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Aris & Phillips Classical Texts Apuleius METAMORPHOSES Book 1 With an introduction, translation and notes by Regine May
Aris and Phillips Classical Texts APULEIUS Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 With an introduction, translation and notes by Regine May k
Aris & Phillips Classical Texts are published by Oxbow Books, Oxford ©R. May 2013 All rights reserved. No pan of this publication may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying without the prior permission of the publishers in writing. ISBN hardback: 978-1-908343-80-2 ISBN paper: 978-1 -908343-81 -9 A CEP record for this book is available from the British Library This book is available from Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK Phone: 01865-241249; Fax 01865-794449 and The David Brown Book Company PO Box 511, Oakville, CT 06779, USA Phone: 860-945-9329: Fax: 860-945-9468 or from our website www.oxbowbooks.com Cover image: Lucius walking next to his horse on his way to Hypata meets two travellers. From Μ. M. Boiardo, Apulegio volgare (1518). Photo: John Gibbons
CONTENTS Preface V Introduction 1 Bibliography 51 Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 63 Commentary 92 Index 222
PREFACE Apuleius’ Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass, our only complete Latin novel, has inspired authors from the second century AD onwards until today. It influenced, for example, Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night s Dream and was dramatised by Peter Oswald for the Globe Theatre in 2002 as part of their Cupid and Psyche season. Artists as far apart in time and aesthetic outlook as Canova and the modem graphic novelist Manara have been fascinated by it. The Metamorphoses' continued appeal derives in part from its modernity. The modem novel incorporates all genres, for example drama, philosophical treatises or lyrical poetry, and this has been prefigured by Apuleius’ text. Metamorphoses is in many ways a timeless work of art: a gullible and unreliable first person narrator finds himself placed in Kafkaesque situations of the supernatural kind (exposure to witches and metamorphosis into a donkey) and has to brave this frightening scenario all on his own. The scene for this alienation of the character, so common in modem literature and experienced by modem society, is set in book one of the Metamorphoses, which introduces and anticipates many major themes of Apuleius’ complex novel. These themes range from witchcraft and magic to the question of how serious philosophical and religious allusions in the novel itself should be taken. This commentary is intended to open up the first book of Metamorphoses to a wider readership. The introduction accordingly places both the author and the novel into the context of the literature and society of the second century AD. It also ensures that Met. 1, despite being the first of eleven books of the novel, can be read as a self-contained text. The Latin text has been compared carefully with the manuscripts and modem editions, especially Zimmerman’s 2012 Oxford Classical Text. I have tacitly simplified obvious inconsistencies in the spelling of the text found in the manuscripts, e.g. Photis/Fotis or grabatulus/grabattulus, but, like previous editions of Metamorphoses (notably Zimmerman 2012), I have not tried to harmonise all orthographical inconsistencies. The translation is intended to be as close as possible to the Latin original, but not a grammatical crib. It brings out especially the literary texture of Metamorphoses and the rhetorical, often flowery style of Apuleius. The commentary concentrates on Apuleius as a literary artist and is keyed to the translation. But Apuleius’ style and especially his choice of words
VI Preface are integral to the interpretation of his literary aims. Like all archaists of his period, he sees the single word, rather than the sentence, as the most important structural element of his prose. He creates meaning by repeating words throughout the novel, by reviving archaic words that had not been used for several centuries, and by inventing new words altogether. Therefore the commentary contains more linguistic detail than is common for commentaries based on a translation, in order to help readers appreciate the literariness and allusions of the text. Anyone who wishes to find even more linguistic and stylistic information should consult the excellent and detailed commentary by Keulen 2007. This is also a good starting place for a complete bibliography, as the one in this book offers merely a brief selection of the ever increasing scholarship on Apuleius. Repetitions and cross-references within the commentary, and the deliberate repetition of some material between sections of the introduction, should aid a more casual consulter of specific parts of the book who may not read the commentary through systematically. They are also intended to show the tight web of repeated imagery with which Apuleius creates cohesion in an often confusing and unique story. I am indebted to many people who helped me to complete this commentary. An AHRC Early Careers Fellowship allowed me to take off the academic year 2010-11 to concentrate on writing. My colleagues in Leeds and Oxford helped me in many different ways, especially Ken Belcher, Stephen Harrison, Malcolm Heath and Petra Hofmann, who read drafts at various stages of the book. My special gratitude goes to my wonderful students in the Department of Classics in Leeds, linguists and non-linguists alike, who read Apuleius with me and whose enthusiasm for the ancient novels has been encouraging and contagious. Maaike Zimmerman very kindly discussed matters of textual criticism with me. Very special thanks go to the series editor Chris Collard for his continued patience and detailed comments, which made this a much better book. The team at Oxbow books and Aris and Phillips Classical Texts put the manuscript into print in record time. At home I cannot even begin to thank my parents Toni and Christel May for crucial childcare, Onkar Singh for joinery advice, Nanki Singh for her warmth, and Gurbir Singh for his practical and emotional support. My greatest debt is however to Amrita May-Singh, to whom 1 am dedicating this book, for being the true light of my life. Regine May Leeds, June 2013
INTRODUCTION 1. The author and his times 1.1 The author, his life and works Apuleius was bom c. 125 AD in Madauros (now M’daurouch) in Algeria, a city in the then Roman proconsular province ‘Africa’. He spent much of his time writing in Carthage (near modem Tunis). He was a member of the Rome-acculturated Latin-speaking provincial elite, and produced his works in Latin and Greek (the latter no longer extant). It is from these works that his life has to be reconstructed, especially from Apologia and Florida. His father was a high magistrate (duumvir) in the province, who left Apuleius financially well off at his death (Apol. 24), and able to study rhetoric and philosophy in Carthage (FI. 18) and Athens (FI. 20). Apuleius later travelled to Rome (FI. 17) and some cities in Greece and Asia Minor. While in Athens, he met Pontianus, a younger fellow student from Oea (now Tripoli in modem Libya), whom he encountered again several years later when he fell ill on his journey to Alexandria. Apuleius narrates what happened then in his speech in his own defence, the Apologia, our only source for the events, and written by him to show himself in the best possible light. He was nursed back to health by Pontianus’ family and persuaded to stay for a year (Apol. 72), and eventually to marry Pontianus’ rich widowed mother Pudentilla, five to ten years Apuleius’ senior and about forty at the time of marriage. Shortly after, several of her relatives, probably unhappy to see her money go to the young upstart rhetorician and philosopher, accused Apuleius of using magic to coax Pudentilla into marrying him. The trial took place in Sabratha (near Oea) in late 158/early 159 AD, with the proconsul Claudius Maximus as the presiding judge. Given that Apuleius lived to tell the tale, it is clear that he was acquitted, since if convicted he would have been executed as a magician. In the speech itself Apuleius displays detailed knowledge of literary history and philosophy, but especially the practices and theories of ancient magic, knowledge also on display in his main work, the Golden /fss or Metamorphoses, especially in Met. 1 (cf. § 11 below). He continued to be active in Carthage later in his life, giving speeches in front of several pro-consuls of Africa in the 160s AD. No literary work by Apuleius has a verifiable later date, but the extant philosophical works (see below) may be from this period. He probably died in the 180s.
2 Introduction From his other speeches, an anthology of twenty-three rhetorical passages remains, the Florida. It contains both whole speeches and excerpts, and is full of learned and interesting anecdotes on themes ranging from e.g. a description of India (FI. 6) to quirky events in the lives of various philosophers and literary figures of the Greek and Roman past. This kind of performance rhetoric, meant to instruct and entertain large crowds in the theatre, puts Apuleius in the context of the Second Sophistic (cf. § 1.2), and some themes reappear in Met. In both Apologia and Florida Apuleius portrayed himself as a ‘Platonic philosopher’ (e.g. Apol. 10); a statue base inscribed to a philosophus Platonicus (Inscriptions latins d'Afrique 2115; found in Madauros) is generally believed to have been set up there in Apuleius’ honour. He was a follower and teacher, though not a genuinely original thinker, of Middle Platonism (Dillon 1977), a prevalent intellectual stream in Apuleius’ time (Moreschini 1978, 133-91). Several of his philosophical works survive: On the God of Socrates explains Plato’s concept of the daimon to a Latin speaking audience, as a kind of mediator between humans and the gods. Two more works of somewhat debated authenticity survive: On Plato and His Doctrine is a doxographical explanation of Plato’s philosophy, and On the Universe (De Mundo) is a Latin translation of a pseudo-Aristotelian treatise on the cosmos. Apuleius’ knowledge of Plato is evident in Met. 1 (cf. §10.1). The date of Metamorphoses cannot be determined with certainty. Dowden 1994 argues that Apuleius wrote Met. in Rome in the mid-150s AD and for a Roman audience rather than in Carthage. Most scholars however date it to Apuleius’ later life, i.e. in the 170s or even 180s AD and propose a Northern African place of composition (Harrison 2000). Accordingly, similarities between Apuleius’ own life and his portrayal of Lucius’ adventures with magic in Metamorphoses may be deliberate. Apart from these major works, many of Apuleius’ writings are entirely lost or only fragmentarily transmitted (fragments collected in Harrison 2000, 16-36). He claims himself to have written works in poetry and prose in both Greek and Latin (FI. 9; 20). Some Latin erotic poetry is extant and displays a similar eclectic archaising style to the one found in his prose texts. He also may have written another novel, although only six short fragments of his Hermagoras are extant. Other works range from translations of Plato’s Phaedo to treatises on history, medicine, astronomy and biology.
Introduction 3 1.2 Contemporary context: archaism and the Second Sophistic Apuleius’ knowledge and interests were wide-ranging though at times superficial. Many of them are reflected in his extensive output, and especially Metamorphoses. Met. 1 is a good example of Apuleius’ eclecticism of knowledge and style. His language ranges from archaising poeticisms to crude colloquialisms, and he displays a profound knowledge of previous Greek and Roman literature and (especially Platonic) philosophy as well as of ancient magic in all its varieties, up-to-date medical theories, biology and the mystery religion of Isis. In this eclecticism he was part of a literary movement of his times; his contemporaries Fronto (c. 100-170 AD) and Aulus Gellius (c. 125-185 AD), forerunners and main proponents of Latin archaism, had similarly wide reaching interests in classical literature and learned details, ranging from e.g. details about pregnancy found in Greek New Comedy (Attic Nights 3.16) to discussions of the correct use of words found in the works of Plautus, Pacuvius and other archaic Latin writers. Apuleius possibly knew Aulus Gellius from his time in Athens. The language Apuleius uses noticeably in all his literary works, but especially to perfection in Met., is informed by archaism, as he, too, revives words that before him last left traces in the literature of the second century BC, cf. §12. The so-called ‘Second Sophistic’ is mainly a Greek cultural phenomenon, a period of renewed interest in the literature and language, but also rhetoric and philosophy, of the Classical Athenian period. Sophists like Maximus of Tyre, Dio Chrysostom or Aelius Aristides saw themselves as educators, and gave oratorical performances to theatres packed full with audiences. Writers like Philostratus covered topics ranging from the proper way to pursue physical education to a hagiographic biography of the holy man Apollonius ofTyana. Apuleius follows a similar agenda to that of the Greek sophists (Sandy 1997, Harrison 2000). The second century philosopher, especially the one interested in Plato and Pythagoreanism like Apuleius, would show curiosity for magic, too (Dickie 2001,204). He is knowledgeable about many things, and intent on displaying it to a wider audience. It is clear that he holds especially rhetoric and philosophy in the highest regard. This is evident in Met. 1, where the prologue, as Keulen 2007 and Tilg 2007 have shown, owes much to formal rhetoric. For Apuleius, rhetoric and philosophy are intrinsically linked, even at times identical (O’Brien 2002, 8-26).
4 Introduction 2. The genre: the ‘novel· and the Milesian Tales 2.1 The Greek novel There is no contemporary name for the extended fictional prose narratives written in Greek and Latin, for which examples dating from the first century BC/AD to the fourth century AD are extant and which scholars subsume under the convenient label ‘ancient novel’ (e.g. Walsh 1995). Generic features for these stories are therefore extracted from these extant texts, and the ancient novels typically vary to the extent they exhibit these extrapolated generic features. Many of the Greek novels feature an idealised love story set in the distant Classical Greek past, where a beautiful young boy and girl from aristocratic families meet at the beginning of the story, fall in love at first sight, but then are separated from each other by Fate (Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe, Xenophon of Ephesus’ Ephesian Tales, Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe, Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon, Heliodorus’ Ethiopian Story). The lovers’ subsequent travels through the then known world range from Persia to Egypt and Sicily, and are punctuated by adventures such as sea storms, pirates or robbers. Other recurring features are love rivals, apparent deaths and premature burials (Chariton 2.8.7; Ach. Tat. 3.15; 3.5 etc.), or the timely intervention of gods to help the protagonists (e.g. Pan in Longus, the Sun God in Heliodorus etc.). Despite all adversity, the couple are reunited at the end of the story, return home to their city of origin (nojfos-narrative) and take up their roles as leaders of their city states. Other Greek novels, nowadays mostly extant in fragmentary form, show a less idealising picture, where these features are either put more into the background (e.g. the 1 st century AD Ninos Romance) or have less developed love interests but more stress on historical context. The bawdy and comical lolaos or Lollianos’ Phoenician Tales, as far as we can discern from the few extant fragments, have more realistic, farcical and explicit sexual content, with single protagonists and varying love interests, much in the style of the two Latin novels by Petronius and Apuleius. If the description of a woman embracing a donkey in P.Oxy. LXX.4762 is a novelistic fragment related to Apuleius’ Greek original (see May 2010 and introd. §3), it fits into the same category. 2.2 The Latin novel The two Latin works traditionally placed into the same category of ‘novel’, Petronius’ Satyrica (60s AD) and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, share many
Introduction 5 features with their Greek counterparts, although they often seem purposefully to invert especially the more idealistic erotic novels. Both Satyrica and Metamorphoses are set in their authors’ contemporary times; although they both prominently feature travel narratives, apparent deaths (e.g. Socrates in Met. 1.17.2), robbers and divine interventions (Priapus in Satyrica, Isis in Met.), there is no overarching love story, and in Apuleius at least there is no «osftw-narrative, as Lucius only briefly returns to his native Corinth before he permanently moves to Rome at the end of the novel. We do not have beginning or ending of Petronius’ text, so any assumptions here remain speculative. Both novels feature episodic erotic encounters with various women (and men, in Petronius’ case), which at times appear to be parodying the sentimental love plots of novels like Chariton’s. The relationship between the two Latin novels is problematic; at times Apuleius’ novel appears to echo both linguistically and thematically episodes found in Petronius. In Met. 1, similarities between both novels are obvious, e.g. when the doorkeeper surprisingly breaks into the heroes’ room (1.17), or in the depiction of amorous old women with a penchant for witchcraft and alcohol; in Petron. 97.4f. the boy Giton hides from Encolpius’ aggressive rival under a bed, a situation mirrored in Met. 1.11.8 (see commentary). Both protagonists, Petronius’ Encolpius and Apuleius’ Lucius, are young men, educated but foolish, with a thirst for love affairs and adventures, who travel through contemporary Greece and Southern Italy and find themselves in low-life situations. It is however a matter of debate whether Apuleius knew and borrowed from the earlier author as some scholars think (Ciaffi 1960), or whether any similarities are coincidental or due to both authors interacting with previous literature (Walsh 1978, Mattiacci 1993; Harrison 1997 and Schmeling 2011, 392f. at least consider Apuleius’ dependence on Petronius a possibility). A candidate for inspiring the more farcical scenes in both novels is mime, a low class comic genre of great flexibility and adaptability, which also underlies e.g. the adultery episodes in Met. 9 and the broken down bedroom doors in Met. 1 (cf. §2.4). 2.3 Milesian Tales Although the more realistic elements in the Latin novels have been seen as deliberate reactions to the more idealised Greek novels or corresponding to the comic-realistic novels like lolaos, which they resemble more closely, another (subliterary) genre may have influenced the two Latin novels.
6 Introduction Apuleius himself refers to the genre twice in programmatic passages of Metamorphoses (the prologue 1.1.1, and 4.32.5 in the Tale of Cupid and Psyche), where he calls his story a ‘Milesian Tale’. Milesiaka, or ‘Milesian Tales’, was the title of a book by Aristides (second century BC), translated into Latin by Sisenna in the first century BC; neither is extant. Milesian Tales were bawdy stories with surprise endings, possibly arranged as inserted tales into a framing narrative. It has been tentatively argued that Aristomenes’ story in Met. 1 might be a Milesian Tale (Harrison 1998, 72), and the story of the matron and the donkey in Met. 10, definitely already part of the lost Greek original (see below §3), may have parallels in Milesian Tales, too (May 2010). Petronius’ Satyrica contains two Milesian Tales, the Boy of Pergamon and the Widow of Ephesus, both of which display these characteristics. As both novels feature tales set into long framing narratives, Apuleius’ term ‘Milesian Tale’ in the prologue has been argued to be a metonymy for the novel genre (Jensson 2004). This problematically associates the novel with the Milesian Tales’ low literary value: Plutarch’s Life of Crassus 32 refers to Aristides’ stories derisively: after the Romans had been defeated at the battle of Carrhae, a Parthian officer found a copy of Aristides’ stories amongst their luggage, and saw this as proof for the Romans’ moral inferiority. This low esteem for the genre is also indicated by some of the earliest references to Apuleius’ novel, which describe Apuleius’ near contemporary and fellow North African, Clodius Albinus, who lost the battle for the imperial throne of Rome against Septimius Severus in 197 AD. In Historia Augusta (Albinus) 11.15 the accusation that Albinus himself wrote Milesian Tales “in a mediocre style’’ is the climax of a character-assassinating list of moral and cultural faux pas, and according to Hist. Aug. Alb. 12.12 he “busied himself with old wives’ tales and grew old among the Punic Milesian Tales of his friend Apuleius”. This association with Milesian Tales continued to influence the reception of Apuleius’ novel in centuries to come (cf. § 13). 2.4 Literary texture In part due to Apuleius’ preference for archaism, but also in part because of his eclectic tastes and the nature of the novel, Met. absorbs many other genres into itself. This makes it an important forerunner of the modem novel, which, according to Bakhtin 1981, 3f., is the only modem genre still developing today, because of its capacity to adapt and subsume many other genres in itself. Met. makes many knowing references to e.g. epic, comedy,
Introduction 7 tragedy, historiography etc., but also to lower, subliterary, genres such as mime. Verbal allusions are often triggers to help recognition. The novel and its many layers of intertextuality and allusion to previous texts and genres become a literary game between Apuleius and his reader, who is invited to follow the author’s clues. Without exposing the original texts of high literature themselves to ridicule, their world is reduced to the grimy level of the novel’s action by the incongruity between the situations. For example, the killing of Socrates by the witches in 1.13.4 is described in the manner and language of killing, often of a perverted sacrifice, in ancient epic (see comm, and below § 11), adding to the reader’s feeling of revulsion. The sword is pushed in capulo tenus ‘up to the handle’, an epic phrase, see Vergil Aeneid 2.553 (Pyrrhus kills Priam at the altar), 10.536 (Aeneas kills Magus). Harrison 2009,177 furthermore compares Homer Iliad 16.340 and 21.117f. (Achilles kills Lycaon with a neckwound); the same phrase also occurs in Ovid Metamorphoses 12.491 in a similarly gruesome scene: Caeneus not only thrusts his sword into Latreus’ entrails (capuloque tenus ... ensem ... viscera), but rummages with his hand in the deadly wound just like Apuleius’ witches. As Apuleius describes an unheroic murder of not too brave a man, the heroic and epic is pulled down to the mundane and tawdry without losing its power to shock. At the other end of the scale are allusions to mime and comedy; the former, especially, in the extant examples, is a low, often subliterary, form. For example, the doorkeeper scene in Met. 1.15 shares many similarities with ancient mime, e.g. the doorkeeper breaking down the door into Aristomenes’ and Socrates’ room and catching the two friends rolling on the floor together, wrapped up in their bed sheets. Apuleius relies on the easy recognition of the stereotypical scene, and works from the contrast between his own creation and the original mime genre; these men have not been engaging in an erotic encounter, as mime characters most likely would have, but instead had tried to flee from one; one of them is apparently dead, and the other had just farcically but unsuccessfully attempted to commit suicide. The tension between the original texts and genres and Apuleius’ adaptation (or often enough inversion) characterises much of the texture of the novel as an intensely literary and intertextual work that engages creatively with previous literature (see Hinds 1998).
g Introduction 3. Metamorphoses and Ottos As the prologue states, the story of Met. is originally Greek; Apuleius has adapted into Latin a Greek novel called Metamorphoseis, which is now lost but was still available to Photios (ninth century AD), who gives a plot summary in his Library’ (cod. 129). Much has been speculated on its nature, e.g. what kind of ending it had and if it had any inset tales such as those forming a large part of Apuleius’ version. Photios also read a still extant epitome of Metamorphoseis, called Loukios or the Ass (Onos), which is transmitted among the works of Apuleius’ exact contemporary Lucian of Samosata. It has essentially the same plot as Apuleius ’ novel, but no inset tales and a farcical ending: Loukios, once transformed back into a human being (without the help of any god), seeks out a matron who had been attracted to him when he was still a donkey, but the woman now bluntly rejects him because his regained human form lacks the physical assets that made the donkey so desirable to her. Despite Photios’ rather vague description of the lost original, it is more than likely that its ending was comparable to that of its epitome, Onos: erotic and farcical. As for other scenes and passages of Apuleius’ novel, we can be less certain about their relationship to the Greek narrative: as the original is no longer available for comparison, it is not always clear where Apuleius strayed from it. But a comparison to Onos can at times provide us with clues. These changes range from the names of some characters (e.g. Demeas in 1.21.8, Milo 1.21.3 and Photis in 1.22.7 are called Dekrianos, Hipparchos and Palaistra in Onos) to some details of the plot (e.g. two instances where Loukios shares food with his travel companions or Milo/Hipparchos correspond to Lucius starving in 1.21 and 1.26). These changes and adaptations from what seems to have been part of the lost original must be deliberate and indicative of Apuleius’ different literary agenda, of creating a much more ambitious and literary tale. This agenda can at times be established, e.g. the different attitude to food in both novels (cf. §6.2) points to different characterisations of Lucius and Loukios, and the change of name of his future girlfriend from Palaistra to Photis mirrors a change in her characterisation from an illiterate and crude sex instructor to a sophisticated mistress conversant with elegiac literature and discourse (1.23.7, with comm.). It is less clear whether the Aristomenes story (1.5-19) was in the lost Greek original. Van Thiel 1971,1,45-63; 151, followed e.g. by Scobie 1978,44ff, believes an inset story of some kind, and often quite close to Apuleius’ version,
Introduction 9 was in the original, whereas e.g. van der Paardt 1978, 81 and Walsh 1995, 146f. believe it to be an Apuleian addition. Whatever the case, it is clear that some reworking of the original has taken place: in Onos 1 the men Loukios encounters on the way to Hypata are Thessalians and, as noted above, they and Lucius share a meal before they direct Lucius to Hipparchos’(= Milo’s) door. In Met. Aristomenes at least is from Aegium near Patrae (cf. below on 1.5.3), and they depart before the group reaches Hypata, without eating. 4. Metamorphoses 1 and the novel as a whole 4.1 Structure of Met. I and anticipation Met. 1 falls into four distinctive parts. It starts with a somewhat enigmatic prologue (1.1; cf. below §7). Then the novel’s protagonist Lucius is introduced and meets two fellow-travellers on their way to the city Hypata in Thessaly (1.2-4). One of them, Aristomenes, tells them his tale, his encounter with Socrates and witches, and Socrates’ death (1.5-19). In the last part, Lucius arrives in Hypata and enjoys the hospitality of Milo (1.20-26). Apuleius structures his complicated plot and manipulates his readers by the use of mirror scenes and repetitions of motifs (May 2006, 182ff., Frangoulidis 2008). This allows him to have seemingly innocuous motifs foreshadow events later in the novel and to bind the main narrative and the inset tales more closely together. For example, in 1.12.1 Aristomenes finds himself on the floor and covered by his bed, and claims, half-jokingly and metaphorically, that he has been turned into a tortoise. This anticipates Lucius’ very real metamorphosis into a donkey (Tatum 1972). Similarly, even the use of single words can create patterns of meaning: in Met. 1.1.1 the prologue promises his readers that their ears will be stroked (aures ... permulceam) by his charming story, and immediately afterwards it is the ears of Lucius’ horse that will be stroked (1.2.3 auris remulceo), but Aristomenes himself will revert to the first meaning and stroke Socrates’ ears with stories (1.7.3 fabulis permulceo). Apuleius thus creates a bond between the prologue-speaker, Lucius and Aristomenes, all first person narrators with identities that have a tendency to anticipate and mirror each other’s. These repetitions may even spread over a considerable distance. In 1.15.5 Aristomenes metaphorically claims to have seen the earth gaping wide open before him in his despair (terra dehiscente). In 9.34.1 the earth literally splits open (terra dehiscens) and gushes forth a fountain of blood as a grim portent of death. Both events are linked by the individual’s powerlessness
10 Introduction when confronted with supernatural powers. The story of Aristomenes, too, anticipates the story of Thelyphron, another tale of witchcraft (see below §5). In both content and structure Met. 1 is a microcosm of the novel as a whole, introducing many of its themes. It features the travelogue of its protagonist, who during his travels listens to many tales told within a tale, which in many ways anticipate and reflect his own fate. During much of Met. 1, Lucius is the audience of a first person narrative by Aristomenes, who himself tells an inset tale told by Socrates. This is the role the reader will take up while reading the rest of the novel. Lucius enthusiastically claims to believe Aristomenes’ tale, which in turn is intended to influence the reader’s reaction to the whole novel. Both Aristomenes and Lucius share a similar fate (cf. §5 for details): at the end of their story, for example, they have to sever their social and familial connections and enter voluntary exile away from home. 4.2 Summary of the novel Met. 1: The prologue’s promise to entertain its readers is followed by Lucius narrating how on his way to Hypata in Thessaly he meets Aristomenes, who tells how he saw his friend Socrates killed by witches after having had an affair with one of them. After arrival in Hypata, Lucius stays with Milo, who provides him with a bed but no food. Lucius’ attempts to obtain his dinner remain unsuccessful. Met. 2: Excited to be in the capital of magic, Lucius visits Hypata’s market, where he meets his aunt Byrrhaena. Invited to her house, he sees statues of Actaeon and Diana, and of Fortuna-Isis, both of which anticipate his own fate as that of a man soon to be turned into an animal and pursued by misfortune until he is rescued by Isis. Byrrhaena warns Lucius not to get involved with Pamphile, Milo’s wife, as she is a witch. Lucius instead starts an affair with Pamphile’s servant Photis. Later at dinner with Byrrhaena he hears the story of Thelyphron, which shows similarities with Aristomenes’: Thelyphron was mutilated by witches looking for body parts for magical purposes while guarding a corpse. On his return to Milo’s house, the drunk Lucius encounters three robbers at Milo’s door and kills them. Met. 3: Lucius is arrested for murder and put on trial in Hypata’s theatre, where a large audience laughs at his defence speech. When forced to uncover the three bodies of his victims, they turn out to be wine-skins made from
Introduction 11 goats. The mock trial turns out to be part of the Festival of Risus (Laughter). Milo takes the humiliated Lucius home, where Photis confesses to being her witch mistress’ apprentice, and to having substituted the wineskins’ goat hair for that of a young man her mistress wanted to bewitch. Lucius uses her confession to pressure her into letting him watch Pamphile transform herself into a bird, and then into transforming him, too. Photis makes another mistake and turns him into a donkey instead. She promises to provide the antidote, roses, the next morning and leads him into Milo’s stable. In the night, robbers break into Milo’s house and steal Lucius and all other animals together with Milo’s riches. Met. 4: Lucius and the robbers arrive at the robbers’ cave, where he hears three stories by other robbers on how their thieving expeditions failed and their leaders Lamachus, Alcimus and Thrasyleon were killed. Another prisoner, the beautiful and noble Charite, kidnapped just before her marriage, is brought in. To console her, the robbers’ old housekeeper tells her the tale of Cupid and Psyche, which stretches into Met. 6: “Psyche was a princess so beautiful that she was worshipped as Venus, which enraged the goddess who asked her son Cupid to arrange for a debased marriage for Psyche. An oracle consulted by Psyche’s parents ordered her to be placed on a cliff to be married to a monster. Her parents obeyed, but Psyche was carried from the cliff by a gentle breeze to a beautiful palace. Met. 5: Psyche was treated kindly by invisible servants, and at night an unknown male made her his wife. After a while Psyche asked her husband to let her contact her family. He finally allowed her to call her sisters to the palace, but on the condition that she must not try to discover his identity at their instigation. Her sisters visited and were jealous of Psyche, who was happy and pregnant. They succeeded in making her try to discover her husband’s identity. He turned out to be Cupid who had disobeyed his mother’s wishes and married Psyche herself. Cupid left her, and Psyche lured her sisters to their deaths and set out to find her husband again. Met. 6: On her quest to find Cupid, Psyche encountered some gods who were unable to help. Finally she surrendered herself voluntarily to Venus, who set her impossible tasks to fulfil. Magical animals and creatures helped her at Cupid’s request. The last task was a descent into the Underworld to get Persephone’s beauty in a box and bring it back to Venus. Psyche, curious, opened the box and swooned in a deadly sleep. Cupid revived her and was finally allowed to marry her by Jupiter. Venus, pacified, agreed, and
12 Introduction Psyche was made immortal, married Cupid and gave birth to their daughter Pleasure.” Lucius and Charite then attempt to flee but are recaptured by the robbers, who plan to kill them both. Met. 7: Before they can do this, a young stranger arrives, claiming to be the famous robber Haemus. He tells a story of a brave wife disguising herself as a man to follow her husband into exile and save him, and of his own daring exploits as a robber. The robbers make him their captain and agree to sell Charite instead of killing her. At first angry at Charite’s enthusiastic reaction to Haemus, Lucius recognises at last that this is Tlepolemus, Charite’s fiance, in disguise. Tlepolemus drugs and kills the robbers, rescues Charite and they get married. They send Lucius to the countryside as a reward, but a herdsman’s wife and a boy mistreat him. When the boy is killed by a bear, Lucius is falsely accused by the boy’s mother of being complicit in his death. Met. 8: A messenger comes from the city with the news that Tlepolemus and Charite are dead; Tlepolemus has been killed by Thrasyllus, a love rival for Charite. Charite blinded Thrasyllus in revenge and eventually killed herself. The country slaves decide to flee and take Lucius with them on a dangerous journey, after which they sell Lucius to a group of travelling priests of the Syrian Goddess. The depraved priests enrich themselves by theft and false prophecies. Met. 9: On their travels Lucius hears the story of a cuckolded man whose wife hides her lover in a jar when her husband returns unexpectedly. On his discovery, the wife pretends she has sold the jar to her lover, and as her husband climbs inside to clean it she and her lover complete their assignation. When the priests are arrested for theft, Lucius is sold to a miller for hard work in his mill. His vicious wife treats Lucius badly, and Lucius overhears her discussing her adulterous affairs with a friend, who recommends a new lover to her, Philesitherus, who wittily tricked his way out of discovery during a previous adulterous affair. The miller’s wife meets him, but the lovers are surprised by the miller’s unexpected return. She hides Philesitherus, and the miller tells his wife another story of adultery. Lucius ensures that Philesitherus is discovered and punished by the miller. The miller expels his wife, who hires an old witch to send the miller the ghost of a murdered woman, who kills him. Lucius is sold to a poor gardener, and as they are invited to a rich man’s house for dinner they witness gruesome supernatural omens predicting the death of the rich man’s sons, and the man’s subsequent
Introduction 13 suicide. As a Roman soldier tries to commandeer Lucius, the gardener beats him up, but in the end Lucius’ braying betrays the gardener’s hiding place. Met. 10. After the gardener’s arrest, the soldier takes Lucius on a journey, where the donkey overhears the story of a wicked stepmother whose attempts to poison her family are thwarted by a doctor who sold her a sleeping potion instead. The soldier sells Lucius to two cooks. As they discover that their donkey gorges himself secretly on their food leftovers, they turn Lucius’ eating skills into a public spectacle, until their master Thiasus buys him from them. Thiasus allows a noble matron to have a sexual encounter with Lucius for money. Thiasus then plans to make Lucius take part in a fatal charade in the theatre in Corinth, with a woman condemned to death for murdering five members of her family. Just as an elaborate pantomime on the judgement of Paris finishes and Lucius’ performance is supposed to begin, Lucius escapes, runs to nearby Cenchreae, and falls asleep on the beach. Met. 11: When he wakes up he prays to the moon goddess for help. The goddess Isis appears to him and directs him to a procession in her honour where a priest, whom she will inform of Lucius’ fate, will hold roses for him. Lucius should eat these, take part in the procession and become her devotee for the rest of his life. Lucius follows her instructions and is transformed back into a human being. Isis’ priest explains that Isis was behind Lucius’ transformation into an ass, as a punishment for his curiosity and slavish pleasures. Lucius undergoes several initiations into the mystery cults of Isis and Osiris, moves to Rome to make money as an advocate to finance his initiations, and in the end joyfully becomes a priest in the Iseum in Rome. 4.3 First- and second-time readers Many of the links between Met. 1 and the rest of the novel are not clear from the start for a reader exploring the novel for the first time. Such a reader, guided and misled by the prologue, might expect an entertaining though rhetorically challenging tale of fiction to be enjoyed on its own terms. This attitude will change through the reading first of Met. 1 and then of the novel as a whole. This unexpectedness invites the re-reading of the novel, and scholars have been trying to find clues that ensure later events in the novel become less of a surprise. A first-time reader will see the story of Met. 1 foremost as a warning against meddling with witches. Only when the end of the novel has been reached, scarce but important references to Egypt and Isis anticipate the ending
14 Introduction and invite a second reading. References to Egypt in the prologue Met. 1.1 transform from mere ornamentation and exuberant description of the author’s writing materials (Egyptian papyrus and reed pens) to an anticipation of the Egyptian goddess’ involvement in the plot; the magical powers of heaven and earth that all witches in Met. 1 have are claimed in Met. 11 by Isis. The story of Met. 1, for a second-time reader, is discovered to be full of anticipation of the plot as a whole. The witches are transformed from entertaining bogey monsters to veritable anti-Isises who use magic for entirely selfish and negative purposes and transform their enemies and ex-lovers into animals, whereas Isis, the goddess of benevolent magic, uses hers to turn Lucius back into a human being eternally devoted to her (cf. § 10.2). Similarly, the many inset tales of the novel, the first of which is the Tale of Aristomenes, are for a second-time reader again seen as warnings for Lucius or reflections of his experiences, and the prologue’s promise of “an intertwined knot” (1.1.2) retrospectively gains yet another meaning, that of an invitation to see the story of Metamorphoses itself as continuously reflecting on itself and changing its purpose and ultimately its interpretation. Apuleius’ readers have a serious task ahead, as they are constantly asked to engage with challenges of relevant literary allusions and games, and the changing meanings and significance of the stories over the novel’s plot as it develops (Winkler 1985). On re-reading, the novel itself becomes a fluid text with changing, metamorphosing, interpretations. Accordingly, metamorphosis is the novel’s guiding principle. Not only does it underlie the plot of a human turned donkey, the novel itself has metamorphosed from the lost Greek original, from a bawdy and entertaining story, perhaps a Milesian Tale, into a sophisticated narrative, from one with an erotic and funny ending into a salvation narrative. Metamorphosis is also recalled at important moments; it is one of the themes of the prologue, but also later in the text, e.g. Met. 2.1 (Lucius explores Hypata after hearing his hostess can turn people into animals and imagines all stones, birds, trees and fountains to be metamorphosed humans), 3.23.6 (Photis knows how to retransform animals into humans); 11.6 (Isis promises retransformation to Lucius). Met. 1 sets out the rules for metamorphosis in the novel: it displays concern especially with how complete a metamorphosis of human into animal is, i.e. whether it also changes the mind. In the first real metamorphoses of the novel Meroe’s animals retain their human mind (1.9). This anticipates Lucius’ realisation in 3.26, namely that even as a donkey he still thinks like a human, a matter of concern in antiquity (e.g. Cicero has Scipio speculate about it in
Introduction 15 De Re Publica 4.1, written 54-51 BC. Lucius’ ‘ancestor’ Plutarch (see below § 8), too, wrote the dialogue Gryllos, or On the Use of Reason by Irrational Animals, where one of the crewmen transformed into pigs by Circe discusses philosophy with Odysseus and shows great mental capacity). Loukios in Onos 13 explicitly states to Palaistra before his transformation that he intends to find out whether his mind remains human or turns into that of an animal. Lucius’ continued human conscience is essential for the novel plot. Importantly, too, the metamorphoses in Met. 1.9 are ‘apt’ metamorphoses, clarifications of the metamorphosed persons’ characters, as they preserve the essence of people after their metamorphosis into animals. A similar concept is found in Plato Republic 620a-c and Ovid (Ovid’s influence on Apuleius: Krabbe 1989). They foreshadow Lucius’ eventual apt animal metamorphosis into a donkey, a notoriously stubborn and greedy animal prone to hybris. 4.4 The novel’s title Two titles have been transmitted for the novel; its earliest editor Sallustius at the end of the 4th century AD refers to it as Metamorphoses. Metamorphoseis is also the title of the lost Greek original, and an accurate description of its theme, both already set out in the prologue (1.1.2; 1.1.6). A few decades later, St Augustine in City of God 18.18, where he also displays good knowledge specifically of Met. 1, refers to the novel as Asinus aureus, ‘ The Golden Ass'. While this title focuses on the novel’s protagonist, the colour is unusual for a donkey. It has been associated either with Seth, the enemy of Isis portrayed in the shape of a donkey and whose colour is reddish gold (Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 362e), or the Latin proverb assem para et accipe fabulam auream (“give me a penny and get back a story worth gold”) found in Pliny Epistles 2.20.1. The novel’s title would then pun on as, a small coin, and asinus. Fulgentius (5th/6th century AD) refers to both titles interchangeably, and it is likely that the novel had a double title (Winkler 1985, 292-321; Bitel 2001), like e.g. Varro's Menippean satires (see comm, on 1.1.6). The novel then has a combination of Latin and Greek titles, connected by e.g. sive, and could have been called Asinus aureus sive peri metamorphoseon or similar. 5. Inset tales and the Tale of Aristomenes and Socrates From the prologue onwards, Apuleius draws attention to the importance of inset tales in his version of the novel. ‘Weaving’ is a frequent metaphor for
