The present edition, which presents the 195 fables in their original simple form, aims not only to entertain the reader but to give him a closer experience of this unique and, one might add, immortal form of the written word.

Ierocles

A philosopher who taught at the Neo-Platonist school in Alexandria from 420-450AD, Ierocles was influenced both by Platonic philosophy and by the peripatetics and the stoics. Among his writings there have also been preserved some one hundred and fifty jokes from which the selection below is taken. Although more than fifteen hundred years have passed since they were written, they still have the power to make us laugh today.