Romulus is the author, now considered a legendary figure[1], of versions of Aesop's Fables in Latin. Aesop's Fables or Aesopica refers to a collection of Fables credited to Aesop (620&ndash 560 BC) a slave and story-teller who lived These were passed down in Western Europe, and became important school texts, for early education. Romulus is supposed to have lived in the fifth century.
The Romulus of medieval tradition therefore represents a number of traditional attributions of Latin manuscripts of beast fables. These are based on prose adaptations of Phaedrus (first century AD), whose works survive only in these forms, not by more direct transmission. Phaedrus (c 15 BC – c AD 50) Roman Fabulist, was probably a Thracian slave born in Pydna of Macedonia (Roman province The Romulus texts make up the bulk of the medieval 'Aesop'[2].
Scholars identify several strands of manuscripts[3]:
- The Romulus Ordinarius (Romulus Vulgaris), 83 tales known in a ninth-century text;
- The Romulus of Vienna;
- The Romulus of Nilant, 45 fables[4], published in 1709 by Johan Frederik Nilant (Jean-Frédéric Nilant).
These prose works gave rise to versifications: the Novus Aesopus of Alexander Neckam, the verse Romulus often attributed to Gualterus Anglicus (Romulus of Nevelet). Alexander ( of) Neckam ( 8 September 1157 &ndash 1217 was an English scholar and teacher Gualterus Anglicus was an Anglo-Norman poet writing in Latin, who (it has been suggested produced a seminal version of Aesop's Fables, in Further adaptation and expansion from those works built up the medieval Aesop tradition.
The Esope of Adémar de Chabannes (67 fables) is now considered to come from the Romulus Ordinarius[3]. Adémar de Chabannes (sometimes Adhémar de Chabannes) (c 988-1034 was an eleventh century Monk, a Historian, who wrote the first Annals that
The Romulus Roberti (22 fables) is taken from the Anglo-Latin Romulus, with the four first tales from Marie de France[5]. Marie de France ("Mary of France" was a Poet evidently born in France and living in England during the late 12th century
References
- Hermann Oesterley (1870), Romulus: Die paraphrasen des Phaedrus und die Aesopische fabel in mittelalter
- Léopold Hervieux (1893-1899), Les fabulistes latins depuis le siècle d'Auguste jusqu'à la. fin du Moyen-Age, Vol. II. : Phèdre et ses anciens imitateurs directs et indirects
- Georg Thiele (1910), Der Lateinische Äsop des Romulus und die Prosa-Fassungen des Phädrus
Notes
- ^ William W. Georg Max Thiele was a German Naval Officer (Korvettenkapitan killed during World War I. Kibler, Medieval France: An Encyclopedia (1995), p. 331.
- ^ Francisco Rodriguez Adrados, History of the Graeco-Latin Fable: The Fable During the Roman Empire and in the Middle Ages (2000 translation), p. 640.
- ^ a b http://bcs.fltr.ucl.ac.be/FE/06/fable.html, in French.
- ^ Phèdre
- ^ Romulus Roberti | Arlima - Archives de littérature du Moyen Âge
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