16 Introduction adding various tales into a larger whole (cf. 1.1.1, 1.3.2 etc.), which gives complexity to the novel’s structure. Although there is not entirely a scholarly consensus whether the lost Greek original contained any inset stories at all (see also §3), and if it did, whether they were of comparable length and importance, it is clear that Apuleius’ inset tales are important guides to our understanding of the rest of the novel. Since it is the first instance of an inset tale, that of Aristomenes takes up an exemplary function (Murgatroyd 2001a and 2001b), showing the relationship between the tales and the main narrative. It comments and reflects on the main narrative and throws light on Lucius’ character and actions, as the stories of Aristomenes and Socrates both anticipate the fate of Lucius (Frangoulidis 2001). Magic, featuring so heavily in the Tale of Aristomenes, is also the cause of Lucius’ transformation into a donkey and his ensuing journeys through contemporary Greece. Given that Lucius is interested in magic and its transformative powers from the first instance we meet him, although he is not open about it in Met. 1, to him at least Aristomenes’ story should form a stark warning, a warning he chooses to ignore: no matter how inadvertently one gets involved with witches, the outcome is similar in any case - exile or even death. In Met. 1, as then again many times throughout the novel, Lucius does not learn this lesson and proceeds with his dangerous goal: to satisfy his curiosity especially about magical transformation of humans into animals or birds. Just as the witch Meroe transforms her lovers into animals in Met. 1.9, Lucius himself will be turned into a donkey by his lover, the witch apprentice Photis in 3.24. The motif of exile and loss of contact with family first displayed by Socrates in 1.6.2 foreshadows Lucius’ separation from his family (in 3.19.6 Lucius announces he is no longer interested in returning to his family; they believe him dead in 11.18; he requests the help of Isis to reconnect with them in 11.2). Lucius remains disconnected from them. He has only a brief visit home in 11.26.1 after his initiation and before permanently moving to Rome. Just as for the other victims of witchcraft, Lucius’ involvement with magic will have alienating consequences for the rest of his life. Aristomenes’ stoiy begins exactly like Lucius’ in 1.2 with a journey to Thessaly, and parallels are constantly established between his and his friend Socrates’ experiences and those of Lucius. Both Lucius and Aristomenes go to Hypata on ‘business’ (Met. 1.2), and both encounter transformational witchcraft without completing their business. Aristomenes has lost out on his business in Hypata (1.5.4f.), just as both Socrates (1.7) and Lucius (1.25) are unlucky
Introduction 17 in their business transactions and are victims of Fortuna. Aristomenes, too, copies Socrates’ fate in many ways, e.g. by not returning home to his wife and remarrying in voluntary exile in 1.19. There are also equally important parallels between Lucius and Socrates, as both are first guests and then victims of witches performing love magic. Socrates again functions as a warning to Lucius when he discusses the reasons for his travels in 1.7.7 (Lucius is asked in similar phrases about his own journey in 1.24.7 and 26.6; James 1987, 47-51). Any contact with witches should be avoided, especially in Hypata, but instead Socrates’ fate fires Lucius’ interest in magic and keenness to explore it even more. As Lucius has been warned repeatedly, he is more culpable of his fate than Aristomenes. Lucius however at least learns the lesson from Socrates’ story not to enslave himself to a witch like Meroe, but still dabbles with witchcraft to his peril, resulting in his eventual metamorphosis into a donkey. Unlike Socrates, Lucius will spend the whole of Met. 1 without food or drink, but constantly looking for it only to have his hopes thwarted (cf. §6.2). Lucius often describes his misfortunes as ‘sufferings’, aerumnae (3.29.1, 7.16.1, 8.1.1, 8.26.6, 11.2.4 etc.) as do Socrates and Aristomenes: 1.6.5 (Socrates’ shameful display), 1.7.5 (Socrates, also in the context of being led astray by his desire to see spectacles), 1.16.2 Aristomenes (in his address to his bed). Apart from foreshadowing the protagonist’s fate, Aristomenes’ tale also functions as an anticipatory verification for Lucius’ incredible story of magic. In due course Lucius’ own engagement with witchcraft will prove Aristomenes’ narrative to be true as far as the novel’s universe is concerned. Lucius, who as the overall narrator of course also has control over Aristomenes’ narrative, lists no important contradictions between Aristomenes’ tale and his own experience with magic and witchcraft. Both stories reinforce each other, and Aristomenes’ story, like the Ghost’s appearance in the first scene of Hamlet, ensures that the incredible events that follow are believed to be possible in the novel’s universe, and sets out the parameter for the ways its characters behave and should be interpreted. All these various functions can be traced for other inset tales, too. The Tale of Thelyphron (2.21-30), for example, with its related story of witchcraft and resurrection, picks up many of the themes of Aristomenes’ tale. Both stories are told to Lucius by the tale’s protagonist, who suffered greatly from maltreatment by witches. Thelyphron, for example, has his ears and nose cut off, Aristomenes suffers no physical harm but becomes
18 Introduction an exile from his home. In the tale itself a corpse is revived temporarily and utters a necromancy, which echoes the fate of Socrates even to the point of verbal correspondences. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche echoes and develops the story of Lucius himself. Psyche especially mirrors many of Lucius' characteristics and experiences, such as his curiosity or his rescue by a benign deity from a terrible fate. 6. Key themes 6.1 Guest-friendship (hospitium) An important key theme raised by both Aristomenes’ and Lucius’ stories is hospitality (Fernandez Contreras 1997; Vander Poppen 2008). The relationships between Meroe and Socrates or Milo and Lucius are troubled guest-friendships or hospitia, which usually follow certain rules and are based on reciprocity. Apuleius’ terminology makes this clear: hospitium is frequently used in connection with Milo, and Milo and Lucius are frequently called hospes, which means both ‘host’ and ‘guest’. The sordid inns of Met. 1 and the starving dinner of Milo display the failure of hospitality in Met. despite its importance in second century travel. Guest-friendship is often depicted in literary sources, and Apuleius plays especially with the literary versions of hospitium scenes. These are often very much earlier than Apuleius, and found their most normative incarnation in Homer and Callimachus, but the principles still underlie later Greek hospitality (Nadeau 2010). Apuleius sets up Lucius’ relationship with Milo as an extremely troubled, dysfunctional guest-friendship. This starts with Lucius’ arrival in Hypata Met. 1.21.8, where Lucius comically claims that he will not smell any cooking smells in Milo’s house if Milo is a miser. This is exemplary of the topsy-turvy world Lucius will encounter in Milo’s house. In Homeric depictions of hospitality, a stranger often encounters a young woman on the road who directs him to the palace where he will become a guest (Nausicaa in Odyssey 6.1 lOflf; Athena in disguise in 7.18ff.; the Laestrygonian princess in 10.103ff.; Sidonian girl in 15.415ff.); Lucius encounters a less than helpful old crone who points out Milo’s inhospitable house from the distance. This inversion of customs continues in Milo’s presence. Generally however the dinner scenes with Milo, both Met. 1.22 and 26, echo typical elements ofhospitality scenes (Reece 1993,5-46), though not in the ‘normal’ order. Apuleius ironises some of these elements in the Milo episode. In guest-friendship, the host usually stands up to greet his visitor, hence Milo's
Introduction 19 continued lying down in 1.22.6 is impolite and an anticipation of things to come. Milo does not offer his guest a meal, although a feast is one of the most important elements of hospitality. Even a poor host does his best to be a good host to his higher status guest, such as the poor old woman Hecale to Theseus (Callimachus, Hecale; Hollis 1990, 341-354), or the swineherd Eumaios to Odysseus (Od. 14), especially if the guest’s arrival coincides with dinner time. Only after dinner has been provided does a proper host ask for his guest’s name and business. Milo welcomes Lucius only after having been told his name and seen Demeas’ reference, and in 1.26.3 mercilessly quizzes him without letting his guest eat. Enquiring about the stranger’s homeland {Od. 1.170 etc.) and business {Od. 3.72ff.) is normal, but exchange of information is supposed to be reciprocal and mutually beneficial. Instead of providing his guest with the required entertainment, Milo requires his guest to entertain him, despite Lucius’ exhaustion. Offering a guest a seat is a sign of good hospitality (cf. Od. 1.130flF.). Milo perhaps attempts to do this in 1.23.1, by offering Lucius his wife’s seat at his feet. But immediately afterwards Milo gives another example of bad hospitality, as he does not touch Lucius’ hand, only his clothes (he will do so later, 1.26.2). Lucius is however not much better: in the formal world of hospitality, Lucius’ refusal of Milo’s offer of a bath makes him a bad guest, as bathing, often by female slaves {Od. 4.49 etc.), is part of the ritual. At 1.26.7 Lucius criticises Milo behind his back, which may also be an inversion of the customary blessing the visitor pronounces on the host to reciprocate for his gracious reception {e.g. Od. 7.148ff.). Occasionally in Homer, hospitality is extended to the visitor’s horses {Od. 4.39-42: Telemachos in Sparta; generally a more diplomatic guest than Lucius: Harrison 1990a). In 1.24.2 the guest Lucius pays for his own horse to be fed without taking a lead on this from Milo: Lucius simply assumes that Milo will be indifferent to his horse and pre-empts any possible chance Milo might have to look after his horse. He also overrides his host’s command to his servant Photis (who has been ordered to take him to the baths and not go out to buy food for his horse!). Again this is bad hospitality from both sides. Bad hosts feature in both the surviving Latin novels. In Petron. 135-38, Encolpius is hosted by Oenothea, but has to help preparing the food for his own dinner (beans, cf. Met. 1.26.7). Petronius also draws attention to Callimachus’ well-known Hecale episode, as Hecale is pointedly compared to Oenothea (Petron. 135.15f.). Apuleius makes use of the exemplary nature of Hecale, too. In Met. 1.23.6 Milo hopes Lucius will be, like Theseus in
20 Introduction Hecale, an exemplary guest, and his ‘humble’ or ‘thin’ hospitality, hospitium tenue, is a rendering of Callimachean phrases: cf. Callimachus Hecale frg. 26 Hollis έλαχυν δόμον ‘little house’ and Ovid Met. 8.630 (Philemon’s house is ‘only small’, parva quidem·, Keulen 2007, 417). Milo however does not realise the irony of the situation. Hecale was a poor woman who is unable to dish up much food for Theseus because of her virtuous poverty. Milo by contrast is a rich miser who does not intend to do so for selfish reasons, which turns him into a bad host and Hecale’s exact opposite. Milo misrepresents Callimachus, characterising himself as a provincial upstart with a little, but not much, learning. Other than Hecale and Theseus, Milo and Lucius are social near-equals. Milo is apparently quite rich, but does not wish to show it. Lucius’ background is equally noble (see §9). Lucius’ and Milo’s relationship is different from the Callimachean guest-friendship ideal: Milo could offer enough food but is unwilling to do so. He is merely a bad host looking for a good excuse. The troubled guest-friendship between Milo and Lucius is from the beginning based on the wrong application of the rules of hospitium, and deceitfulness and wrong assumptions by both. This sets up the continued troubled guest-friendships Lucius will experience during the rest of the novel, especially in Met. 10 where the donkey surreptitiously eats his owners’ meats and then turns into dinner entertainment himself for a rich man; it finally focuses attention on the provision of food and especially banquets, which are part of the Isis initiations in Met. 11, where communal dinners punctuate Lucius’ engagements with the followers of Isis. 6.2 Importance of food Food, its availability and absence, is an important theme in the novel beyond indicating Milo’s bad hospitality. Several divergences from the story of Onos and thus very likely the lost Greek original, which indicate deliberate changes by Apuleius, refer to food (see §3). The Onos' equivalent to Milo, Hipparchos, provides Lucius with a simple dinner and wine. In Metamorphoses, food is much more of a problem (May 2006, 143-56). Lucius ensures twice in Met. 1 that his horse gets enough food: 1.2.3, where he allows it to graze, introduces the theme. In 1.24.2 Lucius gives Photis money to provide his horse with barley. Lucius, on the other hand, never manages to get hold of any nourishment for himself throughout Met. 1, where his many attempts are thwarted - he does not share dinner with Aristomenes and his companion (1.4.6), Milo does not offer him any food
Introduction 21 despite having at least two opportunities in Met. 1 to do so (1.22 and 26), and when Lucius attempts to buy his dinner himself in Hypata’s market, his friend Pythias has the fish trampled before Lucius has a chance to eat them (1.24f.). Other characters apart from Lucius strive for food, too. For example, relief from exhaustion is specifically given through food to Socrates (e.g. 1.7.3 Aristomenes feeds Socrates after their ill-omened escape, and 1.18.7 Socrates desires food to recover). Aristomenes then almost chokes on his food, and Socrates dies drinking from a river (1.19). Any ‘eating’ in Met. 1 is in some way abnormal. Lucius’ choking on his food in 1.4.1 is in itself a trivial event, but in the following anecdotes about sword-swallowers Lucius makes the point that one can choke on soft food, yet some people can swallow things one would not believe possible if one had not seen them do it. He thus links food with the themes of fictionality and the reliability of eyewitness accounts. Especially the second anecdote of a dancer on a hunting spear (1.4.4) shows Lucius to believe incredible things can happen about which the reader rightly might have reservations. Food becomes an important metaphor for Lucius’ gullibility throughout the novel, and Lucius’ hunting for food but not getting anything to eat is a motif from comedy, characterising Lucius as an unsuccessful parasite. Lucius’ hunger continues after his transformation: as a donkey, he suffers continued starvation, which is stressed immediately after his transformation in 3.26 when his own horse refuses to share food with the new donkey, one of the first abuses he will suffer. Ironically the resolution of the novel depends on the donkey eating roses to turn him back into human form, and during the novel his various attempts to eat roses are thwarted regularly (3.29; 4.2fi, 7.15; 10.19). Met. 1, with Lucius’ continuous attempts to get food being thwarted, thus prepares and anticipates the donkey’s continuous quest for roses to eat. Finally, during Met. 11, as parts of his mystery initiations, Lucius will again enter periods of voluntary fasting punctuated with religious banquets and feasts (Heath 1982). A further irony lies in the setting of Met. 1 in Thessaly, which was renowned for providing lavish dinners: in Plato, Crito 53e Socrates says he would demean himself if he were to go to Thessaly and do nothing there but eat, as one cannot do anything in Thessaly but eat dinners (cf. also the comedy The Peltasts by Eriphos, in Athenaeus Deipnosophists 4.137e, for Thessaly’s culinary fame). Lucius might disagree: he will find it easy to encounter witches but extremely difficult to get his dinner.
22 Introduction 6.3 Curiosity Curiosity is one of the main themes in Met. (Hijmans 1995), and in Met. 1 it characterises especially Lucius (1.2.6) and Aristomenes (1.12.8), but also the doorkeeper (1.17.3; Nethercut 1968,115;Schlam 1992,48-50). Curiosity isa self-diagnosis frequently offered by Lucius’ wiser self in Met. (cf. 2.1.2; 2.6.1; 7.13.5; 9.30.2; 9.42.2; 10.29.3). This characteristic is shared to a lesser extent by Loukios in Onos. Plutarch, Lucius’ Middle Platonist ‘relative’ (see below §8), wished to heal ‘curiosity’, or rather ‘meddlesomeness’, in his readers (Cooper 1980; Keulen 2004), which he considered a negative condition. In Plutarch’s On Curiosity 2, Moralia 516a (cf. also Theophrastus’ curious man Characters 13), the curious man is characterised as malicious, unaware of his own shortcomings, preoccupied with vices and misfortunes of others and having an evil reputation. Although Plutarch’s curious man is generally much less sympathetically depicted than Lucius, Lucius certainly is unaware of his own shortcomings, especially in 1.2.6, where he claims not to be curious while insisting on hearing a stranger’s story. It is Lucius’ curiosity that causes him to be subjugated to appetites and pleasures of the body (DeFilippo 1999). Later in the novel, Lucius’ curiosity is his downfall: he is warned several times in the novel against meddling with witches, but nevertheless his curiosity gets the better of him. For example, in 2.4 he does not take heed when, at Byrrhaena’s house, he sees a statue of Actaeon turning into a stag and being tom apart after observing the goddess Diana “with a curious glance”, which is a clear anticipation of Lucius’ metamorphosis after spying on the witches. Lucius continues to disregard all warnings against witchcraft, is sensuous and naive, and curious. Consequently, he insists on watching Pamphile transform into an owl (3.21), which triggers his desire to experiment with magic himself, with dangerous results. For the donkey, there is however a pay-off: he frequently satiates his curiosity thanks to his long ears. Finally, in 11.23, Lucius becomes the initiate of a mystery cult, but warns off his readers, with whom he had shared his curiosity until that moment, from their “rash curiosity” about his initiation and refuses to reveal what actually happens during his initiation. At least then Lucius thinks that he has learned his lesson - the reader of the novel might disagree with him. 6.4 Suicide Although initially not obvious, Aristomenes’attempted but ultimately botched suicide in 1.16 anticipates many others in the rest of the novel, both by its failure and its choice of method. Lucius himself attempts it (Michalopoulos
Introduction 23 2002) unsuccessfully (7.24, by a fall) and contemplates it (10.29.1: means unspecified); Psyche, Lucius’ alter ego, makes several attempts to kill herself (with a knife: 5.22.3; with falls: 5.25.1, 6.12.1, 6.17.1), but never succeeds. Generally, successful male suicides use the sword: Lamachus, a robber (4.11.6), and a despairing young man (9.38). Females often use the noose: the robbers’ old housekeeper (6.30.6); the steward’s wife (8.22.4, with a noose and jumping into a well). Male suicides by noose are unsuccessful; a cook considers it, but instead he decides on killing Lucius the donkey as the “remedy offered by the gods’ providence” (8.31.2fi). In real life, male suicide by hanging, as Aristomenes chooses, is comparatively infrequent, as it was an ignoble, feminine death (Van Hooff 1990,66-8). Digest 3.2.11.3 (c. 100 AD) suggests that suicide caused by ‘bad conscience’ and committed by hanging was considered without honour. Men threatening death by hanging (and invariably not succeeding) is however a comic motif (May 2006, 243fi; e.g. Plautus, Asinaria 816), and the usual reason for it is love (e.g. Plautus Casina 113; Mercator 47Iff.; Calidorus wants to hang himself in Pseudolus 85ff). For Aristomenes however it is the fear of being accused of a crime he has not committed (cf. 6.30; 7.24; 8.31). Choosing initially (1.16.1) between different methods of suicide sets another precedent: in 4.25.3 Charite contemplates (but does not attempt) suicide by hanging, the sword and fall, and in 5.25 Psyche is advised not to choose between different types of death; the women have real choices to make, but Aristomenes does not have much equipment to choose from, locked up as he is in his bedroom, and considerations of honour and appropriateness of method do not come into his decision, as they do for Charite or Psyche. This gives his suicidal deliberations a different note, as he has to pick between suicide (from hanging) or crucifixion after a trial. In Tacitus Annales 3.50 there seems to be an indication that if given a choice crucifixion is worse than hanging; Aristomenes choses the latter, but ultimately fails in his attempt like many other characters in the novel. 7. The prologue to the novel in Met I The prologue is so complex and enigmatic that countless articles (recent bibliography in Keulen 2007, 9-27) and a whole book (Kahane and Laird 2001) have been dedicated to it and study its literary allusions, origins in rhetorical treatises, generic connotations and much more. Here and in the commentary only a few points and motifs can be picked up.
24 Introduction Met. 1.1 fulfils the usual requirements of prologues: it engages interest in the book, asks for the goodwill of its audience (captatio benevolentiae) and discusses literary precedents, genre and origin while claiming to be original (1.1.4, “with no teacher guiding me”). Its first sentence already makes clear that the novel contains various inset tales and is genetically related to Milesian Tales (1.1.1). It adds at first sight merely ornamental references to Egypt, which become instrumental for readers looking for hints at the appearance of Isis in the novel’s last book, and thus invites second-time reading. Then it turns to the theme of metamorphosis, physical and metaphorical, and thus sets the parameters for the story in which both occur, from the actual transformations of Pamphile into an owl and Lucius into a donkey, to the more metaphorical changes of fate, e.g. Lucius’ metamorphosis from a young scholar finally into an initiate of Isis (more examples: comm, on 1.1.2). Even the novel’s own transformation from its Greek origin into a Latin story is discussed (in 1.1.3 three Greek cities are the speaker’s origins, and at 1.1.6 the story is Graecanicam, derived from the Greek). The speaker’s move in 1.1.4 from Greek to Latin explains ostentatiously why a native Greek speaker, as the prologue-speaker claims to be, presents a novel written in Latin. Even its equine content may be alluded to in a technical term from horse riding acrobatics (1.1.6, desultoriae) and a possible reference to a donkey’s braying (1.1.5, rudis). From the first words, ears and listening form an important motif, picked up again throughout Met. 1, cf. 1.2 (Lucius strokes his horse’s ears and overhears a conversation); 1.3.2 (Lucius accuses the sceptic of not listening); 1.20.6 (Lucius travelled to Hypata “on his ears” because of an entertaining story). In 1.1.5 the prologue-speaker (locutor), in contrast to the ‘reader’ (lector) in 1.1.6, continues this stress on orality and hearing of stories. Throughout the prologue the reader is first asked to listen to, and at the end to read, the novel, creating a tension between orality and reading. Ears benignly listening to a prologue can also be found in Roman comedy (Plautus Menaechmi 4; Asinaria 4; Trinummus 11, with Winkler 1985, 201 n. 43, Keulen 2007,67), a genre at the time of Apuleius’ writing available to its audience in carefully edited written form but also through recitation and theatrical performances (May 2006). Surrounded by references to the hearing of stories is a reference to scrupulous visual inspection, when in 1.1.1 the reader is urged to look at the papyrus carefully, stressing the fact that the prologue is written down
Introduction 25 and read by the reader, and not performed orally by a prologue-speaker; its orality is feigned. This juxtaposition does not necessarily have to be an unsolvable contradiction. In fact, the prologue raises issues of oral performance in a time when books were most likely read aloud to an audience. In such a context, both concepts themselves are oscillating. It also reflects the tension inherent in Lucius as the novel’s narrator, who in the narrative spends much of his time unable to speak and listening to stories, which he now puts down in writing for his readers while ostentatiously taking part in a conversation. At the same time the prologue shirks from dealing clearly with other essential points, importantly the identity of its speaker and the name and background of the narrator (some points made in Dowden 2001, 124ff.). The prologue plays with its readers’ expectations and purposefully thwarts them. The prologue-speaker’s identity, a vexed problem, is stressed specifically in 1.1.2, where the prologue asks quis ille?, who is he? - a question he never answers directly. It could be Apuleius the author (Edwards 1993), Lucius his protagonist, or a combination of both (Korenjak 1997; Tilg 2007), a prologue-speaker in the style of Roman comedy (May 2006), or even the book itself (Harrison 1990b), or the speaker changes half way through, engaging in a fictional dialogue (Drews 2006). Thus Metamorphoses would contain metamorphoses of Apuleius into Lucius and vice versa. Others claim there are multiple speakers, including a scripted intervention by the reader (Winkler 1985, 195) or an anonymous third person (De Jong 2001,205). This problem of the speaker’s identity continues throughout the novel, also partly triggered by the nature of a first-person narrative (cf. below § 13). The common yet problematic identification of Apuleius with Lucius, even beyond the prologue, is triggered by Lucius’ apparent self-identification with Apuleius, when in another metamorphic sleight of hand he declares his place of origin to be Madauros (i.e. not Corinth), when a priest announces that he had a dream that “a man from Madaurus, but poor” would come to see him, meaning Lucius (11.27.9; van der Paardt 1981). Apuleius and Lucius share certain similarities, as they both are provincial elite, studied in Athens, speak Latin and Greek and are associated with Platonic philosophy (Harrison 2000, 217f.). Both are initiated into some mystery cults (Lucius eventually in Met. 11, and Apuleius says in Apol. 55 that he is an initiate of several mystery cults, although he does not mention Isis). Other autobiographical links were accordingly created and projected back onto the prologue: Beroaldo 1500,
26 Introduction for example, considers Faustinus, Apuleius’ possible son (addressed in the prologues of De Mundo and De Platone; Harrison 2000, 9), to be a possible interlocutor for the speaker of the prologue. The prologue in its complexity and fluidity of metaphors and meanings is a fitting introduction to a complex novel dealing with metamorphosis; the identity of the speaker oscillates between Apuleius, Lucius and an unknown speaker, the prologue itself seems to metamorphose its form and meaning for first- and second-time readers. Most importantly, however, it invites Apuleius’ readership to enjoy the story (laetaberis, 1.1.6), a joy that Lucius, too, will feel in the final words of the novel, when he happily (gaudens) executes his duties as Isis’ priest. 8. Fictionally and truth The novel’s story is set in Apuleius’ present. Many of the events Apuleius portrays are realistic and believable. The novel however also includes events and references which make it clear that its events are fictitious. The text’s fictionality is first raised in the prologue (cf. §7), and then, for example, in the description of Thessaly and Lucius’ family (Keulen 2003b), and again in 1.2.5 in the discussion between Aristomenes and his travel companion. Immediately after the prologue, and as soon as the narrative starts, the landscape Lucius travels in (1.2.2) is described as a stereotypical, fictionalised wilderness. Its description has verbal echoes eg. of Ovid Met. 3.225-226 (Actaeon’s hunting grounds) and appears to be based not on reality but on rhetorical showpieces and literary themes linked with Thessaly, an area in Northern Greece so famous for witchcraft as to become a byword for it. This Thessaly can then become the background for depictions of witchcraft which echo literary precedents. Similarly, Lucius names two real contemporary philosophers as his maternal ancestors (1.2.1). Plutarch of Chaeronea in west Boeotia (c. 45-125 AD) was a Middle Platonist who wrote numerous treatises on philosophy, table manners, Parallel Lives of Greeks and Romans, etc. Plutarch’s nephew Sextus of Chaeronea (c. 160 AD) was a Stoic or less likely a Platonic philosopher, who also taught the emperor Marcus Aurelius. It is possible that Apuleius knew one of them, Sextus, personally from his time in Athens (FI. 20.4; c. 145-50 AD; Dowden 1994), possibly as one of his teachers. Although this mention by name might be a personal tribute, Lucius crosses the border between reality and fiction. Nikagoras, a third century rhetorician
Introduction 27 and official at Eleusis, boasts that both Plutarch and Sextus are his ancestors (Inscriptiones Graecae 112 3814). What makes the claim obviously fictitious is however the blatant misidentification of Lucius’ ‘ancestors’ Plutarch and Sextus, two Boeotians from Chaeronea, as Thessalians. This may be an early hint not to take the novel too literally. It stresses the contrast between historical accuracy and a fictionalised, literary approach, and it becomes clear that in this novel nothing will be quite what it seems: the real Plutarch is not from Thessaly, the Socrates the readers will encounter in 1.6.1 is not from Athens, and very different from his famous philosophical counterpart (see below § 10.1). The contrast between Lucius’ philosophical ancestry and his identity and outlook on life may thus anticipate the contrast between the real Socrates and Apuleius’ anti-Socrates. This programmatic theme of fictionality is continued in the discussion whether the story told by Aristomenes, the first inset tale of Met., is true or fiction. The question is raised at its start, e.g. in 1.2.5 (“absurd and monstrous lies”), and again in 1.20.2 after Aristomenes has finished it, and where the sceptic again calls it a lie in language echoing his first statement (“nothing more absurd than that lie”). Some similarities with Lucius’ own stoiy just told in 1.4 (e.g. the cheese, the shaft thrust into a throat, even the free dinner at an inn) encourage Jordan 2004,253 to argue that Aristomenes may have made up his own tale on the spot to echo Lucius’. This is unlikely, given the discussion of adynata (contradictory events to the extent that they appear impossible, e.g. the tearing down of stars) and witches in 1.3 that precedes Lucius’ story. Aristomenes’ story functions programmatically as a preparation for the unlikely events which follow in the rest of the novel and blurs the borders of realism and fiction. Lucius, too, is not deterred by the unlikelihood of Aristomenes’ story; his reply declares his firm belief in the ability of the senses, especially sight and hearing (1.3.3), to deliver the truth; a belief that will be disproved by the events that follow. Vision especially is fallible in Met. (May 2007). For example, after his metamorphosis, Lucius is not a mere donkey, but a human who merely looks like a donkey. Aristomenes’ insistence on swearing the most solemn oath possible at 1.5.1 by the all-seeing Sun and on telling the truth before he tells his story raises the issue of his reliability. Despite Aristomenes’ declaration that there were many eyewitnesses who could vouch for his story in 1.5.2, Lucius will later never attempt to verify it, leaving Aristomenes’ account of the following events untested. In these examples, Apuleius draws attention to his narrator’s unreliability;
28 Introduction nothing Lucius claims to be true either about himself or about the inset tales can be taken at face value. The novel thus raises fundamental questions about the ability of stories to tell the truth and about its narrator’s reliability to distinguish reality and fiction. 9. The protagonist: Lucius Met. 1.2 introduces the novel’s protagonist, though not by name, but very unusually through his mother’s lineage (cf. also §10.2 and 11) as a relative of the philosophers Plutarch and Sextus. He is identified only in 1.24.6 as Lucius, and his mother in 2.2.8 as Salvia. His father Theseus is mentioned only once, by Milo in 1.23.6, whereas Lucius’ aunt Byrrhaena in Hypata (who claims joint descent with him from Plutarch) in 2.2f., too, stresses iris maternal ancestry. In 3.11.1, Lucius’ family’s fame is said to “fill the whole province”. Salvia’s name can be found in Thessalian inscriptions; under Domitian a certain C. Salvius Liberalis Nonius Bassus was Proconsul of Macedonia, to which Thessaly belonged (Bowersock 1965; Alvares 2007). Lucius’ link via Salvia to Plutarch and Sextus may be intended to characterise Lucius as a member of the intellectual elite (Harrison 2000, 215ff.; on Plutarch in Apuleius see Van der Stockt 2012). Generally we find out more about Loukios’ family in the Onos than that of Lucius in Met., where Apuleius keeps Lucius’ hometown, family relationships and his business vague. Lucius never clarifies what business brings him to Thessaly (cf. comm, on 1.2.1). Loukios’ intentions to find out about magic are much clearer in Onos 4: the travel for him is a pretext, and his main intention is to meet witches and see men fly or turned into stone. Loukios is more forthcoming about his origins; he is from Patrae (Onos 2.2) and of the family of the governor of Macedonia (Onos 55.2-3). Lucius’ place of origin most likely is Corinth, where he returns in 10.19. Met. 2.12.3 hints at this, and in 11.18 Lucius’ family can travel quickly to Cenchreae after news of his retransformation spreads. Lucius has a letter of recommendation from Corinth (1.22.4). Not all references to Corinth however support this conclusion. Lucius never explicitly calls Corinth his home, refers to his home in vague terms (1.26.5; 7.2), and does not show any recognition of the place in 10.29, when he almost enters Corinth’s theatre (Mason 1971). Lucius is young and handsome. His youth can be inferred not only from his general naivety and lack of experience, but also from his description in Met. 1. If Pythias and Lucius were contemporaries during their studies
Introduction 29 in Athens, they should be of roughly the same age. Pythias is now holding office as an aedile, an office typically held in one’s early twenties (see also on 1.24.7), which suggests the same age for Lucius, too. Lucius’ physical beauty, introduced in 1.23.3, is elaborated upon in 2.2, where he is described as of medium height, slender, blond, with a simple hairstyle and watchful aquiline blue eyes and a graceful gait, all features Lucius is supposed to have inherited from his mother Salvia. Met. 1.2 introduces key themes in Lucius’ characterisation: his vanity as a pseudo-philosopher who is proud but not very knowledgeable about his ancestry (see §8) and his curiosity (§6.3). Lucius claims to be a philosopher who has studied in Athens, but is interested in magic, the antithesis to philosophy, as Apuleius establishes in Apologia (see §1.1), and thus cannot be a good philosopher in Apuleius’ understanding, despite his ancestry. When Lucius links Plutarch and Sextus with Thessaly rather than Chaeronea in Boeotia, a contemporary reader aware of Plutarch’s real origins might be suspicious, as it seems that Lucius does not seem to know much about his ancestor, and does not imitate him. Lucius’ claim to be related to Plutarch then is caused by his pride in his ancestry, Plutarch’s and Sextus’ nobility and their intelligence, and Lucius’ desire for prestige and literary relations; at the same time it is also undermined by, for an informed reader at least, his obvious misidentification of his family’s place of origin. Lucius attempts to show off his knowledge, especially of medicine and philosophy. The language in 1.4.1 is quasi-medical when Lucius describes his choking. Often Lucius’ medical knowledge is however inadvertently misused or slightly wrongly represented, which displays his lack of relevant knowledge. He also name-drops Athens as the place he was a student and the Stoa Poikile in 1.4.2 to show off his scholarly credentials, but crucially he stays outside the place of philosophical advancement, thus unwittingly displaying himself to be a greedy buffoon. Furthermore, the sword swallowing episode and Lucius’ admiration for the effeminate performer, taking his tricks to be real, unwittingly characterise him negatively as gullible and misreading fiction and trickery for reality. The nature of Lucius’ admiration for what are cheap tricks and pantomime performances that generally have negative associations indicates that Lucius’judgement on literature or what really happens in the novel should be taken with caution. Lucius does not necessarily see a clash between philosophy (his ancestry) and magic (his interest). His issue is the lack of balance, as Lucius does not practise any philosophy but gives in to the negative curiosity for magic.
30 Introduction Similarly, in 1.20.5 Lucius sees stories primarily as pleasant entertainment, and does not understand the warning with which they are to provide him. This is the first incident of a series of misunderstandings of inserted tales that anticipate and reflect his life story as warnings, e.g. Lucius’ assessment of Cupid and Psyche as a “pretty little story” (bella fabella). So, for a second¬ time reader, the novel’s opening indicates that Lucius’ narrative should not be read in the spirit that Lucius (though not Apuleius) offers it - Lucius is an unreliable narrator, naive and gullible, despite his aspirations to high birth and great learning. 10. Plato and Isis An important question for the interpretation of the novel raised in Met. 1 is whether it contains any ‘serious’, i.e. philosophical or religious, message. This is tied in with finding any coherent philosophical, mainly Platonic, or Isiac references. It becomes clear to a reader of Met. 1 that from the prologue onwards both Platonic and Isiac allusions are present. The first are rather obvious to a first-time reader, whereas the latter are comparatively veiled and more easily detectable by a second-time reader, e.g. the references to Egypt in the prologue, or the various meanings of Meroe’s speaking name (see comm, on 1.7.6). 10.1 Plato During Met. 1, Apuleius treats Plato’s dialogues primarily as literary texts. His allusions to them are entirely of a literary nature and make little reference to Platonic philosophy. Already in the prologue Apuleius creates links to Plato as a literary text. The prologue’s dialogic structure (cf. comm, on 1.1.1) evokes drama, but also the kind of philosophical dialogue featured in Plato. Like the prologue, the dialogues Philebus, Hippias Minor, Cratylus and Symposium all start in mid-conversation (De Jong 2001). Symposium especially is an important intertext for Met. 1 on the level of narrative and structure (Dowden 2006). For example, it features a similarly complicated, Russian-doll-like arrangement of narrators and subnarrators as Met. 1, with characters reporting other characters’ speeches, e.g. Aristomenes that of Apuleius’ Socrates, or Plato’s Socrates that of Diotima (Penwill 1990). In 1.2 Lucius introduces himself as a descendant of two philosophers, but this is not clear cut, as Lucius misidentifies Plutarch’s origins (see §8), and
Introduction 31 in the seminal first inset tale this deviation continues. After referring to a Plutarch who is not quite like the philosopher and Middle Platonist, Apuleius then presents a Socrates, who again is not like the Athenian philosopher (469-399 BC) who is the main speaker in many of Plato’s works and the subject of one of Apuleius’ books (On the god of Socrates). Apuleius, the self-styled philosophus Platonicus or ‘Platonic philosopher’, admires Socrates, and in Socr. 19(16) praises him as “a man of prime perfection, and wise according to the testimony of Apollo”. In appearance and gestures Apuleius’ Socrates at times recalls the philosopher, but at others he appears as his exact opposite. Plato describes the real Socrates as famously abstinent where e.g. Alcibiades’ temptations were concerned. In Plato’s Symp. 176c he can either abstain or drink without feeling any ill effects, and apparently outdrink everyone in Symp. 220a. He remains remarkably sober still (and awake) at the end of Symposium (223d), unlike his drinking partners. He has chosen the priestess Diotima as his instructor on love in the Symposium. The real Socrates also had been offered a chance to escape to Thessaly instead of having his death sentence executed (Plat. Crito 53d; Smith and Woods 2002), but ultimately decides against going to Thessaly because the only things on offer there are lavish dinners, debauchery and licentiousness (αταξία και ακολασία). Apuleius’ Socrates shows no signs of being a philosopher, and his travels are not intellectual or philosophical, either, but undertaken for base profit and pleasure. He is keen on wine (Met. 1.7f.) and is the worse for wear after his evening with Aristomenes. Apuleius implies something catastrophic would have happened if Socrates had listened to Crito and gone to Thessaly instead. Apuleius’ Socrates encounters robbers and the destructive Meroe in Thessaly where he settles. There are also some obvious similarities, for example in the portraits of both men’s families: the only time the real Socrates’ wife is portrayed in Plato, she acts similarly to die wife of Apuleius’ Socrates in Met. 1.6.3: in Phaedo 60a-b and 116b she holds his youngest child in her arms, cries and beats her breast. They are treated similarly by their husbands: the real Socrates is accused of neglecting his wife and children in Crito 45c-54b, as he chooses death in Athens over exile in Thessaly, and Apuleius’ Socrates never returns from his exile. At times Apuleius’ Socrates seems to imitate Plato’s Socrates consciously, e.g. when he veils his head in shame when Aristomenes sees him for the first time (1.6.4; Thibau 1965). This gesture is associated with the real Socrates
32 Introduction in Phaedrus 237a, but goes very wrong for Apuleius’ Socrates. Thwarted by his threadbare garment, he inadvertently reveals his naked body when trying to show his shame at his condition. Apuleius’ Socrates tries to be as dignified as his Athenian namesake, but does not quite manage to do so. Even Socrates’ death scene in 1.18.8 evokes Platonic imagery in an extended scene of imaginative engagement with Plato. Aristomenes and Socrates rest next to a river overshadowed by a plane tree. This introduces the stereotypical locus amoenus and recalls the beginning of Plato Phaedrus 228e-230e, where Socrates and his friends sit down on grass next to a plane tree and near running water. Phaedrus became the prototype for a description of the locus amoenus, which originally signifies a ritually pure, but primarily idyllic location for a philosophical discussion, particularly popular in Antonine literature (Trapp 1990; Kirichenko 2008). Apuleius, too, is aware of the scene’s significance; he discusses how Socrates is warned by his daimonion not to cross the river before he had placated Eros (Plato Phaedr. 242b) in Socr. 19 (163fi). Despite the similar setting, the death of Apuleius’ Socrates is not very philosophical. Keulen 2007, 355 and Van der Paardt 1978, 83 point out that both Apuleius’ Socrates and the real one die because of a drink (1.19.9). But whereas the real Socrates dies slowly and conversing on philosophy and in a dignified manner (see Plato, Phaedo), Apuleius’ Socrates keels over quickly without a word, acting as the opposite to Plato’s Socrates from his first introduction to the very end (O’Brien 2002, 27-45), and leaving the reader with uncomfortable thoughts on the immortality of the soul and metempsychosis (transmigration of the soul), topics discussed in Plato’s Phaedo and especially Republic 10, where the soul of the Pamphylian Er returns to his body twelve days after his apparent death to recount his vision of the souls in the Underworld (10.614-21). Lucius, too, is aware of Plato’s Socrates and admires him. He praises him in Met. 10.33.3 as “an old man of divine intelligence, whom the Delphic god preferred over all mortals in his wisdom”. Lucius, the offspring of philosophers himself, should have recognised the signs and warnings of the story of Aristomenes and Socrates. Instead, he never comments on or reacts to this anti-Socrates of the novel’s topsy-turvy world. It seems therefore that allusions to Plato in the novel are not intended to add a serious philosophical message to the plot, but instead are used as a characterisation tool for both the characters in the inset tale and for Lucius. Without disrespect to Plato, Apuleius uses well known passages from Plato’s dialogues to create a foil for Lucius to put his inadequacies on show; he can be judged against the Platonic passages by an informed reader.
