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
Ancient Greek phonology to the ones that occurred later in Koine. This section primarily describes sound changes that occurred between the Mycenaean and Ancient Greek periods and during the Ancient Greek period. For sound changes occurring in Proto-Greek and in Koine Greek, see and Koine Greek phonology. In Proto-Greek, the PIE sibilant became by debuccalization in many cases. Clusters of and a sonorant (liquid or nasal) at the beginning of a word became a voiceless resonant in some forms of Archaic Greek. Voiceless remained in Attic at the beginning of words, and became the regular allophone of in this position; voiceless merged with