reflection of oriental splendour seems to have been cast upon it, and we
read of all kinds of extravagant and curious arrangements for the
indulgence of ease and indolence. Amid all this luxury and leisure,
fancy was not unemployed. We find that, like the former leaders of
fashion in this country, they kept a goodly train of monkeys,[6] and
anticipated our circus performances by teaching their horses to dance on
their hind legs, an advance above practical joking and below pictorial
caricature. Moreover, intellectual entertainment was required at their
sumptuous feasts, and genius was tasked to find something light and
racy, maxims of deep significance interwoven with gay and fanciful
creations. There was not sufficient subtlety about these inventions to
entitle them to the name of humour in our modern sense of the word; much
complication was not then required, nor much laughter expected. The
"fables" of Sybaris seem to have been of a similarly philosophical cast
to those of Æsop. The following specimen is given in the Vespæ, 1427.

"A man of Sybaris fell from a chariot, and, as it happened, had his head
broken--for he was not well acquainted with driving--and a friend who
stood by, said, 'Let every man practise the craft, which he
understands.'"

We observe that these fables are not carried on through the assistance
of our four-footed friends. At Sybaris, conversation between men and the
lower animals had begun to appear not only absurd, but to be improved
upon and made with the evident intention of being humorous. Hence,
inanimate things were sometimes made to speak, and in succeeding
fictions birds and beasts were given such special characteristics and
requirements of men as could least have belonged to them. As an example
of this, we may refer to the Batrachomyomachia--a production called
Homeric but proved by the very length of its name to belong to a later