Aesop's Fables the fables arrived in and travelled from ancient Greece remains uncertain. Some cannot be dated any earlier than Babrius and Phaedrus, several centuries after Aesop, and yet others even later. The earliest mentioned collection was by Demetrius of Phalerum, an Athenian orator and statesman of the 4th century BCE, who compiled the fables into a set of ten books for the use of orators. A follower of Aristotle, he simply catalogued all the fables that earlier Greek writers had used in isolation as exempla, putting them into prose. At least it was evidence of what was attributed to Aesop by
Ancient Greek literature themes originating in ancient Greece. The ideas expressed in Aristotle's "Poetics", in particular, have influenced generations of Western writers and literary critics. A Latin translation of an Arabic version of the "Poetics" by Averroes was available during the Middle Ages. Common Greek literary terms still used today include: "catharsis", "ethos", "anagnorisis", "hamartia", "hubris", "mimesis", "mythos", "nemesis", and "peripeteia". Ancient Greek literature Ancient Greek literature refers to literature written in the Ancient Greek language from the earliest texts until the time of the Byzantine Empire. The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic period, are