Introduction 33 10.2 Isis The most important Hellenised version of the Isis myth is narrated by Plutarch, Lucius’ ‘ancestor’, in On Isis and Osiris: when the Egyptian god Seth kills his brother Osiris and spreads his dismembered body all over Egypt, Isis, sister and consort of Osiris, mourns her husband and faithfully collects his limbs, resurrects him and conceives her son Horus by him. This Egyptian myth became very popular in Greece and Rome (Witt 1971, Gwyn Griffiths 1975). The Iseum in Pompeii was founded in 105BC (Apuleius Met. 11.30.5 notes a college of Isiac priests in Rome founded during the “time of Sulla”). Isis’ cult underwent some periods of prohibition, e.g. under Augustus who disliked this non-indigenous cult associated with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, the enemy he defeated in 31 BC at the battle of Actium. The literature of that period (e.g. Ovid, Tibullus) portrays the cult not always in the most flattering terms. In the second century, however, the worship of Isis became very popular under the emperor Hadrian, who was interested in its aspects of death and resurrection and associations with Egypt. This is not the place to discuss whether the novel has a serious religious message about this important mystery cult. It is clear that Apuleius, himself initiated into several mystery cults (Apol. 55), has profound knowledge of and interest in the Isiac religion. Some aspects of his portrait of her cult are however worrying: Lucius’ ensuing initiations are expensive and repetitive, and he appears unquestioning and gullible and does not reflect in any depth on his new religion. Some scholars (e.g. Winkler 1985, who leaves both serious and parodic options open, or Harrison 2000, who firmly argues for a religious parody) therefore believe that Isiac references are yet another layer of literary sophistication a learned reader might detect in the novel. Although a distinction between the portrait of the goddess Isis herself and that of her perhaps less than satisfactory followers in the novel should be made (May 2006,310ff.), indirect references to her and her Egyptian origins in Met. 1 point to a complicated relationship between the portrait of Isis in Met. 11 and the witches in Met. 1. As an originally Egyptian goddess, Isis can be discovered retrospectively in the at first sight merely ornamental references to Egypt in the prologue (cf. comm, on 1.1.1). This concept of adding Isiac connotations to the story continues throughout Met. 1. Meroe’s name is a point in question, as at a second glance it may be an allusion to one of the centres of Isis worship in Ethiopia, its capital Meroe. As ‘Panthia’ is also one of Isis’ cult titles, Meroe’s ‘sister’ in Met. 1.12.4 allows for similar connotations (Schlam
34 Introduction 1978, 96; Dowden 1998, Ilf.). Even Lucius’ unusual insistence on tracing his ancestry through his mother rather than his father in 1.2.1 may point to Egypt and magic: magical papyri identify individuals through their mothers’ names, a tradition traced back to Egyptian influence (Graf 1997,128). Other Isiac links are introduced in a similar manner. The adynata (‘impossible things’) in 1.3.2 in the sceptic’s speech are at first tied up with the chapter’s discussion of fictionality. For a second-time reader, however, they become intrinsically linked with magic and witchcraft, after that reader has encountered a similar list of magical powers in 1.8.4, but then are specifically attributed to witches (Pamphile has similar powers e.g. in 2.5 and 3.15). All of Apuleius’ witches in Met. can perform harmful magical feats of the kind described in the adynata. Importantly, Isis claims to be able to perform them, too, but in a positive and benevolent way, as the “mother of the world of nature and mistress over all elements’’ (11.5.1), and Lucius praises her in 11.25.3 as having power, amongst other things, over the waves and Tartarus itself Isis, pronouncing her well-meaning and benevolent magic herself before transforming Lucius back into his human form, is the opposite of the witches, whose interest in transformational magic is entirely put into the service of their erotic interests. Retrospectively, and still unexpectedly for a reader of Met. 1, Isis finds herself in the company of witches, with her powers forming exact counterparts to theirs. This contrast between the witches and Isis leads to an identification of the witches as Isis’ opposites, or anti-Isises. This is also evident, for example, when Meroe and Panthia noisily break into Aristomenes’ and Socrates’ room in 1.11.7 in a perverted form of divine epiphany, which is the opposite of Isis’ dignified and quiet appearance in a nocturnal vision in 11.3. When Meroe and her sister cross the threshold, they symbolically step over an important magical boundary. The threshold, seen as the haunting ground of spirits, is associated with magic and Hecate, cf. e.g. Aristophanes Wasps 802-804 (cf. comm, on 1.6.1). Doors are frequently used in tomb designs, because of their symbolic function as borders between life and death. ‘Liminal’ experiences in Apuleius are associated with transitional states, e.g. in 5.2.1 (Psyche crosses the threshold into Cupid’s palace like a bride), but more frequently with death and rebirth, e.g. in 6.18 Psyche has to cross the threshold into Orcus to reach the “threshold and black halls of Persephone”, the goddess of the Underworld (6.19.3). Isis herself is however also in charge of life and death, and in 11.21.7 she is said to be able to draw those to her cult who were “on the very threshold of their final days”.
Introduction 35 Lucius himself experiences this in 11.23, when during his initiation ritual, he crosses the threshold to Persephone’s Underworld and feels as if reborn. Aristomenes therefore serves as a forerunner of and warning for Lucius, and the evil magic of the witches anticipates the benevolent magic of Isis. There may also be Isiac links with other plot elements which are arguably Apuleian additions, e.g. the Pythias scene in 1.24, where Lucius goes food¬ shopping, albeit unsuccessfully. In 11.24 Lucius takes part in ritual meals as part of his initiation, and the purchases Lucius has to make before it are most likely food-shopping, given the food sharing element of Isiac initiations (Egelhaaf-Gaiser 2000, 272-329; 424f. discusses archaeological evidence for kitchens in Isea which hosted celebratory meals for initiates; see also Tertullian Apologeticus 39). Thus in Met. 1 Lucius is prevented from enjoying his food, but ultimately shown as a successful purchaser of it in Met. 11. Although Apuleius does not mention it in his depiction of the priests of Dea Syria who are Lucius’ owners in Met. 8, fish plays a role in her cult as well, where the consumption of certain fish was prohibited, cf. Lucian, De Dea Syria 14 and 45-47 (Davidson 1993, 60). Fish therefore plays an important part in Lucius’ journey from the ‘wrong’ mysteries of magic and later of the Syrian Goddess to the mysteries of Isis in Met. 11. Even though Isis herself does not appear before the last book of the novel, perverted versions of her, the witches and possibly the Dea Syria, anticipate her. 10.3 Fortuna Isis appears in the novel in another disguise, too, hinted at by an important ecphrasis of a statue in Byrrhaena’s house in Met. 2.4, which is a syncretistic portrait of Isis-Victoria-Fortuna (Peden 1985; for the narratological importance of Byrrhaena’s statues see §6.3). Fortuna-Tyche, the goddess of Fortune, is an unpredictable driving force also in Greek novels and ancient drama, and introduced in 1.6, 1.7 and 1.16. In Met. 1 she is conventionally blamed for the evil that causes the characters to suffer. Socrates, for example, sees himself continuously as the tragic victim of malevolent Fortuna, whom he blames constantly for his situation (1.6.1; 1.6.3; 1.6.4, cf. also 1.7.1 and 10, where references to Fortuna frame the chapter). This approach continues throughout the novel where Lucius accuses her of pursuing him, especially after his metamorphosis (she is called ‘blind’, ‘savage’, ‘cruel’, etc.). As a donkey he has even fewer chances to influence his fate and becomes hostile Fortune’s passive victim. In Apuleius’ time Fortuna-Tyche was more and
36 Introduction more associated with Isis. Isis finally becomes the benevolent force of Fortuna who returns Lucius to his human state in 11.15, when the Isis priest reveals to Lucius that blind Fortuna has ensured a positive outcome of his wanderings and he is now in the benevolent hands of Isis, the “Fortuna with eyes” who has “providence”, and who has engineered his sufferings as a donkey because of his curiosity and addiction to “slavish pleasures”. Fortuna undergoes a metamorphosis from her normal portrait as amoral and random in Met. 1 into benevolent Isis in Met. 11 (Schlam 1992, 58-62; Montiglio 2005; May 2006, 320ffi). 11. Ancient magic Apuleius was accused of using erotic magic to make his wife fall in love with him. His Apologia, one of our major sources for ancient magic, is however not an objective source: it is shaped by his self-defence, and his claims need to be checked against other depictions of magic, notably magical papyri and lead tablets. Apuleius clearly had a profound knowledge of magic and its practices, and he puts it to good use in Metamorphoses. This kind of knowledge was not incompatible with his career as a philosopher and educator, others showed similar interests. Plutarch, for example, seems to have believed that magic and ghosts existed (see Cimon 1.6). Isis and Osiris, too, are intrinsically linked with magic, often invoked in the magical papyri, or said to have taught magicians their skills. Apuleius denies in Apologia that there is a close relationship between magic and mystery religions, but magical papyri show that e.g. magic practices are called ‘mysteries’, or the magician undergoes an ‘initiation’ when he learns his craft. The witches in Met. 1 accordingly practice mysteries, but of a damaging kind. One of the most common feats of magic is the use of binding spells (katadesmoi/defixiones), often written onto small lead tablets or papyri and sometimes buried in the graves of people who died prematurely or violently. In Met. 3.17.4 Apuleius lists “metal strips engraved with mysterious letters” as part of Pamphile’s magical equipment. These must be curse tablets themselves (Gager 1992, 256f.) These spells were intended to force the magicians’ (or their customers’) will on their victims. Binding spells fall into five major categories, all in evidence during Apuleius’ period (Graf 1997, 120f.): judicial spells (to harm one’s opponents in trials), erotic spells (to make someone fall deeply in love), spells against slanderers and economic competitors, and finally agonistic spells (in the context of racing
Introduction 37 or other competitive spectacles). In Met. 1.9, Meroe is shown to employ the first four of these five types to harm her opponents; but instead of merely ‘binding’ her opponents, she transforms them into animals. Pamphile, too, uses force against her lovers and punishes them fiercely for non-compliance in Met. 2, metamorphosing reluctant lovers into stones or animals {Met. 2.5). Apuleius’ detailed magical knowledge is adapted to match the theme of metamorphosis of his novel. About a quarter of extant deftxiones are used for love magic, and in fact love magic is what the witches in Met. 1 will be busy with most of the time. In Papyri Graecae Magicae XII 873 and IV 185ff. a magician makes similar claims of cosmic powers as those listed in Met. 1.3 and 1.8 (‘stopping the sea’). In Greek Magical Papyri {PGM) XXXIV = P.Mich. inv. 5, a magician lists his(?) cosmic powers, but declares he has not found an effective love spell yet. The papyrus fragment may be from a novel (included as ‘The Love Drug’ novel fragment in Stephens and Winkler 1995, 173-78; more cautious: Schmeling 2011, 520). The cosmic powers listed include pulling down the moon, preventing the day from rising and being able to cross the sea without a boat. Apuleius’ witches, especially Meroe and Pamphile, despite their allegedly cosmic powers, use magic primarily for their own gratification, but both are ultimately unsuccessful in its execution. Meroe is, despite her magical knowledge, unable to bind Socrates permanently to herself. Socrates is not in love with her, but terrified, even hates her (1.7.9) and tries to escape from her as soon as Aristomenes offers the opportunity. This discrepancy between what witches are said to be able to do in Met. 1.8 and what, at least in the novel, they are actually able to accomplish ties in with the continued problematisation of fiction and reality in Met. (cf. above §8). The same link between magic and sexual attraction is associated with the figures of Photis and Pamphile, and later in Met. 9.14 with the Miller’s Wife, who takes recourse in magic after her adultery has been discovered; the witch she employs, like Meroe, also has power over the divine, see below. In Met. 9.29L, too, she does not succeed in her erotic magic for her client and resorts to sending a ghost to kill the miller instead. By being able to transform men into wild beasts, Meroe and the other witches destroy the boundaries between order and chaos, human and bestial. Transformation of the magicians themselves into animals can be associated with ancient magic (Pap. Lugd. 2.190). The witch Moeris in Vergil Eclogues 7.97ff. combines necromancy and animal metamorphosis: she turns into a wolf and raises the dead. Apuleius’ Pamphile and the witch threatening
38 Introduction Thelyphron both can turn themselves into animals: an owl (3.21.6) and a weasel (2.25.3). Necromancy, though rarely described in the magical papyri, is depicted several times in novels (Slater 2007): in Heliodorus Aethiopica 6.14f. the old woman of Bessa revives her son temporarily to find out the future, and in Apuleius Met. 2.29 the Isis priest Zatchlas resurrects the dead Thelyphron, whereas in 2.25 Thessalian witches ‘reanimate’ the living Thelyphron who had fallen into a corpse-like sleep. In Met. 1, the death and temporary resurrection of Socrates falls into the same category. Cutting the jugular or severing the complete head is part of several necromancy scenes: e.g. Pompey’s ghost appearing to his son in Lucan 6.813 may be able to do so because the father’s head had been cut off; Medea cuts Aeson’s throat and drains his blood (Ovid Met. 7.285-93; Ogden 2001, 202T, 214f.). Meroe, too, slices through Socrates’ throat, tears his heart out and collects his blood in Met. 1.13. His death closely resembles other portraits of necromantic sacrifices, i.e. the human sacrifice of a male, often a young boy, for necromantic purposes (Ogden 2001, 201; cf. Canidia in Horace Epodes 5; Ovid Fasti 6.137ff., 159-62). As the magically resurrected victim of such a sacrifice, Socrates has a similar function to those other revenants who utter prophecies after their deaths. Consequently, Socrates’ statement in 1.17.3 is strictly speaking a necromantic speech, to which truthfulness is usually accredited (Ogden 2001, 140). Socrates’ speech is however very trite and problematic: he mistakes the doorkeeper for an innkeeper, who, he suggests, might have wanted to steal something. As the witches had previously ‘stolen’ Socrates’ heart and blood, his necromancy is indeed ‘true’, but the culprits and the manner of ‘theft’ are different from that which Socrates implies. His necromancy is inconsequential: not entirely untrue, but certainly unreliable. In this respect it effectively distinguishes itself from other literary necromancies. In another necromantic and mirror episode, the story of Thelyphron, Apuleius further explores this uncertainty of the necromancy’s truthfulness. In 2.29.6, the gathered crowd at first questions the reliability of the resurrected corpse of Thelyphron, who accuses his wife of having murdered him. Only after the corpse truthfully reveals that the other Thelyphron had been visited by witches at night and robbed of some of his body parts, is the corpse believed. Meroe and Panthia may use Socrates’ heart and blood for a wider range of magical purposes, mainly love magic, and the solution proposed by Panthia in 1.13.2 for Aristomenes, dismembering or castrating him but leaving him
Introduction 39 alive, would fulfil the same function. In Apol. 33, the discussion of obscene words for fish derived from fanciful descriptions of male or female genitalia in an accusation of magic suggests that cut-off male genitals could be used for erotic magic. Other witches in Met. make use of body parts; in 2.22 and 2.30 Thelyphron is ‘dismembered’ while alive, in 3.17 Pamphile’s magical possessions include body parts and blood of slaughtered people. Witches take internal organs from their victims in Plautus Bacchides 27, Petronius Satyrica 63.8, etc. In Onos 6, Palaistra, the equivalent of Photis, announces that she knows how to butcher and cook a man, and how to get hold of his inner organs and heart, indicating intimate acquaintance with magical rituals. This is not paralleled in Apuleius’ version Met. 2.7, as Apuleius portrays Photis more sympathetically and tones down her magical abilities. The killing of Socrates enacts a perverted sacrifice, a speciality of Thessalian witches (e.g. Erictho in Lucan 6.524ff.). It intentionally inverts every detail of a normal sacrifice, where e.g. the victim’s head was pulled to the left and the right jugular was severed, but Socrates’ head is turned to the right, his left jugular is cut; other elements of sacrifice are inverted, too (cf. comm, on Met. 1.13; McCreight 1993, Jordan 2004). Inverting proper religious or societal rules into their opposite is generally a characteristic of magic. This is one of the reasons why it is regularly performed at night (Apol. 47; Ogden 2001, 166). Apuleius’ witches are active at night, too: the witches break into Aristomenes’ bedroom three hours after midnight in 1.11.6, and Pamphile performs magic during the first watch, i.e. a little earlier than Meroe, in 3.21 (see 1.3.1 and 1.10.5 for more nightly witch activities). Ghosts in antiquity are generally believed to appear at midnight. Consequently, Met. 1 contains much discussion whether it is still night or already day. Even Socrates’ final burial is consistent with magical beliefs and the witches’ needs. Aristomenes does not bury his friend only for the sake of their friendship and religious duty. A proper burial is important to avoid the return of Socrates as a ghost (Felton 1999,9-11, Felton 2007). Having died a violent death (biaiothanatos) and being left unburied (ataphos) would both be preconditions for Socrates to return and haunt the witches; it would also make him liable to become a malevolent ghost still under the influence of witches and magicians (nekydaimori). The female ghost in Met. 9.29 (see below) can be conjured up by a witch because she had died violently and prematurely. Horace’s witch Canidia also fears that the boy killed under similar circumstances to Socrates’ might return as a nekydaimon and harass
40 Introduction her (Horace Epodes 5.9Iff.). It is therefore entirely in the self-interest of the witches to keep Aristomenes alive long enough for him to bury Socrates properly. Whereas for Meroe’s (and Aristomenes’) protection only a “little earth” (1.13.3) is required to fulfil the proper ritual and prevent Socrates’ return, Aristomenes indicates in 1.19.11 that he has done more than this and given his friend a burial as proper as possible under the circumstances. Throughout his story, Socrates is associated with ghosts, but never specifically described with any of the usual Latin terms for ‘ghost’ (see comm, on 1.6.3). His ghostly nature is noticeable, though, for a second-time reader, who in Met. 9.30 encounters a larva, a harmful female ghost, in a mirror scene (see §4.1; Winkler 1980,162f., Felton 1999,15f., Keulen 2007, 168). There the ghost of a violently killed woman is called up to murder the miller in a scene which recalls Socrates’ portrayal in 1.6 and 19 with thematic and exact verbal echoes: both are only ‘half-clad’ (.semiamictus; 1.6.1, a word only found in Apuleius), Socrates ’ first appearance as ghostly- white, disfigured, and clad in rags anticipates hers, who is also as pale as boxwood, emaciated and filthy, and deformed by sadness. Both she and Socrates recall the usual portrayal of ghosts in antiquity as pale and filthy, especially ghosts of the larva-type. Apuleius is aware of this: in Apol. 63.1 he denies owning a horrible looking statue (described as larvalis), associated by his accusers with magical practices. A second-time reader who notices the same words used in the description of the ghost in 9.29f. retrospectively deciphers this linguistic confirmation that Socrates is a revenant. This had not been entirely clear even up to his second death in 1.19, as his description as a ghost is deliberately kept in an ambivalent manner to keep the readers guessing about the nature of his condition. The ghost in 9.29f. serves as both clarification and reminder of Socrates’ possible fate. These similarities extend to the witches who control both ghosts: the witch who sends the larva to kill the miller is called a “woman with power over the divine” (femina divini potens) in 9.29.4; a similar list of powers is ascribed to Meroe, who in 1.8.4 is also called divini potens. The association with Thessaly as a magical place of witchcraft is evoked emphatically in 1.2.1. Lucan, too, begins his account of the Thessalian witch Erictho with the emphatic Thessaliam ‘Thessaly’ (6.333). This should lead readers to expect the specific ‘Thessalian trick’ of pulling down the moon, which throughout literature is constantly associated with Thessalian witches (Propertius 1.19; Horace Ep. 5.46; Tibullus 1.2.43; Cicero De Natura Deorum 2.50 etc.). This famous feat is however never actually performed
Introduction 41 by any of Apuleius’ witches. He first raises, but then thwarts his readers’ expectations of seeing the ‘usual’ type of magic performed. Despite some links with other literary descriptions, Meroe’s and Panthia’s magic is extremely unusual in other aspects, too. Lucan’s Erictho needs many unusual ingredients and elaborate incantations for the corpse to revive (6.624-830). Horace’s Canidia needs ingredients and Thessalian chants for her necromantic sacrifice. Pamphile’s preparation for metamorphosis takes much preparatory work in Met. 3.21; the narrator never gives away in detail how much preparation the witch in Met. 9 requires to send the larva to the miller, but implies that it is considerable. Meroe and Panthia do nothing of the kind. Their silence during Socrates’ murder and their omission of magical ingredients are unusual and show again an important deviation from the norm, possibly to keep Apuleius’ readers guessing about Socrates’ status as a revenant, the ambiguity of which would be destroyed by incantations and applications of relevant magical ingredients. The image of magic in Met. 1 is therefore inconsistent and contradictory. It is clear that Apuleius has detailed and exact knowledge of ancient magical practices as pictured both in literature and on magical papyri. On the other hand, he frequently chooses to veer from the norm, even where very important and well-known rites are concerned, when it helps to further his plot or keep his readers in suspense. It is therefore remarkable that the depiction of Meroe and Panthia has been so influential on later portraits of witches and magic. 12. Language and style As a trained rhetorician interested in the archaising movement (see above §1.2), Apuleius pays close attention to his language. His writing is eclectic and exuberant. In his syntax he prefers coordination (parataxis) over subordination (hypotaxis), and his sentences are structured by isocola (members of the same length) arranged as parallelisms, which at times may even rhyme, to create balanced, musical sentences. For example, see 1.22 ardua montium ac lubrica vallium et roscida cespitum et glebosa camporum (“steep mountains, slippery valleys, dewy pastures, and cloddy fields”), the poetic style of which cannot be rendered adequately into English. Despite their length, which might make them appear to be very elaborate, Apuleius’ sentences are comparatively more straightforward to follow even during a possible oral performance or recitation than Cicero’s complicated periodic clauses.
42 Introduction The most characteristic element of Apuleius’ style, however, is his diction. Like his fellow archaist Fronto, Apuleius specifically focusses on the choice of the right word. He revives archaic words last attested in the Roman comedies of Plautus (c. 254—184 BC) and out of use for 350 years by his own time (most recently analysed by Pasetti 2007). A few examples include his revival of scitulus ‘sexy’, used to describe a still quite attractive Meroe in Met. 1.7.7. It is archaic and comic, previously used in Plautus Rud. 564; 894 and Afranius com. 386 Ribbeck, and then only again in Apuleius. In Met. 1.5.3 and 1.21.4 he uses cuiatis ‘where from?’, an archaism, found e.g. in Plautus (e.g. Ba. 11, Cur. 404, Men. 341, Poen. Prol. 109, 994), often in the context of a prologue, but also in archaic tragedies (Accius trag. 22; 625 Ribbeck and Ennius Annales ff. 276 W = 280 Vahlen). Apart from Apuleius and the early poets it only occurs in his fellow archaist Gellius 15.30. Both examples with their archaic, often Plautine, origins are used in scenes which are arguably comic, and therefore carry added meaning. Language, especially single words, is often a possible trigger for interpretation in Apuleius (May 2006). At the same time, Apuleius coins new words of his own which are often based on archaic patterns of word formation. Met. 1 especially has many hapax legomena (words only found once in Latin literature) where Apuleius seems inspired by Plautus. For example, in 1.7.4 adlubentia ‘inclination’ was likely created after Plautus’ adlubescere (‘to gratify', Mil. 1004) and lubentia (‘inclination’, St. 276), which was personified as a goddess in As. 268. The same sentence contains cruciabilis ‘torturous’ which occurs first here (five times in Met.) and Gellius 3.9.7, but it may be another comic touch, compared to Plautus’ cruciabilitas (‘torment’, Cist. 205), excruciabilis (‘deserving torture’, Cist. 653) and cruciabiliter (‘with torture’, Pseud. 950). Again the scene is comic, and Apuleius uses comedy-inspired words to draw his readers’ attention to it. Other hapax legomena like antelucio (‘before daybreak’, 1.11.3; 1.15.1) and the diminutive anteluculo (1.14.6) draw attention through their unusualness to the discussion of the time of day, which is important for the plot. Apuleius is fond of creating compound adjectives with semi-, a tradition he found in Plautus, Catullus and Ovid, as a sign of Apuleian poeticism. He uses 31 of them, many of which, like semiamputatus, are hapax legomena (Pasetti 2007, 12Iff.). Met. 1 alone has five (1.4.5 semiamputatus ‘half- pruned’; 1.6.1 semiamictus ‘half-clad’, 1.14.2 semimortuus ‘half-dead’, 1.15.1 semisomnus and 1.15.4 semisopitus, both ‘half-asleep’).
Introduction 43 Apuleius’ register ranges from the sordid, contemporary and colloquial at one end to the tragic and poetic at the other. For example, in 1.14.2 and 1.18.6 he uses lotium ‘piss’ instead of the more technical urina (1.13.8). At the other end of the spectrum, he revives in 1.7.7 the rare word domuitio (‘return home’), which is only found in Pacuvius trag. 173 Ribbeck (58D) and Apuleius (six times in Metamorphoses and Hermagoras fr. 8). Allusions to previous literature abound and are often functional as well as ornamental. For example, when Apuleius paraphrases or alludes to a snippet from an early tragedy {Medea in 1.10.2), he not only wants to decorate and ornament his own text with a gratuitous proof of his leamedness, but instead to draw attention to the context of his source, which then has consequences for our assessment of his own text. This obsession with meaning and context even of single words is noticeable throughout the novel, and creates links not only with previous texts and genres, but also within the novel itself. Often words function as triggers for the recognition of mirror scenes, for example the similarities between Socrates and the female ghost who kills the miller in Met. 9. Apuleius has a specific predilection for word games and puns, some of which may be pseudo-etymological (collected and discussed in Nicolini 2011). For example, in 1.7.9 annosa ‘aging’ is an etymological pun with anus (‘old woman’), a connection already seen by ancient authors on etymology, cf. Paulus Diaconus Fest. 6 “‘an old woman’ {anus), named so after the multitude of years {ab annorum multitudine)”. Meroe is also described as scortum scorteum (‘a hoary whore’, 1.8.1), where alliterations in a Plautine manner reinforce the proverbial nature. Similarly pseudo-etymological puns abound, see e.g. 1.7.8 gratae atque gratuitae (‘gratis ... gratefully received’) or 1.20.2 habitus et habitudo (‘dress and bearing’). The result of Apuleius’ experimenting with words is a highly sophisticated and elaborate yet entertaining style that is difficult to capture in translation. Because of the way Apuleius’ prose concentrates on the meaning of single words, the commentary discusses single words in more detail than is usually the case for commentaries keyed to a translation. The translation attempts to reproduce this artificial and interesting but at times odd and idiosyncratic style (see Harrison 1999, xxxi f. for further lit.).
44 Introduction 13. Reception of Met / Metamorphoses has a long and varied history of reception (see Harrison 1999, xxxviiif.). The inset tale of Cupid and Psyche has been especially popular throughout the centuries. Metamorphoses 1, too, has contributed to the novel’s popularity, especially regarding the development of fictional prose texts, notably through the prologue, and the portrait of Meroe, which influenced mediaeval and Renaissance concepts of witchcraft. Gustave Flaubert offers a good overall assessment of the important aspects of the reception of Met. 1. He expresses his admiration for Apuleius’ novel as a masterpiece which describes nature and landscape in a modem way and combines the religious with the stench of urine: “ce livre est un chef- d’oeuvre ... ?a sent l’encens et l’urine, la bestialite s’y marie au mysticisme.” (letter to Louise Colet, 27-8th June 1852). The prologue’s reference to the low class genre ofMilesian Tales initially created a negative response to Apuleius’ novel (cf. § 2.3). Depreciatory references to Milesian Tales are found especially in Christian authors, e.g. Tertullian, On the soul 23 (c. 160-225 AD); Jerome, Apology for himself against the books of Rufinus 1.17 (401 AD). Jerome (c. 347-420 AD), Commentaries on the prophet Isaiah 12 laments that many more people read Milesian Tales than the books of Plato. In c. 430AD, Macrobius in his commentary to Cicero’s The Dream of Scipio 1.2.7L associates the plots of Menander and his imitators with those of Petronius and Apuleius and wonders why the philosopher Apuleius dabbled in stories of that nature. Macrobius’ near contemporary Martianus Capella saw Milesian Tales as a synonym for entertaining fiction in his Marriage of Philology and Mercury 2.35. Subsequently, and apparently due to Apuleius’ associating his own novel with them, ‘Milesian Tales’ seems to have become the technical term for extended prose narratives which are not overtly intended to instruct or better their readers: Cervantes’ Don Quixote (1605) defines Milesian Tales as extravagant and amazing, and the opposite of moral tales. Furthermore, Apuleius’ prologue influenced other prologues of literary works. For example, Fulgentius (late 5th/mid 6th century AD) bases his prologue to Mitologiae (which contains a somewhat pedestrian summary of Cupid and Psyche and some moralising on its implications in 6.116- 118) on Apuleius’: “let me soothe (permulceam) the seat of your ears with some whisper (susurro)" recalls Met. 1.1.1. Although Fulgentius’ attitude to
Introduction 45 Apuleius’ novel is on the whole inimical, he is happy to echo features of its prologue to find favour with his own readers. Authors producing texts alternating between prose and verse (prosimetra) during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance believed that Metamorphoses were prosimetric, too: Met. 1.1.6 vocis immutatio, ‘change of speech’, was taken to refer to the change from a poetic prologue to a prose section. Apuleius’ text would require a certain rewriting to adapt it to metre, and there was no agreement about where this entirely imaginary change occurs. The theory was tested by Coluccio Salutati’s (1331-1406) idea of the prologue as a Plautine prologue, adopted e.g. by Beroaldo 1500. Subsequent chapters were also seen as programmatic. Lucius’ description of the landscape through which he travels in 1.2.2 is quoted by Robert Burton in the preface to his The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), promising his readers to cover both difficult and easy topics. Apart from the formative influence of the prologue on style and the conception of genre, the characters of Lucius and Socrates were also taken up by Renaissance readers who compared their own fates to those of the literary characters. Often enough, they also thought Apuleius was describing his own adventures, thus mistakenly identifying Lucius the character with Apuleius the author; this common enough misidentification is already found in Augustine, City of God 18.18 (shortly after 410 AD) and facilitated by the novel’s first person narrator. Petrarch was familiar with Apuleius from 1348 onwards at the latest. In a letter to ‘Socrates’ (i.e. his close friend Ludwig van Kempen), he repeatedly associates himself with Apuleius and Lucius. Petrarch says he did not make the boast that Apuleius had made, i. e. that his readers would enjoy themselves, and then quotes the last sentence of the prologue (Petrarch Familiar Letters 1.1.12). In Fam. 9.10.4 Petrarch contrasts the ending of Met. 1 to his own experiences: unlike Apuleius (sic) once in Hypata as Milo’s guest, he had been given a lavish meal. Petrarch uses Milo’s miserliness as a point of comparison in 1.10.3. The description of Hypata in Met. 1.5.4 and especially 2.1 is echoed by Petrarch in Fam. 1.4.4, but adapted to Paris, and the notion of Lucius’ ‘business’ is probably recalled in Petrarch’s letter Fam. 1.4.1, where he discusses how he recently set out to France on ‘some business’ (Mass 1989). Others identified with Socrates: Boccaccio (1313-1375) in his letter to Petrarch Mavortis miles extreme (‘My energetic soldier of Mars’ 1339; see below) is inspired by Socrates’ description of his volatile fortune in Met. 1.6:
46 Introduction Boccaccio was, he says, ignorant of the “slippery twists, unsteady onslaughts and changeable reversals of our fortunes”, and covered his blushing face, but at the sight of a seductively mysterious woman. This easy identification of Renaissance authors with Apuleius himself or his characters became more problematic after Poggio Bracciolini (1380— 1459) discovered both the Onos and Photios’ description of the lost Greek original and realised that Apuleius’ novel forms a translation of a Greek book and is thus fictitious, and not an autobiography. Still, authors continued to interweave their own autobiographical experiences into their understanding of Metamorphoses. Even after Poggio’s discovery, Apuleius’ novel could become a battlefield for the definition of his later readers’ identity. By mistranslating Met. 1.1.5 forensis (‘of the forum’) as ‘foreignness’, which was the standard interpretation in the Renaissance, Humanists saw Lucius’ self-description replicated in their own experience and their Humanism as a kind of metamorphosis from previous barbarity (Carver 2007, 236-250). Especially when Italian Humanists charged German Humanists with ‘barbarism’, the latter group took to Lucius’ description of himself as a foreigner to Latin who had learned the language as an autodidact and was now earning his way in Rome by speaking. The sixteenth and seventeenth century even saw a division into Apuleians, who endorsed Apuleius’ writing style, and anti-Apuleian Ciceronians. Andreas Schott (1552-1629), one of the latter group, used Apuleius’ claim of ‘foreignness’ to disparage Apuleian Latin, as Apuleius himself was ‘braying’ (rudere) rather than speaking and had claimed in the prologue that he was ‘unskilled’ and learned Latin with difficulty (Tullianorum quaestionum de instauranda Ciceronis imitatione libri III. Antwerp 1610, 44fi). Similarly, Melanchthon (1497-1560) Praise of eloquence 29, and Juan Luis Vives (1493-1540) On education 1.3, both disliked Apuleius’ style and compared it with a donkey’s braying (rudere) because the prologue-speaker claimed to be a rudis locutor (‘an inexperienced speaker’, 1.1.5). Apuleius’ unusual and difficult language however also found its admirers, who created glosses on Met. The earliest of these appear in the Abolita glossary (possibly compiled in 7th century Spain, named after its first entry), which has twelve glosses from Met. 1 alone. Unusual words were of interest, too, to his first Renaissance readers, who immediately started to use them in their own literature. For example, Boccaccio gives a correct definition of Met. 1.23.4 gurgustiolum ‘little hovel’ in his interlinear gloss on MS Laurentianus 29.2, fol. 27v, evidence for his close engagement
Introduction 47 with Apuleius’ text (Gaisser 2008). The word is then also used by Coluccio Salutati in Epistolario 1.10, line 1, and in Boccaccio’s Mavortis miles extreme. Boccaccio uses several exclusively Apuleian words in the same text, including the rare antelucio (‘before daybreak’, Met. 1.11.3; 1.15.1) and semisopitus (‘half asleep’, Met. 1.15.4, a word he had already found noteworthy in Laur. 29.2 fol. 26v). In his letter Boccaccio describes how he got up once just before daybreak, feeling ‘worn out and half asleep’, marcidus et semisopitus, left his gurgustiolum and went to the shore of the Bay of Naples, where he encountered a mysterious woman. Recognition of his imitation of Apuleius is triggered by the unusual vocabulary he found in Met. 1, but then extends to literary engagement as well. Entire Apuleian phrases in Latin and the vernacular became part of the Renaissance writers’ repertoire; for example, Petrarch, in On the solitary life 2.4 alludes to Met. 1.5.1, Socrates’ oath by the all-seeing sun, which is contrasted to God who “sees everything, not meaning the sun, as Ovid and Apuleius have said” (vede ogni cosa, non intendendo del sole, come Ovidio e Apulejo hanno ditto). Occasionally, even misunderstood phrases in Apuleius attest to the novel’s popularity. Lucius’ swallowing of a cheese cake in Met. 1.4.1 intrigued some readers. Coluccio Salutati’s manuscript MS Harley 4838 glossed it as ‘lasagne’, and the food is recalled by FalstafFs “T’is time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese” (Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor v.v. 138f.). Lucius’ adventures in Thessaly feature prominently in adaptations of the novel as a whole. A few examples follow. Hans Sachs, the German poet and playwright, composed a parable Der gulden esel (1538), in which his Apuleius sets out to Thessaly to experience magic, and his subsequent adventures form a parable that warns against promiscuity. Agnolo Firenzuola imaginatively rewrites Lucius’ story into his own in his novel L 'asino d’oro (published 1550): e.g. Lucius’ autobiography becomes his own, and instead of Milo in Hypata it is Petronio in Bologna who receives him. Charles Nodier’s nightmarish Smarra ou les Dimons de la Nuit (1821) is based on Met. 1 (explicitly mentioned in the prologue); its hero Lucius tells of his dead friend Polemon’s encounter with the witch Meroe. Hypata is also the setting for Petrus van Limburg Brouwer’s (1795-1847) novel Een ezel en eenig speelgoed (An ass and some toys). Here Lucius is turned into a donkey and after many adventures meets Palaistra again, who, it turns out, had deceived him on purpose to get his money. Louis Couperus’ escapist De verliefde ezel (The Ass in Love', 1918) retells the story of Charmides
48 Introduction (= Lucius) as a travelling salesman and adapts Met. 1 freely, e.g. Meroe tries to seduce Charmides himself, and other characters are given names from Roman comedy. Georges Pichard’s graphic novel Les Sorcieres de Thessalie (1985) concentrates on the novel’s erotic potential, whereas Peter Oswald's fast-paced play The Golden Ass (2002) gives a spirited and very funny characterisation of Lucius as naive, and Aristomenus’ (sic) story as an entertaining farce. The story of Aristomenes and Socrates on its own has an interesting reception. Burton in The Anatomy of Melancholy (3.349) uses Meroe as an example for jealousy if an old woman sleeps with a younger man. Already Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), a work full of literal and verbal allusions to Metamorphoses, sees the story of Socrates and Meroe as a metaphorical warning for both novels’ protagonists against sexual encounters with women. He alludes specifically to Socrates’ description of his ensnarement by Meroe when his protagonist Poliphilo, whose characterisation is in many ways inspired by Lucius, becomes inexperta urigine percito (‘excited by unfamiliar lust’, cf. Met. 1.7.8; Carver 2007, 183-235). The witches’ memorable entrance into Aristomenes’ and Socrates’ room in Met. 1.12 is recalled in the second book of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. The heroine Polia has a nightmare inspired by Apuleius’ scene: she hears the bolts of her locked bedroom door fly back, and seems to hear burglars coming in, and then describes her fear as worse than that of Aristomenes, transformed into a tortoise on seeing Panthia and Meroe. The intruders, it seems, wish to punish her for her refusal to obey the gods of love. Even after Polia is woken up by her nurse, she resembles Aristomenes in Met. 1.14, as she is “prostrate, utterly weary, more dead than alive ... like a paralytic” (translation from Carver 2007, 230). The story of Socrates and Aristomenes also formed an inspiration for Curio Lancillotto Pasio of Ferrara in his Bucolicorum Mimisis ([s/c.] 1506), who retells their adventure in the tavern as that of Telephron and Byrrhenus in Eel. 9. Socrates’ second death in Met. 1.19 may be recalled in Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590/96). The Redcrosse Knight drinks from a stream cursed by the goddess Diana and is immediately enfeebled (1.7.6.2-5), and at the beginning of book 2, Mordant is beguiled by the enchantress Acrasia, and when he drinks water, he falls dead on the ground (2.1.54-5). Both scenes may be inspired by Socrates drinking from the stream, and combine the idea of drinking water, witchcraft, eroticism, and death, thus making Meroe one of several models for Spenser’s Duessa and Acrasia (Carver 2007,407-11).
