Babrius

(Βάβριος), or Ba'brias (Βαβρίας), sometimes also called GA'BRIAS (Γαβρίας), who is not a different person from Babrius, as Bentley supposed, a Greek poet, who after the example of Socrates turned the Aesopean fables into verse. The emperor Julian (Ep. 90) is the first writer who mentions Babrius; but as some of Babrius's verses are quoted by Apollonius in his Homeric Lexicon (s. v. ἄειδε), though without mentioning his name, he lived in all probability before the time of Augustus. [Apollonius, No. 5.] This is in accordance with the account of Avianus, who speaks (Praef.) of Babrius before Phaedrus. Works Μύθοι

The work of Babrius, which was in Choliambic verses [see p. 47b.], was called Μύθοι and Μυθίαμβοι, and was comprised in ten books according to Suidas (s. v. Βάβριος), or two volumes (volumina) according to Avianus. His version, which is one of no ordinary merit, seems to have been the basis of all the Aesopean fables which have come down to us in various forms. Later writers of Aesopean fables, such as Maximus Planudes, probably turned the poems of Babrius into prose, but they did it in so clumsy a manner, that many choliambic verses may still be traced in their fables, as Bentley has shewn in his dissertation on Aesop's fables. [Aesopus, p. 48a.] Bentley was the first writer who called the attention of the learned to this fact, which was proved still more clearly by Tyrwhitt in his dissertation " De Babrio, Fabularum Aesopearum Scriptore," Lond. 1776, reprinted at Erlangen, 1785, ed. Harles. Editions

To this dissertation de Babrio Tyrwhitt added the fragments of Babrius, which were but few in number and chiefly taken from Suidas; but several of his complete poems have been discovered in a Florentine and Vatican MS., and were first published by de Furia under the title of" Fabulae Aesopicae, quales ante Planudem ferebantur," Flor. 1809. They have also been edited by J. Gl. Schneider, " Aesopi Fabulae, cum Fabulis Babrii," Vratisl. 1812; by Berger, Βαβρίου μύθων χωλιαμβικῶν βιβλία τρία, &c., Monach. 1816; and by Knoch, "Babrii Fabulae et Fabularum Fragmenta," Halis Sax. 1835.

(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).