical or fictitious),

or by an animal, under special circumstances.26 Very often the
most important thing is what the last speaker says; and this, the
moral or the point of the fable, may be either fully gnomic in form,
or gnomic by implication though specific in form, or it may consist

in nothing more than an amusing or witty utterance.
Let us consider first the history of the purely gnomic sentence
in the mouth of the last speaker in the fable. Athenaeus (xv.695 A)
cites an old skolion which reads:
O SE KapKLVOS W6 E'4n7,
XaXa ToV O4tv Xat3c V

Eboiv Xp' rOv Etra-pov E/IJUEV
Kat /.67 TKOXLa 4pOVEZV.
A Sybaritic tale already referred to in the Wasps of Aristophanes
(1427ff.) runs as follows: " A Sybarite fell from his chariot and cracked
his skull; for it happened that he had no skill in horsemanship. Then
up spoke a friend of his and said Ep8ot nts i'v EKaLo-Tos EIt&EL rTEXvnv."
Likewise the parable invented by Teucer in Sophocles' Ajax(l 150ff.)
ends with a gnomic sentence uttered by one of the imaginary
26 For example, in Aristophanes a Xo'yos of Aesop may be either a relatively lo

story, such as that about the eagle and beetle alluded to in Peace 129 (cf. Wasps 1446),
or a mere saying of Aesop on an occasion, as that supposedly quoted (but probably
made up spontaneously) by Philocleon in the Wasps (1399ff.). After this Philocleon
relates at intervals three other X6-yot of the same pattern, two of which are labelled as
Sybaritic. He is about to tell Aesop's well-known fable of the beetle when he is finally
silenced by Bdelycleon. All this is intended to exemplify what the latter had referred
to (1258) as X6yov . . . ALOcW7rLK6V )yXoLovp 2;vfapLTLK6v. One of the Sybaritic tales is
quoted below; the other runs as follows (1435): Ev 2Ivoaipet -yvvt? 7rOTE KaTeaL exLVoV.
obxzVos OV, (xwV Trtu brerapTvpacoo I JO' ' 2v3apZTcs etrev, ' eL voL Tav K6paV I T'V
a,IpTvphau Tarur7v ciaas ic TAXEL I or16ea,uov b'rph, VOiV ap etxes irXetova.' A large
proportion of the fables preserved in our collections, as well as in the literature of all
periods, conform precisely to this model: the whole point of the fable, its raison d'etre
so to speak, consists in what someone said under certain circumstances. It may
require anywhere from two to twenty or more lines to describe these circumstances,
which constitute the narrative part of the fable; but in many cases the introductory
narratives are very brief and simple. Typical fables consist in: what the eagle said
when he saw his own feathers on the fatal arrow (Cham. 7, Aeschylus fr. 139, in four
lines); what the fox said about the grapes that were out of her reach (Cham. 32), or
about the actor's mask (Cham. 42: o'ta Ke4>aX2Z k-YKkaXoV OU)K exeL); what Diogenes said
when taunted by a bald man (Cham. 116); what the fox said on seeing an adder on a
bundle of brambles floating down the river (Cham. 116); how the lioness answered the
hare who taunted her for not being prolific (Cham. 195); what the wolf said when
he saw some shepherds eating a sheep (Plutarch Septem Sap. Conv. 13); how the
young crab replied to its mother's advice to walk straight (Babrius 109, four lines); etc.
400
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[1940
characters.27 In Hesiod the final words of the hawk to the night-
ingale (Op. 210f.) state the moral of the fable in general terms;
and although these two lines are probably spurious, they are never-
theless as old as Aristarchus who rejected them, and they may be

considerably older. Thus we see that the practice of putting a
genuine moral at the end of a fable in the mouth of the last speaker
was familiar in the classical period. Now this type of ending-
explicitly gnomic, but at the same time dramatic-happened not to
survive as a convention into the collections of the latest period,

partly, no doubt, because it was obviated by the intrusion of the
author's epimythium; but towards the end of the middle period, with
which we shall deal presently, and perhaps even early in that period,
it had already become a commonplace device in collected fables.
This is evident from the recently published Rylands papyrus.28

This papyrus is dated by the editor, Mr. C. H. Roberts, in the
first half af the first century after Christ. It contains fragments of
fourteen prose fables, of which only five are well enough preserved
to be recognizable. Whether this text was composed in the first

century, or whether it is a copy of a work older than that by as
much as two or three hundred years, perhaps even the text of
Demetrius himself, we have no means of determining. But among
its interesting features is the apparently stereotyped line m'v yyv'o,un
4aLvEraL EIpOKE'vat XE'ywv, and, in the one case where the context follo
ing this line is well preserved, the opinion expressed, by the last
speaker in the fable, is the moral of the fable, namely: ovTrws [a,uap]TaYWV 'Kaao[-r]os aiTtaTa[t NOVos].29 In another passage, also coming at
the very end of the fable, we find the same line, with only slight
possible variants, followed by a four-word fragment of what appears
to be, and most probably was, likewise the moral of the tale.30
Finally there are clear traces of this formula in the otherwise meager
fragments in the neighborhood of line 55; and since nothing more
than a few unintelligible letters and syllables have been preserved
at the ends of the other eleven fables, there is nothing to prevent
one s supposing that all of them contained this formulaic line. The
conventional character of this device in the papyrus, that is, of
putting the moral into the mouth of the last speaker, is all the more
27 Ajax 1154f.: 'POpcn-re, /0) bpa Tros rOeOVOKOras KaKCOS j el ay&p 7roelS, iCL rT7,uavob/.LEVOS.
28 See note 21.
29 Lines 73f. On the verse, cf. W. A. Oldfather in A.J.P. LXI (1940), 218.
30 Line 131, see note 21.

apparent from the fact that neither of the two fables in which it is
well preserved can be reckoned among the large number of those

whose substance naturally lends itself to such a procedure. It is
evident, in fact, that the author is following an established technique, whether his own or someone's else, even when it is not very
convenient to do so. This technique, in its essentials, must have
been familiar in the writing of fables at some time between 300 B.C.
and the time of Phaedrus, if not, as seems likely, throughout that
entire period.31 We cannot know how extensively it was employed.

