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Phaedrus' Fables PHAEDRUS’ FABLES: THE ORIGINAL CORPUS by JOHN HENDERSON Phaedrus is a Latin author not infrequently referred to, but rarely read through. The edition most used by English speakers, the Loeb of B.E. Perry, includes him with Babrius, in the green livery of the Greek series. This is not just a victory for the alphabet over chronol- ogy, but an indication that Phaedrus attracts readers as an impor- tant repertory for ‘Fables in the Aesopic tradition’. 1 ) Outside Italy, where a respectable volume of scholarship continues to be gener- ated, Phaedrus cannot claim a place on the canon of Latin Literature, and few cultural-historical projects have found his verses (iambic senarii) demanding attention. 2) How many who come his way, most likely on the trail of Aesop, regard the textuality (language, verse- form, context, authorial disposition) of the Fabulae?3) The purpose of this article is to sketch out the original extent and nature of the corpus Phaedrianum (below, section 4). Phaedrus, freedman of Augustus, whose oruit was under Tiberius, produced ve books, the earliest extant collection of Aesopica. 4) These presented a series of separate anthologies over a number of 1)B.E. Perry (ed.), Babrius and Phaedrus (Cambridge, MASS 1965): in the indis- pensable check-list, with full and accurate descriptions, of R.W. Lamb, Annales Phaedriani. Rough Notes towards a Bibliography of Phaedrus (Lowestoft 1995, hereafter referred to as ‘Lamb’), this is p. 57, no. 600. Perry’s now canonical (if incomplete) tabulation of fables is referred to below as Aes. 2)But cf. W.M. Bloomer, Latinity and Literary Society at Rome (Philadelphia 1997), 73-109. Surveys of scholarship: H.MacL. Currie, Phaedrus the fabulist , ANRW II.32.1 (1978), 497-513; G.B. Conte, Latin Literature: A History (Baltimore 1994), 433-5, ‘A marginal poet’; M. von Albrecht, A History of Roman Literature (Leiden 1997), 2, 1002-7. 3)Weighty specialist scholarship of course exists on these topics (though scarcely any major proposal has convinced anyone but its proposer): e.g. M. Nøjgaard, La fable antique, II: Les grands fabulistes (Copenhagen 1967); F. Rodríguez Adrados, Historia de la fábula greco-latina (Madrid 1979-87), 1-3, esp. 2, 125-71, ‘Fedro’; N. Holzberg Die antike Fabel. Eine Einführung (Darmstadt 1993), esp. 43-56. But this work has not recovered Phaedrus as an author with a readership and critical contestation. 4) Aug. lib.: Mss PR incipit, etc. Tiberian: diuo Augusto , 3.10.39, Caesar Tiberius , 2.5.7, Seiano, 3.Prol.41. Five books: Ms R Vi explicit; Avianus, Fables, Preface . ©Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 1999 Mnemosyne, Vol. LII, Fasc. 3 PHAEDRUS’ FABLES: THE ORIGINAL CORPUS 309 years, into (something approaching) old age. 5) Dedicatees are acquired, and shuZed.6) The writer’s dramatization of his undertaking is devel- oped through the successive prefaces and postscripts. 7) The nucleus of the corpus is preserved in Ms P (with the testimonia to its lost twin R).8) All (except hyperactive) editors since Brotier present as 5)Stated at 3. Epil.16, olim senio debilem ; indicated in authorially appropriated ‘morals’: the old woman, 3.1.7, the old hound, 5.10.10. 6)No addressees for books 1 and 2; then, Eutychus: 3. Prol.2; Particulo: 4. Prol.10 and Epil.5; Philetus (?): 5.10.10. 7) Esp. 3.Epil.1-17. vs. 4. Prol.1-3; Epil.1-3, 5.Prol.2. 8) P: Codex Pithoeanus, Pierpont Morgan M. 906 : ninth century Carolingian minus- cule in scriptura continua , with titles added: C.E. Finch, The Morgan Manuscript of Phaedrus, AJPh 92 (1971), 301-7, O. Zwierlein, Der Codex Pithoeanus des Phaedrus in der Pierpont Morgan Library , RhM 113 (1970), 91-3. On the editio princeps , P. Pithou, Phaedri Augusti Liberti Fabularum Aesopiarum Libri Quinque (Troyes 1596) = Lamb 3 f., no. 1; on Pithou: ibid., 4. R: Codex (Sancti Remigii) Remensis , destroyed by re at Rheims Abbey in 1774. Collations: R Ri: J. Sirmond, in: N. Rigault, Phaedri Augusti Liberti Fabularum Aesopiarum Libri Quinque (Paris 1617, 1630) = Lamb 6, no. 10; R Gu: M. Gude, in: P. Burmann, Phaedri Augusti Liberti Fabularum Aesopiarum Libri Quinque (Amsterdam 1698) = Lamb 11 f., no. 73; R Ro: D. Roche, as discovered in the Bibliothèque de l’Université , Paris by E. Chatelain, Un nouveau document sur le Codex Remensis de Phèdre , RPh 11 (1887), 81-8; R Vi: Dom. Vincent, librarian of Rheims Abbey, as marginalia in the school edition published by Widow Brocas, Phaedri Augusti Liberti Fabularum Aesopiarum Libri Quinque (Paris 1743) = Lamb 24, no. 190: now known through the correc- tions made by J. Berger de Xivrey, Phaedri Augusti Liberti Fabularum Aesopiarum Libros Quinque . edidit (Paris 1830) = Lamb 44, no. 423. D: P. Danielis Schedae, Vatican CodexReg. Lat.1616 , a ninth/tenth century parch- ment fragment from St. Benoît-sur-Loire, with 1.11.2-13, 12.1, 17.1-21.10 written in verses, and titles independent of PR: cf. C.E. Finch, Notes on the Fragment of Phaedrus in Reg. Lat. 1616 , CPh 66 (1971), 190-1. N: Codex Neapolitanus IV F 58, Codex Perottinus. c.1465-70. Disastrously waterlogged and progressively deteriorating, multiply collated. This is the autograph anthology of Perotti, Bishop of Siponto: Nicolai Perotti Epitome fabellarum Esopi Auieni [sic] et Phaedri ad Pyrrhum Perottum fratris lium adulescentem suauissimum : of the 157 poems (one written out twice), 32 are fables known from books ‘2 to 5’ (i.e. 2.6- Epil; 3.1-8, 10-9; 4.21-3, 25-6; 5.1-5; for his proem, Perotti appropriated 3. Prol.30, 31-7, 4.Prol.15-9, 5.Prol.8-9); 32 are the otherwise lost Phaedriana we call the Appendix Perottina (including two fragments; but 8 of these pieces are represented, in diluted form, from the prose paraphrasts); 36 are fables from Avianus’ collection of forty- two; 57 are miscellaneous poems. The ingredients are thoroughly jumbled, though some signs of corresponsion with the order in PR survive (in the sequences 3.4- 7, 5.2-4; conspectus in L. Havet, Phaedri Augusti Liberti Fabularum Aesopiarum Libri Quinque [Paris 1895] = Lamb 52, no. 530, 287 f.). Perotti deliberately ‘stream- lined’ his texts, taken from a lost codex more complete than PR. As can be proved by comparison between poems common to PR and NV, App is incorrigibly inac- curate (and metrically abused). See esp. S. Boldrini, Fedro e Perotti. Ricerche di storia della tradizione (Urbino 1990), for both the App, and for Perotti..
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