The whole Middle Division must include all from 500 B.C. to about 1300 A.D. So, we see the boundaries are inevitable if not entirely satisfactory. Greece was the primeval European civilization, and in the year 500 B.C. it already had its own literature and the Iliad and Odyssey were even then antique. These, at this time, were traditionally ascribed to Homer as they have ever since remained. But Homer’s individual existence is a matter of doubt, and his history and personality are as unknown as those of the ancient patriarchs of the Old Testament. Even from this distant viewpoint the humor of antiquity is, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder. Coleridge says definitely, “Amongst the classic ancients there was little or no humor.” But, on the other hand, that eminent antiquarian, William Hayes Ward says, “The Greeks were the maddest, jolliest race of men that ever inhabited our planet. As they loved games and play, they loved the joke.” So, as more than any other human emotion, humor is a matter of opinion, we must dig up whatever nuggets we can and not assay them too meticulously. Like Homer, Æsop, is wrapped in mystery. Like Homer, too, various cities claimed the honor of being his birthplace. The truth is not known. Tradition places Æsop in the sixth century, B.C. and makes him a dwarf and, originally, a slave. Though probably not a historic personage, his name is inseparably connected with the Fables that have been known to us for centuries; and, according to scholars, some of them were known a thousand years earlier to the Egyptians. Of these things we cannot speak positively, but _Æsop’s Fables_ certainly come at or near the beginnings of Greek Literature, and their place is here. ÆSOP’S FABLES _THE LION, THE BEAR, THE MONKEY, AND THE FOX_