Fable fables, which are attributed to the legendary Aesop, supposed to have been a slave in ancient Greece around 550 BCE. When Babrius set down fables from the "Aesopica" in verse for a Hellenistic Prince "Alexander," he expressly stated at the head of Book II that this type of "myth" that Aesop had introduced to the "sons of the Hellenes" had been an invention of "Syrians" from the time of "Ninos" (personifying Nineveh to Greeks) and Belos ("ruler"). Epicharmus of Kos and Phormis are reported as having been among the first to invent comic fables. Many familiar fables of Aesop include
La Fontaine's Fables 1666 with the Latin title "Specimen sapientiae Indorum veterum" ("A sample of ancient Indian wisdom"). With a genealogy going back to the Indian Panchatantra, they were then attributed to Bidpai (Pilpay), who is given more than his fair due by La Fontaine in the preface to his second collection of "Fables": "I must acknowledge that I owe the greatest part to Pilpay, the Indian sage." () His sources are in fact much more diverse and by no means mainly oriental; of 89 fables, no more than twenty are found in Bidpai's collection. Avienus and Horace are also drawn upon in