Towards the end of this volume, Gert-Jan van Dijk notes that, "It is typical for the genre's flexibility that all of its ingredients have been changed… whereas the fable itself remains recognizable" (278). Van Dijk refers specifically to the long history of the fable of the fox and eagle (Aesopica 1; cf. Phaedrus 1.28), but his words well serve to define significant themes of this book: relationships, change, relevance, continuity, reception and re-use of the fables of Phaedrus from antiquity to the late nineteenth century.