MILESIAN TALE

Latin Milesia Fabula, in the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, a brief erotic or picaresque tale of romantic adventure. This type of tale was first written or collected by Aristides of Miletus (c. 2nd century BC). In the 1st century BC, Aristides' collection was translated into Latin by Lucius Cornelius Sisenna as Milesiae fabulae; this volume served as a model for episodes in Petronius' Satyricon (1st century AD), a narrative dealing with the escapades of a trio of disreputable heroes, and for The Golden Ass (2nd century AD) by Lucius Apuleius, an account of the ribald adventures of a hero who is changed into an ass. The Greek and Latin Milesian tales provided prototypes for many tales included in Boccaccio's Decameron (134853) and the Heptamron (155859) of Margaret of Angoulme.