Phaedrus (15 B.C. – AD 50), Roman fabulist,
was by birth a Macedonian and lived in the reigns of Augustus,
Tiberius, Gaius and Claudius. According to his own statement (prologue
to book III), he was born on the Pierian Mountain, but he seems
to have been brought to Italy at an early age since he mentions
reading a verse of Ennius as a boy in school. According to the
heading of the chief manuscript he was a slave and was freed by
Augustus. He incurred the wrath of Sejanus, the powerful minister
of Tiberius, by some supposed allusions in his fables, and was
brought to trial and punished.
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