There are three perfect examples of it in Phaedrus:
peregrinam sic locutam volucrem accepimus:
'Sua quisque exempla debet aequo animo pati.'
i.26
factus periclo sic gubernator sophus

'Parce gaudere oportet et sensim queri,
totam quia vitam miscet dolor et gaudium.'
iv.17
hanc alia cum rogaret causam facinoris,
respondit 'Ne quis discat prodesse improbis.'
iv.19
Each of these three fables, as in the papyrus, is headed by a pro-
mythium and has no epimythium.32 Babrius has two gnomic endings (without epimythia):
6/n7 Se rElpwv aViOv 0'Ey axolvw
'O ra ,.LKpa, irXr)v f3fata, Trp?r7oas
1uaratos (oTav, iv a -Xa O-qpE.
6.15ff.
"The first episode in the Life of Aesop (cf. Westermann, op. cit. [see note 8], 9.4f.)
ends with a moral addressed by Aesop's master to his fellow servants: kKeiXvae ,A~v
avrovs yyuv,vOe'vras Tv7rTeoOaL . . . X&ywv `O0tS KaO' &ekpov boXta ,.o1xave6eraL, avris
KacO abrov roVTO r rouC2v XavOacve (W.'s text partially corrected).
32 This is true also of Phaedrus i.17, which ends with an almost equally gnomic
line: 'Haec,' inquit, 'merces fraudis a superis datur.' Incidentally, even the historical
cast of phrase with which the dramatic moral is introduced in the papyrus (Tnv -yvcwo,uv
4aiveraL eLp?7KevaL X&'cywv) seems to be echoed here and there in Phaedrus; compare,
besides I.26 cited above, the following: i.10 dixisse fertur simius sententiam; i.12 tum
moriens edidisse vocem hanc dicitur; i.27 fertur locutus; iii.13 tunc illa talem rettulit
sententiam; iv.4 sic locutus traditur (although the speech here introduced is not final
like the others); Append. 29.9 at vespa dignam moribus vocem edidit. It is probable
that such lines are modelled upon, if they are not directly translated from, a Greek
collection very closely resembling the Rylands papyrus, perhaps that very text.
402
B.
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Perry
r?3
OvX
6'
[1940
o
pus
M6'yas
ail
irL
8v
To /LUKpOV fIvLal KaC TarElvov loXVEl.
112.8ff.
After Babrius our next oldest collection is Class I in prose, which

contains a much larger number of fables than are extant in either
Phaedrus or Babrius. Herein I find only one fable ending in a
quotation framed in general terms,33 although there are a very
large number of cases in which the words of the last speaker, though
ostensibly personal, are plainly gnomic in effect, e.g. ALKaLa r&ao-xw,

rov irov-poV oWKTELpas 34 in Chambry 82. In a few instances a fable
which appears in earlier literature with a gnomic ending preserves
in Class I what is substantially the same ending recast in personal
terms; this is true of the fable of the crab and the snake, quoted
above, as compared with Chambry 291, and of Babrius 6 compared
with Chambry 26. The technique of which we have been speaking
seems to have been going out of vogue in the time of Phaedrus;
partly no doubt because the conventional author's epimythium, of

which Phaedrus already has begun to make free use, necessarily
usurps its function, and partly also because in the case of many
fables it was not easy or natural to cast the words of the last speaker
into a strictly gnomic and impersonal mold.
Almost invariably an ancient fable, like an epigram, ends with

a point of some kind. This point may consist in nothing more than
a statement by the narrator concerning the result of the actions recounted, as in aetiological fables, which belong, as a type, to an early
and characteristic Aesopic tradition. Here an author's epimythium
must either repeat what has already been told us in the narrative
or else nullify or ignore the main point around which the fable has
been built.35 In other fables with undramatic endings the final
statement of results may be one of two kinds: either it allows of a
variety of applications and thereby invites a particular interpreta33 Chambry 206.
34 This line happens to have been taken from a fable of Babrius, newly recovered
in Morgan MS 397; see Elinor Husselman, "A Lost Manuscript of the Fables of
Babrius," T.A.P.A. LXVI (1935), 123. The prose version from which I have quoted
this line is probably a modification, under Babrian influence, of the original Class I
prose version represented by the second version of Chambry's 82. For other fables in
Class I, where the words of the last speaker begin with bt'KaLa ,raoxw (-rk4rovOa) and are
followed by an explanatory participle or a relative clause, see note 42.
35 Cf. Chambry 112, 121, 126, 140, 235, 242, 251, 263, 304, 349.
tion in the form of an epimythium (which is seldom the case),36 or

else its gnomic meaning, being subject to only one plausible interpretation, is obvious without the addition of an epimythium.37
Now and then the final statement in the narrative merely records
the last and most decisive, or the most significant, of a series of
actions;38 and here again the addition of an epimythium may or

may not be, but usually is, superfluous or anticlimactic-that is,
from the literary, rather than from the strictly ethical point of view.
Thus, regardless of whether a fable ends with a quotation or not, its

structure is normally so epigrammatic as not to favor (aesthetically)
the adding of an epimythium. But the great majority of fables

from all periods end with a speech by one of the characters; 39 and
even when this speech does not take the form of a statement of a
general truth, it nevertheless seems always designed to point the
moral of the fable, insofar at least as any moral was intended.40
In two typical fables 41 of Class I, for example, the words of the last
speaker in substance are: "But I would be a fool if I let go the
booty now in my hands in order to go hunting after a prize that is
not yet in sight." Could anything be plainer in its gnomic implica-
tions than this? And yet in the epimythia which immediately

follow in both fables the author repeats the same idea in more general
and less forceful terms. In such cases, which are very numerous
in Class I, it is obvious that the dramatic ending was not invented
36 Cf. Chambry 52, 145, 157, 177, 199, 218, 231. Sometimes the epimythium
seems to be invited by the fact that no real moral is evident; cf. 154, 244, 266. At
the end of his fable about the lamp and the thief Phaedrus adds (iv.11): quot res
contineat hoc argumentum utiles I non explicabit alius quam qui repperit.
37 Cf. Chambry 101, 120, 164, etc.
38 Cf. Chambry 3, 45, 55, 177, etc.; Phaedrus i.4; Babrius 23. The statement of
final result is frequently introduced by the word ovvkcoZ, one of the fixed stylistic con-
ventions of the Class I fables.
39 In Class I, a hasty count shows 181 fables ending in this way against 66 whose
endings are undramatic (this total includes some 12 or 15 fables that are found in only
one or two of the MSS). In Phaedrus, reckoning only Bks. i-v, there are, according to
my count, 62 fables with dramatic endings as against 27 without. In Babrius the
proportion is approximately 110 to 31.
40 Some 'fables' consist essentially in witticisms or humorous incidents. When