Introduction 49 Meroe becomes synonymous with witchcraft in later works. In the romantic play The Old Wives’ Tale by George Peele (1595), Meroe is the mother of an enchanter who has taught him his craft. In the 1916 play Cupid and Psyche by John Jay Chapman, based on Apuleius’ Cupid and Psyche, Panthia, Meroe and Psyche are the daughters of King Agathon and Queen Arete. Only Panthia is a witch, though Meroe is jealously weaving intrigues, and both are supported by their greedy husbands. They transform into owls to reach Psyche’s palace, and unlike Psyche’s sisters in Met. do not come to any harm at the happy ending. Unsurprisingly, Met. 1 has had an immense impact on perceptions of magic and witchcraft. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486— 1535), an alchemist and theologian, uses Apuleius, specifically the character of Meroe, several times, for example in his De Occulta Philosophia. He refers to her magic powers by quoting Met. 1.8.4 in his introductory letter to the historian and occultist Johannes Trithemius, and uses the list of cosmic adynata in Met. 1.3 in De Occulta Philosophia 1.72 to discuss the power of magic. Another influential work on magic, Nicholas Remy’s Daemonolatreia (1595), also makes much use of parallels with Met. Daemonolatreia 3.11 sees Lucius’ sword swallowing in Met. 1.4.3 as evidence for demons aiding in magical feats, and the witches’ nightly attack on Aristomenes’ and Socrates’ room as examples for a story which is fictional but close enough to facts to be credible. Even Lucius’ expression of credulity in Met. 1.20.3 is used in Daemonolatreia 3.12 as an example for the unpredictability of God’s actions. Finally, Lucius’ depiction of witchcraft is at its most influential in the description of later witches’ cosmic powers (Heine 1962, 334ff). Ben Jonson uses it explicitly in his Masque of Queens II. 146-52 (1609). Macbeth IV.i.52-61 (the witches cooking a magical brew) may also go back to Apuleius’ influence. The witches’ Thessalian ability to pull down the moon was especially well known and referred to, and portraits of them were based on Latin love elegy and Apuleius, e.g. in Christopher Marlowe, Dr Faustus, scene III (1588), John Lyly, Endimion: The Man in the Moone (1591; spoken by the sorceress Dipsas); Robert Greene, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay 11.48 (c. 1589); Shakespeare, The Tempest V.1.269f. (1610/11; on Sycorax); Spenser, The Faerie Queene 3.3.12 (1590/96); Milton, Paradise Lost 2.665f. (1667); Goethe, Faust 7920 and 8034; Thackeray, The History’ of Henry Esmond, Esq. chapter 9 (1852; on Medea).
50 Introduction 14. Metamorphoses manuscripts and the text of this edition Apuleius’ Metamorphoses survived from antiquity only by the skin of its teeth. The text was revised in the fourth century by Sallustius in Constantinople, according to his subscription at the end of Met. 9 in F = Laur. 68.2. Sallustius’ manuscript, or a copy of it, made its way to the library of Monte Cassino, where in the eleventh century what is now our archetype was copied from it: F Laurentianus 68.2 (Montecassino 11th century), in Beneventan script. It suffered from faulty preparation of the vellum that leaves parts of the text almost or completely illegible, and is full of corrections and emendations by the scribe himself or many later hands. All other manuscripts descend from it and are of lesser importance. φ Laurentianus 29.2 (Montecassino c. 1200 AD), a direct copy of F, is useful where F is illegible; it was studied in detail by Boccaccio, whose marginal annotations survive. A Ambrosianus N 180 superior (13th century AD), derived from a copy of F (now lost) made before some folia of F were badly damaged, and before φ was copied from F. Other manuscripts mentioned in the commentary are all derived from a copy of F different from the ancestor of A: U = Illinois Urbanensis 7 (1389), E = Etonensis 147 (first half 15 th century). The consensus of A, U, E and some lesser manuscripts is referred to as a. Most recently, especially thanks to the work of Zimmerman 2012, the importance of the editio princeps 1469 (Joannes Andreas de Buxis, Rome) and other early printed editions, such as the second Iuntina 1522 (Bemardus Philomathes) which may preserve both humanist readings and readings from lost manuscripts, have come more to the foreground. For a more detailed description of the transmission, see the edition by Zimmerman 2012, xff. I have followed her stemma, although there are occasional disagreements with her text. I looked at the digitalised images of both F and φ available online at http://teca.bmlonline.it/TecaRicerca/index. jsp and consulted de Buxis’ editio princeps (1469) in the John Rylands Library Deansgate in Manchester. For all other manuscripts, early editions and conjectures of earlier scholars I rely on Zimmerman’s reports.
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60 Bibliography Roller, Μ. B. 2003. Horizontal women. Posture and sex in the Roman convivium, AJPh 124, 377-422. Roncaioli, C. 1963. Le accezioni di bonus nelle Metamorfosi di Apuleio, GIF 16, 229-37. Rosivach, V. J. 1987. Execution by stoning in Athens, Classical Antiquity 6, 232- 48. Ruiz-Montero, C. 2007. Magic in the ancient novel. In Paschalis et al.y 38-56. Sandy, G. N. 1970. Petronius and the tradition of the interpolated narrative, TAPhA 101,463-76. Sandy, G. N. 1973. Foreshadowing and suspense in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, CJ 68, 232-35. Sandy, G. N. 1997. The Greek world of Apuleius. Apuleius and the Second Sophistic. Leiden. Schafer, T. 1989. Imperii Insignia. Sella curulis und fasces. Zur Reprasentation romischer Magistrate. Mainz. Schiesaro, A. 1985. II "locus horridus’ nelle Metamorfosi di Apuleio, Me/.IV.28-35, Maia 37,211-23. Schlam, C. 1970. Platonica in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, TAPhA 101, 477- 87. Schlam, C. C. 1978. Sex and sanctity. The relationship of male and female in the Metamorphoses. In Hijmans and van der Paardt, 95-105. Schlam, C. C. 1992. The Metamorphoses of Apuleius. On making an ass of oneself London. Schmeling, G., with the collaboration of Setaioli, A. 2011. A commentary on the Satyrica of Petronius. Oxford. Schmidt, V. 1979. Der viator in Apuleius’ Metamorphosen (Apuleiana Groningiana V), Mnemosyne 32, 173-75. Scobie, A. 1978. The Structure of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. In Hijmans and van der Paardt. 43-61. Scobie, A. (ed., comm.) 1975. Apuleius Metamorphoses (Asinus Aureus) I. A commentary. Meisenheim am Gian. Shanzer, D. 1996. Piscatum opiparem ... praestinavi. Apuleius, Met. 1, 24-25, RFIC 124,445-54. Shumate, N. 1996. Crisis and conversion in Apuleius' Metamorphoses. Ann Arbor. Slater, N. W. 1998. Passion and petrification. The gaze in Apuleius, CPh 93, 18-48. Slater, N. W. 2007. Postumous parleys. Chatting up the dead in the ancient novels. In Paschalis et al.y 57-69. Smith, W. S. and B. Woods 2002. Tale of Aristomenes. Declaration in a Platonic mode, AN 2, 172-93. Stafford, E. 2012. Herakles. London. Stansbury-O’Donnell, M. D. 2005. The painting program in the Stoa Poikile. In J.
Bibliography 61 Barringer and J. M. Hurwit (eds) Periklean Athens and Us legacy. Problems and perspectives, 73-87. Austin Tex. Stephens, S. A. and J. J. Winkler (eds) 1995. Ancient Greek novels. The fragments. Princeton. Summers, R. G. 1970. Roman justice and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, TAPhA 101, 511-31. Tatum, J. 1969. The tales in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, TAPhA 100,487-527. Tatum, J. 1972. Apuleius and metamorphosis, AJP 93, 306-13. Tatum, J. 1979. Apuleius and the Golden Ass. Ithaca. Thibau, R. 1965. Les Metamorphoses d’Apulee et la theorie platonicienne de l’Eros, Studia Philosophica Gandensia 3, 89-144. Tilg, S. 2007. Lucius on poetics? The prologue to Apuleius’ Metamorphoses Reconsidered, SIFC 5, 156-98. Trapp, Μ. B. 1990. Plato’s Phaedrus in second century Greek literature. In D. A. Russell (ed.) Antonine Literature, 141-73. Oxford. Trapp, Μ. B. 2001. On tickling the ears. Apuleius’ prologue and the anxieties of philosophers. In Kahane and Laird, 39-46. Treggiari, S. 1991. Roman marriage. Iusti coniuges from the time of Cicero to the time of Ulpian. Oxford. Ullman, B. L. 1943-^4. By Castor and Pollux, CW 37, 87-89. Uria Varela, J. 1997. Tabu y eufemismo en Latin. Amsterdam. Van der Paardt, R. Th. 1978. Various aspects of narrative technique in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. In Hijmans and van der Paardt. 75-94. Van der Paardt, R. Th. 1981. The unmasked T: Apuleius Met. XI 27, Mnemosyne 34, 96-106. Van der Paardt, R. Th. (ed.) 1971. L. Apuleius Maudaurensis. The Metamorphoses. A commentary on book III with text and introduction. Amsterdam. Van der Stockt, L. 2012. Plutarch and Apuleius. Laborious routes to Isis. In Keulen and Egelhaaf-Gaiser, 168-81. Van Hooff, A. J. L. 1990. From autothanasia to suicide. Self killing in classical antiquity. London. Van Mal-Maeder, D. 1995. L Ane d'Or ou les metamorphoses d’un recit. Illustration de la subjectivite humaine, GCN 6: 103-125. Van Mal-Maeder, D. 1997. Lector, intende: laetaberis. The enigma of the last book of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, GCN 8, 87-118. Van Mal-Maeder, D. 2007. La fiction des declamations. Leiden. Van Thiel, H. 1971-2. Der Eselsroman. 2 vols. Munich. Vander Poppen, R.E. 2008. A festival of laughter. Lucius, Milo and Isis playing the game of hospitium. In Riess, 157-74. Vasunia, P. 2001. The gift of the Nile. Hellenizing Egypt from Aeschylus to Alexander. Berkeley.
62 Bibliography Walsh, D. A. 1983. Doors of the Greek and Roman world, Archaeology 36,44-50. Walsh, P. G. 1978. Petronius and Apuleius. In Hijmans and van der Paardt, 17-24. Walsh, P. G. 1995. The Roman novel. Cambridge 1970, repr. Bristol 1995. Watson, L. 2004. Making water not love. Apuleius, Metamorphoses 1.13-14, CQ 54, 651-55. Winkler, J. J. 1980. Lollianos and the desperadoes, JHS 100, 155-81. Winkler, J. J. 1985. Auctor and actor. A narratological reading of Apuleius ’ The Golden Ass. Berkeley. Wirth, H. 2010. Die linke Hand. Wahmehmung und Bewertung in der griechischen und romischen Antike. Stuttgart. Witt, R. E. 1971. Isis in the Ancient world. Baltimore. YegQl, F. 2010. Bathing in the Roman world. Cambridge. Zimmerman, M. 2006. Echoes of Roman satire in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. In Nauta, 87-104. Zimmerman, M. 2008. Cenatus solis fabulis. A symposiastic reading of Apuleius’ novel. In Riess, 135-55. Zimmerman, M. (ed.) 2012. Apulei Metamorphoseon libri XI. Oxford. Zimmerman, M. et al. (ed.) 1998. Aspects of Apuleius' Golden Ass 2. Cupid and Psyche. Groningen.
METAMORPHOSES or THE GOLDEN ASS Book 1
64 Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book l 1.1 At ego tibi sermone isto Milesio varias fabulas conseram, auresque tuas benivolas lepido susurro permulceam, modo si papyrum Aegyptiam argutia Nilotici calami inscriptam non spreveris inspicere, 1.2 figuras fortunasque hominum in alias imagines conversas et in se rursum mutuo nexu refectas ut mireris, exordior. ‘Quis ille?’ Paucis accipe. 1.3 Hymettos Attica et Isthmos Ephyrea et Taenaros Spartiatica, glebae felices aeternum libris felicioribus conditae, mea vetus prosapia est. 1.4 Ibi linguam Atthidem primis pueritiae stipendiis merui. Mox in urbe Latia advena studiorum Quiritium indigenam sermonem aerumnabili labore, nullo magistro praeeunte, aggressus excolui. 1.5 En ecce praefamur veniam, siquid exotici ac forensis sermonis rudis locutor offendero. 1.6 Iam haec equidem ipsa vocis immutatio desultoriae scientiae stilo quem accersimus respondet. Fabulam Graecanicam incipimus. Lector intende: laetaberis. 2.1 Thessaliam - nam et illic originis maternae nostrae fundamenta a Plutarcho illo inclito ac mox Sexto philosopho nepote eius prodita gloriam nobis faciunt - eam Thessaliam ex negotio petebam. 2.2 Postquam ardua montium ac lubrica vallium et roscida cespitum et glebosa camporum emersi, [me] equo indigena peralbo vehens, iam eo quoque admodum fesso, 2.3 ut ipse etiam fatigationem sedentariam incessus vegetatione discuterem, in pedes desilio, equi sudorem fronde curiose exfrico, auris remulceo, frenos detraho, in gradum lenem sensim proveho, quoad lassitudinis incommodum alvi solitum ac naturale praesidium eliquaret. 2.4 Ac dum is ientaculum ambulatorium, prata quae praeterit, ore in latus detorto pronus adfectat, duobus comitum, qui forte paululum processerant, tertium me facio. 2.5 Ac dum ausculto, quid sermonis agitarent, alter exerto cachinno ‘Parce’, inquit, ‘in verba ista haec tam absurda tamque immania mentiendo.’ 2.6 Isto accepto, sititor alioquin novitatis, ‘Immo vero,’ inquam, ‘impertite sermones non quidem curiosum, sed qui velim scire vel cuncta vel certe plurima. Simul iugi quod insurgimus aspritudinem fabularum lepida iucunditas levigabit.’ 1.2 mireris exordior. U: mireris. Exordior F 1.3 Spartiaca F, corr. Salmasius 1.5 forensi F, corr. in φ by a later hand 1.6 accersimus ed. Ven. 1493: accessimus F: arcessimus Wowerius 2.2 emersi, [me] equo Keulen: emersi me equo F: emersimus equo Leo: emersi, in equo Robertson: <emensus> emersi in Vallette; other readings have been suggested 2.3 sudorem fronde Becichemus: sudorem frontem F: sudorem fronte Helm: sudoram frontem Haupt 2.4 prataque F, corr. Ferrarius: praeterit post prataque written by the first hand above the line in F
Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 65 1.1 Now, let me string together various stories for you in this Milesian tale, and stroke your willing ears with a charming whisper, if only you do not scorn to look upon an Egyptian papyrus inscribed with the sharpness of a reed from the Nile, 1.2 and that you may marvel at the forms and fortunes of men turned into different appearances and remade back into their former selves in an intertwined knot, I begin. ‘Who is this person?’ Hear in a few words. 13 Attic Hymettus, Ephyrean Isthmus and Spartan Taenarus, rich regions forever preserved in books of even greater richness, this is my ancient lineage. 1.4 There I acquired the Attic language in the first training of my childhood. Soon after, in the Latin city as a stranger to the studies of the Quirites I took up and cultivated their native language with burdensome labour and with no teacher guiding me. 1.5 And look, I start by asking your forgiveness if I as an inexperienced speaker of this exotic language of the forum offend you. 1.6 Still, exactly this change of speech itself corresponds to the style of horse-vaulting skill that I have sought out We are beginning a Grecian story. Reader, be attentive: you will enjoy yourself! 2.1 To Thessaly - for there, too, are the roots of my mother’s family, descended from that famous Plutarch and then from the philosopher Sextus, his nephew, who give glory to us - to this Thessaly I was making my way on business. 2.2 After I had passed over steep mountains, slippery valleys, dewy pastures, and cloddy fields, riding on my pure white horse, a native of the area, who, too, was now quite weary, 2.3 So that I myself, too, might shake off the weariness of my long time in the saddle with an invigorating walk, I leapt down onto my feet, carefully rubbed off the horse’s sweat with foliage, stroked his ears, loosened the bridle, led him forward slowly at a gentle pace, until the regular and natural assistance for his belly might ease the discomfort of his weariness. 2.4 And as he, with his head turned to his side and down, sought to make his breakfast on the hoof from the pastures he was passing, I made myself the third to two fellow-travellers, who by chance had reached a little ahead. 2.5 And as I listened out for what kind of conversation they were engaging in, one of them said, with a loud cackle: ‘Stop it; stop these absurd and monstrous lies of yours.' 2.6 When I heard this, as I am generally thirsty for novelty, I said: ‘On the contrary, share your conversation with me - I am not inquisitive, but someone who would like to know, if not everything, then at least most things. At the same time, the delightful charm of stories will alleviate the steepness of the hill we are climbing.’
66 Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 3.1 At ille qui coeperat, ‘Ne’, inquit, ‘istud mendacium tam verum est quam siqui velit dicere magico susurramine amnes agiles reverti, mare pigrum conligari, ventos inanimes exspirare, solem inhiberi, lunam despumari, stellas evelli, diem tolli, noctem teneri.’ 3.2 Tunc ego in verba fidentior ‘Heus tu’, inquam, ‘qui sermonem ieceras priorem, ne pigeat te vel taedeat reliqua pertexere.’ Et ad alium: ‘Tu vero crassis auribus et obstinato corde respuis quae forsitan vere perhibeantur. 3.3 Minus hercule calles pravissimis opinionibus ea putari mendacia, quae vel auditu nova vel visu rudia vel certe supra captum cogitationis ardua videantur; quae si paulo accuratius exploraris, non modo compertu evidentia, verum etiam factu facilia senties. 4.1 Ego denique vespera, dum polentae caseatae modico secus offulam grandiorem in convivas aemulus contruncare gestio, mollitie cibi glutinosi faucibus inhaerentis et meacula spiritus distinentis minimo minus interii. 4.2 Et tamen Athenis proxime et ante Poecilen porticum isto gemino obtutu circulatorem aspexi equestrem spatham praeacutam mucrone infesto devorasse; 4.3 ac mox eundem invitamento exiguae stipis venatoriam lanceam, qua parte minatur exitium, in ima viscera condidisse. 4.4 Et ecce pone lanceae ferrum, qua bacillum inversi teli ad occipitium per ingluviem subit, puer in mollitiem decorus insurgit inque flexibus tortuosis enervam et exossam saltationem explicat, cum omnium qui aderamus admiratione. 4.5 Diceres dei medici baculo, quod ramulis semiamputatis nodosum gerit, serpentem generosum lubricis amplexibus inhaerere. 4.6 Sed iam cedo tu sodes, qui coeperas, fabulam remetire. Ego tibi solus haec pro isto credam, et quod ingressui primum fuerit stabulum prandio participabo. Haec tibi merces deposita est.’ 4.1 meacula Comelissen: mea gula F 4.2 proxime Wowerius: proximo F
Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 67 3.1 But the one who had spoken first said: ‘Indeed, this lie of yours is just as true as if someone wanted to say that because of some magic whispering running rivers are turned back on themselves, the sea becomes sluggish and immobilised, the winds’ breath fails into lifelessness, the sun is stopped, the moon is dried out of her dew, the stars are tom down, daylight is taken away and night is prolonged.’ 3.2 Then I said more confident in speaking: ‘Hey, you, who told the story previously, don’t be ashamed or reluctant to weave the rest of the tale. ’ And to the other one: ‘But you with your thick ears and obstinate heart reject what may well show itself to be true. 3.3 By Hercules, you know rather little to think that because of some people’s most depraved beliefs those things are considered to be lies which appear either novel to hear or crude to see or for sure too hard to be captured by comprehension; if you explore them a little more carefully, you will find them not only clear to understand but also easy to do. 4.1 As for me - last night, when I was eagerly wolfing down an only slightly larger piece of polenta cheese cake in a competition against my fellow diners, because of the softness of the glutinous food hanging in my throat and hindering my air passages, I very nearly died. 4.2 But yet, quite recently in Athens, and in front of the Stoa Poikile, I saw with my very own two eyes a wandering performer swallow a really sharp cavalry sword with a deadly tip; 4 J and soon after I saw the same performer, with the encouragement of a tiny donation, bury a hunting lance, starting with the part which threatens death, down into his innermost bowels. 4.4 And look, behind the iron of the lance, where the shaft of the inverted weapon rises up from his gullet, near the back of the man’s head, a boy, beautiful to the point of effeminate softness, climbs up, and unfolds a dance in undulating twists, without muscles or bones, to the amazement of all of us present. 4.5 You might have said that on the staff of the god of medicine, who carries it knotty with half-pruned little twigs, his noble snake was clinging there in fluid embraces. 4.6 But come on, please, you who started the story, go through it again. I alone will believe your tale instead of him, and at the next tavern we approach on our journey I will make you share my meal. This is the reward paid down for you.’
68 Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 5.1 At ille: 'Istud quidem, quod polliceris, aequi bonique facio, verum quod inchoaveram porro exordiar. Sed tibi prius deierabo Solem istum <omni>videntem deum me vera comperta memorare; 5.2 nec vos ulterius dubitabitis, si Thessalicam proximam civitatem perveneritis, quod ibidem passim per ora populi sermo iactetur, quae palam gesta sunt S3 Sed ut prius noritis cuiatis sim, qui sim: Aegiensis. Audite et quo quaestu me teneam: meile vel caseo et huiusce modi cauponarum mercibus per Thessaliam Aetoliam Boeotiam ultro citro discurrens. 5.4 Comperto itaque Hypatae, quae civitas cunctae Thessaliae antepollet, caseum recens et sciti saporis admodum commodo pretio distrahi, festinus accucurri id omne praestinaturus. 5.5 Sed ut fieri adsolet, sinistro pede profectum me spes compendii frustrata est. Omne enim pridie Lupus negotiator magnarius coemerat. Ergo igitur inefficaci celeritate fatigatus commodum vespera oriente ad balneas processeram. 6.1 Ecce Socraten contubernalem meum conspicio. Humi sedebat scissili palliastro semiamictus, paene alius lurore, ad miseram maciem deformatus, qualia solent Fortunae decermina stipes in triviis erogare. 6.2 Hunc talem, quamquam necessarium et summe cognitum, tamen dubia mente propius accessi. \Hem\ inquam, ‘mi Socrates, quid istud? Quae facies! Quod flagitium! At vero domi tuae iam defletus et conclamatus es, liberis tuis tutores iuridici provincialis decreto dati, 6.3 uxor persolutis feralibus officiis luctu et maerore diuturno deformata, diffletis paene ad extremam captivitatem oculis suis, domus infortunium novarum nuptiarum gaudiis a suis sibi parentibus hilarare compellitur. At tu hic larvale simulacrum cum summo dedecore nostro viseris/ 6.4 ‘ Aristomene’, inquit, ‘ne tu fortunarum lubricas ambages et instabiles incursiones et reciprocas vicissitudines ignoras.’ Et cum dicto sutili centunculo faciem suam iam dudum punicantem prae pudore obtexit ita ut ab umbilico pube tenus cetera corporis renudaret. 6.5 Nec denique perpessus ego tam miserum aerumnae spectaculum iniecta manu ut adsurgat enitor. 5.1 <omni>videntem Leo: videntem F 5.2 Thessalicam Beroaldus: Thessaliam F 5.3 <Aristomenes sum,> Aegiensis Castiglioni 6.1 decermina Lipsius: deterrima F, corrected in the margin to determina 6.3 ferialibus F. corr. de Buxis: <in>ferialibus Helm
Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 69 5.1 But he said: ‘I consider what you promised a fair and square deal. Moreover, I will embark on the tale that I had started. But first I will swear an oath to you by the Sun, this <all->seeing god, that I recount true and proven facts; 5.2 and you will not doubt me any longer when you reach the nearest town in Thessaly, because there the story is discussed freely on everybody’s lips, about what occurred in full view. 5.3 But first, so that you know from what country I come and who I am: I am from Aegium. Hear, too, with what kind of trade I keep myself: with honey and cheese and tavern merchandise of this kind I rush to and fro through Thessaly, Aetolia and Boeotia. 5.4 So after hearing that at Hypata, the city which is more powerful than all Thessaly, some fresh cheese of fine flavour was being put up for sale at a rather advantageous price, I hurried there in a rush in order to buy it all up. 5.5 But as tends to happen, I started out on the left foot and my hope for profit was thwarted; for on the previous day Lupus the wholesale merchant had bought it all up. For that reason, tired from my fruitless haste, just as the evening star was rising, I started out for the baths. 6.1 And look, I spot my old friend Socrates! He was sitting on the ground half-clad in a tom cheap cloak, almost someone else in his pallor, reduced to a miserable gauntness, like the cast-offs of Fortuna who usually beg for alms at the crossroads. 6.2 As he was in such a state, and although he was a close friend I had known extremely well, nevertheless I approached him with a doubtful mind Oh dear,’ 1 said’, ‘my friend Socrates, what is this? What a sight! What a scandal! But at your home you are mourned and lamented, your children have been given guardians by the decree of the provincial judge, 6.3 your wife has performed your funeral services and has disfigured herself with her sorrow and everlasting grief; as she has cried her eyes out almost to the point of catching blindness, she is being compelled by her very own parents to gladden her household’s misfortune with the joys of a new marriage. And here you show up, looking like a ghost, to our very great shame.’ 6.4 ‘Aristomenes’, he said, ‘It is clear that you know nothing about the slippery twists, unsteady onslaughts and changeable reversals of our fortunes.’ And with these words he covered his face that had been blushing in shame already for a while with his patched up rag cloak, with the result that he bared the rest of his body from the belly button down to his groin. 6.5 I could not bear any longer this miserable spectacle of distress, took him by the hand and struggled to make him get up.
70 Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 7.1 At ille, ut erat capite velato, ‘Sine, sine,’ inquit, ‘frixatur diutius tropaeo Fortuna, quod fixit ipsa/ 7.2 Effeci sequatur, et simul unam e duabus laciniis meis exuo eumque propere vestio dicam an contego, et ilico lavacro trado. 7.3 Quod unctui, quod tersui, ipse praeministro; sordium enormem illluviem operose effrico; probe curato, ad hospitium, lassus ipse, fatigatum aegerrime sustinens perduco. Lectulo refoveo, cibo satio, poculo mitigo, fabulis permulceo. 7.4 Iam adlubentia proclivis est sermonis et ioci et scitum [et] cavillum, iam dicacitas tinnula, cum ille imo de pectore cruciabilem suspiritum ducens dextra saeviente frontem replaudens, 7.5 ‘Me miserum,’ infit, ‘qui dum voluptatem gladiatorii spectaculi satis famigerabilis consector, in has aerumnas incidi. 7.6 Nam, ut scis optime, secundum quaestum Macedoniam profectus, dum mense decimo ibidem attentus nummatior revortor, modico prius quam Larissam accederem, per transitum spectaculum obiturus, in quadam avia et lacunosa convalli a vastissimis latronibus obsessus atque omnibus privatus tandem evado. 7.7 Et utpote ultime adfectus ad quandam cauponam Meroen, anum, sed admodum scitulam, devorto, eique causas et peregrinationis diuturnae et domuitionis anxiae et spoliationis [diuturnae et dum] miserae refero. 7.8 Quae me nimis quam humane tractare adorta cenae gratae atque gratuitae ac mox urigine percita cubili suo adplicat. 7.9 Et statim miser, ut cum illa adquievi, ab unico congressu annosam ac pestilentem contraho; 7.10 et ipsas etiam lacinias, quas boni latrones contegendo mihi concesserant, in eam contuli, operulas etiam, quas adhuc vegetus saccariam faciens merebam, quoad me ad istam faciem, quam paulo ante vidisti, bona uxor et mala Fortuna perduxit.’ 7.3 eluviem F, corr. Oudendorp 7.4 et scitum [et] cavillum Oudendorp 7.4 tinnula found in nowadays lost manuscripts and printed by de Buxis, Aldus, Philomathes: timida F: <in>timida Helm: mimica Keulen 7.7 [diuturnae et dum] dittography deleted by all editors 7.9 contraho A U: con contraho F, <cladem> [con] contraho Helm, con<suetudinem> Van der Vliet, con<dicionem> Martos, many other emendations suggested
Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 71 7.1 But he said, just as he was, with his head covered: ‘Let, oh let Fortuna enjoy for longer that trophy which she herself has hung up.’ 7.2 I forced him to follow me, and at the same time I took off one of my two garments and quickly clothed him, or should I say, covered him, and handed him over there and then to the baths. 7.3 What was needed to oil and what to dry him I supplied myself; an enormous layer of filth I scraped off with great effort; when that had properly been taken care of, I was exhausted myself and led him to an inn, hardly able to hold him upright because of his tiredness. I revived him with a bed, filled him with food, relieved him with drink, and soothed him with stories. 7.4 Soon there was an effortless inclination for chatting and joking and there was clever banter, soon sparkling wit, when he drew from his innermost heart a torturous sigh, and repeatedly struck his forehead savagely with his right hand. 7.5 ‘Wretched man that I am,’ he began, ‘because when I was pursuing the pleasure of quite a famous gladiatorial spectacle, I fell into these dire straights. 7.6 For, as you know very well, I had gone to Macedonia for business, and after working there attentively, in the tenth month I returned home much wealthier; shortly before I reached Larissa, about to attend a spectacle in passing, in some pathless valley full of crevasses I was beset by some gigantic robbers, deprived of all I had, and finally escaped. 7.7 Given that I was shaken to the utmost I stopped with a certain innkeeper called Meroe, an old woman, but still quite sexy, and told her the reasons for my long travels, my anxiety to return home, and my miserable plundering. 7.8 She began to treat me more than kindly, and laid before me a gratis dinner, gratefully received, and, and soon, excited by lust, me myself on her bed. 7.9 And I immediately became miserable, as soon as I had given in to her, as from that one single act of sex I contracted an aging and pestilential wife; 7.10 and even those garments that the good robbers had conceded to me to cover myself with I handed over to her, even the meagre wages which I earned when I was still vigorous, working as a sack- carrier, until my good wife and evil Fortune reduced me to that shape which you saw a little while ago.’
72 Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 8.1 ‘Pol quidem tu dignus’, inquam, ‘es extrema sustinere, si quid est tamen novissimo extremius, qui voluptatem Veneriam et scortum scorteum lari et liberis praetulisti.’ 8.2 At ille, digitum a pollice proximum ori suo admovens et in stuporem attonitus, ‘Tace, tace’ inquit; et circumspiciens tutamenta sermonis, ‘Parce’, inquit, ‘in feminam divinam, ne quam tibi lingua intemperante noxam contrahas.’ 8J ‘Ain tandem?’ inquam, ‘Potens illa et regina caupona quid mulieris est?’ 8.4 ‘Saga’, inquit’, et divini potens caelum deponere, terram suspendere, fontes durare, montes diluere, manes sublimare, deos infimare, sidera exstinguere, Tartarum ipsum inluminare.’ 8.5 ‘Oro te,’ inquam, ‘aulaeum tragicum dimoveto et siparium scaenicum complicato et cedo verbis communibus.’ 8.6 ‘Vis’, inquit, ‘unum vel alterum, immo plurima eius audire facta? Nam ut se ament efflictim non modo incolae, verum etiam Indi vel Aethiopes utrique vel ipsi Anticthones, folia sunt artis et nugae merae. Sed quod in conspectu plurium perpetravit, audi. 9.1 Amatorem suum, quod in aliam temerasset, unico verbo mutavit in feram castorem, 92 quod ea bestia captivitati metuens ab insequentibus se praecisione genitalium liberat, ut illi quoque simile [quod venerem habuit in aliam] proveniret. 93 Cauponem quoque vicinum atque ob id aemulum deformavit in ranam, et nunc senex ille dolio innatans vini sui adventores pristinos in faece submissus officiosis roncis raucus appellat. 9.4 Alium de foro, quod adversus eam locutus esset, in arietem deformavit, et nunc aries ille causas agit. 9.5 Eadem amatoris sui uxorem, quod in eam dicacule probrum dixerat, iam in sarcina praegnationis, obsepto utero et repigrato fetu perpetua praegnatione damnavit; 9.6 et, ut cuncti numerant, iam octo annorum onere misella illa velut elephantum paritura distenditur. 8.6 conspectu A U: conspectum F 9.2 [quod venerem habuit in aliam] excluded by Leo as a gloss 9.3 dolio Helm: dolium F 9.5 obsepto Beroaldus: obseto F
Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 73 8.1 ‘By Pollux,’ 1 said, ‘you deserve to suffer the worst, if there is indeed anything worse than your most recent fate, since you preferred the pleasure of Venus and a hoary whore to your home and children.’ 8.2 But he moved the finger nearest to his thumb to his mouth and said, dumbstruck to a state of stupor, ‘Be quiet, be quiet’; and looking around for means to make our conversation safe, he said ‘Say nothing against that divine woman, so that you do not contract some harm against you with that unguarded tongue of yours.’ S3 ‘You don’t say so?’ I said. ‘That powerful woman and inn-keeping queen - what kind of woman is she?’ 8.4 ‘A witch’, he said’, ‘and with power of the divine, to pull down heaven and to hang up the earth, to solidify fountains and to wear away mountains, to raise ghosts and to bring down gods, to switch out stars and light up Tartarus itself* 8.5 Oh please,’ I said, ‘do remove that tragic curtain and fold up that comic backdrop, and give it to me in ordinary language.’ 8.6 ‘Do you want to hear about’, he said, ‘one or two, or rather many of her deeds? For making men fall in love with her madly - not only the locals, but also Indians and Aethiopians (both kinds), and even Antipodeans, are idle matters of her art and mere trifles. But hear what she carried out in plain sight of several people. 9.1 Her lover, because he had dared to make advances to another woman, she turned with a single word into a wild animal, a beaver, 9.2 because that beast, when it fears captivity, frees itself from its pursuers by biting off its testicles, so that a similar thing should befall him [because he had lusted after another woman]. 9.3 A neighbouring innkeeper, too, and therefore her rival, she transformed into a frog, and now that old man swims around in a vat of his own wine, and submerged in its dregs addresses his previous customers raucously with officious croaking. 9.4 Another man from the forum she transformed into a ram because he had spoken against her, and now he conducts his cases as a ram. 9.5 The wife of a lover of hers, because the woman had uttered some witty insult against her, and who was already big with advanced pregnancy, she condemned to everlasting pregnancy by sealing her womb and holding back the baby inside; 9.6 and, as everyone reckons, that poor woman has been swollen up by the weight of eight years already, just as if she were about to give birth to an elephant.
74 Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 10.1 Quae cum subinde ac multi nocerentur, publicitus indignatio percrebruit statutumque, ut in eam die altera severissime saxorum iaculationibus vindicaretur. 10.2 Quod consilium virtutibus cantionum antevortit et, ut illa Medea unius dieculae a Creone impetratis indutiis totam eius domum filiamque cum ipso sene flammis coronalibus deusserat, 103 sic haec devotionibus sepulchralibus in scrobem procuratis, ut mihi temulenta narravit proxime, cunctos in suis sibi domibus tacita numinum violentia clausit, ut toto biduo non claustra perfringi, non fores evelli, non denique parietes ipsi quiverint perforari, 10.4 quoad mutua hortatione consone clamitarent quam sanctissime deierantes sese neque ei manus admolituros et, si quis aliud cogitarit, salutare laturos subsidium. 10.5 Et sic illa propitiata totam civitatem absolvit. At vero coetus illius auctorem nocte intempesta cum tota domo, id est parietibus et ipso solo et omni fundamento, ut erat clausa, ad centesimum lapidem in aliam civitatem, summo vertice montis exasperati sitam et ob id ad aquas sterilem, transtulit. 10.6 Et quoniam densa inhabitantium aedificia locum novo hospiti non dabant, ante portam proiecta domo discessit.9 11.1 ‘Mira’, inquam, ‘nec minus saeva, mi Socrates, memoras. 11.2 Denique mihi quoque non parvam incussisti sollicitudinem, immo vero formidinem, iniecto non scrupulo sed lancea, ne quo numinis ministerio similiter usa sermones istos nostros anus illa cognoscat. 113 Itaque maturius quieti nos reponamus et, somno levata lassitudine, noctis antelucio aufugiamus istinc quam pote longissime.' 11.4 Haec adhuc me suadente, insolita vinolentia ac diuturna fatigatione pertentatus bonus Socrates iam sopitus stertebat altius. 11.5 Ego vero adducta fore pessulisque firmatis grabattulo etiam pone cardines supposito et probe adgesto super eum me recipio. 11.6 Ac primum prae metu aliquantisper vigilo, dein circa tertiam ferme vigiliam paululum coniveo. 11.7 Commodum quieveram, et repente impulsu maiore quam ut latrones crederes ianuae reserantur, immo vero fractis et evolsis funditus cardinibus prosternuntur. 11.8 Grabattulus, alioquin breviculus et uno pede mutilus ac putris, impetus tanti violentia prosternitur, me quoque evolutum atque excussum humi recidens in inversum cooperit ac tegit. 11.5 Cardinem or cardines most codices and early editions: cardine F
Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 75 10.1 As these things happened again and again and many were harmed, indignation became widespread in public, and it was decided that on the next day she should be punished most severely by stoning. 10.2 That plan she forestalled with the strength of her incantations, and, just as that famous Medea, after she had begged for a truce of one small day from Creon, burned down his whole house and his daughter together with the old man himself with the flames from her circlet, 103 in the same way this woman carried out necromantic spells to form a ditch (as she herself told me recently when she was drunk) and shut up everyone in their very own houses with the silent force of supernatural powers, so that for two whole days no bars could be broken, no doors tom out, and not even the walls themselves be breached, 10.4 until encouraging each other they cried out in unison and swore most solemnly that they themselves would not lay hands on her, or, if anyone else intended otherwise, they would bring help and rescue her. 103 And she, propitiated in this way, set the whole town free. But the man who was responsible for that assembly she transported in the dead of night, together with his whole house, that is, with walls and the floor itself and the entire foundation, locked up as it was, away to the one hundredth milestone into another town, which was situated on the highest top of a rugged mountain and because of that without water. 10.6 And since the close-built houses of its inhabitants did not offer enough space for their new guest, she threw down the house in front of the city gate and left.’ 11.1 ‘Strange,’ I said, ‘and indeed quite dire things do you recount, my friend Socrates. 11.2 In short, you struck me, too, with no little anxiety, or rather fear, since you have not thrown a mere pebble but a lance of fear at me, that that old woman would use some help from divine powers in the same way and get to know of our conversation here. 113 Therefore let us go to rest as quickly as possible and, once our exhaustion has been lifted by sleep, let us flee from here before first daylight, and as far away as possible.’ 11.4 While I was still advising him like that, good old Socrates, worn out by unaccustomed wine-drinking and unending tiredness, was already fast asleep and snoring loudly. 11.5 But I shut the door and fastened the bolts, and even placed my cot behind the pivots and pushed it tightly against the door, and placed myself on top of it. 11.6 At first, for fear, I stayed awake for a little while, then about the third watch or so I closed my eyes a little. 11.7 I had just fallen asleep when suddenly with an attack heavier than you would have thought robbers capable the door was unbolted, or rather knocked to the floor, its hinges broken and thoroughly ripped out; 11.8 My cot, rather short anyway, missing one foot and rotten, was knocked to the floor by the violence of such a great attack, and as I, too, was rolled out of it and thrown to the ground, it fell back upside down, covered and hid me.
