The age of Greek fables, that is the period when they were in common use in writing and conversation, was now drawing to a close.  A few remain in Callimachus, and Suidas quotes some of perhaps the same date.  At this time Demetrius Phalareus made a prose collection of what were called AEsop’s Fables—­as we seek to perpetuate the memory of that which is passing away.  Babrius, also, who performed the same charitable office in “halting iambics,” like those of Hipponax, may be supposed to have flourished about this period, although it has been contended that he was a Roman and lived in the Augustan age.  However this may be, fabular illustrations began to drop out of fashion soon after this time, and by degrees were so far disallowed, that the man, who would have related such stories, would have been regarded as ludicrous rather than humorous.  Although Phaedrus Romanized AEsop’s Fables, and gave them a poetical meaning, he never gained any fame or popularity by them.  Martial calls him “improbus,” i.e., a rascal.

In these and earlier days, besides the humour exhibited in comedies, a considerable amount was displayed at public festivals and private entertainments.  In the Homeric hymn to Mercury, we read that the god extemporized a song, “just as when young men at banquets slily twit each other.”  When the cups flowed, and the conversation sparkled, men indulged in repartee, or capped each other in verses.  One man, for instance, would quote or compose a line beginning and ending with a certain letter, and another person was called upon for a similar one to complete the couplet.  Sometimes the line commenced with the first syllable of a word, and ended with the last, and a corresponding conceit was to be formed to answer it.  The successful competitors at these games were to be kissed and crowned with flowers; the unsuccessful to drink a bowl of brine.  These verbal devices were too simple and far-fetched to be humorous, but were, to a certain extent, amusing, and no doubt the forfeits and rewards occasioned some merriment.

A coarser kind of humour originated in the market-place, where professed wags of a low class were wont to congregate, and amuse themselves by chaffing and insulting passers-by.  Such men are mentioned centuries afterwards by St. Paul as “lewd fellows of the baser sort,”—­an expression which would be more properly rendered “men of the market-place.”  Such centres of trade do not seem to have been improving to the manners, for we read of people “railing like bread-women,” and of the “rude jests” of the young men of the market.[15] Lysistratus was one of these fellows in Aristophanes’ days, and his condition seems to have been as miserable as his humour, for his garment had “shed its leaves,"[16] and he was shivering and starving “more than thirty days in the month.”