Diogenes sarcastically congratulates the hairs that have escaped from the bald man's
miserable head (Cham. 97), when the butcher addresses the dog who had stolen a
heart, with a pun on that word (Cham. 184), or when the fox remarks that the adder
on the pile of floating brambles is a navigator worthy of his ship (116), no moral was
probably intended; but when the young crab, being exhorted by its mother to walk
straight, suggests that mother first set an example herself (Babrius 109), the gnomic
implication is obvious along with the wit.
41 Nos. 8 and 26 in Chambry.
404
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by someone who intended to add an epimythium. On the contrary,
it represents a traditional form of fable-structure which was widely

current in the days before epimythia came into use-a form which
had already become highly conventionalized in respect to numerous
recurring patterns of expression designed to give a tone of finality

and gnomic significance to the speaker's words,42 and which is the
most regular type of ending not only in Class I, where the conflicting
epimythium shows it to be a survival, but also in the earlier collections of Phaedrus and Babrius where epimythia follow relatively
seldom, in the still earlier Rylands papyrus where there are no

epimythia, and in ancient authors generally from the earliest period
to the latest.
Up to this point we have been tracing the history of certain

conventions which appear in the earliest of our written fables and
are later continued. We have seen that a moral of some kind, either
expressed or implied, had always been in common use at the end of

fables; that the epimythium, as author's moral, is often more or less
incompatible with the traditionally gnomic, quasi-gnomic, or epigrammatic ending of the fable proper; and that some of the conventional phraseology of the epimythium (oviro, ATap oiv KacL) is derived
from the specific applications which were regularly given to fables
related in a definite context.
These data are of some importance as indicating the relatively
late and spurious character of epimythia as such, and as showing
how the idea originated of adding them at the end of fables; the
end, not the beginning, was the traditional place for the moral,
whatever form it might take. But why, one may ask, did the
authors of fable-collections feel it necessary to add morals of their
own when, in most cases, the fable already had one within itself?
Could they not see that what they were adding was superfluous?
The answer must be that in many cases an epimythium would not
be superfluous from the point of view of those who had mistakenly
come to look for an ethical or philosophical meaning in every fable,
42 The final and decisive speech very often begins with aXXa or &XX' 4Eyw,ys (Chami.
5, 10, 21, 23, 28, 34, 35, etc., and Rylands papyrus 87); with Xi ovros (aVir7) or aXX' Xi
oiros (2, 13, 32, 40, 60, 65, 70, 84, etc.); with &XX' fy'wye 5e)iXaLa, ijrts . . . or equivalents
of the same in other combinations of gender and number (28, 103, 106, 158, 165); with
&6XIos C'yco'ye, OS, etc. (138, 153, 201, 241, 275; cf. 105); with AXX' 9-yco-ys bliKata (5tca)
iraixco (7rfrov0a) + OS or a participle or rT y&p (82, 104, 142, 151, 156, 194, 198, 205,
230, 282, 305, 314; cf. Babrius 115.11, 122.15, 129.23, 137.5; Phaedrus i.31); with
X KaKLOTa XCoa (24, 173, 236, 317; cf. Rylands papyrus 44 Xi Ka'K[tora] irp[6]I[a],ra,
120 X, irovr[pa], 92 hv6pcnre 1rovr[porare]).

regardless of the fact that a fair number of them had little or no
such tendency.43 Writers possessed with this new and narrower
conception of what every fable should be, on the analogy of what
the majority virtually were, would not be content to let certain
fables stand, as they had stood in earlier days, simply on their
merits as clever or amusing stories (aetiological or otherwise) or as
mere jests or sallies of wit. Such fables, to their way of thinking,
actually required an explanation; and once epimythia were added

to these non-moral fables, it was natural to extend the practice to
other fables where the moral, though implied in the epigrammatic
or dramatic ending, was not stated explicitly enough or generically

enough to satisfy the writer's ethical obsession. After that the
mere principle of uniformity, or sheer habit, coupled with the feeling
that every fable had to be moralized, and that the moral was more
important than the epigrammatic effect, would lead to the adding
of epimythia after all fables alike, regardless of the half-forgotten

aesthetic principles upon which, in accordance with long-standing
tradition, the fables themselves had been constructed. Thus the
anticlimactic or redundant effect of the epimythium, which varied
widely in degree according to the nature of the fable, and which
was sometimes not at all conspicuous, came to be tolerated by the
moralistic authors of our third period in all but what would have
been the most flagrant instances, those, namely, in which the words
of the last speaker summed up the moral of the fable and were
framed in purely gnomic terms. This kind of ending, though
common in the first two periods, was, as we have seen, eliminated in
the collections of the third period; and it is to that extent only that
the authors of these later collections show any concern about the
aesthetic effect of their added epimythia.
In order to understand more fully how the cardinal idea developed, that every fable should be furnished with an explanation,
it is necessary to examine more particularly the nature and conventions of fable-writing in the second and third periods.
The second period is characterized by collections of Aesopic
fables made in Alexandrian times mainly to suit the practical needs
of writers and speakers. There is no evidence that such collections,
whether of fables or of any other kind of items, were ever made in
43 Cf. notes 36 and 40. Phaedrus, not finding any moral to draw from the butcher's
comment on the taste of ape's flesh (iii.4), feels obliged to add some kind of explanation:
ridicule magis hoc dictum quam vere aestimo.
406
B.
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[1940
the classical period of Greek literature, the cultural outlook of which
was, of course, totally foreign to that type of thing; but in the learned
Alexandrian and Roman periods, even as in modern times, the desire
to gather up, preserve, and explain the cultural remains of a bygone
age led to the making of many kinds of collections, the aims and
uses of which, though greatly varied and at times not incompatible
with an independent literary interest, were predominantly scientific,

scholastic, or utilitarian, rather than artistic or ethical. We meet
with collections (ovvaywya0) of inscriptions and of official decrees; 4

of proverbs gathered together and expounded by philosophers, antiquarians, grammarians and rhetoricians; 45 of myths, which had
been occasional and scattered in classical literature, now systemat-
ically assembled in part as raw material for poets or scholars,46 now

made into a new literary form consisting of a series of poems in
the Aetia of Callimachus, and later followed by the similar compositions of Nicander and Ovid; of epigrams,47 the mere collecting of
which from varied sources preceded the appearance of such wholesale original compositions on the same pattern as the books of
Martial; and of the witty sayings of famous men (Xpe at),48 of wh

much use was made by biographers and rhetoricians. It is against
such a background of literary history that we must consider what
the probable purpose was of a collection of prose fables in the

Alexandrian period. I cannot doubt that it was primarily utilitarian, as stated above. Demetrius of Phalerum, the first known
author of a fable-collection, was a statesman, orator,49 philosopher
and polymath who, in addition to many other learned works,

including a list of archons,50 wrote on the art of rhetoric and made
a collection of xpeLaL.5' Diogenes Laertius52 tells us that he was a