76 Apuleins: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 12.1 Tunc ego sensi naturalitus quosdam affectus in contrarium provenire. Nam ut lacrimae saepicule de gaudio prodeunt, ita et in illo nimio pavore risum nequivi continere, de Aristomene testudo factus. 12.2 Ac dum infimum deiectus obliquo aspectu, quid rei sit, grabattuli sollertia munitus, opperior, video mulieres duas altioris aetatis. 123 Lucernam lucidam gerebat una, spongiam et nudum gladium altera. Hoc habitu Socratem bene quietum circumstetere. 12.4 Infit illa cum gladio, 4 Hic est, soror Panthia, carus Endymion, hic Catamitus meus, qui diebus ac noctibus inlusit aetatulam meam, 12.5 hic qui meis amoribus subterhabitis non solum me diffamat probris, verum etiam fugam instruit. 12.6 At ego scilicet Ulixi astu deserta vice Calypsonis aeternam solitudinem flebo.’ Et porrecta dextera meque Panthiae suae demonstrato, 12.7 ‘At hic bonus’, inquit, ‘consiliator Aristomenes, qui fugae huius auctor fuit et nunc morti proximus iam humi prostratus grabattulo subcubans iacet et haec omnia conspicit, impune se laturum meas contumelias putat. 12.8 Faxo eum sero, immo statim, immo vero iam nunc, ut et praecedentis dicacitatis et instantis curiositatis paeniteat.’ 13.1 Haec ego ut accepi, sudore frigido miser perfluo, tremore viscera quatior, ut grabattulus etiam succussu meo inquietus super dorsum meum palpitando saltaret. 13.2 At bona Panthia ‘Quin igitur,’ inquit, ‘soror, hunc primum bacchatim discerpimus vel membris eius destinatis virilia desecamus?’ 133 Ad haec Meroe - sic enim reapse nomen eius tunc fabulis Socratis convenire sentiebam - ‘Immo’, ait, ‘supersit hic saltem, qui miselli huius corpus parvo contumulet humo.’ 13.4 Et capite Socratis in alterum dimoto latus per iugulum sinistrum capulo tenus gladium totum ei demergit 13.5 et sanguinis eruptionem utriculo admoto excipit diligenter, ut nulla stilla compareret usquam. Haec ego meis oculis aspexi. 13.6 Nam etiam, ne quid demutaret, credo, a victimae religione, immissa dextera per vulnus illud ad viscera penitus cor miseri contubernalis mei Meroe bona scrutata protulit, cum ille impetu teli praesecata gula vocem, immo stridorem incertum per vulnus effunderet et spiritum rebulliret. 13.7 Quod vulnus, qua maxime patebat, spongia offulciens Panthia ‘Heus tu’, inquit, ‘spongia, cave in mari nata per fluvium transeas.’ 13.8 His editis ambae una remoto grabattulo varicus super faciem meam residentes vesicam exonerant, quoad me urinae spurcissimae madore perluerent. 12.2 infimum F: in fimum A: in infimum or in fimum v 12.5 subterhabitis φα: subterhabi**tis F (with ta apparently erased) 12.7 se laturum Vulcanius: relaturum F: se relaturum de Buxis and a later hand in φ 13.1 sucussu meo Helm: succussus sum eo F 13.7 qua - patebat de Buxis and a later hand in φ: quam - patebat F 13.7 spongia de Buxis: spongiam F 13.8 ambae una Rohde: ab*una F: abeuna φ
Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 11 12.1 Then I realised that certain emotions naturally display themselves through their opposites. For as tears quite often come from happiness, thus even in that excessive fear I could not contain my laughter, as I had been made a tortoise out of Aristomenes. 12.2 And when thrown right down to the ground I was watching out for what was happening with the comer of my eyes, protected by my clever cot, I saw two women of rather advanced age. 123 One of them carried a lighted lamp, the other a sponge and an unsheathed sword. So equipped they stood around Socrates who was fast asleep. 12.4 The one with the sword began to speak: ‘This one, sister Panthia, is the dear Endymion, this one my Catamite, who for days and nights made fun of my tender age, 12.5 this is the one who poured disdain on my love and not only maligned me with slanders, but also arranged his escape. 12.6 But I, deserted, to be sure, through the cunning of an Odysseus, will weep, Calypso-like, for my eternal loneliness.’ And after stretching out her right hand and pointing me out to her friend Panthia, 12.7 she said ‘And this good counsellor Aristomenes, who was the author of that escape and now is stretched out prostrate on the floor, very close to death, lying underneath the cot and observing all of this, thinks that he will get away unpunished for these insults against me. 12.81 will make sure that he later - no, soon - no, right now - feels sorry for his past wit and present curiosity.’ 13.1 As soon as I heard that, wretch that I was, I broke into a cold sweat, my insides were shaking and shuddering, so that even the cot, unsettled by my trembling, was dancing in pulsating motion over my back. 13.2 But the good Panthia said: ‘Why don’t we, sister, pluck this one apart first like Bacchants, or bind his limbs and cut off his manhood?’ 13.3 To this Meroe - for so I realised then that her name in fact fitted Socrates’ stories - answered: ‘No, let this one at least survive, so that he may bury the body of that miserable wretch with a little earth.' 13.4 And she turned Socrates’ head to the other side, and sank the whole of the sword up to the hilt into him through the left side of his throat, 13.5 and caught the burst of his blood carefully in a little leather bag she had moved there, so that not a single drop was anywhere to be found. This I saw with my very own eyes. 13.6 Also, in order not to deviate, I believe, from the ritual of the sacrifice, the good Meroe even inserted her right hand through that wound all the way to his insides, searched around, and pulled out my poor comrade’s heart, when he poured out, since his throat had been cut open by the impact of the weapon, a sound, or rather an inarticulate rasp, through the wound, and bubbled out his life-breath. 13.7 Panthia stanched the wound where it was gaping widest with the sponge, and said: ‘Hey you, sponge, bom in the sea, make sure you travel there through a stream.’ 13.8 Having said that they both together removed my cot, squatted with legs apart over my face, and discharged their bladders, until they had soaked me through with the wetness of their filthy urine.
78 Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 14.1 Commodum limen evaserant, et fores ad pristinum statum integrae resurgunt: cardines ad foramina residunt, ad postes repagula redeunt, ad claustra pessuli recurrunt. 14.2 At ego, ut eram etiam nunc humi proiectus, inanimis, nudus et frigidus et lotio perlutus, quasi recens utero matris editus, immo vero semimortuus, verum etiam ipse mihi supervivens et postumus, vel certe destinatae iam cruci candidatus, 143 ‘Quid’, inquam, ‘me fiet, ubi iste iugulatus mane paruerit? Cui videbor veri similia dicere perferens vera? 14.4 “Proclamares saltem suppetiatum, si resistere vir tantus mulieri nequibas. Sub oculis tuis homo iugulatur, et siles? 14.5 Cur autem te simile latrocinium non peremit? Cur saeva crudelitas vel propter indicium sceleris arbitro pepercit? Ergo, quoniam evasisti mortem, nunc illo redi.”’ 14.6 Haec identidem mecum replicabam, et nox ibat in diem. Optimum itaque factu visum est anteluculo fiirtim evadere et viam licet trepido vestigio capessere. 14.7 Sumo sarcinulam meam, subdita clavi pessulos reduco; at illae probae et fideles ianuae, quae sua sponte reseratae nocte fuerant, vix tandem et aegerrime tunc clavis suae crebra immissione patefiunt. 15.1 Et ‘Heus tu,ubi es?’ inquam. ‘Valvas stabuli absolve, antelucio volo ire.’ Ianitor pone stabuli ostium humi cubitans etiam nunc semisomnus, 15.2 ‘Quid? Tu’, inquit, ‘ignoras latronibus infestari vias, qui hoc noctis iter incipis? Nam etsi tu alicuius facinoris tibi conscius scilicet mori cupis, nos cucurbitae caput non habemus, ut pro te moriamur.’ 153 ‘Non longe’, inquam, ‘lux abest. Et praeterea quid viatori de summa pauperie latrones auferre possunt? An ignoras, inepte, nudum nec a decem palaestritis despoliari posse?’ 15.4 Ad haec ille marcidus et semisopitus in alterum latus revolutus, ‘Unde autem’, inquit, ‘scio an convectore illo tuo, cum quo sero devorteras, iugulato fugae mandes praesidium?’ 15.5 Illud horae memini me terra dehiscente ima Tartara inque his canem Cerberum prorsus esurientem mei prospexisse. 15.6 Ac recordabar profecto bonam Meroen non misericordia iugulo meo pepercisse, sed saevitia cruci me reservasse. 14.1 ad postes repagula Oudendorp: postes ad repagula F 14.2 lutio F, corr. φ 14.2 perlutus Colvius: perlitus F 14.3 perferens F: proferens φ
Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 79 14.1 Just when they had passed the threshold, the doors rose back up again undamaged to their previous state: the pivots settled back into the bolt-holes, the bars returned back to the posts, the bolts ran back into the locks. 14.2 But as I was even now stretched out on the ground, lifeless, naked, cold and soaked in piss, as if just recently delivered from my mother’s womb, or rather half-dead, indeed rather my own survivor and posthumous child, or at least a candidate for the fated cross, I said: 143 ‘What will become of me when it is revealed in the morning that he had his throat cut? To whom will I seem to be saying things resembling the truth, though I am conveying the truth? 14.4 “You could at least have called out for help, if you, such a big man, were incapable of standing up to a woman? A human being is butchered before your own eyes, and you are silent? 14.5 And why, moreover, did the same band of robbers not slay you? Why did their savage cruelty spare an eyewitness, especially since you could indict them for their crime? Consequently, because you evaded death, return to it now.’” 14.6 I kept turning this over and over again in my mind, and night began to turn into day. It appeared to me the best thing to do was to escape furtively just before daybreak and to take to the road, although with fearful steps. 14.7 I grabbed my little sack, and after inserting the key I pulled back the locks; but these excellent and faithful doors, which had been unbolted of their own free will at night, opened with difficulty only and very reluctantly then with repeated insertions of their very own key. 15.1 Then I said: ‘Hey you, where are you? Open the tavern gates! I want to leave before daybreak! ’ The doorkeeper was lying on the floor behind the tavern door and even now still half asleep. He said 15.2 ‘What? Don’t you know that the roads are infested with robbers, and you are starting a journey at this time of night? For even if you have some kind of crime on your conscience and, to be sure, wish to die, I am not such a pumpkin-headed fool that I would die for you.’ 15.3 ‘Daylight is not far off,’ I said, ‘besides, what can robbers take away from a traveller who is in complete poverty? Or don’t you know, you idiot, that a naked man cannot be stripped, not even by ten wrestlers?’ 15.4 On that comment he rolled onto his other side, still worn out and half asleep, and said: ‘And after all, how do I know if you didn’t slit the throat of that fellow traveller of yours, with whom you stopped here so late, and are not taking your refuge in flight?’ 15.51 remember that at that moment the earth gaped wide open and I saw the depths of Tartarus and in it the dog Cerberus hungering ravenously for me. 15.6 But I recalled that good Meroe had indeed spared my throat not out of mercy, but out of cruelty had reserved me for the cross.
80 Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 16.1 In cubiculum itaque reversus de genere tumultuario mortis mecum deliberabam. 16.2 Sed cum nullum alium telum mortiferum Fortuna quam solum mihi grabattulum subministraret, ‘Iam iam, grabattule’, inquam, ‘animo meo carissime, qui mecum tot aerumnas exanclasti conscius et arbiter quae nocte gesta sunt, 16.3 quem solum in meo reatu testem innocentiae citare possum, tu mihi ad inferos festinanti sumministra telum salutare.’ 16.4 Et cum dicto restim, qua erat intextus, adgredior expedire ac tigillo, quod fenestrae subditum altrinsecus prominebat, iniecta atque obdita parte funiculi et altera firmiter in nodum coacta, ascenso grabattulo ad exitium sublimatus et immisso capite laqueum induo. 16.5 Sed dum pede altero fulcimentum, quo sustinebar, repello, ut ponderis deductu restis ad ingluviem adstricta spiritus officia discluderet, 16.6 repente putris alioquin et vetus funis dirumpitur, atque ego de alto recidens Socraten - nam iuxta me iacebat - superruo cumque eo in terram devolvor. 17.1 Et ecce in ipso momento ianitor introrumpit exerte clamitans: ‘Ubi es tu, qui alta nocte immodice festinabas et nunc stertis involutus?’ 17.2 Ad haec nescio an casu nostro an illius absono clamore experrectus Socrates exsurgit prior et ‘Non’, inquit, ‘inmerito stabularios hos omnes hospites detestantur. 173 Nam iste curiosus dum inportune irrumpit - credo studio rapiendi aliquid - clamore vasto marcidum alioquin me altissimo somno excussit.’ 17.4 Emergo laetus atque alacer insperato gaudio perfusus et: ‘Ecce, ianitor fidelissime, comes [et pater meus] et frater meus, quem nocte ebrius occisum a me calumniabaris.’ Et cum dicto Socratem deosculabar amplexus. 17.5 At ille, odore alioquin spurcissimi humoris percussus quo me Lamiae illae infecerant, vehementer aspernatur. 17.6 ‘Apage te,’ inquit, ‘fetorem extremae latrinae;’ et causas coepit huius odoris comiter inquirere. 17.7 At ego miser, adficto ex tempore absurdo ioco, in alium sermonem intentionem eius denuo derivo, et iniecta dextra, 17.8 ‘Quin imus’, inquam, ‘et itineris matutini gratiam capimus?’ Sumo sarcinulam et, pretio mansionis stabulario persoluto, capessimus viam. 16.4 immisso Vulcanius: misso F 16.5 officia de Buxis and a second hand in φ: officio F: <officinam ab> officio Robertson: ostia Jacobson 17.2 ne-inmerito F, corr. Rossbach to non-immerito: nec-immerito a second hand in A 17.4 comes et pater meus et frater meus F: et pater meus excluded by Salmasius
Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 81 16.1 Therefore I returned to my bedroom and began to deliberate with myself about a sudden kind of death. 16.2 But since Fortuna did not supply me with any other death-bringing tool than the cot alone, I said: ‘Well now, my cot, most dear to my heart, who have suffered together with me so many trials and tribulations as my accomplice and spectator of what happened in the night, 16.3 and whom alone I can summon as a witness for my innocence now that I am accused, supply the saving weapon to me, since I am heading for the Underworld.’ 16.4 And with these words I proceeded to disentangle the rope with which the cot was woven together, threw one part of the rope over a small beam which projected from underneath the window towards the other side and fastened it, and after I had forced the other part of the rope tightly into a knot, I climbed onto the cot, raised myself up for death, and placed my head into the noose. 16.5 But as soon as I pushed back with one foot the prop on which I was supported, so that by the pull of my weight the rope should tighten around my throat and cut off the function of my breath, 16.6 suddenly the rope, rotten anyway and old, broke, and I fell back down from the height and collapsed on top of Socrates - for he was lying next to me - and together with him was rolled down onto the ground. 17.1 And look, at precisely that moment the doorkeeper burst in, shouting at the top of his voice: ‘Where are you, who were in such an excessive huny in the middle of the night and now are snoring, all wrapped up?’ 17.2 At this, and I do not know whether he was roused because of our fall or because of that man’s dissonant screeching, Socrates got up first and said: ‘It’s not without reason that all guests despise these tavern-keepers. 173 For instance that curious fellow, when he rudely burst in -1 believe with the intention of nicking something shook me with his mighty shouting out of a very deep sleep, although I was really quite worn out.’ 17.4 I emerged happy, swiftly, and drenched with unexpected joy, and said: ‘Look, my most trusty doorkeeper, at my friend [and my father and] and my brother, whom you falsely accused me of having murdered last night when you were drunk.’ And with these words I embraced Socrates and tried to kiss him. 17.5 But he, stunned by the stench of that filthy liquid with which those Lamiae had stained me, shoved me away violently. 17.6 ‘Get ofT, he said, ‘you stink of the bottom of a latrine;’ and he began to inquire good-humouredly into the reasons for this stench. 17.7 ‘But miserable as I was, I improvised some absurd joke and diverted his intention towards a different subject of conversation again, took his right hand 17.8 and said, ‘Why don’t we go, and enjoy the charms of early morning travel?’ I picked up my little satchel, and once I had paid the charge for our lodgings to the tavern-keeper, we took to the road.
82 Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 18.1 Aliquantum processeramus, et iam iubaris exortu cuncta conlustrantur. Et ego curiose sedulo<que> arbitrabar iugulum comitis, qua parte gladium delapsum videram, 18.2 et mecum ‘Vesane,’ aio, ‘qui poculis et vino sepultus extrema somniasti. 18.3 Ecce Socrates integer, sanus, incolumis. Ubi vulnus, spongia? Ubi postremum cicatrix tam alta, tam recens?’ 18.4 Et ad illum ‘Non’, inquam, ‘immerito medici fidi cibo et crapula distentos saeva et gravia somniare autumant. 18.5 Mihi denique, quod poculis vesperi minus temperavi, nox acerba diras et truces imagines obtulit, ut adhuc me credam cruore humano aspersum atque impiatum.’ 18.6 Ad haec ille subridens ‘At tu’, inquit, ‘non sanguine, sed lotio perfusus es. 18.7 Verum tamen et ipse per somnium iugulari visus sum mihi. Nam et iugulum istum dolui et cor ipsum mihi avelli putavi; et nunc etiam spiritu deficior et genua quatior et gradu titubo et aliquid cibatus refovendo spiritu desidero.’ 18.8 ‘En’, inquam, ‘paratum tibi adest ientaculum.’ Et cum dicto manticam meam umero exuo, caseum cum pane propere ei porrigo, et ‘Iuxta platanum istam residamus’ aio. 19.1 Quo facto et ipse aliquid indidem sumo, eumque avide essitantem aspiciens, aliquanto intentiore macie atque pallore buxeo deficientem video. 19.2 Sic denique eum vitalis color turbaverat, ut mihi prae metu, nocturnas etiam Furias illas imaginanti, 193 frustulum panis, quod primum sumpseram, quamvis admodum modicum, mediis faucibus inhaereret ac neque deorsum demeare neque sursum remeare posset. 19.4 Nam et brevitas ipsa commeantium metum mihi cumulabat. 19.5 Quis enim de duobus comitum alterum sine alterius noxa peremptum crederet? 19.6 Verum ille, ut satis detruncaverat cibum, sitire inpatienter coeperat. 19.7 Nam et optimi casei bonam partem avide devoraverat, et haud ita longe radices platani lenis fluvius in speciem placidae paludis ignavus ibat, argento vel vitro aemulus in colorem. 19.8 ‘En’, inquam, ‘explere latice fontis lacteo’. Adsurgit et, oppertus paululum planiorem ripae marginem, complicitus in genua adpronat se avidus adfectans poculum. 19.9 Necdum satis extremis labiis summum aquae rorem attigerat, et iugulo eius vulnus dehiscit in profundum patorem et illa spongia de eo repente devolvitur eamque parvus admodum comitatur eruor. 19.10 Denique corpus exanimatum in flumen paene cernuat, nisi ego altero eius pede retento vix et aegre 18.1 curiose sedulo<que> Zimmerman, previously doubtfully suggested by Helm, together with curiose <et> sedulo: curiose sedulo F 18.3 ubi vulnus spongia ubi F (question marks after vulnus and the second ubi added by a second hand) 18.4 non inquam ed. Basil. 1533: ne inquam F 19.1 intentiorem acie F, words correctly divided by Philomathes 19.4 brevitas F: crebritas Wowerius 19.8 adsurgit all early editions: adsurgit ille F (but ille expunged by the first hand)
Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 83 18.1 We had already travelled some way, when everything was illuminated by the rising of the radiant light of day. And I for my part kept staring carefully and attentively at my friend’s throat, at the place where I had seen the sword plunged in, 18.2 and said to myself: ‘You are mad, you were buried in your cups of wine and and had a really bad nightmare! 18.3 Look, Socrates is untouched, healthy and unhurt. Where is the wound, the sponge? Where, finally, is that scar so deep, so fresh?’ 18.4 And to him I said: ‘It’s not without reason that trustworthy doctors maintain that people swollen with food and booze have vicious and oppressive dreams. 18.5 Take me, for instance: because last night I did not restrain myself sufficiently from the cups, a rough night brought me dire and wild visions, so that I still believe I have been spattered and polluted with human blood.’ 18.6 He smirked at this and said: ‘But you are not doused in blood, but in piss. But I myself had a dream, too, that I had my throat cut. 18.7 For I felt pain in my throat here and believed that my heart itself was tom out of me; even now I am out of breath, my knees are shaking, I stagger when I walk, and I crave some food to warm my spirits again.’ 18.8 ‘Look,’ 1 said, ‘breakfast is prepared and ready for you.’And with these words I lifted my satchel off my shoulder, and quickly offered him some cheese with bread, and said: ‘Let’s sit down next to that plane tree.’ 19.1 That is what we did, and I, too, took some food from the same satchel and as I watched him stuffing himself greedily, I saw him wasting away with a rather more intense gauntness and paleness of boxwood. 19.2 In the end, so much had his lifeless colour changed his appearance, and out of fear was I recalling the image of those night-time Furies, 19.3 that that first bite of bread I had taken, although it was rather small, was sticking in the middle of my throat and could neither move down nor come back up again. 19.4 For even the very lack of fellow travellers made my fear mount. 19.5 For who would ever believe that one of two companions could have been killed without the other one having committed the crime? 19.6 But as soon as he had wolfed down enough food, he began to feel unbearably thirsty. 19.7 For he had greedily devoured a good part of the best cheese, and not very far from the roots of the plane tree a gentle stream was gliding lazily, like a peaceful pool in appearance, rivalling silver or glass in its colour. 19.8 ‘Here,* I said, ‘Fill yourself up with the milky liquid of this spring.’ He got up, and after waiting a little to find a more level edge of the river bank, he got down on his knees, leaned forwards and greedily reached for a draught. 19.9 He had as yet hardly brushed the water’s moist surface with the tip of his lips, when the wound in his throat gaped open into a deep hole and that sponge rolled out of him suddenly, and only a little blood accompanied it. 19.10 In the end his lifeless corpse would nearly have fallen head over heels into the river, if I had not held him back by one of his feet and with difficulty and
84 Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 ad ripam superiorem adtraxi, 19.11 ubi defletum pro tempore comitem misellum arenosa humo in amnis vicinia sempiterna contexi. 19.12 Ipse trepidus et eximie metuens mihi per diversas et avias solitudines auftigi, et quasi conscius mihi caedis humanae relicta patria et lare ultroneum exilium amplexus, nunc Aetoliam novo contracto matrimonio colo.’ 20.1 Haec Aristomenes. At ille comes eius, qui statim initio obstinata incredulitate sermonem eius respuebat, 20.2 ‘Nihil’, inquit, ‘hac fabula fabulosius, nihil isto mendacio absurdius.’ Et ad me conversus, ‘Tu autem’, inquit, ‘vir ut habitus et habitudo demonstrat ornatus, accedis huic fabulae?’ 203 ‘Ego vero’, inquam, ‘nihil impossibile arbitror, sed utcumque fata decreverint, ita cuncta mortalibus provenire. 20.4 Nam et mihi et tibi et cunctis hominibus multa usu venire mira et paene infecta, quae tamen ignaro relata fidem perdant. 20.5 Sed ego huic et credo hercules et gratas gratias memini, quod lepidae fabulae festivitate nos avocavit, asperam denique ac prolixam viam sine labore ac taedio evasi. 20.6 Quod beneficium etiam illum vectorem meum credo laetari, sine fatigatione sui me usque ad istam civitatis portam non dorso illius sed meis auribus pervecto.’ 21.1 Is finis nobis et sermonis et itineris communis fuit. Nam comites utrique ad villulam proximam laevorsum abierunt. 21.2 Ego vero quod primum ingressui stabulum conspicatus sum accessi, et de quadam anu caupona ilico percontor. ‘Estne’, inquam, ‘Hypata haec civitas?’Adnuit. 21.3 ‘Nostine Milonem quendam e primoribus?’ Adrisit et: ‘Vere’, inquit, ‘primus istic perhibetur Milo, qui extra pomerium et urbem totam colit.’ 21.4 ‘Remoto’, inquam, ‘ioco, parens optima, dic oro et cuiatis sit et quibus deversetur aedibus?’ ‘Videsne’, inquit, ‘extremas fenestras, quae foris urbem prospiciunt, et altrinsecus fores proximum respicientes angiportum? 21.5 Inibi iste Milo deversatur, ampliter nummatus et longe opulentus, verum extremae avaritiae et sordis infimae infamis homo. 21.6 Foenus denique copiosum sub arrabone auri et argenti crebriter exercens, exiguo lare inclusus et aerugini semper intentus. Cum uxorem etiam calamitatis suae comitem habeat, 21.7 neque praeter unicam pascit ancillulam et habitu mendicantis semper incedit.’ 21.8 Ad haec ego risum subicio. ‘Benigne’, inquam, ‘et prospicue Demeas meus in me consuluit, qui peregrinaturum tali viro conciliavit, in cuius hospitio nec fumi nec nidoris nebulam vererer.’ 21.1 comites utrique a: uterque comites F: comites uterque φ 21.2 ingressus F, corr. Elmenhorstius: ingressu de Buxis 21.6 uxorem ... comitem a second hand in F (changed from uxore ... comite)
Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 85 painfully pulled him up onto the higher riverbank; 19.11 there I wept over my poor friend for a while and covered him with sandy soil forever in the neighbourhood of the stream. 19.12 As for me, shaking and exceedingly terrified for myself, I fled through distant and trackless wastelands, and as if I were a man guilty of the murder of a human being, I left behind my own country and home, and embracing voluntary exile, I now live in Aetolia, having taken a new wife.’ 20.1 This was Aristomenes’ story. But that companion of his, who from the very beginning had rejected his story with stubborn incredulity, said: 20.2 ‘Nothing is taller than this tale, nothing more absurd than that lie.’ Then he turned to me and said: ‘Now you are a gentleman, as your dress and your bearing demonstrate - do you go along with that tale?’ 20.3 ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I believe nothing to be impossible, but whatever the Fates decree, that in its entirety happens to mortal men. 20.4 For you and I and all men experience many wonderful and almost impossible things, which however lose their credibility when told to some ignoramus. 20.5 But I for my part believe this man, by Hercules, and also keep in mind my gracious thanks for him, because he distracted us with the charm of such a delightful story, and I came to the end of a harsh and lengthy road without toil or tedium. 20.6 This gift also delights this good mount of mine, I believe, since without causing him any tiredness I was carried right up to this city gate here, not on his back but on my ears.’ 21.1 This was the end of our conversation and our shared journey, because both my companions went off to the left towards the nearest little farmhouse. 21.2 I on the other hand went to the first inn I spotted on approach, and there and then inquired from some old woman innkeeper: ‘Is this city’, I said, ‘Hypata?’ She nodded. 21.3 ‘Do you know someone called Milo, one of your first citizens?’ She smiled, and said: ‘In truth, Milo is regarded as the first man here, because he lives outside the city boundaries and the whole town.’ 21.4 ‘Joking aside,’ I said, ‘most excellent mother, could you please tell me where he is from and in which house he dwells?* ‘Do you see,’ she said, ‘those windows at the very end, which look out towards the town, and on the other side the door which looks back out onto the nearest alleyway ? 21.5 Your Milo dwells in there, amply stuffed with money and exceedingly rich, but a man with a bad reputation for extreme avarice and the most contemptible stinginess. 21.6 He constantly lends out capital on interest with gold and silver as security, is locked up in a tiny house and always anxious about his brass. Although he has his wife as a companion of his calamity, 21.7 he does not keep any servants except one little slave-girl, and always walks around in the dress of a beggar.' 21.8 I broke into laughter when I heard this and said: ‘My friend Demeas advised me kindly and thoughtfully when he recommended me to such a man as I was about to set out on my journeys, in whose hospitable house I would need to fear neither a cloud of smoke nor kitchen smells.’
86 Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 22.1 Et cum dicto modico secus progressus ostium accedo et ianuam firmiter oppessulatam pulsare vocaliter incipio. 22.2 Tandem adulescentula quaedam procedens, ‘Heus tu’, inquit, ‘qui tam fortiter fores verberasti, sub qua specie mutuari cupis? An tu solus ignoras praeter aurum argentumque nullum nos pignus admittere?’ 223 ‘Meliora’, inquam, ‘ominare, et potius responde, an intra aedes erum tuum offenderim.’ ‘Plane’, inquit, ‘sed quae causa quaestionis huius?’ 22.4 ‘Litteras ei a Corinthio Demea scriptas ad eum reddo.’ ‘Dum annuntio’, inquit, ‘hic ibidem me opperimino.’ 22.5 Et cum dicto rursum foribus oppessulatis intro facessit. Modico deinde regressa patefactis aedibus, ‘Rogat te’, inquit. 22.6 Intuli me eumque accumbentem exiguo admodum grabattulo et commodum cenare incipientem invenio. 22.7 Assidebat pedes uxor et mensa vacua posita, cuius monstratu: ‘En’, inquit, ‘hospitium.’ 22.8 ‘Bene’, ego, et ilico ei litteras Demeae trado. Quibus properiter lectis, ‘Amo’, inquit, ‘meum Demean, qui mihi tantum conciliavit hospitem.’ 23.1 Et cum dicto iubet uxorem decedere, utque in eius locum adsidam iubet, meque etiam nunc verecundia cunctantem adrepta lacinia detrahens, 23.2 ‘Adside’, inquit, ‘istic. Nam prae metu latronum nulla sessibula ac ne sufficientem supellectilem parare nobis licet’ Feci. 233 Et sic ‘Ego te’, inquit, ‘etiam de ista corporis speciosa habitudine deque hac virginali prorsus verecundia generosa stirpe proditum et recte conicerem, 23.4 sed et meus Demeas eadem litteris pronuntiat. Ergo brevitatem gurgustioli nostri ne spernas peto. 23.5 Erit tibi adiacens en ecce illud cubiculum honestum receptaculum. Fac libenter deverseris in nostro. 23.6 Nam et maiorem domum dignatione tua feceris, et tibi specimen gloriosum adrogaris, si contentus lare parvulo Thesei illius cognominis patris tui virtutes aemulaveris, qui non est aspernatus Hecales anus hospitium tenue.’ 23.7 Et vocata ancillula, ‘Photis’, inquit, ‘sarcinulas hospitis susceptas cum fide conde in illud cubiculum, 23.8 ac simul ex promptuario oleum unctui et lintea tersui et cetera hoc eidem usui profers ociter et hospitem meum produc ad proximas balneas; satis arduo itinere atque prolixo fatigatus est.’ 22.5 facessit Philomathes: capessum F: capessit U: capessivit Helm 22.6 accumbentem Robertson: accumbantem F: accubantem φα 23.5 en ecce Liltjohann: et ecce F U
Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book l 87 22.1 And with these words I walked a little further and approached his entrance, and began to knock on his firmly bolted door, shouting loudly. 22.2 Finally a young girl came out and said: ‘Hey you, who have been beating our door so energetically, in what form do you desire to borrow?’ Or are you the only one who does not know that we do not allow any collateral apart from gold and silver?’ 223 ‘Give me a better omen than that,’ I said, ‘and rather tell me if I might find your master inside the house.’ Of course,’ she said, ‘but what is the reason for this interrogation?’ 22.4 ‘I bring a letter for him, written by Demeas of Corinth.’ ‘Wait for me just here,’ she said,’ while I announce your presence.’ 22.5 And with these words she bolted the door again and made off inside. A little while later she returned, opened the door and said: ‘He asks you in.’ 22.6 I took myself inside and found him reclining on a rather short cot, and only just starting his dinner. 22.7 His wife was sitting at his feet and an empty table was placed before them. He pointed at it and said ‘Look, this is our hospitality.’ 22.8 ‘Very well,’ I said, and there and then passed Demeas’ letter to him. After he had read it quickly, he said: ‘1 am grateful to my friend Demeas, who has recommended such a great guest to me.’ 23.1 And with these words he ordered his wife to get up, and ordered me to sit down in her place, and although I was now hesitating because of my sense of modesty he grasped the fringe of my garment and pulled me down. 233 ‘Sit down here’, he said, ‘since out of fear of robbers we cannot provide any seats or even any sufficient furnishings.’ I sat down. 23.3 And then he said: ‘I would guess already from that handsome appearance of your body and that utterly maiden-like modesty of yours that you are the offspring of a noble family, and rightly so, 23.4 but my friend Demeas also announces this in his letter. Therefore I beg you not to spurn the smallness of our little hovel. 23.5 Look, that adjacent bedroom over there will be a worthy little shelter for you. Be sure to enjoy your stay with us. 23.6 For you will make our house bigger with your reputation, and also lay claim for yourself to be a shining example, if you are content with a rather small home and emulate the virtues of Theseus, who shares his name with your father, and who did not spurn the humble hospitality of the old woman Hecale.’ 23.7 He called his little maid and said: ‘Photis, pick up our guest’s satchels and store them faithfully in that bedroom, 23.8 and at the same time quickly bring here from the store-room oil for rubbing and towels for wiping and everything else necessary for the same purpose. And lead my guest to the nearest baths; he is quite tired from his difficult and lengthy journey.’
88 Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 24.1 His ego auditis, mores atque parsimoniam ratiocinans Milonis volensque me artius ei conciliare, ‘Nihil’, inquam, ‘rerum istarum, quae itineris ubique nos comitantur, indigemus. Sed et balneas facile percontabimur. 24.2 Plane quod est mihi summe praecipuum, equo, qui me strenue pervexit, faenum atque hordeum acceptis istis nummulis tu, Photis, emito.’ 243 His actis et rebus meis in illo cubiculo conditis pergens ipse ad balneas, ut prius aliquid nobis cibatui prospicerem, forum cuppedinis peto, 24.4 inque eo piscatum opiparem expositum video et percontato pretio, quod centum nummis indicaret, aspernatus viginti denariis praestinavi. 24.5 Inde me commodum egredientem continatur Pythias condiscipulus apud Athenas Atticas meus, qui me post aliquam multum temporis amanter agnitum invadit, amplexusque ac comiter deosculatus, 24.6 ‘Mi Luci’, ait, ‘sat pol diu est quod intervisimus te, at hercules exinde cum a Clytio magistro digressi sumus. 24.7 Quae autem tibi causa peregrinationis huius?’ ‘Crastino die scies’, inquam. ‘Sed quid istud? Voti gaudeo. Nam et lixas et virgas et habitum prorsus magistratui congruentem in te video.’ 24.8 ‘Annonam curamus’, ait, ‘et aedilem gerimus, et si quid obsonare cupis, utique commodabimus.’ Abnuebam, quippe qui iam cenae affatim piscatum prospexeramus. 24.9 Sed enim Pythias, visa sportula succussisque in aspectum planiorem piscibus, ‘At has quisquilias quanti parasti?’ ‘Vix’, inquam, ‘piscatori extorsimus accipere viginti denarium.’ 25.1 Quo audito, statim adrepta dextera postliminio me in forum cuppedinis reducens, ‘Et a quo’, inquit, ‘istorum nugamenta haec comparasti?’ 25.2 Demonstro seniculum - in angulo sedebat - quem confestim pro aedilitatis imperio voce asperrima increpans, 25.3 ‘Iam iam’, inquit, ‘nec amicis quidem nostris vel omnino ullis hospitibus parcitis, quod tam magnis pretiis pisces frivolos indicatis et florem Thessalicae regionis ad instar solitudinis et scopuli edulium caritate deducitis? 25.4 Sed non impune. Iam enim faxo scias, quem ad modum sub meo magisterio mali debent coerceri.’ - et profusa in medium sportula iubet officialem suum insuper pisces inscendere ac pedibus suis totos obterere. 25.5 Qua contentus morum severitudine meus Pythias ac mihi, ut abirem, suadens, ‘Sufficit mihi, o Luci’, inquit, ‘seniculi tanta haec contumelia.’ 25.6 His actis consternatus ac prorsus obstupidus, ad balneas me refero, prudentis condiscipuli valido consilio et nummis simul privatus et cena, lautusque ad hospitium Milonis ac dehinc cubiculum me reporto. 24.3 cuppedinis Emout: cupidinis F: cupedinis a second hand in φ 24.5 aliquantum multum F, corr. Colvius: aliquantulum multum A U 24.6 a Clytio Seyffert: adstio F: ab Adytio Winkler 25.4 mali debent coerceri a second hand in F: mali debeo coherceri F: mali debeant coherceri U
Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 89 24.1 After I had heard this, reflecting upon his character and frugality and wanting to recommend myself more closely to Milo, I said: ‘I don’t need any of these things, as they accompany me on my way everywhere. But I can easily make inquiries about the baths, too. 24.2 In fact, this is of the highest importance to me: you, Photis, please take these few coins here and buy hay and barley for my horse, who carried me swiftly.’ 24.3 After this had been done and my things been deposited in that bedroom, I myself headed for the baths. But first, so that I could look out for something for myself to eat, I made for the food market 24.4 and there saw some sumptuous fish displayed for sale, and when I asked the price, which he set at one hundred coins, I rejected this and bought it for twenty denarii. 24.5 Just when I was emerging from there Pythias bumped into me, a fellow student of mine in Athens in Attica, who had recognised me after all this time with affection, rushed up upon me, embraced and kissed me fondly. 24.6 ‘My dear Lucius’, he said, ‘it has been quite a long time, by Pollux, since we visited you, and by Hercules, ever since we departed from our teacher Clytius. 24.7 But what is your reason for this journey?’ ‘You will know tomorrow,’ I said, ‘but what is this? I am happy your prayer has been granted For I see you have attendants and rods of office and the outfit that utterly fits with the role of a magistrate.’ 24.8 ‘I am administering food supplies and pricing’, he said, ‘and serve as aedile, and if you wish to purchase anything I will assist you by all means.’ I tried to decline, especially because I had already sought out sufficient fish for my dinner. 24.9 But of course as Pythias had seen my basket and shaken up the fish so that he could see them more clearly, he asked: ‘And for how much have you bought that rubbish?’ ‘I could hardly’, I said, ‘wrest them away from the fishmonger for twenty denarii.’ 25.1 When he heard that, he immediately grabbed my right hand and led me back into the food market. He said: ‘And from which one of those men have you bought this junk?’ 25.2 I pointed out a little old man to him - he was sitting in a comer - and he immediately barked at him with a rather harsh voice in accordance with the official powers of an aedile and said: 25.3 ‘Well now, don’t you even spare my friends or any of our guests at all, since you mark up worthless fish with such high prices and bring down the flower of the Thessalian region to the equivalent of a craggy wilderness by the costliness of your groceries? 25.4 But not with impunity. For I will now make sure you know how evil people must be summarily punished while I am magistrate. ’ He poured out my basket in our midst and ordered his official to step on the fish and crush all of them with his feet. 25.5 Satisfied with the severity of his character my friend Pythias urged me to leave and said: ‘This rough treatment of that little old man is sufficient for me, Lucius.' 25.6 I was taken aback and completely dumbfounded by his actions, and retreated to the baths. Because of the useful advice of my wise fellow student I was deprived both of my money and my dinner, and after I had bathed I took myself back to Milo’s house and thereafter to my bedroom.
