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
99 Fables Press, with illustrations by Richard Brough. The cover won an award at the 1960 Southern Books Competition. Although the collection is among the most obscure of March's works, "99 Fables" stands as an almost complete picture of the world March inhabited: many of the complex themes that populate much of March's work are here restated in a more simplistic form. The editor of the collection, William T. Going, says, "The fables, then, come close to providing as personal a summary of March's world as we are likely to have. Here are all his favorite ideas, the epitomes of the themes