44 Cf. Christ-Schmid, Gesch. d. Griech. Lit.6 (Munich, C. H. Beck, 1920), iI, p. 229f.;
ibid. 1 10f.
45 For a full account, see E. L. Leutsch and F. G. Schneidewin, Corpus Paroemiographorum Graecorum (Gottingae, Vandenhoeck et Ruprecht, 1839), I, pp. Iff.
46 Cf. Christ-Schmid, op. cit., II.23 1.
47 Cf. Christ-Schmid, op. cit., ii.lll and 153ff.
48 Cf. Christ-Schmid, op. cit., ii.54f., and the Aphthonian preface quoted below.
49 Concerning what is known about Demetrius of Phalerum as an orator, see
W. Rhys Roberts, Demetrius on Style (Cambridge, Univ. Press, 1902), 17f. Mr.
Roberts (18) classes our Demetrius as one of the Peripatetics who "remained faithful
to that scientific conception of rhetoric which Aristotle had formulated," and adds:
" It is not too much to say that Demetrius himself was the only orator of mark ever
produced by the school of Aristotle."
50 Diog. Laert. i.1.22 and ii.2.7.
51 For this and other lost works of Demetrius, see the catalogue of his writings in
Diogenes v.5.80-81.

pupil of Theophrastus, that his style was philosophical though
tempered with oratorical vigor, and that he used to remark that
eloquence (Xoyos) had as much force in political life as arms in war.
Is it not probable, therefore, that this man's Xoycov Alov7relkv avvayco,yat was conceived from a practical rather than from an artistic or
ethical point of view, and that, like Aristotle (Rhet. ii.20) and the
Aesop of all previous tradition, he thought of the fable not as literature in itself but only as a rhetorical device? 53
We have no contemporary testimony concerning the purpose of

Alexandrian fable-collections; but the statement of a late rhetorician,
who may or may not be Aphthonius, indicates clearly enough what
that purpose in the main must have been, at least from the rhe-
torician's point of view, which was probably traditional. I quote

from the so-called Aphthonian preface to one of the later prose
collections: 54O. . . (SC. A7'ofros) !3LfSO6nKfS OOEV TO IOXTEUO
1UEVOtS KaL rots Mzyetv irpoatpovwurvots t's r's rEp't rovs a&ywvas 4tXo-tA
Ei-7ropLa X6ycov a-rErac. Lov oi pUv OV1J sK TWP rpaycobtc8 v Ta KEa'XatL
ovwa,ya,yo6pres els rTo ,Eofop aviroZs TEOrEKaoLv, '-yoie1zot 6&tv rats TCoV t'8w
b7rtaTT1,/.aLs raS rJ3v IrOL-TWv yyvc,ioXoytaas ,uaprvpas 7rapEtELv . a"Xot

-rets rAv eis ro-v f3tov KaXw.s E1prnyEV'.AP ovvev-qvoxaac 7roXv irXijOos a6ro4OEy-
aTrwv, PoytL?oVres /.taa. . . ,ueyaXa 7rX6E0VfK'r?0cEtV V rTOLs XOyOLS. ETLKE-
XELP7fKao- 6E8 TLPES Tas iK Tr-V X6yc'1J AP aPTLW0-ELS Kal yJUwas . . . KaO'
EKaoTTop et80os rapaboi3wat roZs iroXtEvopyvots, 6wWS t EKElpOV roXXAas exwo-tv
EOrw TWv Ayctwcpw xpelaS KaL KarLoXletp b8ta rOvTrwp 6A'vwcrat rovs arvn ryopras.
TroVrov ovV TOV rp0irov AlO'WTOS EVPEP, opwv XP77oLiOP ovaoav 0VoXOLS Kalt
(E'XEvpots ev ra?s 8nmnyoptats i-r-,v -r& Viwwv 6XAcooa rots rpoo-OaEv ElpIEPOls.
Such must have been the practical purpose, as it continued to be

52 v.5.75 and 82.
3 Hausrath (Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll, R.E., s.v. "Fabel," vi.1732) finds it possible

to take a contrary view: "Aus dem Umstand, dass Demetrius auch den Uberlieferung
tiber 'die sieben Weisen nachging, darf man vermuten, dass auch er Aesop als den
Vertreter volksttimlicher Weisheit behandelte und nicht, wie man bisher (Keller,
Jahrb. f. kl. Phil. Sup.-Bd. iv [1861-67], 384) meinte, ein Handbuch zu rhetorischen
Zwecken verfasste." I am unable to follow this reasoning; I see no contradiction
involved in assuming that Demetrius was interested in the Aesopic fable both as something volkstiumlich and as something very useful to orators and rhetoricians.
54 See A. Eberhard, Fabulae Romanenses Graece Conscriptae (Leipzig, Teubner,
1872), i.226ff. This preface was ascribed to Aphthonius by early modern editors
probably because it is closely associated with the works of that rhetorician in various
manuscripts. It heads an abbreviated recension of mainly Class I fables (Ia), which
shows the influence of Aphthonius here and there, and which can be traced in the
manuscript tradition to the 9th century or earlier. It is probably as old as the fifth
century, and may have come from Aphthonius himself.
408
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the chief use, of the fable-collections written in prose before the

time of Augustus; they were in the nature of reference books containing materials intended for the occasional and artistic use of
writers and speakers, no two of whom would tell the same fable in
the same words.55 Direct evidence of this is afforded by the institution of the promythium, the original function of which was confused
at an early period with that of the epimythium and has never since,
it would appear, been properly understood.
By promythium we mean a brief statement concerning the

application of a fable made by the author before he begins the
narrative, as in Phaedrus i.10:
quicumque turpi fraude semel innotuit,
etiam si vertim dicit amittit fidem.

hoc adtestatur brevis Aesopi fabula.
or in iii.5:
Successus ad perniciem multos devocat.
What was the original purpose of these promythia, and how do
they differ from epimythia? In respect to the gnomic character

of their statements, the fact that they summarize the meaning of
the fable, and that they are made by the author instead of by a
speaker in the fable, they are quite indistinguishable from the

average epimythium. It is no wonder, therefore, that the two
devices were regarded as identical, except for their position, by

Aphthonius (Progym. i),56 and that a distinction between them is
only very dimly, if at all, recognized even by Phaedrus. The two
are very easily confused, and consequently were confused. One

may call the promythium, like the epimythium, a 'nAoral', provided
one is content not to inquire whether it should be regarded more
precisely as (1) a heading to classify the fable, (2) an explanation
intended to clarify its meaning (vats), or (3) the hortatory or
didactic utterance of a moralizing author. To decide between
these three possibilities in the case of the promythium is to deter15 Such writers as Dio Chrysostom and Plutarch make free use of fables that are
preserved in our ancient collections, but they never quote their text; they always
elaborate (or abbreviate) the fable in their own, usually more sophisticated, style.
56 rvV -' vapalveoLv bl iV O WOos Te'TaKTaL, vporaTTuv 'juEV OVO/A.Lac-ls 7rpojs6Oto

k7rlclov af TEXEvTa!oV f7rrvryKC.Vuv. Even here we are not told definitely that the
promythium is hortatory or explanatory, but only that it indicates the moral exhortation in support of which the fable is (or can be) used. Still, it is probable that
Aphthonius saw no difference in the functions of the two.

