Prolegómenos al estudio de la fábula en época helenística

Abstract

This paper tries to reconstruct the history of the Hellenistic collections of fables, which undoubtedly existed between that of Demetrius Phalereus (around 300 B.C.) and those that have been preserved until today. A remarkable fact in the history of fable in the third century B.C. is that the prose fables of Demetrius were versified (in choliambs and iamble trimeters). Also some new verse fables were composed. Classic fables were borrowed or modified and new ones were simply invented by the Cynic movement, which is responsible for the metric redactions. But in late Hellenistic times a counter movement appeared that prosified the metric fables or created new ones in prose. Stoicism and simply moralizing tendencies transformed fable so that it was used henceforth in schools as an important teaching instrument.