90 Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 26.1 Et ecce Photis ancilla, ‘Rogat te\ inquit, ‘hospes.’ At ego iam inde Milonis abstinentiae cognitor excusavi comiter, quod viae vexationem non cibo, sed somno censerem diluendam. 26.2 Isto accepto pergit ipse et iniecta dextera clementer me trahere adoritur. Ac dum cunctor, dum moleste renitor, ‘Non prius’, inquit, ‘discedam, quam me sequaris.’ 263 Et dictum iure iurando secutus iam obstinationi suae me ingratis oboedientem perducit ad illum suum grabattulum et residenti ‘Quam salve agit’, inquit, ‘Demeas noster? Quid uxor? Quid liberi? Quid vernaculi?’ Narro singula. 26.4 Percontatur accuratius causas etiam peregrinationis meae. 26.5 Quas ubi probe protuli, iam et de patria nostra et eius primoribus ac denique de ipso praeside scrupulosissime explorans, 26.6 ubi me post itineris tam saevi vexationem sensit fabularum quoque serie fatigatum in verba media somnolentum desinere ac necquicquam, defectum iam, incerta verborum salebra balbuttire, tandem patitur cubitum concederem. 26.7 Evasi aliquando rancidi senis loquax et famelicum convivium, somno, non cibo gravatus, cenatus solis fabulis, et in cubiculum reversus optatae me quieti reddidi.
Apuleius: Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass Book 1 91 26.1 And look, the maid Photis said: Ύοιιτ host asks you in.’ But because by now I was an expert in Milo’s asceticism, I offered the courteous excuse that I believed the discomfort of my journey should be alleviated not with food but with sleep. 26.2 When he heard this, he came himself, put his right hand in mine and began to drag me along gently. But while I hesitated, and while I resisted modestly, he said: ‘I will not leave you until you follow me.’ 26.3 He followed his words with an oath, and led me, as I was now obeying his stubbornness against my will, to that cot of his, and when I sat down he asked: 4Is our friend Demeas in good health? How is his wife? How are the children? How are the slaves?’ I told him each single thing. 26.4 He asked in more detail for the reasons for my journey, too. 26.5 And when I had run through these properly, he then enquired about my country and its leading citizens, and finally about its governor in most minute detail, 26.6 until he realised that after the discomfort of such a cruel journey I was also tired out by the string of stories and sleepily stopped talking in the middle of my words, and in my weakness was vainly prattling vague fragments of words, and finally he let me go to sleep. 26.7 At last I escaped that rancid old man’s chatty and starving dinner party, and weighed down with sleep not food, having dined on stories alone, I returned to my bedroom and surrendered myself to my desired sleep.
COMMENTARY i For the prologue see introd. §7. 1.1 Now, I ...for you: An unusual beginning for a literary work, an invitation to see the novel as a conversation between speaker and reader, and a dialogue between written and oral. Occasionally, Greek prose texts (Xenophon Smp. and Lac.) begin with the Greek equivalent to at ‘but’, αλλά, giving it a colloquial tone, where the text is seen as starting in mid-conversation, or as a continuation of a previous work. Cf. also 1.4.6 ‘I alone ... will believe you’ (ego tibi solus in a dialogue) and again 4.27.8 (the introduction of the inset tale Cupid and Psyche with sed ego te\ where it is both a prologue and a conversation between two people, as here. The identity of the prologue-speaker never becomes completely clear (see introd. §7). At ego occurs five times in Met. 1 to change the reader’s focus from previous events to something new. let me string together various stories: The theme is picked up again at the end of the book, 1.26.6 ‘the string of stories’, providing a suitable frame for a book which consists mainly of oral tales told by several narrators and subnarrators. It also introduces the novel as a whole, which often has tales within tales. On the structure of shorter tales inserted into longer ones see introd. §4.1. Keulen 2007, 65 and Zimmerman 2008, 140f. argue that this indicates a symposium setting, i.e. one which combines serious discussion with entertainment. In FI. 9.27ff. Apuleius uses ‘various stories’ (historias) to describe his own varied style and ability to write in various genres and several languages. At first glance, conseram may be subjunctive or future tense, but permulceam (‘stroke’, cf. below) reveals it to be the former (as jussive), followed by another subjunctive (spreveris). in this Milesian tale: Milesian Tales are an important concept for Apuleius’ definition of the purposes and genre of his novel (see introd. §2.3). Apuleius here implies that, like Milesian Tales, his novel will include several inset tales and have erotic and risqu£ content. The phrase offers another parallel to the beginning of Cupid and Psyche in Met. 4.32.6, where the narrator refers to ‘the author of a Milesian tale’. stroke your willing ears: This captatio benevolentiae stresses the oral aspect of the prologue; cf. the similar address to the reader/listener in 9.14.1 ‘to your ears’ (ad aures vestras). Lucius will stroke his horse’s ears in 1.2.3. As the prologue- speaker strokes the reader’s ears metaphorically, he metamorphoses the reader into a donkey, in a phrase echoing Plautus’ prologue to As. 4 ‘Make the whole crowd
Commentary 93 all ears’ (face ... omnem auritum poplum). By contrast, Quintilian disapproves of audiences who seek the pleasures of having their ears ‘stroked’ by oratory (11.3.60), although Apuleius disagrees in PI. 1.1 (183), where it is a positive characteristic of oratory (auditus ... mulcentem; see also Socr. 17 (158) oratione permulceat for positive connotations). As the turn of phrase is taken up again during the story of Aristomenes (Met. 1.7.3), this implies some parallels between the soothing effect of stories on Socrates’ mind and the prologue’s effect on the reader. The leitmotif of ‘charming/soothing’ the audience’s mind is repeated throughout the novel, e.g. 2.25.1 Thelyphron tries to soothe his mind by singing to himself; 3.10.5 Milo tries to soothe (permulcere) Lucius after his ordeal during the festival for the God of Laughter, Risus; 5.15.2 disembodied voices soothe the minds of their listeners (remulcebant)\ 5.25.4 it is used of Pan soothing Psyche’s anxieties after Cupid has left her; 10.32.3 flutes soothe the hearts of the audience at a spectacle; and 11.21.3 Lucius’ impatience is soothed by a priest. On the prologue’s oral aspects see introd. §7. charming whisper: For a second-time reader of Met. 1, an intense low whisper has connotations of magical incantations (cf. on 1.3.1), for one who has encountered Lucius’ initiation into the mystery cult of Isis in Met. 11 it might even imply the whispering of an initiate of the mysteries. Lepidus, ‘charming, witty’, is a positively charged literary term; Apuleius uses it to judge stories appreciatively in Met. 1.2.6 and 1.20.5 (HSussler 2005, 48f.), see below on 1.2.6; in Theocritus 1.1, in a similarly programmatic position, gentle whisperings of pan pipes soothe the ears of its audience (Gibson 2001, 71 f.), a motif also picked up by Apuleius in FI. 17. if only you do not scorn to look upon: Captatio benevolentiae, but also displaying a certain anxiety, given the negative image of Egypt in the Roman psyche as effeminate and extravagant (introd. §11). It has been read as an exhortation to read the novel with a serious philosophical interpretation (Drews 2012), but see introd. §10. Egyptian papyrus: The reference to Egypt has three different meanings, which correspond to a threefold development of the reader’s awareness: (i) A first-time reader would take the references to Egypt to be merely ornamental and only see the connection to Egypt as a source of writing materials. Papyrus was mainly produced in Egypt. In Plato, Phaedrus 274c ff, Egypt is also the place where writing originates from, especially if linked with papyrus rolls as here; but unlike the critical Socrates in Plato, Apuleius invites his readers to enjoy themselves when reading stories (Trapp 2001, 40fi); by inverting Socrates’ approach, Apuleius would set his novel up as anti-Platonic as early as the prologue, which would have consequences for the portrait of his Socrates as a pleasure-seeker with a farcical Platonic ending, (ii) After readers have read Met. 1, they might believe the reference to be a subtle hint at magic and the Thessalian witches (see below on 1.3.1) as leitmotifs of the novel, as magic is especially associated with Egypt: this would get confirmation from the witchcraft in the rest of the book. Egypt is in Apuleius’ time believed to be the ‘true
94 Commentary> home of magic’ (Dickie 2001, 203), cf. Apol. 38.7, where Apuleius lists ‘magical words in Egyptian ... fashion’, which makes the ‘charming whisper’ of Met. 1.1.1 a possible magical incantation as well as a literary statement, anticipating not only the delight of reading the novel but, eventually, its Isiac ending and various Egyptian events (e.g. Zatchlas’ necromancy Met. 2.28). For the reader encountering the witch Meroe in Thessaly, with her name derived from an Ethiopian capital, during the whole reading of Met. 1 the association of Egypt will be with magic rather than with Isis, (iii) Only after a reading of the whole novel will the full implication be apparent of any references to Egypt, i.e. a reference to Isis as the saviour of Lucius, because of Isis’ affinity with Egypt. Met. 11.5.3 Isis says that only the Egyptians call her by her real name, Isis. Consequently, the reader’s understanding of the text undergoes constant changes. sharpness of a reed from the Nile: Apuleius’ pen stands metaphorically for his output in FI. 9.27 (see Hunink 2001, 115 ad loc.). Argutia is a literary term for wit, cf. Apol. 95.5 and Met. 10.17.2, where argutiae is used of Lucius’ entertaining skills as a donkey who eats human food; the word is possibly indicating Lucius’ self-delusion about the cleverness of this kind of action. In Met. 11.9.6 reeds are Egyptian flutes in a procession of Isis, linking prologue and ending. 1.2 forms and fortunes of men turned into different appearances and remade back into their former selves: Actual reversed metamorphosis features heavily in Apuleius, e.g. Met. 3.25 (Photis announces she can turn Lucius from a donkey back into a human), and 11.12 (Lucius’ eventual reversed metamorphosis). The plural articulates not only physical transformations (e.g. 1.9: men into frogs, beavers and rams) but also metaphorical ones (e.g. Aristomenes into a tortoise: 1.12.1), or transformations of fortune (e.g. from good to* bad or bad to good, and back again, e.g. Socrates’ apparent bad fortune when ‘killed’ by the witches, his good fortune when he is found seemingly alive, then (1.17.2) turning into bad fortune when he dies; his change from pallor (1.6.1) to normal complexion and back to deadly pallor again (1.19.1). Met. 3.9, the discovery of Lucius’ wineskin victims during the Risus festival changes his fortune completely; Charite’s miraculous saving by her fianc6 (Met. 7.12) turns into murder and suicide (Met. 8.Iff.). On metamorphosis as a theme of the novel see introd. §4.3. Van Thiel 1971,1,44 points out that this list of metamorphoses agrees so closely with Photios’ summary of the lost Greek original that the phrase may be an adaptation of its lost prologue, whereas everything else in Met. 1.1 is probably Apuleian. and that you may marvel ... I begin: Wonderment and admiration are key features in Met. 1, e.g. 1.4 (Lucius’ reaction to the sword swallowing), or 1.17 (Aristomenes’ to Socrates miraculous ‘resurrection’), but it is also a term in paradoxographical literature and other novels, cf. e.g. Antonius Diogenes’ Apista (Incredible Things beyond Thule). Until now the stress has been on the interweaving of various stories of metamorphic quality, and the delight of the reader. Exordior draws attention to the formalities
Commentary 95 of the prologue; it signifies the exordium, i.e. the introduction of a literary work (cf. Socr. 3 (124) exordiar). Aristomenes echoes this when he introduces himself and his tale, also in mid-dialogue (Met. 1.5.1 exordiar), cf. 5.16.5 (Psyche’s sisters weaving a web of lies to match the ‘warp / beginning of their discussion’ (exordio sermonis), with a weaving metaphor also present in exordior). The punctuation here (comma after mireris, making exordior the main verb and figuras fortunasque etc. its object), follows the suggestion of Harrison 1990b, 507T, and Harrison and Winterbottom 2001, 12. an intertwined knot: Metamorphosis and reverse metamorphosis are intertwined in Apuleius: similar phrases in PI. 1.7(194) and Mund. 5 (297) describe the balance of the elements. The same phrase is used in Met. 3.18.2 (Pamphile twists strands of hair as part of a magic ritual leading to metamorphosis). Who is this person?: The speaker does not answer his own question, and changes suddenly from the first to the third person (ego to ille), but then again to the first (1.1.3); his identity is hotly debated (see introd. §7), especially as he asks a question he then never explicitly answers. The question may be a comic device. A prologue-speaker entering into a scripted dialogue with himself or the audience can be found in Roman comedies (May 2006, 110-15). Hear in a few words: This stresses the conversational aspect between speaker and reader. Paucis (sc. verbis) often introduces Plautine prologues, e.g. Aul. 1, Trin. 4f. or Terence Hau. 1, and is used elsewhere without verbis as here, e.g. Men. 779, Terence Hec. 510. Paucis here, as in Aid. 1., is deceptive; in both passages a large part of the prologue still follows. 1.3 Attic Hymettus, Ephyrean Isthmus and Spartan Taenarus: Three mountains metonymically describe three cities, and as such the whole of Greece, as the three mountain ranges identify the cities Athens, Corinth and Sparta in poetic language. This catalogue intends to define (and confuse) the origin of the speaker spatially. The first two cities form part of Lucius’ ancestry in the novel, but the latter does not. The list also stands metaphorically for Greek literature as the origin of Apuleius’ novel, as all three cities are especially prominent in Greek mythology and literature (Harrison 1990b, 511). Athens exemplifies the purest form of the Greek language (cf. on 1.1.4) and is Lucius’, Pythias’ (Met. 1.24), and also Apuleius’ own place of study (Apol. 72.3, FI. 18). Hymettos is a mountain in Attica famous for its honey (Horace Carm. 2.6.14, Pliny Nat. 11.32; Auberger 2010, 158), and metaphorically used for rhetorical sweetness to the extent of stereotyping it, Lucian Rh. Pr. 11. Milo indicates Lucius’ father is Theseus in Met. 1.23.6, named after a famous Athenian king who united Athens. ‘Ephyrean Isthmus’ is a unique turn of phrase describing Corinth, Lucius’ probable city of origin (introd. §9). Ephyre is an archaic name originally for a place near Argos (Homer II. 6.152), but later for Corinth (e.g. Pliny Nat. 4.11); the name was then revived by the archaists (Gellius 14.6.4 specifically mentions that it is the
96 Commentary old term for Corinth). The isthmus is the narrow strip of land near Corinth, about 6 km wide, which connects the Peloponnese to Greece’s mainland. Sparta in Laconia in the Peloponnese is the last of the three Greek cities the speaker claims descent from, but the only one which has no clear connection with Lucius. Taenarus is a promontory near Sparta at the southernmost tip of the Peleponnese, and a cave there is associated mainly with the descent of heroes into the Underworld, e.g. Vergil Λ. 6.119-23; it serves as Psyche’s gate to the Underworld in Met. 6.18-20. As Psyche is often seen as a mirror of Lucius, Taenarus may be foreshadowing her chthonic adventures which are eventually reflected in Lucius’ initiation in Met. 11.23, which includes a metaphoric descent into the underworld. Furthermore, it is one of the places in Greece where necromancy commonly took place (Ogden 2001, 34ff.), and thus may allude to the themes of necromancy and magic in the novel, especially for a second-time reader of Met. 1. rich regions forever preserved in books of even greater richness: The richness of the Greek lands is topped by the richness and fertility of their literary outputs, which will last forever: the common motif of perpetuation through poetry, e.g. Homer//. 6.359; Propertius 3.2.17; Lucan 9.980ff.; Ovidi4m. 2.17f.; Martial 6.64.6f.; etc. This kind of claim is however usually seen towards the end of the author’s work, not at the beginning (Horace Carm. 3.30). The literature produced in Greece is held to be even more successful. It is thus not only Lucius, but also the novel itself which is derived from Greece; its adaptation into Latin contributes to its own perpetuation. this is my ancient lineage: A temporal definition of the speaker follows: Lucius’ pride in his ‘ancient lineage’ will be replaced, after his initiation, in the last lines of the novel by his membership of the ‘most ancient college’ of the priests of Isis (vetustissimum, Met. 11.30.5). 1.4 1 acquired the Attic language: The speaker identifies himself as a native speaker of Greek, specifically Attic Greek, which points to Lucius as a speaker, as he appears to be from Corinth (introd. §9) and studied in Athens, cf. 1.24.5. Attic Greek, the preferred dialect of Greek-speaking elite culture in this period, is also the language in which the Greek original by Loukios of Patrai may have been written (Tilg 2007, 190). Like the novel, a Latin adaptation of a Greek book, the speaker turns from easily acquired Greek to laboriously learned Latin, a journey also enacted by Lucius, who in 11.26.1 moves to Rome and learns Latin to plead in Roman lawcourts. in the first training of my childhood: Apuleius creates a striking phrase: he puns with stipendia merere, ‘to serve in the army’, but here the object of merui (lit. ‘learned’) is linguam, and thus it comes to mean ‘to win, gain’ (Nicolini 2011, 169). in the Latin city: i.e. Rome; for urbs Latia cf. Manilius 4.661, Statius Silv. 1.4.95 etc. a stranger to the studies of the Quirites: For a second-time reader who knows
Commentary 97 Met. 11, where Lucius finally migrates to Rome in the service of Isis, the Egyptian and Roman references of the prologue are significant, especially as the same juxtaposition reoccurs in 11.26.3, where Lucius is a stranger to the temple of Isis but a native of her religion, a common contrast (e.g. Livy 21.30; Tacitus Hist. 2.2). The speaker is proud that as a stranger to both place and language he has acquired the latter to a great extent. Quirites is the official name of the inhabitants of Rome, although in Met. it is also used for inhabitants of cities in Thessaly: Met. 2.24.3, 2.27.4 (of Larissa); 3.3.2; 3.5.6 (of Hypata); 8.29.5. Quiritium is to be constructed with studiorum, but placed poignantly next to indigenam. I took up and cultivated: In FI. 17.4 Apuleius describes himself in similar terms: ‘from the beginning of my life I have always been cultivating respectable studies’ (bonas artes... colui). with burdensome labour: The pleonasm highlights the huge amount of effort that has gone into cultivating the Latin language. Lucius describes his efforts in the Roman lawcourts in similar language {Met. 11.30), and Apuleius himself has learned Greek with similarly studious labour (Apol. 38.5). Aerumnabilis is rare (only in Lucretius 6.1231 before Apuleius, who also uses it Met. 8.9.3 and 9.15.6), and in Met. 1 aerumna and aerumnabilis are used for the sufferings of Socrates and Aristomenes, and then in the rest of Met. for Lucius’ travails. with no teacher guiding me: The speaker is a proud autodidact who does not need a teacher to learn Latin; cf. e.g. also the claims that skills were acquired although no teachers were present in Ovid Ars 2.479 (for the art of love), Tristia 1.6.23; Martial Spectacula 17.3 (for an elephant’s worship of Caesar); compare Met. 10.17.5, where Lucius the donkey is reluctant to show off his knowledge of human eating habits ‘without any human teacher’. 1.5 And look, I start by asking your forgiveness: This polite formula asks for forgiveness, e.g. in a religious context (cf. Met. 11.23.1, where the prayer is part of the purification before Lucius’ initiation), but as a captatio benevolentiae Apuleius uses it often at the beginning of a speech: it requests his audience’s indulgence in FI. 1.2. In Socr. False Preface fr. 1 (104f.), an improvised speech erroneously attached in the manuscript tradition to Apuleius’ treatise on Socrates’ daimonion, Apuleius announces that his audience is more forgiving than when they listen to a worked-out speech. Accordingly, the formula here evokes (feigned) orality (introd. §7). It is however not clear what precisely the speaker is asking forgiveness for his use of language is artistic and skilful, even though the mixture of archaisms, colloquialisms and idiosyncrasies is somewhat daring and unusual (see introd. §12 for examples of Apuleius’ language). inexperienced speaker: ‘Unskilled’, as the speaker is not native to Latin: another captatio benevolentiae and falsely modest apology by the autodidact for his unusual language. In Met. 6.29.3 rudis is used again as a literary term, to describe a 'simple story’ (rudis ... historia), in a comically self-referential context about Lucius’ story becoming a novel. Apuleius’ early readers and some scholars {e.g. Winkler 1985,
98 Commentary 196-99; Graverini 2006, 7ff.; 2007, 12; see introd. §13) see a pun with rudere (‘to bray’, of an ass, used of Lucius himself braying in Met. 7.13.3 and 8.29.6), as an anticipation of the novel’s content and the speaker’s recall of his metamorphosis into a donkey. They point to the similarities with Callimachus’ prologue Aitia 1.30- 2, where Callimachus discusses the Aitia's genre and contrasts the braying of an ass with the fine chirping of the cicadas, which is the small and perfectly formed genre he will be pursuing. Apuleius’ prologue-speaker makes the opposite journey, from the intention of a refined literary work to the mere braying of his donkey. Again, the meaning of the prologue is fluid and yields more layers of meaning for a second¬ time reader. this exotic language of the forum: ‘Exotic’ here refers uniquely to the Latin language, which is ‘exotic’ for the originally Greek speaker (cf. Plautus’ ploy to call Latin ‘barbaric’ from the Greek perspective of his characters, e.g. As. 11). Forensis derives from forum {Met. 1.9.4 a lawyer is ‘from the forum’, de foro\ 10.33.1, forensia pecora are lit. ‘you cattle from the forum’; in 11.28.6 and 30.2 forensis describes Lucius’ activities as a lawyer in the forum). As Lucius’ move to speak in the Roman forum in Met. 11 as a lawyer indicates, the forum is a rhetorical-judicious space. This specifies the prologue-speaker’s new language not only as Latin per se, but also as the technical terminology of forensic speech (Tilg 2007,170ff.); see also introd. §13 for historical interpretations. 1.6 this change of speech itself: A much discussed phrase; it indicates that in addition to the ‘forms and fortunes of men’ {Met. 1.1.2), his language and style themselves undergo a metamorphosis. Furthermore, it may apologise once again for the idiosyncrasies of a non-native speaker of Latin (Nicolai 1999), continue the topic of translation from Greek to Latin (Scobie 1975,75 adloc.), indicate a frequent change in style and tone (Harrauer and Romer 1985), or set itself deliberately against the ideal oratory of Quintilian, which distinguishes itself from plays with their frantic gestures and frequent ‘changes of tone’ {vocis mutationibus; 11.3.183). Apuleius’ novel will contain features from drama, a style that Quintilian specifically criticises. Tilg 2007, 175ff. shows that ‘change’ (immutatio) indicates rhetorical deviation from the stylistic norm of normal language, and together with Keulen 2007, 87f. ad loc. assumes this to be an excuse for Apuleius’ choice of the slightly subliterary Milesian genre and Apuleius’ stylistic innovations in the novel, e.g. archaisms and poeticisms. the style of horse-vaulting skill: Desultores are circus riders who jump quickly between two horses, comparable to modem equestrian vaulting. Given the pronounced setting of Met. 1 in Thessaly and Lucius’ stress on his horse’s Thessalian origin (1.2.2), it is interesting to note that the aphippodroma, a kind of competition of jumping off and onto horses, was specifically practised at Thessalian games, e.g. in Larissa (Gallis 1988), cf. below on Met. 1.7.5. The phrase was probably picked by Apuleius for its potential multivalent meanings and equestrian metaphor: in a story about a donkey, the allusion to a rider switching horses is rather apt. The phrase may indicate (again) the translation from Greek into Latin, something
Commentary 99 Apuleius discusses vnSocr. ‘False Preface’ b. 5(111-13; see on 1.1.5 for the nature qf the text), or describe the novel as jumping from one topic to another, i.e. it may be directed at content (thus Scobie 1975, 75 ad loc., comparing the title of Varro’s Menippean Satire Desultorius: Περί του γράφεχν). It may also indicate Lucius’ experiencing frequent and quickly changing reversals of fortune, or continue the discussion of style. These interpretations are not necessarily mutually exclusive: like a desultor riding several horses, Apuleius here can juggle several meanings at once (a point also made by HSussler 2005, 59-61). A stylus is a kind of pen to write on wax tablets, but Apuleius uses it figuratively for writing {Met. 6.29.3; 8.1.4; 10.8.2) or style {FI. 9.29). I have sought out: The transmitted accessimus is syntactically unusual, as accedere usually constructs with ad, not with accusative in this meaning of ‘to begin a task’. Harrison and Winterbottom 2001, 15, suggest tentatively printing the early conjectures accersimus or arcessimus (‘to seek out’); the former is accepted in Zimmerman 2012 and here. a Grecian story: Graecanicus in Varro L. 10.69-70 indicates originally Greek words used in Latin, but adapted and with Latinised endings. It can have an added connotation, possibly relevant here, too, of refinement and style (in FI. 15.8, Graecanicus describes a statue’s sophisticated style of clothing). It is noticeable that other novels share this concern for language and translation, e.g. the fragmentarily preserved Babyloniaka by Iamblichos (summarised by Photios, Bibl.y cod. 94) describes the Babylonian narrator learning Greek in order to present his Babylonian tale in that Greek novel (Winkler 1985, 265f.). Reader, be attentive: you will enjoy yourself!: This address recalls Plautine comedy prologues, see e.g. Poen. 126, Trin. 22 for greetings to the audience combined with requests to pay attention, or Plautus As. 13f., with a promise of pleasure if the audience is attentive (further examples: May 2006, 111). This is the last instance in the prologue of the various playflil interactions between the roles of the speaker of a prologue and the author of a written piece of literature on one side, and the book’s recipient on the other, though this dialogue is taken up again later in the novel. There the author addresses his readers in more flattering terms, as thorough, excellent and attentive {lector scrupulosus in Met. 9.30.1; lector optime in 10.2.4, or studiose lector in 11.23.5). Apuleius’ ideal reader will be rewarded for his permissible curiosity by the story’s delight, and eventually be prevented teasingly from dangerous curiosity in Met. 11, when Lucius playfully refiises to lay out the forbidden mysteries of Isis to the reader (11.23). The promise of pleasure is picked up again in other programmatic passages and key scenes: the last sentence of the novel and its second last word, gaudens, correspond to the last word of the prologue: the novel gives pleasure to its reader, the set of initiations make its protagonist happy and proud, too (see also Winkler 1985, 216). A similar outcome ends the inset tale of Cupid and Psyche, as Voluptas ‘pleasure’ is both Cupid and Psyche’s daughter and the reader’s entertainment and pleasure.
100 Commentary> 2 The protagonist introduces himself as the descendant of two important 2nd century philosophers: the Middle Platonist Plutarch and his nephew, the Stoic Sextus (see introd. §8). Lucius (as he will turn out to be named) is travelling to Thessaly on unspecified business through a landscape difficult to negotiate, allows his horse to rest and feed, and catches up with two unknown travelling companions (one of them later to be identified as Aristomenes), whose conversation about the fictionality of stories he overhears. 2.1 To Thessaly: The repetition of ‘to Thessaly' stresses the importance of the landscape where Lucius will stereotypically soon encounter witchcraft, but, against expectations, no food (introd. §6.2). Plato’s Socrates in Crito 53e decides not to flee from his execution in Athens to Thessaly, and will prove an anti-model to both Lucius and Apuleius’ Socrates whose story makes up much of Met. 1. the roots of my mother’s family: In a story full of female Thessalian witches Apuleius stresses the Thessalian connections of his hero’s mother rather than his paternal Athenian line. This is an apparent Apuleian addition to the original: it is not important in Onos 1, where Loukios’ business is explicitly called his father’s, although he very soon makes clear that his real business and intention is to find out about magic. As far as the plot is concerned, both the paternal business in Onos and the surprising stress on the maternal line here in Apuleius are red herrings, but may serve to characterise the protagonist: see introd. §9. descended from that famous Plutarch and then from the philosopher Sextus, his nephew: A rather pompous and superabundant way to refer to Lucius’ renowned literary ancestry and noble status (also referred to in Met. 3.11.1; 15.4). Met. 3.11 Lucius’ (and thus Plutarch’s) family is again called ‘famous’, a justified epithet for two of the leading philosophers of the time. Contrast Clytius ‘The Famous One’, the name of the other philosopher mentioned in Met. 1.24.6, who, unknown outside that passage, seems to be an Apuleian invention. On Plutarch see introd. §8. who give glory to us: Glory is often linked with Lucius’ aspirations: Met. 2.12.5 (‘my reputation (gloriam) will flourish’) and 11.27.9 (‘glory through his studies’), 11.30 etc.\ Lucius’ desire for a good reputation seems to derive here first from his family and then turns to making a name for himself through rhetoric in Met. 11. A slightly different translation is given by Van der Stockt (2012), 169f., who constructs illic with gloriam nobis faciunt, and interprets this phrase as ‘to be sure, there as well’, i.e. Plutarch is famous even in Thessaly. This is a problematic interpretation, as Lucius’ aunt Byrrhaena actually lives in Thessalian Hypata and is also descended from Plutarch; she thus indirectly substantiates Lucius* claim that Plutarch has Thessalian connections. on business: The nature of Lucius’ business remains obscure to the reader (Winkler 1985, 257). In Onos 4 Loukios’ real purpose is the exploration of magic, and any business he purports to pursue is merely a cover story: Loukios claims quite plainly that it was his desire to find a witch or something paradoxical, e.g. a human flying
Commentary 101 or turned into stone, i.e. a metamorphosis. Lucius is much more circumspect. This vagueness in defining Lucius’ business interests continues, see introd. §9. Calonghi 1915,8 reads Met. 2.1 (Lucius marvelling at the magical sights in Hypata) as indicating that exploring ‘miraculous and rare’ things is the actual business, but this does not explain Lucius’ vague answers to Pythias in Met. 1.24.7 (26.4f. Lucius’ reply to Milo is kept equally obscure to the reader) and why in Met. 2.1 he first has to recall that Hypata is located in Thessaly and a centre of witchcraft. Lucius in Met. 3.19, during his affair with Photis, seems to have all but forgotten his business. The unique phrase parallels him with Socrates (Met. 1.7.6), who also travelled because of some business venture and eventually never gets home, although Lucius briefly sees his family (Met. 11.18.2) and home (11.26.1) before emigrating to Rome. The rephrasing of Onos 1 ‘some kind of business deal of my father’s’ continues the playing-down of his father in favour of his mother in Metamorphoses. 2.2 After I had passed over steep mountains, slippery valleys, dewy pastures, and cloddy fields...: A rhetorical showpiece (four phrases with identical lengths in all elements) verbally echoing a rhetorical performance piece in FI. 21 on a traveller in a hurry still finding time to get off his horse for a chat with fellow travellers (Marangoni 2000, 47-49); this ostentatiously indicates it as a fictitious, rhetorical description rather than intended to be realistic or geographically accurate. Other scenes in Met. feature similar examples of landscape ecphrasis (i.e. a detailed and vivid description): in Met. 4.6 the narrator interrupts himself to offer his readers a depiction of the robbers’ cave because it is his duty as a rhetorician; a rhetorical showpiece of a dangerous and threatening landscape follows. In FI. 10.4 similar phrases are used to describe the powers of demons which are credited with creating the ‘steep peaks of mountains’ or the levels of the plains. The passage runs the gamut of Apuleius’ stylistic versatility from the high to the low, and moves from three phrases beginning successively with dactylic words which suggest ‘epic’ to prosaic diction describing an everyday event (De Biasi 2000, 201), which is reflected on the lexical level, too. Ardua with genitive is entirely poetic until Apuleius (Keulen 2007, 98), but glebosa is used as a technical term (apart from here only in Pliny Nat. 35.191 and Cassius Felix 39 p. 86), preparing for the transition to the prosaic element. I had ... passed: The singular seems to suggest that Lucius travels alone, but he later turns out to have slaves with him (2.15.5; 31.4; 3.8.7 and 27.4). The number of Lucius’ slaves inexplicably varies, see Avila Vasconcelos 2009,241. Still, throughout Met. 1, for a first-time reader, Lucius is apparently alone and without slaves, so the singular emersi found in F should be retained. Slaves ignored and not mentioned in the dialogue until they become useful are a feature of Roman comedy, e.g. Plautus Mil. 78. Emergo is usually not transitive, but Keulen 2007, 99 gives several examples, e.g. Manilius 1.116. Robertson 1965 and Zimmerman 2012 cite Valette’s <emensus> (‘having covered’, i.e. by travelling), Nicolini 2011, 55 argues that the consequent
102 Commentary paronomasia <emensus> emersi is typically Apuleian. Both in equo vehi and equo vehi for ‘horse riding’ are found, although Apuleius seems to prefer to omit in, Met. 8.5; Apol. 76. Hence I print equo with Keulen 2007 rather than in equo as e.g. Hanson 1989 or Zimmerman 2012. my pure white horse, a native of the area,: The white horse, which will become crucial in Met. 11.20 as a token of proof for the Isis priest’s speaking the truth to Lucius after a dream about his initiation, is actually Thessalian. They were one of the most famous breeds of horses in antiquity, used for hunting, racing and war, renowned for their nobility and size (Heliodorus 3.3.3; Petronius 89.58ff., Varro R. 2.7.6). In Met. 10.18.3 Thiasus’ refusal to ride his grand Thessalian horses in favour of his donkey Lucius is remarkable. The horse’s whiteness is stressed elsewhere: 7.2.1 it is casually described as candidus ‘gleaming white’, which is picked up in 11.20.1, where Candidus has become the horse’s name. Whiteness in Met. 11 becomes associated with Isis (cf. 11.7.5; 9.2; 15.4,20). It was common to name horses after their colour, e.g. Achilles’ horses were called Xanthos (‘reddish brown’) and Balios (‘dappled’) in Homer II. 19.400ff.; one of Thracian Diomedes’ horses was called Lampon (‘shining’), and white was a sought-after colour for horses. Peralbus, ‘pure white’, occurs first in Apuleius, e.g. Met. 5.28.2 (a seagull). Several symbolic meanings attach to the horse. It serves as a foil for Lucius: there is a link with Lucius himself who is a stranger in Thessaly (like the prologue-speaker in 1.1.4 a ‘foreigner’ in Rome) but eventually becomes a ‘native’ of Isis’ religion in Rome (11.26.3). Furthermore it will be fed twice in Met. 1, but Lucius will starve throughout the book. After his metamorphosis Lucius cuts a laughable figure as a donkey in the land of horses (O’Brien 2002,29), who is not recognised and not allowed to feed by this horse. Some see the horse as a reference to Plato’s Phaedrus 246a-b; 247b; 253b-255a (Drake 1968), where in Plato’s myth of the soul a carriage is pulled by divergent horses. This identification has rightly drawn much criticism as being too fanciful (e.g. Gwyn Griffiths 1978, 159ff, Tatum 1979, 34). who, too, was now quite weary: In 1.20.6 Lucius notes that his horse has not been tired out after all (sine fatigatione; the use of the same rare word equates the horse’s and Lucius’ tiredness), because Lucius, here more concerned for the horse than for himself, has walked. 2 J I leapt down onto my feet: After the horse-vaulting metaphor of 1.1.6, Lucius here quite surprisingly jumps off his horse, turning the metaphor into reality (see introd. §4.1). Symbolically, too, the novel descends from the lofty heights of higher genres like epic to lower forms of literature, as will be mirrored e.g. in Lucius’ and Milo’s inappropriate and comical uses of mythological, tragic or epic intertexts (cf. below on 1.23.6). carefully: Here, as in Met. 6.21.3, curiose means ‘carefully, attentively’ (OLD la), not ‘curiously’ (OLD 2), despite Lucius’ ensuing characterisation as a curious man (introd. §6.3).