mine its original function. The first, as we shall see, is favored by
positive objective evidence, as well as by the considerations of
literary history which have been outlined above; but the last two
are in the highest degree improbable. If the purpose of the promythium had been to explain the fable it would not have been put
first; one does not explain a problem before stating it. Moreover,
if the promythium was intended as an explanation, it would have
been useless and redundant in the case of those fables which ended
with a gnomic sentence, as in the Rylands papyrus, where the
gnomic ending, summarizing the meaning of the fable, appears to
have been regular, and where, nevertheless, each fable was intro-
duced by a promythium. This last argument pleads also against

the supposition that the promythium was originally intended to be
hortatory or didactic; for in that case likewise it would duplicate
the tendency of the fable-ending. And again, however ardent a

moralist the Alexandrian author (teacher, or moral physician) may
be presumed to have been, it is not likely that he would, to use a
Lucretian figure, smear the edges of the cup with absinth instead
of with honey. Finally, to assume that the promythium was meant
to be hortatory or didactic implies that the fable itself was only an
illustration, and that the author's main purpose was the assertion
of a large number of disconnected moral theses, each of them stated

in the briefest possible manner and followed by only one illustra-
tion. This is not the method of any known ancient moralist or

teacher.57 It may be easy to interpret a promythium as hortatory
or didactic when one finds it already attached to a fable, and when
one has been accustomed to accepting it without question as conventional; but the invention of the device as such in a fable-collec-
tion must have been dictated in the first place by some real and
practical need; and what that could have been is difficult to explain
on the assumption that the promythium was an exhortation or a

moral thesis.
The earliest extant promythia are presumably those of the
57 Phaedrus with his prologues, his direct addresses to the reader, his sermoniz
epimythia (below pp. 416f.), and his declarations (iii.Prol. 50; iv.Prol. 8) that he w
to instruct the reader, comes as close as anyone else to doing this sort of thing; but
than half of his fables are introduced by promythia, he has no regular system of pointi
the moral, and his self-conscious efforts to be original and to justify his work as lit
ture (cf. Iv. Prol.; iv.7 and 21) have led him to make many obvious departures fr
the traditional 'Aesop'.
410
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[1940
Rylands papyrus,58 where there are no traces of epimythiai9 In

this text the promythian formula, which recurs unmistakably in all
five passages where the beginning of a fable is at all readable,60 is
as follows (75f.): irpos (TOPv irXoUrov 'ioa KaL lrov[pov]) o68 Xoyos f4apyoet.
Is this addressed to the reading public or to children as an explanation of the fable, or as an exhortation or a moral lesson? Obviously
not. It is addressed to a writer or a speaker who is looking for a
suitable illustration, and who is not expected to read the complete
text of each fable in order to find out whether or not it is something
that he can use. The author of the avvaywTy' is saying to his reader
in effect: "If you wish to illustrate such and such an idea in your
speech or composition, here is an appropriate fable."
It is only to be expected that Phaedrus, who both claims and
exhibits a great deal of originality in relation to 'Aesop', and who

does not regard his work as a handbook for the use of other artists
but as artistic, ethical literature in its own right, should handle
the promythium with considerable freedom. On the whole he is
much less regular and formulaic in the use of conventional devices
than is the author of any extant Greek prose collection. Nevertheless, his promythia always conform to one of the two patterns
illustrated above (p. 408) in the quotations from i.10 and iii.5; and
both these patterns, as the reader will see, are well adapted to the
purpose of the promythium as we have defined it. The briefer
type, which makes no mention of the fable but merely states the
fable's meaning, occurs about twice as often as the other. Its
wording implies nothing concerning the original purpose of the
promythium, although its greater brevity is more suggestive of a
heading than of a sermon. But in the form represented by i.10 it
is noteworthy that the fable is almost never mentioned first, as is

natural and frequent in epimythia, which are explanations of what
precedes, but that, with only one exception,6' it always comes after
58 This papyrus may have been copied from a text much older than the first
century A.D. However that may be, we are bound to assume, in the absence of any
indications to the contrary, that it approximates the norm of earlier Greek collections
more nearly than the ambitiously original, and less conventional, metrical text of the
Latin Phaedrus.
59 Only three endings are sufficiently well preserved to testify positively to the
absence of epimythia, namely in lines 55ff., 73-75, 130f. Everywhere else the ending
of the fable is almost completely gone.
60 That is, in lines 7, 21, 37, 75, 153-154.
61 i.27: Haec res avaris esse conveniens potest. But, except for the order of words,
this looks much like Xo'yos +Oapyo'6eL.
Vol. lxxi] The Origin of the Epimythiutm 411
the gnomic summary, just as in the papyrus. That is the logical

order from the standpoint of an author who intends that the reader
shall read the moral summary before anything else; if that happens
not to be what he is looking for, he need not even read hoc adtestatur
. . . fabula. Other phrases by which this type of promythium is
concluded in Phaedrus are as follows: i.3 Aesopus nobis hoc exemplum prodidit; I.5 testatur haec fabella propositum meum; 62 1.9
ostendamus versibus; i.12 testis haec narratio est; i.15 haec fabella
indicat; i.19 versus subiecti monent; i.26 fabella admonet; ii.2
nempe exemplis discimus; III.3 notescet quae nunc primum fabella
mea; III.7 breviter proloquar; iv.17 Aesopus finxit consolandi hoc
gratia. The structural resemblance between these promythia and
those of the Rylands papyrus is not likely to be accidental. The
form of both is that of a heading, and the wording of the papyrus
indicates clearly what the purpose of such headings in the Greek
collections, including the source of Phaedrus, must have been.
The Rylands papyrus is not the only text in which we find a
promythian formula consisting essentially of the words rpo's . . .
Xo6yos fioapy4et. The following are from the epimythia of the later
Class I: irpos . . . 6 Xo6Yos apyu6t (Chambry 109); OVTOS 6 X'yOS
appo1TTEt rpos . . . (41); OVTOS o X. apluoa'EtEv a&v ipos . . . (150, 224,
and 235). We see that these epimythia, at least, must have come
from promythia; for they are not addressed to the ordinary reader,
but to one who intends to use the fable. The same is true of various
other epimythian formulas in Class I. Before listing these, it is
well to note that in the formula just quoted the author of Class I
has substituted the backward-looking oVTrS O for the forward-looking
'6e and in all but one instance, which must be a survival, has shifted
Xo'yos from the end of the sentence, where it originally stood in a
promythium, to the beginning, where it is required by the position
of an epimythium. Similar adaptations, incidental to transferring
the language of promythia to epimythia, will be observed in the
formulas quoted below; but herein it will also be observed that
the original order of the promythium (Xo'yos near the end) has often
been left untouched, and that the direct appeal to speakers and
62 These last two words show that Phaedrus thinks of this promythium, not as a
heading, but as a moral thesis. That is typical of his efforts to mold what was essentially a handbook (vvaXyw-y7) into a new literary form. In order to do so, he must
have an ethical message and address the public in his own person. In the later Greek
prose versions this tendency is confined to the epimytlhium, where, however, thc tone
is less personal.
412
B.
E.
Perry
[1940
rhetoricians in some cases is even more obvious and explicit than

in the Rylands papyrus. The following epimythian formulas of
Class I are obviously derived from the promythia of an earlier
period: 7rpos . . . O XO6OS EVKaLpos (Cham. 24, 36,43, 110,112, 121,

