According to legend, the ancient Greek fabulist Aesop lived in the 6th century BC. e. Herodotus and Plato wrote about him. The first collection of his oral fables was compiled by Demetrius of Phalerum at the end of the 4th century BC. e. The name of Aesop was attached to the genre he created, because in the ancient world all fables were called “Aesop’s fables.” From ancient times to the present day, the plots of “Aesop’s fables” have been processed in world literature. Aesop's themes were interpreted by Lafontaine and Krylov in their own way. In addition to Aesop's biography, this collection includes Greek and Latin fables from Aesop's corpus, translated and with comments by M. L. Gasparov.