Commentary 103 rubbed off the horse’s sweat with foliage: Lucius repeatedly takes good care of his horse; As F’s double accusative is awkward (although defended by e.g. Keulen 2007, 102 as the lectio difficilior), Zimmerman 2012 prints Becichemus’ attractive fronde (‘with a leaf’); horses sweat from their flanks, not from their foreheads. F’s error could be explained as a misunderstanding of the homonym frons (‘forehead/ leaf). Many other solutions have been proposed, e.g. Haupt’s sudoram frontem ([from the horse’s] ‘sweaty forehead’) or Helm’s sudorem fronte (‘sweat from [the horse’s] forehead’). stroked his ears: Recalls the phrase in the prologue Met. 1.1.1 ‘and stroke your willing ears’ and anticipates 1.7.3, where Aristomenes soothes Socrates through story-telling. Lucius strokes his horse’s ears and loosens his horse’s bridle to allow it to relax. This unexpected literal use of a metaphor from the prologue may be mischievous, as the first character to enjoy the stroking promised in the prologue is not the reader, but Lucius’ horse (James 1987, 29). until the... assistance for his belly might ease the discomfort of his weariness: It is unclear whether the horse is here allowed to graze or to defecate (thus Uria Varela 1997, 454f.). There are however two thematic reasons to take the phrase to mean grazing (no Latin parallels exist for the interpretation as defecation, cf. Keulen 2007, 103). First, horses usually do not wait for their rider to get off to relieve themselves, and secondly this continues the care Lucius takes for his horse’s food. Unlike Loukios in Onos 1, Lucius looks after his horse himself (although in 3.27.4 his servant has the task of looking after it). This underplaying of the slave’s presence also stresses Lucius’ loneliness on arrival in a foreign country more than the version in Onos. 2.4 with his head turned to his side and down, sought to make his breakfast: This continues the important topic of food in Met. 1. Adfectare is used for greedy eating and drinking: Met. 1.19.8 of Socrates drinking greedily, and 10.29.3 of Lucius as donkey himself eating grass. breakfast on the hoof: The ientaculum would be taken shortly after sunrise, e.g. in Met. 1.18 Socrates and Aristomenes will share their last breakfast. The actions of Met. I comprise one whole day, starting with breakfast in 1.2, the discussion of lunch in 1.4, and finish with Lucius’ hungry retirement to bed. Ientaculum is a rare word, e.g. Plautus Cur. 72f. and twice in Martial, apart from here only used for human food, which continues the assimilation of Lucius and his horse. In Met. 11.24.5 Lucius partakes in a ‘religious breakfast’, receiving religious as well as corporeal nourishment. pastures he was passing: Prata quae praeterit is most naturally seen as an explanatory apposition to the obscure and unusual ‘breakfast on the hoof’. The alliteration of the Latin enhances the playful pseudo-etymological sound effect (Nicolini 2011,41). two fellow-travellers: We will later learn that these two are Aristomenes and an unknown sceptical companion, who speaks first. In Onos 1, the two companions
104 Commentary Loukios encounters are from Hypata, whereas Aristomenes at least is from Aegium on the Peloponnese {Met. 1.5.3). This encounter of Lucius with his two unnamed companions raises further issues of fictionality and unreliability of the stories in Met., as it is not certain whether the story Aristomenes tells Lucius is the same as the one he had told his companion. Dowden 2006, 47f. compares the beginning of Plato’s Symposium, where a conversation is repeated because its first retelling was deemed inadequate, and as here the reader gets the second retelling. The setting, with a narrator, a believer and a sceptic, is repeated again in Met. 2.1 If., where Milo is the sceptic and Lucius again the believer when Pamphile predicts the weather by looking at her lamp, demonstrating there even more clearly than here, where the point is a story, Lucius’ fascination with witchcraft and his enthusiastic credulity. 2.5 I listened out for: For hearing as a leitmotif in Met. 1 cf. above on 1.1.1. When turned into a donkey, Lucius will take immense pleasure and consolation from overhearing other people’s stories with his long asinine ears (e.g. 9.15.6). Auscultare is frequent in Apuleius and comedy, and adds comic connotations to the setting, as in comedy it often introduces eavesdropping scenes, as it does here, cf. Plautus Am. 300, Bac. 404 (with the same construction), Poen. 822, etc. a loud cackle: A scornful cackle to express disbelief is a frequent reaction to stories in Met.: 2.31.1 (the listeners to Thelyphron’s tale), 6.9.1 (the angry Venus derides Psyche), 8.24.1 (the auctioneer’s audience laughs about Lucius). Stop it; stop these absurd and monstrous lies of yours: These words mark out the sceptical companion as someone in whose world there is no space for magic or the supernatural (Penwill 1990,7). The disbelief here also prepares the reader for the implausible and nightmarish events in the stories of Aristomenes and Lucius himself. The first inset tale of the novel is framed by a discussion of the truth of fiction here and 1.20.2, which repeats the same words. The unnamed first speaker questions the following tale’s veracity, but his doubts will eventually be proved wrong by what happens to Lucius: Lucius, too, will encounter witchcraft in his own story which echoes Aristomenes’ and Socrates’ experiences. His own credibility as a story-teller who himself retells Aristomenes’ tale is however never independently verified. The link between lies and fiction in the context of telling tales takes the discussion back to the issues of fictionality raised in the prologue and Met. 1.2 so far (cf. also introd. §8). The bickering between the two travellers serves as a motive for Aristomenes to tell Lucius his story. Given Aristomenes’ often repeated fear of the consequences of telling negative stories about witches which even implicate him in a crime, it is still surprising that he volunteers to tell his story to Lucius, a complete stranger. 2.6 1 am generally thirsty for novelty: Despite denying it here, his mere insistence on asking for the story is a good characterisation of Lucius as a curious man (introd. §6.3) in this programmatic passage. The metaphor of ‘thirst for knowledge’ is a common one (in Plutarch’s On Curiosity 518a the curious man has a thirst for novelty; more examples in Keulen 2007, 110), and the theme of curiosity is here linked with food and drink (Heath 1982, 59, Cooper 1980, 460).
Commentary 105 Curiosity and greed combine as important leitmotifs to illustrate Lucius’ character (see introd. §9). A similar phrase is used in PI. 2.16 (243), about the immoral man imbibing various pleasures, a passage which is also evoked in the description of the dancing boy, Met. 1.4.4 (Keulen 2003a, 128ff.), and which forms a good characterisation of Lucius. Lucius’ self-characterisation here makes him an apt victim for witchcraft and especially the Risus festival in Met. 3, as this festival for the God of Laughter ‘always flourishes with novelty’ (3.11.3; McCreight 1993, 50). After his transformation, Lucius himself will become a ‘novel spectacle’ that others wish to see, e.g. Thiasus at Met. 10.16.3, and 7.13.2 Charite reminisces on the ‘novel spectacle’ of a girl sitting triumphantly on a donkey. I am not inquisitive: According to Cicero Fin. 5.49 ‘to wish to know everything is a sign of curious people’ - Lucius obviously doth protest too much here, and characterises himself clearly as a curious man while denying that he is exactly that, revealing himself to be an unreliable narrator. the delightful charm of stories: Another leitmotif of Met., an entertaining story (as promised in the prologue Met. 1.1) full of delightful tales linking Lucius with the novels’ reader: ‘Delight’ is frequently a technical term in literary criticism (e.g. Catullus 1.1). It is again used of stories in 1.20.5, where it closes the frame narrative for Aristomenes’ story, which by association turns Aristomenes’ tale into a ‘delightful tale’. This is a frequent description for inset tales in Met., cf. 4.27.8 (tale of Cupid and Psyche), 9.4.4 (tale of the tub), 9.14.1 (‘a good story’; the Miller’s wife). These tales are ‘charming’ but carry additional meaning in the sense of reflecting on Lucius’ own experiences. ‘Charm’, iucunditas, too, indicates literary sophistication, especially in this combination with lepidus (cf. Apol. 94.6). 3 The sceptical speaker who does not believe Aristomenes’ story compares it to a list of eight cosmic adynata (impossible events, see introd. §8) which are equally unlikely to be true. Lucius interrupts, asks for its retelling and declares that an audience’s mere unfamiliarity with a story’s contents or the unlikeliness of its events does not necessarily preclude it from being true. 3.1 this lie of yours is just as true: The paradox cuts to the issue of reliability of fiction. some magic whispering: Introduction of the topic of magic by people on the road to Thessaly, a country associated with magic and witchcraft. It also picks up the prologue’s Met. 1.1.1 ‘charming whisper’ with its magical connotations (magical incantations are often described as a ‘murmur’: Ovid Met. 7.251; Apul. Met. 2.1.3; Apol. 47; Burriss 1936, 142f). It thus adds further nuance to the readers’ interpretation of the prologue by inviting them to read its metaphors literally (cf. on 1.2.3). First instance of the onomatopoetic word susurramen, a low, continuous sound, which occurs again only in Martianus Capella 7.726, an avid reader of Apuleius, and which was probably coined by Apuleius.
106 Commentary running rivers are turned back on themselves etc.: Rivers standing still or flowing backwards especially are common adynata in non-magical contexts (e.g. Horace Carm. 1.29.10-12; Propertius 2.15.33; Ovid Tristia 1.8.1); the phrase is proverbial. It can indicate bad omens (Cicero Div. 1.78); at Ovid Am. 2.1.23-28 it is love poetry, i.e. fiction, which can control these adynata. They can also occur in rhetorical exercises or declamations, e.g. Pseudo-Quintilian Decl. mai. 10.15 which has a magical theme (van Mal-Maeder 2007,60-2). Single elements of the adynata in 1.3.1 are found in magical papyri used for binding spells: PGM 7.451 f. instructs the burial of defixiones e.g. in a river; especially papyri with Egyptian influence may threaten cosmic interruption, e.g. PGM 34 threatens that the sun would stand still and the moon be brought down (Gager 1992, 104). Lucian Philopseudes 13-14, too, catalogues power over the moon and ability to walk over the sea. For a first-time reader, the list of adynata may seem to have been chosen randomly. For a second¬ time reader, however, this list is ominous, since the feats are similar to the ones claimed to be performed by witches in the rest of Met., where magic is expressed in similar terms, as unbelievable influences on the cosmos. Specifically, turning back rivers is connected with witchcraft and frequent in literary representations of magic. All of Apuleius’ Thessalian witches, Meroe, Pamphile, Panthia and Photis, share these powers and are set up as parallels to each other: in 1.8 Meroe will be said to be able to do all these things, and although we never see her perform any of this cosmic magic, she has the power to revive Socrates temporarily after killing him. Pamphile, too, is credited with these powers by Byrrhaena (Met. 2.5) and then by Photis (3.15.7), and their powers in turn can be paralleled to magical powers as early as Pseudo-Hippocrates’ On the Sacred Disease 4 and as late as the magical papyri (Greek Magical Papyri (PGM) 1.120-126: Ruiz-Montero 2007, 4Iff.). Meroe’s method specifically will be to make the impossible possible through magic (a metamorphosis of a kind in itself), just like fellow literary witches control nature, e.g. Medea (Euripides Med. 410; Apollonius Rhodius 3.528L; Ovid Met. 7.199T; Seneca Med. 762; Valerius Flaccus 6.433) or the lesser witches in Tibullus 1.2.46, Ovid Am. 1.8.6, Rem. 257, Lucan 6.473f,Vergil A. 4.487ff and Petronius 134.12.6. In Met. 11.5 (Isis’ self-revelation to Lucius) and 11.25 (Lucius’ adoration of Isis), Isis herself will be described as powerful over exactly the things Meroe and Pamphile are said to command: the cosmos, other planets, the ocean, the elements and the underworld. Isis however uses her power for benevolent reasons (introd. §10.2), the witches for a debased form of magic to achieve their sexual satisfaction and often enough to destroy cosmic order. the sea becomes sluggish and immobilised: The contrast between 'running rivers’ and the ‘sluggish sea’ continues to express the impossible and fictional through an adynaton associated with witchcraft’s ability to invert cosmic order, e.g. Ovid Met. 7.154. In Petronius 134.4ff. the priestess Oenothea claims similar magical powers, including the ability to calm the sea (Schmeling 2011, 521). This
Commentary 107 ‘binding’ of the sea recalls katadesmoi or defixiones (‘binding spells’), which were common in ancient magic (see introd. § 11). the winds9 breath fails into lifelessness: Weather magic: Pamphile’s ability to predict the weather by staring at her lamp in Met. 2.11.5 is a related feat. Again it is a common claim for literary witches that on their command winds cease to blow: Circe in Homer, cf. Odyssey 10.19f.; 12.148f., Oenothea in Petronius 134.10. the sun is stopped: Ancient witches are generally credited with power over the planets, frequently so in Apuleius {Met. 1.8.4; 2.5.4; 3.15.7; 3.16.2); cf. Vergil A. 4.489 (a Massylian priestess invented by Dido). Medea especially is commonly associated with stopping the course of the sun (Seneca Med. 768), but it is also a sign of the interruption of the proper cosmic order, cf. the sun reverting its course after Thyestes’ cannibalistic meal (e.g. Seneca Thy. 813fF.). In Petronius 134.15 it is a symbolism for the witch’s power to interrupt the orderly paths of the cosmos, for which the Sun god was the guarantor. the moon is dried out of her dew: Pulling down the moon through witchcraft is a commonplace, especially attributed to Thessalian witches (Phillips 2002,378f., introd. §11). It is their most common boast, and all the witches in Met. 1 are said to be able to do it, though it is actually never performed in the novel. Being able to draw dew from the moon, as here, is less common, though other witches are able to do this, too: Valerius Flaccus 6.445ff., Nonnus Dionysiaca 36.344AF. (Hill 1973, 236f). Drying out the moisture from the moon, the origin of dew (Vergil G. 3.337, Pliny Nat. 20.1 etc.\ disturbs the cosmic balance between the moist and the dry. The moisture was used by witches for, amongst other things, enhancing the power of their drugs, love magic and poison (Keulen 2007, 119). In Met. 11.2.3 the Moon goddess / Isis is credited with ‘moist fires’ (the moon’s softened light and moisture, cf. Cicero N. D. 2.50), another contrast between Isis as a benevolent goddess and the destructive witches. the stars are torn down: An equally strong term is found in Horace Epod. 5.45, again about Thessalian witchcraft, which tears down both stars and the moon. The cosmic destruction this would entail is common in description of witchcraft: Tibullus 1.2.45. Horace Epod. 17.5. Lucan 6.499. Quintilian Decl. 10.15. Forcing down the stars is listed amongst a catalogue of powers in PGM 1.120-126 (Fick 1985, 136). Again Pamphile is said to be able to commit similar feats, cf. Met. 2.5.4 and 3.15.7. daylight is taken away and night is prolonged: Witches can replace day with endless night, the usual time for witchcraft, cf. Met. 3.16.2, where Pamphile needs night to fall for her witchcraft and accordingly threatens the Sun (Panayotakis 2001, 58Iff.). The power of the witches is now all-encompassing, as this is an obvious climax, which will be echoed by another group of 8 feats of witchcraft in 1.8.4, the description of Meroe’s power in similar terms. During his initiation, Lucius will see the sun shine in the middle of the night in 11.23.6, which turns a magical adynaton into something Lucius experiences as real under Isis’ influence, but inverts the
108 Commentary} ominous nature of the witches' dark night into Isis’ benevolent light. Cf. also below on 1.11.6. and introd. §11. 3.2 Hey, you: Colloquialism, used twelve times in Met. (e.g. 1.13.7; 1.15.1; 1.22.2), and nowhere else in Apuleius. Frequently found in comedy (Plautus Am. 770, Bac. 327, Cas 837 etc., Terence Hau. 369; 550; Eu. 102 etc.) and epistolary literature (Cicero Fam. 7.11.2.1; 16.17.1.2 etc.). who told the story previously: Lucius addresses Aristomenes; the phrase is recalled in 1.4.6. weave the rest of the tale: Metaphors of weaving are commonly employed for story-telling (cf. also introd. §5 and above on 1.1.1; 5.16; 9.17; Apol. 61.3 etc.). In Apuleius it is a metaphor aptly used for writing complicated fiction which may interlink different stories within the same text. your thick ears: A common metaphor for being unappreciative of sophisticated stories (Apul. Apol. 3.11, Gellius 10.3.15 etc.) continues the stress of the first book of Met. on hearing stories, but here without the expected response of enthusiastic acceptance. Lucius himself will end up with ‘thick’ ears after his transformation, and be as stubborn as a donkey, e.g. refusing to listen to any warnings against his fate (Jacobson 2004, 38). obstinate heart: Lucius accuses the sceptic of both physical (ears) and mental (heart) disinclination to listen to stories, a severe criticism within the framework of the novel and again an indirect characterisation of Lucius as gullible. reject what may well show itself to be true: Continues the discussion of whether the story is truthful or fiction. Both the phrase and the idea will be reused in Met. 1.20.1 (Aristomenes’ sceptical companion ‘spits out’ or rejects his disagreement), which contrasts to 1.2.6 where Lucius is happy to swallow new stories. 3J By Hercules: A mild inteijection, often found in (both Greek and Latin) comedy and everyday language for emphasis, or to express indignation (as here) or surprise (as in 1.20.5 when the conversation between Aristomenes and the sceptic is picked up again, and 1.24.6; cf. Stafford 2012, xxv). you know rather little to think: A unique phrase, which at first seems to carry its intransitive meaning ‘to have experience of or skill in; to know’, but then changes to a transitive construction with accusative and infinitive, which is found only here and Sisenna hist. 44 (‘to know how to be able to, from experience or knowledge’; both translations from OLD s.v. calleo). Intransitive callere is archaic, cf. Plautus Mos. 123, Poen. 579 etc. Apuleius uses minus callere in FI. 9.25, ‘I confess that I am less skilled in the sedentary arts’. Apuleius plays with both meanings, and the change of construction within the sentence allows the ‘beliefs’ to be at first associated with the sceptical interlocutor, but then with sceptical people in general, prompting a subtle unflattering association of the former with the latter group. most depraved beliefs: The discussion of the nature of fiction raised in this speech continues and is very negatively charged, as in Cicero Tusc. 4.23 (in a discussion of the negative influences of the passions); Seneca Ep. 95.4 etc.
Commentary 109 either novel to hear or crude to see or for sure too hard to be captured by comprehension: An intricate and subtle characterisation of Lucius as a stupid pseudo- philosopher: As Keulen 2007, 125 points out, this tricolon recalls the philosopher Empedocles fr. 2 DK (= frg. 8 Inwood) on the relationship between sensory perception and true understanding through rational reflection, which Lucius here echoes in phrasing and context. But Keulen does not mention that the Empedocles fragment and Lucius’ interpretation of its philosophy are exact opposites. Sextus Against the Logicians 7.122-25 (adversus Mathematicos; the source of the fragment) interprets the fragment as ‘that the criterion of truth is not in the senses’, followed by the argument that those who only perceive part, but not the whole, of truth are fallible, and ‘In this way, these things are neither seen nor heard by men nor grasped with the understanding’ (Empedocles’ words, Inwood’s translation). Apart from inverting the word order of hearing and seeing from Empedocles’ fragment, Lucius also says the absolute opposite to what Empedocles wishes to convey. Empedocles ‘bewails the very limited understanding of things most men achieve through their senses [...]. But he promises that an intelligent use of all the sensory evidence available to mortals, aided by his own instruction, will [...] make each thing clear to us’ (Kirk, Raven and Schofield 1983,285). Empedocles thus criticises the credulity of people who believe things on limited perceptual evidence, when the truth can only be reached on the basis of comprehensive perceptual evidence and thorough reasoning; by contrast, Lucius criticises the scepticism of someone who is not willing to believe surprising things that he has heard or seen, on the grounds that they might prove to be true on reflection. Apuleius speaks highly of Empedocles in Apol 27.1^4 and FI. 20.5. Lucius misunderstands Empedocles’ basic tenets and misappropriates them to his own end. This is a remarkable faux pas since the fragment was also cited by Lucius’ ancestor Plutarch in How to study»poetry' (Mor. 17e; also noted in Keulen 2007, 126), the ancestor whose origins Lucius problematically misrepresented as Thessalian. explore them a little more carefully: Exploring through seeing and hearing, i.e. through his senses, also in Met. 5.11.4 (Cupid warns Psyche not to want to see his face). Another instance of Lucius’ credo in the senses delivering truth, not only opinion, which is misplaced, as he will be deceived by what he hears and sees throughout the novel, although he will still credulously believe it. not only clear to understand but also easy to do: The passage’s stress is on gathering proof for the existence of phenomena beyond those experienced in common sensory experiences. Lucius hints at his own intention to experience magic. Facile factu ‘easy to do’ (Plautus Most. 791, Per. 761 etc.) is a common variation on a Plautine expression (Nicolini 2011,41, n. 87). 4 Lucius tells two anecdotes as evidence that the improbable can be true: the previous night he had almost choked on a cheesecake during an eating competition, yet recently he had seen a sword swallower first swallowing a sword and then a lance, around
no Commentary which a young boy was dancing while standing on the man’s shoulders. Lucius then promises lunch in exchange for Aristomenes’ story. The anecdotes anticipate both the rest of Met. 1 and the novel as a whole: swords and cheese reoccur e.g. 1.13.4 and 1.19, as Socrates himself has a sword thrust down his throat, but apparently does not die, but is eventually killed while swallowing cheese (1.19.7). Thus the episode seems to anticipate both of Socrates’ deaths. Lucius should understand this as a warning against believing everything he sees (certainly retrospectively), but his previously displayed credulity continues here and throughout the novel. As Lucius moves from being a mere observer to an interpreter, but is naively mistaking trickery for truth when he seems to believe that the boy is hanging from the spear itself, he characterises himself again as gullible and incapable of metaphorical interpretation. 4.1 As for me: Boccaccio in his marginal note on Bibl. Laur. 54.32 fol. 18r. astutely analyses Lucius’ intentions here: ‘Apuleius [i.e. Lucius] begins his own tale in order to make one of the companions willing to tell what he had begun and the other willing to listen.’ last night: Apuleius uses both vespera (‘at night’ (ablative): Met. 2.11.5 etc.), and vesperi (‘last night’ (locative): 1.18.5; 2.6.7; 3.16.2; 3.25.4; 3.26.8). Here however the ablative must translate as ‘last night’, too, just as in 4.18.5, where the robber Thrasyleon shows his accomplices the room where the evening before (vespera) he had seen some silver stored. wolfing down an only slightly larger piece: The impression here is that the morsel is rather laige indeed, despite Lucius’ efforts to play down his greed. Swallowing food as part of a food devouring competition (which betrays the understatement in the size of the morsel) anticipates Lucius’ interest in food displayed throughout the rest of Met. 1 and prepares his characterisation as a comic parasite (May 2006, 143-81). As an introduction to Lucius, it makes clear that his eventual metamorphosis into a donkey is an ‘apt one’ (for the term cf. below on 1.9.1): already in Plato Phaedo 8le it is suggested that being turned into donkeys is a just punishment for followers of hybris, gluttony and love for drinking (Schlam 1970,480). For Romans, gluttony, especially at a banquet, displays ‘ineffective self-management’ (Corbeill 1997, 101), which would discredit the glutton and make him morally incapable of running for office. Lucius here seems unaware of dangerously portraying himself as morally questionable, aligning himself with the pole dancer he describes next. Contruncare, ‘to wolf down’, is a Plautine verb, before Apuleius found only in comedy (Bac. 975; St. 554). Socrates in Met. 1.19.6 wolfs down his food in a similar manner, like Lucius. The other occurences of contruncare in Apuleius (6.31.1 (the robbers); 9.13.2 (mules)) are also negatively charged with animalistic associations. polenta cheese cake: A similar piece of food (honeycake made from polenta) is used by Psyche {Met. 6.18f.) to calm down Cerberus in order to enter the underworld. Despite several recipes in e.g. Cato Agr. and other Roman authors, polenta is a Greek dish (Andri 1961, 61 with n. 128, but already noted in Beroaldo 1500 ad loc.), consisting of pulped roasted barley, here with added cheese, and in its Greekness it
Commentary 111 forms part of the characterisation of Lucius as a parasite. In Horace’s Satire 2.8.23L (Cena Nasidieni) the gluttonous parasite Porcinus devours cakes whole. Eating a lot of cheese is comic as well as voracious, cf. Aristophanes Frogs 559, where Dionysos- Heracles is accused of swallowing a lot of fresh cheese, and Knights 853f. for honey and cheese sellers; Acharnians 1125. In Plautus Cur. 295 polenta is luxury food, associated with idle Greeks getting drunk, cf. also As. 33-37. The exact nature of the cheesecake that Lucius almost chokes on has puzzled Apuleius’ readers (see introd. §13). Cheese in Met. has negative connotations, often associated with death (e.g. in 9.38.9 an old man cuts his throat with a knife he had just used to cut cheese; here Lucius almost chokes); it is also associated with magic (Moine 1975,356f.), and may have a connection to the underworld, as perhaps cheese was a gift to the dead, see Tibullus 1.2.50. Cheese is also a staple of banquets (many examples in Athenaeus bk 4), and eating and drinking contests are a comic feature. On cheese and its associations with death and comedy cf. May 1998, Keulen 2000, Aubeiger 2010,115ff. Cheese in Rome: Andre 1961, 152-4. Caseatus appears first in Apuleius. in a competition against my fellow diners: Characterises Lucius as a greedy buffoon: in Plutarch Quaestiones Convivales 2.10.2 (644a), his discussion of best practice during symposia, Lucius’ relative Plutarch tells people off who eat too greedily, including cheese. the softness of the glutinous food: Softness always has a negative connotation, and here associates the glutinous cheese with the effeminate movements of the dancer, whose style is described in the same terms (1.4.4). Lucius uses medical terminology to sound learned: glutinous food is, apart from here, discussed in medical texts, where it is deemed beneficial (e.g. Celsus De Medicina 3.21.12 against dropsy; 4.12.5 against stomach ulcers), but sometimes to be avoided by the sick (3.25.3, against elephantiasis; 5.28.4 against St Anthony’s fire; 7.26.2 against bladder stones). hanging in my throat and hindering my air passages: The dangerous consequence of devouring glutinous food: choking on food is a recurrent motif in Met. 1 - Lucius here is followed by Aristomenes, a cheesemerchant (1.5.5), feeling unable to eat (1.19.3) and choking on bread. Gellius 17.11.4f. has a similar discussion of obstructing the windpipe with food (also noted by Keulen 2007, 132); the passage is medical, engaging with Plutarch’s discussion of Plato’s, Erasistratos’ and Hippocrates’ views on the trachea, indicating that Lucius here continues to show off with medical terminology. Meacula ‘my air passages’ is not found before Apuleius, but Martianus Capella 8.8.13 uses the word, which makes the emendation (F reads mea gula> ‘my throat’) likely and acceptable. 4.2 recently: F’s proximo is usually emended to proxime ‘most closely in time, most recently’, although F’s reading has been defended as short for proximo die (Wiman, cf. Hanson 1989) or understood locally (‘most closely’; Magnaldi). Athens: Lucius was educated there (cf. 1.24.5) and namedrops the centre of learning, intending to display himself as an educated man, but unwittingly
112 Commentary> unmasking himself as someone who gullibly watches street entertainers there outside its institutions of learning. in front of the Stoa Poikile: The 5th century Painted Porch north of Athens’ agora: its pictures, as decribed by Pausanias 1.15.1-3, contained mythological and historical battles, including centrally the Ilioupersis (The Sack of Troy) or portraits of Aias the Locrian and Kassandra. As Aias was well known as a spear thrower (Homer //. 2.527), placing a spear swallower in front of this picture programme allows Apuleius to go from the sublime to the ridiculous, a frequent ploy in Met. For the pictures of the Stoa see Stansbury-O’Donnell 2005. Keulen 2007, 133 assumes the location is chosen because it is the seat of the Stoa (as the place where Zeno taught Stoicism), but Lucius’ statements on fate e.g. in Met. 1.20.3 are too vague to display adherence to one specific philosophical school; the Stoics’ sophisticated philosophical theory of fate cannot really be classified as ‘superstition’ (see Cicero Div. 1.126), with which Keulen associates it. Lucius’ ancestor Sextus (1.2.1) was probably a Stoic, and the associations of the Stoa Poikile with Stoicism may be again used to point out the contrast between gullible Lucius and his philosophical ancestor (introd. §8; 9). I saw with my very own two eyes: The eyes are not very reliable witnesses in a novel where appearances deceive, although both Lucius and Aristomenes keep invoking their eyes in this function. Generally Roman thinking valued seeing over ail other senses (Varro L. 6.80), but Lucius continuously fails to interpret what he sees correctly, e.g. the Actaeon statue in Met. 2.4 (Slater 1998,26; introd. §6.3). On the problem of eyewitnesses: May 2007 and note above on 1.3.3. Geminus indicates a pair, often of body parts (in plural), used of e.g. nostrils in Vergil G. 4.300; feet in Ovid Fast. 5.432, and is here used emphatically to boost his credibility - Lucius has two witnesses, as it were. a wandering performer: A low-class wandering artist, whose repertoire may include, amongst others, dancing, juggling, snake charming, animal tricks and imitations. Habinnas in Petronius 68.6 admits his boy was educated by wandering performers (i.e. not properly at all), a sign of his crudeness. Lucius shows off his gullibility and naivety, especially as performers are proverbial for deceptive artfulness and as notorious tellers of lies. See also Met. 1.1.6: the prologue’s acrobatic metaphor is here repeated literally. The same term is applied to travelling magicians at the time (Dickie 2001, 225f.), and it is clear that the gullible Lucius sees some ‘magic’ trick performed. This act is followed by even more incredible feats, all of which will allow Lucius to believe them to be true, but which constitute a warning to leave magic and trickery to the experts. On wandering performers most recently: Montiglio 2005. a really sharp cavalry sword: The Roman spatha was originally carried by auxiliaries, between 70 and 90 cm long (thus longer than the gladius), which would make the performance a veiy impressive feat. The (all unconfirmed) records for the longest swords swallowed (by very tall performers!) at www.swordswallow.com/
Commentary 113 records.php stand between 63 and 83cm. Their length is restricted by the distance between throat and the bottom of the stomach, as sword swallowers sink swords through the throat into the stomach, once the gag reflex has been suppressed. As Apuleius reuses motifs throughout Met., the spatha anticipates the sword of the Roman soldier who acquires the donkey Lucius from the market gardener in 9.40f., who also carries a knotty staff and has to ‘quietly swallow the insult’ (9.41.1) of having been beaten and disarmed by an unarmed opponent and is thus revealed as a braggart and mere showman, too. with a deadly tip: The sword’s deadliness suggests the realistic danger of the performance, and forms a warning to Lucius not to meddle with trickery and magic that he does not completely understand. The stereotypical phrase elsewhere describes real daggers used by robbers in Met. 4.26.7 (in an emendation) and 8.2.4. Cf. also Seneca Ep. 82.21; Silius Italicus 2.260; Tacitus Hist. 3.85 etc. 4J a tiny donation: The performer’s poverty makes it necessary to perform for money, but in 1.4.6 Lucius himself discusses payment for Aristomenes’ tale, thus aligning himself and Aristomenes with the performer and his audience, and the street performance with storytelling. hunting lance: A lancea was a long throwing javelin with a thong in the middle, and c. 2 to 2.5m long. In 8.5.4 venabulum (hunting spear) and lancea (lance) are two seemingly different objects. On swords and lances cf. Elton 2007. 4.4 And look: Expression of astonishment, here as in 1.26.1 part of the vivid visualisation of the scene; also in 1.17.1, to change the direction of the reader’s focus. 21 times in Apuleius, only in Met., indicating colloquialism and immediacy. Also, ecce is often found in comedies at the entrance of new characters (Heine 1962, 74). where the shaft... rises up from his gullet, near the back of the man's head: The translation of the whole passage is problematic. Given the natural meaning of occipitium as ‘back of the head’ (e.g. Cato Agr. 4.1.7, Plautus Aul. 64), and the position the sword swallower is in, with his head thrown back to open up the throat, the description must mean that the dancer appears behind the head, on the shoulders of the sword swallower, dancing around the shaft of the lance without putting too much weight on the lance itself. The swallower must hold on to the shaft with his hands to reduce movement. Putting the weight of a dancing boy onto a swallowed lance is impossible, and it appears that he is standing on the sword swallower’s shoulders while pretending to put his weight on the lance. The trick may just be possible, although still very dangerous to the swallower. That Lucius is taken in by the performance and believes the boy is actually climbing on the lance itself is clear from his comparison of the dancer to Asclepius’ snake in the following sentence. Ingluvies is used of the human throat in Met. 1.16.5 and twice for that of a snake-like ‘monster’ in 5.17.3 and 5.26.3 (Cupid’s, in the deceitful descriptions of Psyche’s sisters who want her to believe that the ‘snake’ will swallow her alive). If both occipitium and ingluviem were parts of the weapon (as Molt 1938,46 argues, although there are no parallels), Lucius’ use
114 Commentary of anatomical terminology in this context would be wilfully obscurantist and a break with his previous use of medical language. beautiful to the point of effeminate softness ... to the amazement of all of us present: On softness as a theme cf. above (1.4.1). The effeminate performance fascinates Lucius. By using similar words, Apuleius implicitly compares Lucius ’ cheese- devouring performance at the symposium with that of the boy, but Lucius is unable to mirror the boy’s dexterity, and thus is effectively characterised negatively. Dancing in public is a grave misconduct for Romans and associated with effeminacy and passive homosexuality (e.g. Lucilius 33; Pliny Pan. 33.1; enervo = ‘castrate’ in Augustine De Civitate Dei 6.7). In court Apuleius describes his elderly enemy Herennius in Apol. 74.7 in similarly negative and effeminate terms (exossis and enervis) as an aged and despicable pantomime act, dancing with unrefined softness. There Apuleius purports not to have seen the performance himself (so as not to be associated with watching and enjoying pantomime), whereas Lucius enjoys the boy’s performance unreservedly, and praises him enthusiastically. In literary criticism comparison with pantomime indicates disapproval (cf. Quintilian Inst. 9.4.142, enervem). Lucius is here an uncritical and gullible observer, unreliable in his judgement. The usual form of the adjective is enervis (used in Apol. 74.7; PI. 2.16), and uniquely here follows the first declension (enerva). 4.5. the god of medicine: Apuleius composed various works in praise of the healing god Asclepius (see FI. 18.37, Apol. 55.8, Socr. 15 (154)), in both Greek and Latin, and poetry and prose, all now lost. The Asclepius transmitted under his name is probably not by him, although it is possible that Apuleius was a priest of Asclepius (FI. 16.38 with Hunink 2001, 168 ad loc.). Isis, too, is associated with the image of a snake curled around her arms, e.g. on the fresco from the Pompeian Temple of Isis, or the 2nd century AD Isiac procession on a relief now in the Vatican Museum (Witt 1971, plate 30). When Lucius, taken in by the performers’ tricks, imagines the small boy as a snake winding his body around the lance, he makes an inappropriate association with a deity. This strengthens the reader’s assessment of Lucius’ unreliability as a narrator, and throws an uncomfortable light on his Isiac initiation in Met. 11. The dancing-boy episode, too, can be seen as a plot summary of the novel (Hofmann 1997, 156ff), especially in its comparison with Asclepius, as a healing cult god appears at its end, just as Isis at the end of Met., and Isis and Asclepius are associated with each other through the latter’s identification with Osiris and the shared snake imagery. knotty with half-pruned little twigs: A significant attribute of the god, cf. Paulus Diaconus Fest. p. 110: ‘Asclepius has a knotty stave (bacillum ... nodosum), which signifies the difficulty of his art’, but knottiness is also the general characteristic of staves used as weapons in Lucius’ donkey universe: Met. 6.30.3 Lucius as donkey is hit with a ‘knotty cudgel’ by a robber, and 9.40f. Lucius’ owner beats up a soldier with a similar stave. On Apuleius’ fondness for .se/w-compound words see introd. § 12.