161, 166, 183, 232, 261, 278, 307, 313, 330); 63 the same in reverse
order (55); roVf-w -rcj XO&y& XpfoUaLTO aCv Tts rpos . (34, 91, 111, 119,
140, 190, 234, 272); 0 (ovros 6) Xoyos XEXGELt aV KaTa (ebrL) . . (104,
168, 188): OVTOS O X. ELKOTWS av M_,youro o . . .(291) ; o X. elpflTaL
*ros . . . (77, 298).

Unlike the formulas just quoted, the phrase o Xo6yos 68qXoZ, which
is very frequent in Class 1,64 does not in itself betray the nature of
its origin; its provenience can be surmised only on the basis of
analogy and of the history of the phrase or its equivalent in antecedent literature. The earliest parallels are found in the promythia
of Phaedrus, and the next earliest in the epimythia of the same
author. In view of this fact, and of the fact noted above that
four different formulas, which are used side by side with o X. 65qX
in Class I, obviously come from promythia, we can scarcely draw
any other conclusion than that this phrase likewise is descended

from a promythian formula-possibly from 6aE X. 67Xot, placed
either before or after the gnomic summary. The nearest equiva-
lents of O X. 67Xo- in the promythia of Phaedrus have already been

cited above; they include testatur haec fabella in i.5, adtestatur .
fabula in i10, testis haec narratio est in i.12, and fabella admonet
in i.26. The last mentioned fable follows the pattern of the Rylands
papyrus not only in respect to its promythium, where the words
fabella admonet, like X6'yos E&apmu4a, come at the end, but also in
respect to its ending, which, like those in the papyrus, consists of
a gnomic sentence in the mouth of the last speaker (without any
epimythium). It is probable, therefore, that fabella admonet, which
is close to O X6yos 677Xo, comes from the promythium of an earlier

Greek version. Later Phaedrus uses the same and very similar
phrases in his epimythia: haec significat fabula, ii.8; fabella admonet
(final as in a promythium), iii.17; haec iracundos admonebit fabula,
iv.4; hoc argumentum monet, IV.16.
63 Herein the statements are uisually very brief and too general to serve as explanations; e.g. 166 (fox and crow): 7rpos &vapa a6vorov 6 X. EViKaLpos.
64 It occurs approximately 75 times, and we find the similar phrase 6 X. bLbaaKel

9 times, with slight variants. I am indebted to my friend Professor C. B. Hale for
these and other statistics concerning the epimythia in Class I.
Vol. lxxi] The Origin of the Epintythiuin 413

The first book of Phaedrus is decidedly closer to the Greek
original than any of the others. This is apparent not only from the
forms and substance of the fables, as compared with Greek fables,

but also from Phaedrus' own statements in the prologues to books
II, III, iv, and v, wherein he professes an ever increasing independence of 'Aesop.' 65 This progression, from relatively close adherence
to a Greek original typified by the papyrus in Bk. I to greater

independence and freer adaptation in the subsequent books, is
manifested also in the frequency and evolving character of the

promythia and epimythia. The proportion of epimythia to promythia in the later books is much greater than in Bk.- I; and just
as the promythia of Bk. I conform most often to the original Greek

form and function of that device, but later tend to become occa-
sionally hortatory or explanatory, so also the epimythium, whose
occurrence is rare in Bk. I, conforms more closely to the promythium,

its parent, in the earlier books, and later becomes more often in-
compatible with it. The following statistics, based on Postgate's

edition of Phaedrus, will bring these points into clear relief:
Total no. With With Otherwise 66
of fables promythia epimythia

Bk.I
31
Bk.
Bk.
19
Bk.
Bk.
iv
v
25
25
10
5
7
11
2
9
7
5
1
Concerning the changing character of Phaedrus' promythia,

which evolve from types entirely suited to the original function of
the promythium as an index-heading to types which are definitely
hortatory or explanatory, it will be necessary to speak in more
detail; but first let us take a general view of the matter:
65 Cf. M. Schanz, Gesch. d. Rom. Lit.3 (Munich, C. H. Beck, 1913), Ii.2.47f.
66 In Bk. I, nos. 2 and 6 have neither promythia nor epimythia but belong to an
earlier biographical style in which the special circumstances are described under which
Aesop related the fable. In Bk. iii, no. 10 has both a promythium and an epimythium,
and nos. 11 and 18 have neither. In Bk. iv, nos. 15, 18, 20 and 21 (not really a fable)
have neither, and no. 14 is a mere fragment without beginning or end. In Bk. v,
no. 1 has neither device.
414
B.
E.
Perry
[1940
Total no. of Suited to Definitely Dubious
promythia original purpose not suited

Bk.
Bk.
Bk.
Bk.
iv
25
1
8
11
Bk.
24
(no.
7
2
2
(no.
5)
(nos.
5)
(no.
(no.
2,
8)
2)
3)
(no.
67
68
5)
69
Although the great majority of these promythia are such that they
might easilv be interpreted as serving the same purpose as the promythia in the Rylands papyrus,-that, namely, of indexing the
fable's application for the benefit of one who was looking for an
illustration-yet a few of them are definitelv not conceived in that
light, and these few are therefore indicative of a changed or con-
fused notion on the part of Phaedrus (and perhaps of some of his

immediate Greek predecessors) as to what the function of promythia
was, or should be. The promythium in i.5 reads as follows:
numquam est fidelis cum potente societas.
testatur haec fabella propositum meum.
Except for the last two words, which betray the author's didactic
purpose, the form and wording of this promythium is true to the

original form. But in ii.5, which is a Roman story and not from
Aesop, the promythium is so completely hortatory and moral as to
be entirely incompatible with the original function of a promythium:

est ardalionum quaedam Romae natio,
trepido concursans, occupata in otio,
gratis anhelans, multa agendo nil agens,
sibi molesta et aliis odiosissima.
hanc emendare, si tamen possum, volo
vera fabella; pretium est operae attendere.
In iv.2 the promythium, though not hortatory in a moral sense, is

considerably off form in that it consists of a confession of playful-
ness and urges the reader merely to harken to has nenias. More
67 II.2: A feminis utcumque spoliari viros, I ament, amentur, nempe exempli

