The literature of the times of Tiberius and Caligula is less important than that of the following years. [Sidenote: Phædrus.] The only poet of importance is Phædrus, a freedman of Augustus, who wrote fables in iambic verse. These are for the most part not original with Phædrus, but are the so-called fables of Æsop, tales of Oriental origin, which migrated in writing or in oral form to Europe. The Greeks thought them the inventions of Æsop, but modern investigations have proved that they belong to the migratory folk-lore of India. After the first book of his fables, Phædrus introduces fables and tales of his own among those ascribed to Æsop. The whole collection now consists of ninety-three fables, divided into five books; but it originally contained a greater number, especially in Books II and V. The fables are still, many of them, at least, familiar to most children. Such are the stories of the Wolf and the Lamb, the Frog who tried to be as big as an Ox, the Fox and the Crane, and many others. Phædrus tells the fables in well-composed verses, but sometimes overdoes his love of brevity so as to be obscure. He also points out the moral of his tales too plainly, leaving nothing to the imagination of his readers. His language is the simple and easy Latin of the early Augustan period, without the rhetorical flourishes popular in the following years. Yet it is evident from references in the prologue to the third book that, although Sejanus was powerful after the appearance of the first two books, the third was written after his fall, that is to say, after 31 A. D. Probably Phædrus wrote at least as late as 40 A. D. Of his personal history little is known. He was born in Pieria, in Macedonia, but went to Italy and probably to Rome, at an early age. Something in the first two books of fables brought down upon the poet the wrath of Sejanus, but how serious its effects were is not known. The Eutychus to whom the third book is addressed is probably the charioteer who was an important personage in the last years of Caligula. Particulo and Philetes, whom Phædrus addresses in the epilogue and the last fable of the fifth book, are unknown. The _Fables_ of Phædrus have been much used as a text-book, because they are interesting to young readers and are written in simple, classical Latin.