discimus.
68 iii.3: Usus peritus hariolo veracior I vulgo perhibetur; causa sed non dicitu
notescet quae nunc primum fabella mea.
69 iv.5: Plus esse in uno saepe quam in turba boni I narratione poster
brevi.
Vol. lxxii The Origin of the Epimythium 415

instructive, however, is iv.8:
mordaciorem qui improbo dente adpetit
hoc argumento se describi sentiat.
If one were to change the last line so as to read describi potest, or
describi potuerit, this promythium would conform exactly to the

original type (merely classifying the fable); but by the words se . . .
sentiat Phaedrus addresses himself to an imaginary culprit in a
moral tone, as if he were giving us an epimythium, instead of disinterestedly telling a learned reader how his fable might be used.
The evolution of epimythia out of promythia in Phaedrus is
reflected by the following statistics:
Total no. of Suitable as Definitely

epimythia promythia unsuitable
Bk.
nos.
1,
Bk.
nos.
3,
7,
7,
14
8
no.
nos.
22
1,
Bk. II 9 nos. 6, 15, 17 nos. 1, 4, 10, 12, 14, 19

Bk. iv 9 nos. 6, 10, 24 nos. 3, 4, 7, 11, 16, 23
Bk.
nos.
2,
6,
nos.
3,
4,
9,
10
We see that the epimythia at the beginning resemble promythia

more often than not, the proportion being 3 to 1 and 3 to 2 for
Bks. i and ii respectively; but later, in Bks. iII and iv, the exclu-
sively epimythian forms become twice as numerous as those which
would serve for promythia. The types of these epimythia which

most nearly resemble those of the promythium in its original function are represented by the following:
1. successus inproborum plures allicit.
II.3 (cf. III.15: iv.6; v.6)
2. hac derideri fabula merito potest

qui sine virtute vanas exercet minas.
iii.6
fabella talis hominum discernit notas

eorum qui se falsis ornant laudibus . . .
iv.24
effectus impediret ne segnis mora,

finxere antiqui talem effigiem Temporis.
v.8
416
B.
E.
Perry
[1940
3. haec propter illos scripta est homines fabula
qui fictis causis innocentes opprimunt.

I.1
hoc illis dictum est quibus honorem et gloriam

Fortuna tribuit, sensum communem abstulit.
I .7
hoc pertinere vere ad illos dixerim

quorum
i.14
Of these three types the first is well adapted to the purposes of

either promythium or epimythium, but occurs far more frequently
in the author's promythia; 70 the second is positively promythian in
phraseology and orientation (especially in v.8), and shows only a

slight adaptation (hac fabula and merito in iii.6); but the third,
though mainly promythian in form, is so worded as to suggest

that the author is either explaining his fable (i.14) or addressing
himself to the public in a moral tone. In nearly all the epimythia

here cited, which are scattered throughout the book, and whose
order of occurrence is not here in question, we observe a close

similarity in structure and phraseology with promythia; but, as we
have noted in one of the foregoing tabulations (p. 415), the majority
of epimythia in Phaedrus are so definitely hortatory or explanatory
as to be quite incompatible with genuine promythia, and this fully

developed type of epimythium occurs much more frequentlv in the
later books than in the first two. The following are typical:
1. hoc in se dictum debent illi agnoscere
quorum
i.22
haec iracundos admonebit fabula

inpune potius laedi quam dedi alteri.
iv.4
hoc argumentum monet ut sustineas tibi

habitu esse similes qui sunt virtute impares.
iv.16
qui doctiorem emendat sibi dici putet.

v.9
70 That is, about 30 times, as against 4 times in epimythia (ii.3, etc., cited above).
See I.4, 8, 11, 13, 16-18, 20, 21, 23-25, 28-31; ii.6; iii.2, 5, 8, 9, 16; iv.1, 9, 12, 13, 19,
22; V. 5 and 7.

2. hoc quo pertineat dicet qui me noverit.
III.1
ridicule magis hoc dictum quam vere aestimo

quando
III.4
hoc si molestus ille ad animum rettulit,

sensit profecto se hominem non visuim seni . . .
iii.19 (explains what Aesop
meant by 'homo')
For other sermonizing epimythia, see especially iii.10 (five lines),

iv.20 (eleven lines), and v.4 (six lines); and for the exegetical type
iv. 1 1 (eight lines).
Here let us digress for a moment in order to summarize certain
of the incidental points already made above. We have seen that

one of the most common of the epimythian formulas in Class I,
viz. O X6yos 637Xo (= fabella admnonet, significat fabula, etc.), is in

all probability descended from a very similar promythian formula.
Likewise, the following epimythian formulas of Class I are derived
from promythia (cf. pp. 41 if.): 7rpos . 6 . Xo6oyos apyo6et and oviros o X
ap,Io'TEL (apg6oeev av) 0rp6s . . .; Orp6s . . . o X. EvkKaLpos TovT&'r TCr( X.
xp?ro-a'to av r pos . . . ; o X. XEX0eLfl av arpos . . .; and o X. ELpflraL

irpos . . . On the other hand, two noteworthy epimythian formulas in Class I have nothing to do with promythia, but are imita-
tive of the specific applications of fables told in a context; these are
oVTCo or ovTcrs and &rap o'v KaL itgas (cf. pp. 396-398). This accounts
for every epimythian formula in Class I that occurs more than two
or three times, and in all for over 90 per cent of them.

Thus the inventors of epimythia in Greek collections had their
eyes both upon the promythium, whose function they, like Phaedrus,
may have mistakenly but very naturally assumed to be exegetical
or hortatory, and upon the earlier applications which really were
of that nature, though specific. The feeling that every fable should
have a moral or philosophical meaning, in spite of the fact that
many were only amusing jests, must have been greatly fostered by
the practice adopted in the first written collections of heading each

fable with a promythium. In those collections the moral applica-
tion, being intended to serve the practical purpose of indexing the

fable, was necessarily invariable and the author would probably not
include a fable whose use in illustrating a philosophical point he
418
B.
E.
Perry
[1940
could not readily conceive. The fact that many promythia would
serve equally well as epimythia without any change at all,7" that
others also could easily be interpreted as exegetical, though requiring
some slight alteration if placed at the end of the fable, and that the
habit of regarding both promythia and epimythia as serving the
same hortatory or exegetical purpose has already developed in
Phaedrus-all this helps one to understand how the epimythium
came to be born of the promythium. As soon as the erroneous idea
began to prevail that the promythium was, or should be, an explana-
tion, it was naturally put at the end; both because it belonged there
logically, as an explanation, and because the fable, everywhere
outside of the collections, had nearly always been followed by a
moral in the form of a specific or personal application. In Phaedrus
we observe a period of transition and confusion in which the epimythium is being evolved out of the traditional promythium and
the new convention has not yet become completely standardized.72

It is very probable that in this respect Phaedrus reflects the varying
practice of contemporary Greek prose authors, although it may be
doubted to what extent the latter, with their presumably greater
regard for form and regularity, mixed epimythia with promythia

in the same book. One would expect them in most cases to employ
either the one or the other throughout. In any event, since
Phaedrus, as a Latin writer, is not likely to have set the style for
later Greek authors, we are bound to conclude that the latter had
already begun the use of epimythia before Phaedrus wrote. In
addition to this precedent, one of the main sources of Phaedrus, to
judge by the fables in Book i, must have been a Greek collection in
which, as in the Rylands papyrus, each fable was preceded by a
promythium.
Phaedrus and Babrius, both of whom probably belong to the
first century, were innovators in the history of fable-writing, in that
they first transformed a series of disconnected prose fables, originally

71 I refer principally to the type represented by Phaedrus iii.5, which consists of a
brief statement of the principle, without any mention of the fable (supra p. 408).
This is the type employed later by Aphthonius.
72 Even in much later times, when the epimythium had become the usual thing,
certain authors continued to employ promythia. In the Bodleian prose paraphrase of
Babrius (Class iv, or B in Chambry) we have promythia introduced by orTL throughout;
and in the fables of Aphthonius (edited by F. Sbordone in Rivista Indo-Greco-Italica
xvi [1932], 47ff.) each fable has a promythium as well as an epimythium, though both
are very brief. Avianus also has a few promythia. Babrius, unlike Phaedrus, apparently realized that they were not meant for poetry or literature; he avoids them.

intended for scholarly reference, into artistic and more or less
ambitious literary productions." Their works, written in verse and

addressed to the reading public at large, stood in the same general
relation to the Greek prose collections of Alexandrian times that
Ovid's Metamorphoses stands in relation to such a book as the
E,eTaMopqcbEcoPv yvva-ycowyt7 of Antoninus Liberalis. The fact that

fables, written down one after the other for their own sakes instead
of for the sake of occasional use in another context, had finally come
to be recognized, if only when written in verse, as constituting
legitimate ethical literature, must have influenced the attitude even
of the prose authors-to the extent at least that they began to

think of themselves no longer as mere compilers but somewhat as
literary men speaking to the public (in their epimythia) in the
capacity of interpreters and moral advisers, regardless of how
humble this role actually was. But the prose collections seem
never to have attained any recognition as literature. Their authors
have all remained anonymous and unknown, except for Demetrius,
whose fame rests on other things; and even in the time of Aphthonius,
the rhetoricians, as we have seen (p. 407), continued to regard them

as handbooks from which an ambitious writer might draw useful
illustrations and embellishments.
'3 Both writers claim to be doing something new, Babrius in the prologue to his
second book, and Phaedrus in Ii.9 and iv.7. Babrius (I.c.) adds that others had
already begun to imitate him in verse: dlij@XOov &aoXXO Ka, aoco-Teprs Po06rqs | -ypi4
o,oLasS eK44poCTVa 7r0OL?aLts, I jaLObVTeS obvae 7rXeZop ' 'uIE VtLPWUKELP.

The Origin of The Epimythium

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The Origin of the Epimythium

Vol. lxxi] The Origin of the Epimythium 391

XXVIII.-The Origin of the Epimythium

always the case, we have what is properly called an 'epimythium.'

terms of general principles. He makes an application that is always

Epimythia, as I have defined them, are attached to a large

under the name of Aesop.' Phaedrus also makes frequent, though

typical epimythia are extant in collections.2 Since so many of these

of an anticlimax to an otherwise dramatic story, one wonders why

offered, although the notion has prevailed that epimythia as we

know them were invented by rhetoricians or schoolmasters, either

no doubt operative to some extent among scribes and editors in a

late stage of the tradition; but they do not, as it happens, provide

insofar as it consists in a final moral or application without regard

to the manner of its conveyance or to whether it happens to be

general or specific, was conventional in one form or another in

more than an index-heading in a handbook of reference.

Vol. lxxi] The Origin of the Epimythium 393

into collections by scholarly compilers for the convenience of writers

an essay. It was not until the third period, ushered in by Phaedrus

exclusively for the benefit of litte'rateurs who wished to make use of

tributed to the birth of the epimythium. Other maieutic conditions

compiled the first known collection of Aesopic fables, entitled,

which he or his audience found themselves. At the end the narrator

"Likewise I. . . ." So Aristotle in his Rhetoric (II.20) tells us that

in the course of his argument related to them the fable of the

e+71, 6paTE) lest, in your desire to take vengeance on your enemie

to get on your back you will forthwith become slaves to Phalaris."

in Sophocles' Ajax (1141ff.),6 of a Sybaritic anecdote in Aristophanes'

above is followed in nine of the eleven fables related by Aesop in

situations, never as preaching in the abstract.

8 Cf. A. Westermann, Vita Aesopi (Brunsvigae, G. Westermann, 1845), p. 33,

Vol. lxxi] The Origin of the Epimythium 395

natural, particularly in history, oratory, satire, or epigram. In

Moreover, since a literary work may provide the context or setting

in authors before Ennius, and thereafter only rarely, may be due

in part to accident; but there were few preachers, in the manner of

the Roman satirists, previous to the Alexandrian age, and it is only

general that he is likely to give a general rather than a specific

tibi argumentum semper in promptu I ne quid expectes amic

(Epist. i.10.39ff.): sic qui pauperiem veritus potiore metallis J liber-

tate caret, dominum vehet improbus atque I serviet aeternum, quia

to collected fables; but, if so, this is not an influence that can be

13 Coriolanus 6; cf. Aratus 30 and 38.

veniat, malum'; Append. 10: et tu . . . vide ne.

is it likely to have been an active one. On the other hand, certain

third period.16 I refer to orwco or oVircs often followed by Kal and, in

17 OVrw ae KaL aov raparpeX' es ra llTrraXov. A somewhat different type of ending,

18 Lucilius 561 (ed. F. Marx).

Vol. lxxi] The Origin of the Epimythium 397

mythium (e.g. ovcrw iroXXot . . . Chambry 126), ovcrw or ovcrws

the literary fable and is probably derived from the promythia of

the beginning of the latter's application of his fable to the Samians:

of the speakers within the fable itself, apparently in gnomic or

quasi-gnomic utterances; 24 and in Class I, besides introducing the

epimythia of 9 fables (with ry,as substituted for v ,uas) ,25 it survives

of unity to his sons by inviting them to break first a bundle of rods

EXOpoS fOEOaOE r Ea v SeaoTaSaa7TE, EbaXWToL. But this dramatic utt

character of epimythia as such; in many cases they have been

of long standing, of which we shall say more presently, had already

let us note in conclusion that this formula in the epimythia of Class I

(9 times) is derived from the specific application (with v,as or byEls)

Neither in early Greek literature nor in the collections of later