Commentary 115 noble snake: Snakes do not invariably have negative connotations in Met., where they can associate with healing gods like Asclepius or Isis (Met. 11.3.5) and Serapis, cf. Fick-Michel 1991, Hofmann 1997, 160. Generosus (‘noble, thoroughbred’), a positive characteristic, is also used of animals in Met. 4.13.6 (she-bears and other animals to be employed in the amphitheatre) and 10.18.4 (Thessalian horses), and of Lucius himself in 1.23.3. clinging there in fluid embraces: His fluidity is the term of comparison for the boy’s dance and the slithering snake of Asclepius. Although lubricus is especially frequent for snakes (FI. 6.5 with Hunink 2001, 90 ad loc.), the concept of fluidity of form and meanings is used frequently in Met. 1 (1.2.2 and 1.6.4). Similarly, the children dancing a Pyrrhic dance in 10.29.4 in a prelude to a pantomime are moving fluidly and in complicated rounded circles (in orbem rotatum flexuosi; multinodas ambages). In the pantomime itself, with its notions of metamorphosis and fictionality (May 2008), the dancer representing Venus dances with fluid spine movements (10.32.3). Given the association of pantomime performance with literary criticism, the boy’s fluid movements may indicate the novel’s fluid and metamorphic nature. 4.6 come on, please: A comic colloquialism, Cedo tu in Apol. 63.5 (with Hunink 1997, ii, 167 ad loc.) is the usual address to his assistant. Cedo in Plautus: Aul. 157; Ps. 891; Mil. 226; Men. 639; cf. also Met. 1.8.5. Sodes is colloquial comedy word, often in Plautus and Terence, but an archaism at the time of Apuleius. It is often combined (as here) with the imperative. go through it again: By Lucius’ asking Aristomenes to tell the tale again, Apuleius may be scripting into the novel the concept of a second-time reader, who should look at Met. a second time with hindsight (cf. introd. §4.3). In 2.20.7 Byrrhaena asks Thelyphron to ‘go through his tale again’ (fabulam ... remetire), again for Lucius’ benefit. I alone will believe your tale instead of him: When Aristomenes’ story is finished, gullible Lucius indeed believes the story as promised (1.20.5). On an abstract level, his declaration ‘I alone’ may here indicate that the reader will not believe the story to be truthful, although later within the novel’s universe it will turn out to be ‘true’. the next tavern we approach on our journey: In Met. 1.15,1.17.2 and elsewhere (Plautus Poen. 268) taverns are disreputable establishments; the companions however part from Lucius before he reaches the nearest tavern. The dative with verbs of going or coming indicates directions to a place, see e.g. Caesar B. G. 3.80.1, Sallust Histories 4.27. I will make you share my meal: The phrase is possibly wilfully ambiguous, leaving it open whether Lucius will actually pay for any food for his companions, or whether his mere presence at their dinner, parasite-like, will pay for the story on its own: Keulen 2007, 143 notes that ‘the notion of sharing does not match Lucius’ gluttonous character’. The reason for this contradiction may lie in Lucius’ clever and ambivalent use of the verb participare (May 2006, 149-51), a Plautine word. It can
116 Commentary> translate as ‘to cause to participate in’, as in Met. 9.33.3. This would indicate that Lucius is intending to pay for his fellow travellers' lunch, but the accusative needed for this meaning is missing here (although it could conceivably be inferred from tibi). Without accusative, it can simply translate as ‘join in' (cf. 9.24.2), indicating Lucius is not promising to pay for everyone’s lunch. For another possible ambiguity see on 1.13.7. This is the reward paid down for you: Lucius’ attitude towards paying for entertainment recalls the dancing boy, but the three companions will not share a meal, so Aristomenes crucially will never get paid for his tale, in plain contradiction to the proverb occasionally associated with the novel’s title: assem para et accipe fabulam auream (‘give me a penny and get back a story worthy of gold’; Pliny Ep. 2.20.1 (see introd. §4.4). Sophocles Ichn. 44 Apollo makes a similar promise of reward. 5 Aristomenes swears a solemn oath his story is true, and explains he is a travelling salesman buying and selling foodstuffs for taverns, who travelled to Hypata to buy fresh cheese, but was thwarted by a wholeseller, and went to the baths instead. 5.1 But he: We later find out in 1.6.4 that the speaker is called Aristomenes. a fair and square deal: Colloquialism, indicating acquiescence; but Aristomenes and his companion will not share a meal with Lucius in 1.21.1. It is more positively used in 11.18.3 (where it expresses Lucius’ reaction to receiving gifts from his family). Cf. also Plautus Cur. 65, Terence Hau. 788; Cicero Att. 1.1 A etc. I will embark on the tale that 1 had started: Aristomenes begins to tell the story again that he had started before Lucius joined; it is not clear if he is telling the same tale, or how far he had got in his telling of it, but 1.3.1 suggests that he at least got to the point where he describes the witch’s powers, a point in the story he reaches again in 1.8.4. Ί will embark’ (exordiar) equates Aristomenes with the speaker of the prologue (1.1.2 exordior), as these are the only two instances of the verb in Met. (it also occurs in Socr. 3 (124); exordium (‘introduction; preface’) occurs seven times in Met.). Like the prologue-speaker, Aristomenes has a few false starts and initially seems to omit essential information, e.g. his name (see on 1.5.3), and sets his exordium here at mid-dialogue. I will swear au oath to you: This archaic verb (deierare) for a most solemn oath, cf. Plautus Cos. 670; Rud. 1336; Terence Eu. 331 etc., reoccurs elsewhere in Apuleius’ Met.: cf. 1.10.4 or 6.15.5 (Cupid reminds Psyche that humans’ most solemn oaths are (as here) by the gods, but the gods’ by Styx). the Sun, this <all->seeuig god: A conventional oath, as the sun is often called upon as an incorruptible eyewitness for verification (Aeschylus Supp. 213; Met. 2.22; 3.7). Aristomenes, too, throughout the story relies, wrongly, on the Sun to reveal the truth, cf. on 1.18.1. Magical events usually take place at night, and witchcraft is associated with darkness (introd. §11): thus not only is the sun not present when the
Commentary 117 witchcraft happens, but it is also commonly under the power of witches (see Met. 1.3.1), which makes the sun an unfortunate witness in this particular circumstance; in 2.22.2 it is claimed that witches could easily cheat the eyes of the Sun. This raises questions about Aristomenes’ truthfulness. In 3.7.2 Lucius evokes the Sun as his witness during the Risus festival just when he himself has given a deliberately fictitious version of the events of the previous night. Especially for a second-time reader, both Aristomenes’ and Lucius’ appeals to the Sun raise questions of their stories’ fictionality, and possibly links to witchcraft: in Ovid Met. 7.160fF. Jason swears marriage to the witch Medea by the all-seeing Sun - an oath which he will subsequently break. Cf. Panayotakis 2001, 581fF., May 2007. The sun is omnituens in Mund. 29 (355) where it translates παμφαής, a poeticism (Pasetti 2007, 134fi), all of which makes the presence of Leo’s generally accepted addition omni- more likely. For a second-time reader, the phrase may also evoke associations with Isis’ consort Osiris, who is called πολυόφθαλμος, ‘many-eyed’, in Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride 10 (355a), and who has some solar associations in Met. 11.24.4 (see also Plutarch Isid. 51-2 (372)). true and proven facts: The claim to tell the truth about things he himself has established to be true is repeated in 1.14.3. In 5.17.3, Psyche’s sisters use it to give credibility to their lies, and Aristomenes’ insistence on telling the truth here may also indicate that he protests too much. 5.2 and you will not doubt me any longer: Addressed to both the sceptical companion with his doubts about Aristomenes’ veracity and to Lucius, whose willingness to believe the story to be true will be strengthened by this. the nearest town in Thessaly: Hypata indeed is the first city across the border in Thessaly from the south (Keulen 2007, 148). Lucius will reach it in Met. 1.21.2, but never makes enquiries about Aristomenes’ story (but cf. below on 1.5.2). F reads Thessaliam, explained by Helm as an apposition, but Beroaldus (followed by e.g. Zimmerman 2012) prefers the adjective Thessalicam also found elsewhere in Apuleius (e.g. 1.25.3) and printed here. on everybody’s lips: The stress on orality in the prologue and its compromised veracity here has retrospective consequences for the reader’s perception of the novel as a whole as entirely fictitious. Some other instances of the phrase in Met. are not entirely trustworthy as verifications, either: twice in Cupid and Psyche (5.28.4, rumours about Venus’ reputation, and 6.8.1, Mercury acting as personified Rumour; cf. Marangoni 2000, 72f.). what occurred in full view: Rumour is the source of the story as well as its verification, but again Aristomenes undermines his own story with his insistence on this kind of source. Lucius’ reaction again stresses his gullibility: this confident claim should raise Lucius’ doubts, although this phrase is frequently used in Met. by characters who ‘insist on telling the true facts’ (Keulen 2007, 150), e.g. in 8.1.4 (messenger on Charite’s death); 9.30.2 (Lucius on his credentials as eyewitness). None of the events in the story however actually happened ‘openly’, so Lucius
118 Commentary would be hard pressed to make enquiries even if he ever had attempted to confirm Aristomenes’ story in Hypata. S3 But first, so that you know from what country I come and who I am: The setup and language recall the prologue 1.1.2f., where the speaker (almost) answers the question about his identity with his geographical origin but omits his proper name. This again makes Aristomenes like the prologue-speaker (cf. also above on 1.5.1). A similar introduction of a character (Thiasus), but with name and background, and reported by Lucius in third person, occurs in 10.18.1. See also 8.1.4 (messenger speech on Charite's death) for a similar introductory phrase. F’s text poses two asyndetic questions, but answers only the latter. Castiglioni’s addition Aristomenes sum (‘I am Aristomenes’) to answer quis sim is followed e.g. by Keulen 2000, 311 and 2007, 151 ad loc. and printed by most editors, e.g. by Zimmerman 2012. Rossbach, on the other hand, deletes [qui sim] to avoid the discrepancy between question and answer (printed e.g. by Hanson 1989). Similar questions in Met. result in the character being named, e.g. 10.18.1 (Thiasus). Plautus Poen. 993-96 gives name and origin (Hanno from Carthage) after the same question. Others (Brotherton 1934, 43, Harrison 2002, 41, Bitel 2006) have argued against the supplement If Aristomenes is not named here, the first appearance of the name is in 1.6.4 in a dialogue with Socrates, which in many ways anticipates the ‘natural’ naming of Lucius in dialogue with Pythias in 1.24.6. Furthermore, the question ‘who am I?' does not necessarily mean ‘what’s my name?’, and the prologue reveals much about the speaker, but crucially not his name. There may be a good reason for Apuleius, who is intent on ‘speaking names’, to hold back the name until his readers have found out something about the character. Parallelisms between Aristomenes and Lucius are neater when Aristomenes sum is not supplied. I am from Aegium: A small town in the Peloponnese in Achaia, east of Patras on the Gulf of Corinth, and thus a place close to where the hero of the Greek original, Loukios of Patrai, apparently comes from (Lucius is from Corinth), whereas in Onos Aristomenes’ unnamed counterpart is from Hypata itself. Aegium is a suitable town of origin for the cheesemerchant, as Aegium’s prosperity was due to wholesale traders (negotiatores, cf. on 1.5.5; Bingen 1954,82-85). The name is etymologically related to αΐξ ‘goat’, a main source of milk for cheese. Aristomenes will never return; in 1.19.12 he settles in Aetolia. with honey and cheese and tavern merchandise of this kind: Trading these has some comic connotations: cf. Aristophanes Knights 853f., Menander Perikeir. 284f. Both foods are often associated with each other as food for entertainments, cf. Menander Methe 24 K-A in Athenaeus 4.146d-e, and for cheese above on 1.4.1. In Apul. Met. 3.18.1 Pamphile uses both honey and cheese as magic ingredients, following e.g. Circe in Homer Od. 10.234ff. Milk, honey and wine were used in necromancy (Od. 11.23ff., Heliodorus 6.14fi); the acquisition of a magical ‘assistant’ (parhedros) required milk and honey (PGM 1.1-42). Milk mixed with honey formed libations to the dead and to the chthonic gods. Thessaly is not renowned in antiquity
Commentary 119 for cheese or honey (although Attica is, cf. Antiphanes 177 K-A; Keulen 2000, Slater 2007, Auberger 2010). Caupona in Apuleius, as in late antiquity, usually means ‘female innkeeper’ (in that meaning before Apuleius only in Lucilius 128); it can also mean ‘inn’; here either translation is possible. through Thessaly, Aetolia and Boeotia: Etymologically related to cows (cf. Ovid Met. 3.10-13), Boeotia, ‘Cowland’, situated in south-eastern central Greece and renowned for its agricultural produce, is a good place to go for a cheesemonger (Michalopoulos 2006,170). Aetolia’s economy in central Greece, too, mainly relies on agriculture and sheep (Strabo 8.8.1; Livy 33.7.13). 5.4 Hypata, the city which is more powerful than all Thessaly: Lucius is not interested in Hypata’s socio-economical prominence, only in its association with witchcraft (with which Larissa is associated as well, cf. Socrates’ adventure in Met. 1.7 and Thelyphron’s in 2.21). Hypata was the most important city in Thessaly in the second century AD, and chosen here perhaps also because of the Greek pun (Harrison 2002, 42): ύπάτη = ‘the best’, also reflected in Byrrhaena’s proud praise of the city in 2.19.5, where she also uses pollemus, ‘we excel’. Cf. Heliodorus 2.34 for a similar etymologising description of the city (Michalopoulos 2006, 170). For antepollei cf. also 7.5.2 (‘Haemus’ standing taller than the robbers), a verb only found in Apuleius. fresh cheese of fine flavour: Caseum recens is the technical term for fromage frais, made for quick consumption (Plautus Poen. 367; Varro R. 2.11.3; Apul. Met. 8.19.1). Cheese of this kind does not last long in the Greek climate, so it is not clear that Aristomenes has much business sense, given the travelling times involved. at a rather advantageous price: Lucius’ experience of prices in Hypata’s food market in Met. 1.24f. will be very different. in order to buy it all up: Praestinare, a typically Plautine word, continues the comic characterisation of Aristomenes: Plautus Capt. 848 (for fish), Epid. 277, Ps. 169 (fish): cf. Shanzer 1996, 452; May 2006, 152f. In 1.24.5 Lucius will emulate Aristomenes by going shopping for food (fish), using the same word. 5.5 I started out on the left foot: Aristomenes retrospectively tries to rationalise his bad luck and indicates that his journey ended unhappily and subjected to magical events: starting a journey (or stepping over a threshold) with one’s left foot is considered unlucky (Seneca Ben. 2.12.2, Vitruvius 3.4.4; Petronius 30.6: the entrance slave exhorts guests to use their right foot to cross the threshold, also the lucky foot in Petronius 33, cf. Met. 2.14.6; 6.26.1, and 1.21.1). The left hand side is generally considered potentially harmful (Wirth 2010). This idea is inverted in augury and magic, where the left is the preferred one (Abt 1908 199 (273)ff; introd. §11). Lupus the wholesale merchant had bought it all up:4 Wolf, a speaking name, indicates the greed of the man who has bought all cheese and bagged all the profit (Hijmans 1978, 109ff). Metaphorical wolves in Met. are usually greedy (3.22.6: sexually voracious Thessalian women; 5.11.4: Cupid calls Psyche’s sisters perfidious
120 Commentary she-wolves), cf. Krabbe 2003, 5. It should be noted, though, that Aristomenes was planning on doing exactly the same, and does not see himself as greedy. Wolves are not really known for liking cheese, and unfortunately the well-known fable about the Fox who cheats the hungry Wolf to believe that the moon reflected in a well is a cheese is much later (593 Perry and 669 Perry; first attested in Petrus Alphonsi, Disciplina clericalis, 11 th/12th century AD, cf. M. 500 Adrados). Lupus’professional title is quite specific: the negotiator (‘wholesaler’) is a resident businessman, whereas the mercator (Aristomenes’job) is only a travelling salesman and of lower rank (Keulen 2007,158). Consequently, the hurrying Aristomenes has obviously no chance against the resident Lupus. Again Aristomenes’ business sense should be questioned. just as the evening star was rising: An archaic phrase, cf. Atta com. 24, Apul. Met. 2.13, also with commodum ‘just as’. I started out for the baths: Bathing before dinner is common practice, cf. below on 1.23.8. 6 Aristomenes finds his old friend Socrates, whom he and his family believed dead, sitting outside the baths in a decrepit state and tragically mourning the vicissitudes of his fortunes. 6.1 my old friend Socrates: Contubernalis, literally ‘tent mate’, indicates people living under the same roof or intimate friends, thus a very emotional term (Lendon 2006). Their friendship goes back a long time, see 1.6.2. He was sitting on the ground: A gesture of defeatist self-abasement, like a beggar. half-dad in a torn cheap cloak: The unusual language indicates that literary associations should be made here instead of simply seeing Socrates as a run-down beggar. It is specifically Apuleian: rags in literature are associated with mourning and tragedy, and even comicality, cf. below on 1.6.4. In Crito 53d Plato’s Socrates speculates on his disguise in shabby clothes if he had escaped to Thessaly, where he would spend his time fawning and enslaved (May 2006, 130ff.). In 1.14.2 Aristomenes himself will be metaphorically naked. Palliastrum is not found before Apuleius, but also used in FI. 14.6 for the ragged coat of the Cynic Crates; it describes the Greek cloak worn by philosophers and actors on stage in Roman comedy (the so-called palliata, from pallium), but in a more contemptible, diminutive, form. Semiamictus appears only in Apuleius; also in 7.5.3 (the false brigand ‘Haemus’ only half hides his body in rags) and 9.30.3 (the ghost, see introd. §11). in his pallor, reduced to a miserable gauntness: Socrates’ wretchedness becomes his standing epithet (miser) from his first mention here to his burial in 1.19.1, where his gauntness is stressed again; he is also called a ‘miserable spectacle’ in 1.6.5, calls himself‘wretched’ and ‘miserable’ (me miserum; miser) in l .7.5 and 1.7.9, and complains about his ‘miserable plundering’ in 1.7.7. He is called ‘wretched’ (miser, misellus) by others in 1.13.3, 1.13.6, and 1.19.11. It sets him up as a passive victim
Commentary 121 of witchcraft; both witches are called ‘good’ {bona) as a contrast, see 1.7.10, 1.13.2 (Panthia) and 1.13.6 (Meroe). Socrates’ deadly pallor, ostensibly caused by neglect and starvation, could also be a sign of sickness like that experienced by lovers in elegy or comedy who were mistreated by their mistresses; the evil stepmother in 10.2 displays ‘disfiguring pallor’ out of unfulfilled love for her stepson (Mathis 2008,200; Hindermann 2009, 172f.; Keulen 2007, 162f. adds unhealthy-looking philosophers). Consequently, Aristomenes in 1.8.1 readily assumes that Socrates is unhappily in love with Meroe. This first assumption will prove wrong; deceptive appearances are a leitmotif in Met. Instead, Socrates’ ‘disfigurement’ turns out to be due to witchcraft, another recurrent theme: in 1.6.3, Socrates’ wife is also ‘disfigured’ by grief. Their fate is comparable - although she remarries, as Aristomenes eventually will - and already a kind of metamorphosis. Cf. also 1.9.3 and 1.9.4 for more obvious uses of deformare for metamorphosis into a frog and a ram. Lucius, too, transformed into a donkey by magic, describes himself as ‘disfigured’ (8.23.6 because of ill treatment); in 11.6.4 he requires retransformation from Isis who promises to save him from his ‘disfigured appearance’, a promise made good when Lucius’ ‘disfigured and beastly appearance’ disappears after eating roses (11.13.3). Deformity and disfigurement are also associated with ghosts: 9.30.3 (the female ghost), 8.8.6 (Tlepolemus’ ghost is pale and disfigured). At the end of the book, Socrates will be first a kind of revenant and then dead ‘for real’, so his pallor and deformity here anticipate what will happen to him (Panayotakis 1998, 124). Fortuna: Socrates sees himself as Fortune’s tragic victim, an outcast, cf. introd. §10.3. at the crossroads: Crossroads are connected with witchcraft, as they are associated with Hecate Trivia ‘Hecate of the crossroads’ (Apol. 31.9). Worship of Hecate was prominent in Thessaly as Hecate Enodia (Sophocles fir. 535), who protected entrances. Witches tend to deposit parts of corpses at crossroads for magical purposes (Petronius 134.1, Phaedrus 1.27.11). This bodes badly for Socrates, who still seems to be under Meroe’s spell. 6.2 my friend Socrates: A term of endearment and positive politeness (Dickey 2002, 341), again repeated by Aristomenes in 1.11.1 to express his concern for his friend. Cf. also 1.24.6, where Pythias addresses his friend Lucius in similar terms after a long time apart. what is this? What a sight! What a scandal!: Rhetorical questions and exclamations with repetitions of the same words at the beginning of clauses (anaphoric polyptoton) in gradually lengthening phrases express a gradual realisation of events also in 3.9.7, after Lucius detects the Risus festival 'bodies’ to be wineskins. at your home you are mourned and lamented: This stress on Socrates’ lost home is a common theme in the novel, a loss caused in the early books by exposure to magic (Socrates in 1.6 and 1.9, Aristomenes in 1.19, Thelyphron in 2.30). It anticipates the fate of Lucius (introd. §4.1). On Socrates’ family see below on 1.6.3. The premature
122 Commentary ritualistic lament before burial is a bad omen for Socrates: a similar phrase is used in 2.27.2 during a ritual funeral procession (of the dead Thelyphron). Socrates will again be wept over (defletum), by Aristomenes, at his burial in 1.19.11. your children have been given guardians by the decree of the provincial judge: The assignment of guardianship (tutela dativa) is a legal requirement: the relevant magistrate appoints guardians for children below the age of puberty who become sui iuris after the death of their father and are without any other guardian. At Rome, this magistrate was a praetor, and in Achaea, the Roman province of mainland Greece, the provincial governor. After Hadrian, four iuridici (judges in charge of assigning guardians to children under age) were created in Italy (147 AD; re-established by Marcus Aurelius; Historia Augusta Hadr. 22.13, Antonin. 11.6). Aristomenes gives a slightly different title from the official one (iuridicus provinciae), perhaps to characterise him as lower class. Notably, this office is found only in the imperial provinces, and Achaea is under senatorial governance, and there is no evidence for iuridicus Achaeae in the inscriptions. In Apuleius’ own family, his wife’s children by her first marriage had become wards of their grandfather because of their minority (Apol. 68; see also Met. 1.6.3 on the wife’s remarriage). 63 funeral services: F’s reading ferialibus is usually emended to feralibus, cf. feralibus officiis in Met. 9.30.7; both phrases mean ‘last rites’, but in 8.7.4 Apuleius writes officiis inferialibus (a word only found here). Both emendations are possible, although feralibus requires a smaller intervention into the transmitted text and is already printed in the 1469 editio princeps. your wife ... has disfigured herself with her sorrow and everlasting grief: Women become disfigured because of grief, not least because of ritualistic mourning gestures involving lacerating their cheeks. For disfigurement as a motif of metamorphosis cf. on 1.6.1. On similarities between the wives of Socrates in Plato and Apuleius see introd. §10.1. This is the first of many women in Met. who mourn, here probably genuinely, whereas mourning is a mask e.g. for the wife in Thelyphron’s story in 2.23.7, and her continued beauty is an implicit give-away of her feigning grief Similarly, Socrates’ leaving behind his children echoes Plato’s Socrates: Crito argues (in Crito 45d) that if Socrates goes into exile, he can bring up his children. Neither Socrates nor Aristomenes ever sees theirs again. she has cried her eyes out almost to the point of catching blindness: The sentence is a novel expression for a trite commonplace, with captivitas as an unusual and unique expression for blindness (captus oculis means ‘blind’: Cicero Tusc. 5.117, Vergil G. 1.183; Livy 22.2.11 etc.). by her very own parents: The doubling of the pronoun here as in 1.10.3 (suis sibi) is not infrequent in Apuleius (e.g. Met. 4.32.1; 7.13.6 etc.), a sign of his archaism, and frequent in Roman comedy cf. e.g. Plautus Am. 269, Capt. 5, Terence Ad. 958 etc. her household’s misfortune: The distress in the house, a recurrent theme, here
Commentary 123 specifically evokes tragedy; in Horace Ars 103 infortunium is used to describe the tragic fates of Telephus and Peleus. Apuleius is fond of the phrase and the tragic image, cf. Met. 8.1.2 and 8.15.1 (Charite and Tlepolemus); 9.23.5 (the miller); 9.31.1 (the farmer and his three sons); 10.5.3 (in a Phaedraesque tragedy); and see 5.12.5 (Cupid warns Psyche not to ruin her house, husband and unborn child). Psyche’s sisters claim insincerely in 5.14.4 that Psyche’s pregnancy will bring good fortune to their ‘house’. Infortunium in comedy is often paratragic, e.g. Plautus Am. 286, 451,1034; Bac. 364, 595. joys of a new marriage: There is little contemporary evidence on how missing persons were declared dead and remarriage of the bereaved was permitted, but Apuleius’ description may be following usual practice. Socrates has been absent for a while: ten months is the minimum mourning phase, and he has clearly been absent longer than that (cf. 1.7.6; the timespan he spent with Meroe is unspecified but has to be lengthy). Compare also Apuleius’ own situation in life, as Pudentilla, a widow, was urged by her family to remarry and settled on Apuleius (his version of the story: Apologia 68-73; see also above on 1.6.2); remarriage of widows of childbearing age was encouraged in Greece (Demand 1994,26) and the norm in Rome (Treggiari 1991, 501). Cf. also the literary precedent of Odysseus’ parents-in-law pressing Penelope to remarry in Homer Od. 19.14If. looking like a ghost: Socrates when still alive already looks white like a ghost-to- be, and when he dies he reverts to exactly that kind of look in 1.19. In 9.31.1 a man is possessed by a ghost {larvatus) and killed in a scene reminiscent of Socrates’ fate (introd. § 11). A larva for Apuleius is an especially ugly looking and dangerous ghost: Apuleius defines the differences between Lares and Larvae (which are both Manes or spirits of the dead) in Soc. 15(152), where the Lar familiaris is the peaceful ghost of a departed human and guardian of a house, and larvae are souls of no fixed abode, wandering as a punishment for evil deeds committed while alive. In Apologia 61-64 Apuleius is accused of owning a ghastly statue fabricated for himself, which he says was wrongly described as ‘emaciated... and quite horrible and ghostlike’ {macilentam ... prorsus horribilem et larualem; Apol. 63.1). He delivers a mock curse against his accuser Aemilianus in Apol. 64, listing all sorts of harmful ghosts from the underworld, where the list culminates in larvae, possibly making them the most dangerous of all: ‘the appearances of the dead whatever shades {umbrarum) they are, whatever spectres {lemurum), whatever spirits {manium), whatever ghosts {larvarumY (Apuleian ghosts: Winkler 1980, 162f, Felton 1999, 15fi, Keulen 2007, 168). This anticipation of Socrates’ ultimate fate is reflected in the language: although simulacrtm is since Lucretius the technical term for eidolon, an empty image of a real person, looking like him but only a copy, this use is relatively rare in Apuleius (in 8.12.3 Thrasyllus is a shadow of himself). Instead, Apuleius uses it most often for statues, mostly of gods: Apol. 42.21 (statue of Mercury); 61.18, 63 and 65 (statues of gods, specifically Mercury), 2.4.10 (statue of Actaeon), 3.27 (twice of a statue of Epona); 4.29.2 and 32.2 of statues of Venus and Psyche being mistaken
124 Commentary for Venus; 8.25.4; 8.30.3; 9.10 .4 (statue of the Dea Syria); in Met. 11 it is variously used of Isis, Osiris etc. Socrates becomes a memorial to himself before a memorial is needed. Eventually, however, his grave will remain unmarked, leaving this makeshift simulacrum here his only marker, but cf. below on 1.7.1. 6.4 Aristomenes: The speaking name means ‘with the best strength of spirit’; Apuleius also puns on the name twice in 1.12.7 and 2.1.2, where Aristomenes is called ‘good counsellor’ and ‘excellent comrade’ {comes optimus) respectively. Despite his grand name, Aristomenes is actually weak and a coward, and retrospectively it becomes clear that he did not give good advice to Socrates. In recent scholarship, Apuleius’ Aristomenes has increasingly been associated with the historical hero Aristomenes of Messene, whom the oracle of Delphi named the best of the Greeks, cf. Pausanias 4.6-32 (Jordan 2004, Connors and Clendenon 2012). The similarities are meagre: Aristomenes’ vision of Tartarus in 1.15.5 is one of many in Met. and does not require explanation as the Messenian’s alleged descent into the Underworld; the Messenian had his heart inspected posthumously, but it is Socrates, not Aristomenes, whose heart is pulled out in 1.13, and which appears to be normal (unlike the Messenian’s, which was hairy, a sign of courage (Pliny Nat. 11.185)). Aristomenes’ lack of courage would have to be explained as an inversion of the story (on the issue of the Messenian’s hairy heart cf. Heath 1998, Ogden 2004). A historical character is not a requirement to understand Apuleius’ joke; if one were needed, there are also other, so far unexplored, candidates. For example, Aristomenes the writer of Old Comedy and rival of Aristophanes (K-A 2, 562-68) and author of the play Goetes ‘Magicians’ (frr. 5-10 K-A) and other plays, the fragments of which prominently feature discussions of food and breakfast. It is clear that you know nothing: The question and accusation of ignorance is especially frequent in Met. 1, cf. also 1.15.2 and 3 (doorkeeper to Aristomenes, and then Aristomenes to the doorkeeper); 1.22.2 (Photis to Lucius), setting the scene for a novel about a man searching knowledge but not necessarily finding it during his travels (see Lucius’ rare insight in 9.13.5 that he has not become wiser but acquired more knowledge). It may also be a funny inversion of the real Socrates’ claim to know nothing (e.g. Plato Apologia 2Id, Meno 80d), as the rebuke to Aristomenes here implies that Apuleius’ Socrates has knowledge - about suffering (cf. also on 1.7.6). He styles himself on characters from high literature who are suffering victims of Fortune, e.g. Odysseus or Aeneas in epic, and especially tragic figures. Comedy, too, uses the idea of Tyche-Fortuna, and its protagonists blame fortune’s vicissitudes, cf. e.g. Menander frr. 322 K-A, 681 K-A, 853 K-A; Philemon fr. 178 K-A, Plautus Rud. 501 etc. (May 2006, 320-22). Keulen 2007, 169f. argues that Apuleius portrays Socrates here as a superstitious man, but as the events show, Socrates is less superstitious than prophetic, and his claims about his misfortune are entirely justified. The tragicomic characterisation of Socrates here is a pattern repeated throughout Met., where other characters, e.g. Charite or Psyche, who also function as substitute personae for Lucius, are portrayed in a similar fashion (May
Commentary 125 2006, 209ff.; 265fF.). Neither are superstitious, but genuinely tragic characters, whose fate undergoes a metamorphosis of genre. Ne is here the archaic-Plautine particle, not unlike the Greek ναί, usually found in front of a personal pronoun (as here: tu, ‘you’), cf. Plautus Pers. 427; Ter. Hec. 799 etc. the slippery twists, unsteady onslaughts and changeable reversals of our fortunes: An increasing tricolon; in Met. 11.15.3, a programmatic passage, the Isis priest summarises Lucius’ experience as a donkey in similar terms, as the ‘twisted and slippery slopes’ (ambages reciprocae) of Fortune; this again associates Lucius and Socrates. Socrates here starts a series of military metaphors (cf. e.g. incursiones in Caesar Gal. 5.1; 5.21 etc.; Seneca Epist. 67.14), which are often associated with Fortuna, e.g. Met. 5.5.2 and 5.11.3, cf. also on 1.7.1. he covered his face ... down to his groin: This gesture of reverent shamefulness may be associated with the real Socrates (introd. § 10.1), but here it goes very wrong: this Socrates is thwarted by his garment and accidentally makes a bad situation worse - Apuleius’ Socrates tries to be as dignified as his Athenian namesake, by trying a tragic gesture of veiling for shame, but suffers the fate of a man who is let down by the real world, in the form of his threadbare cloak, and unwittingly displays everything from his legs to his navel. Socrates’ shabbiness also recalls that of Odysseus in diguise (Od. 13.428-38), who also elsewhere covers his head in shame in Od. 8.83-6 (see Hunter 2012, 244). His cloak itself has comic and mimic associations (centunculum = made from rags; the tattered coat of the mime in Apol. 13, see below), a typical mix of genres in Met., which turns Socrates’ appearance into tragicomedy (May 2006,13 Iff; tragic connotations of rags: cf. on 1.6.1). The real Socrates was famous for looking quite slipshod in Athens, wearing no shoes and only a simple woollen garment (tribon), cf. Plato Symposium 220b; Xenophon Memorabilia 1.62. Socrates’ intentions are the opposite of the boorish type’s shamelessness in Theophrastus 4.7 who pulls up his cloak intentionally (compared by Keulen 2007,173). 6.5 this miserable spectacle of distress: Spectacle, and the theatricality connected with it, is a leitmotif in Met. (May 2006, 129ff, Graverini 2007, 177ff.) and here part of Socrates’ self-stylisation as a tragic character. In the novel, spectacles are often negatively charged and best to be avoided, and ‘miserable spectacles’ evoke pity in observers and readers for their deadly consequences, cf. 4.20.5 (Thrasyleon tom apart by dogs); 8.17.3 (runaway slaves attacked by dogs). For ‘suffering’ as a key term for the fates of Socrates and Aristomenes anticipating that of Lucius: introd. §5. I ... took him by the hand: Aristomenes is the one who actively initiates Socrates’ escape and manhandles him into action; in 1.17.7 Aristomenes again has to help Socrates up. Lucius is treated similarly by others, see on 1.26.2. 7 Aristomenes makes Socrates run away to an inn, takes care of him, and gets him to tell his story: after a business trip, Socrates is waylaid by robbers and taken in by the innkeeper Meroe, who first uses him sexually, then takes away all his belongings,
126 Commentary and finally makes him work in menial jobs. His description of his fate shows some worrying similarities to Lucius’. with his head covered: The expression is used to indicate shame (cf. on 1.6.4) and sadness (e.g. Curtius Rufus 4.10.34.3), but overwhelmingly for veiling in a religious context (e.g. Cicero Dom. 124.4; Livy 1.18.7.1 etc.), all of which sits uneasily with Keulen’s (2007, 176) interpretation as Socrates being an imitation of Plutarch’s character of the defeatist superstitious man (On Superstition 7). In a w ider context, though, veiling one’s head is a gesture of mourning, even of the soon to be dead (cf. Tibullus 1.1.70f., Suetonius Jul. 82 (Caesar’s death)), so that this gesture here also anticipates Socrates’ death at the end of the book. By contrast, it is notable that the real Socrates unveils his head in Plato Phaedo 118a when he feels his death approaching. Let, oh let: The melodramatic reduplication (geminatio) shows Socrates’ emotional distress, also in 1.8.2 (again Socrates speaking), 2.28.3 and 6.10.6 (dramatic requests are similarly emotionally charged); cf. Plautus Aul. 713; Per. 591, Terence Eu. 834. let Fortuna enjoy for longer that trophy which she herself has hung up: For Fortuna as a leitmotif see introd. § 10.3. Fortuna here is a powerful divinity in receipt of a tropaeum, a monument of the spoils taken from fugitive enemies, usually made of a wooden post with a horizontal bar, on which trophies could be hung, e.g. helmets and arms of the enemy (for that meaning cf. e.g. 10.25.5 and 31.6). The place of its erection became sacred to the gods of war. In Roman representations, often male and female prisoners kneeling or sitting next to the tropaeum were part of its iconography, and Socrates here seems to see himself as both the trophy stand and Fortuna’s prisoner beside it in a tableau of defeat. Fortuna is portrayed as victorious e.g. in Petronius 101.1, where her role is comic (Schmeling 2011, 399); cf. also above on 1.6.3. 7.2 I took off one of my two garments and ... covered him: A gesture with complex associations throughout the novel: Aristomenes’ action inverts Meroe’s after Socrates has fallen amongst the robbers, as she had taken his last garment off him. In 1.19.11 contego is used once again by Aristomenes for Socrates’ burial. Like the veiling, this ‘covering’ thus anticipates both Socrates’ burial and Lucius’ fate: in 11.14.3 the Isis priest will likewise order the naked Lucius newly retransformed into his human form to be covered with a linen garment, and one member of the procession obeys, throwing his outer garment over Lucius. See also below on 1.7.10; lacinia occurs 26 times in Apuleius, twice in 1.7 (where it unusually indicates the whole garment) and once in 1.23.1, where it has its usual meaning ‘edge of garment’. to the baths: Aristomenes begins to offer typical ingredients of guest-friendship to Socrates (introd. §6.1), including a bath, also a necessity for the filthy Socrates. Just as Aristomenes’ trip to the baths is interrupted by unexpectedly meeting an old friend, Lucius in 1.24 first heads to the baths only to meet Pythias out of the blue, and have the bath afterwards. Lavacro trado, unique to Apuleius, recurs twice, in
Commentary 127 both cases used for Lucius in rites of passage: in 11.1.4 (Lucius cleanses himself in the sea before praying) and 11.23.1 (Lucius washes before an initiation). Psyche, too, is given a bath when she arrives in Cupid’s palace in 5.2.3 and offers one to her sisters in 5.15.1. Both Socrates and Psyche are alter egos for Lucius. At the same time, this last bath of Socrates anticipates his funeral: in 9.30.7, the miller killed by the ghost, whose description shows some echoes of Socrates, is given his last bath before his funeral. Plutarch On Exile 4 (600b), as Keulen 2007, 176 notes, describes how to “make a stand against Fortune” in a way found in comedies. The advice is to seek ‘fire, a bath house, a cloak, a roof’, which is exactly what Aristomenes does for Socrates. 7.3 an enormous layer of filth I scraped off with great effort: Roman bathing customs involved covering the body with oil and scraping it off with a strigil. Apuleius continues to establish multiple parallels between Lucius, Aristomenes and Socrates: the cleaning of Socrates recalls verbatim Lucius’ refreshing of his horse (1.2.3). Lucius will also feed his horse twice in Met. 1 (1.2 and 24), as Aristomenes feeds Socrates twice (here and 1.19). The transmitted eluviem ‘the washing away (e.g. of filth’), printed e.g. by Hanson 1989, has no real parallel in the required meaning ‘filth’, and was emended to illuviem (‘the state of being unwashed, filthy condition, dirt’) by Oudendorp, followed by Hildebrand, and printed e.g. by Keulen 2007 and Zimmerman 2012, followed here. led him to an inn ...: Hospitium occurs five times in Met. 1, indicating the importance of the hospitality motif in the book (introd. §6.1). Here it means ‘inn’, as in Petronius 91.3 and 95 (Schmeling 2011, 389), whereas in Met. 1.21.8 and 25.6 it is used in the wider sense of house or lodgings. In 1.22.7 and 23.6 it indicates Milo’s hospitality. I revived him with a bed, filled him with food, relieved him with drink, and soothed him with stories: Not much alcohol is needed for the emaciated Socrates to appear somewhat drunk in Met. 1.11. Wine and food form part of a typical hospitium scene, so Aristomenes’ intentions are correct, although the execution may be exaggerated. There is no need to assume this to indicate excessive wine drinking (Keulen 2007, 182). For the contrast with the real Socrates’ ability to hold his drink see introd. §10.1. Story-telling becomes part of the relief Aristomenes has in mind for Socrates, another aspect of hospitium, and, as often the case in hospitality narratives, we hear only the guest’s, Socrates’, story, not Aristomenes’. Similarly Lucius, once turned donkey, will find consolation in words and stories; cf. also above on 1.1.1 (the reader’s ears) for stories having a soothing effect. 7.4 Soon there was an effortless inclination for chatting and joking and there was clever banter, soon sparkling wit: Gradual building up of different kinds of banter and joking. Cicero De Oratore 2.218 defines ‘banter’ (<cavillatio) as wit equally distributed throughout the conversation, and the more mordant ‘wit’ of dicacitas as short and sharp. In 2.19.3 (Byrrhaena’s dinner entertainment) a similar
128 Commentary> list appears in a similarly sympotic context: ‘soon laughter was plentiful, the jokes were free and banter (cavillus) everywhere’. The syntax, with the turning point in the cum inversum clause (‘when he drew...'), marks the sudden change from comical banter into Socrates’ tragic behaviour, which starts again as soon as he begins to speak. The incongruity between the actions, described by Aristomenes with his more comic outlook and lexicon, and Socrates’ more tragic words, adds a comic dimension (May 2006, 132-39). F’s transmitted timida ‘timid’ is problematic (although printed by e.g. Robertson 1965 and Hanson 1989; defended by Augello 1977,29 as an oxymoron), as dicacitas = wit is quite the opposite of ‘shy'. Humanists printed tinnula (‘ringing, jangling; sparkling’, also in Zimmerman 2012 and here), which Beroaldo found in a now lost manuscript. Others have emended, e.g. Keulen 2007 who prints mimica ‘mimic’ and sees a climactic progression in the conversation from hesitation to all out clowning, but in the parallel passage Met. 2.19.3 (see above) there is not necessarily a noticeable climax. he drew from his innermost heart a torturous sigh, and repeatedly struck his forehead savagely with his right hand: A melodramatic gesture: the phrase recalls Viigil’s ghost of Hector appearing to Aeneas (Vergil A. 2.288), but undermines the allusion with a possibly Plautine word for ‘sigh’, suspiritus (Plautus Cist. 56, Mer. 114, Tru. 600, instead of the epic gemitus; Sandy 1997, 252; Keulen 2007, 187), adding a comic touch to Socrates’ ghostly fate. Socrates’ clenched hand pressed to the chest is a very dramatic gesture, e.g. of remorse (Quintilian Inst. 11.3.104). 7JS Wretched man that 1 am: Socrates is melodramatic in his language and intentions, but perhaps not quite tragic in their execution, cf. his displaying of his genitals (1.6.4). Me miserum features regularly in tragedy: Ennius 180 Jocelyn {Hecuba), Pacuvius trag. 264 Ribbeck {Niptra) etc., but also in comedy: Afranius 409 Ribbeck, Plautus Aul. 721, Terence An. 646 etc. See on 1.6.1 for the repeated portrait of Socrates as ‘wretched’. the pleasure of quite a famous gladiatorial spectacle: This sits uneasily with the tragedy evoked by Socrates, again contrasting comic action and melodramatic tone with his tragic self-portrait. ‘Pleasure’ {voluptas) is a loaded term in Met. ', used of gladiatorial games in 4.13.2 and 4.14.1, cf. also 10.35.1, but also of sex, 1.8.1 in connection with Socrates. Interest in gladiatorial games throws further light on Socrates’ self-portrait here: although popular with all classes, they were regarded by the elite as a low class entertainment {e.g. Horace Ep. 1.18.19); in Petronius 45.4-7 the detailed discussion of gladiatorial games characterises the speakers’ boorishness (Ewigleben 2000, 131). Larissa was the prosperous capital of the Thessalian League. There were two different types of games at Larissa; the Eleutheria (held every four years and which were open to foreigners), and annual local games. The games included, amongst other competitions, aphippodroma, specifically Thessalian horse mounting competitions, important enough to be represented on Larissan coins, and gladiatorial
Commentary 129 games. Gallis 1988 has an image of the inscription on SEG 32.605, the tombstone of the gladiator Phoibos killed in Larissa’s gladiatorial games in the second half of the second century AD. Both Socrates and Lucius are interested in spectacles but become spectacles themselves, apt metaphorical metamorphoses for both. On Apuleius’ Socrates as an anti-Socrates and anticipation of Lucius see introd. §10.1. 7.6 as you know very well: Another indication that Socrates and Aristomenes are close friends and knew of each other’s travel plans beforehand (cf. on 1.6.1); Socrates’ assertion that Aristomenes knows something well may again be poking gentle fun at the real Socrates’ famous claim to ignorance, cf. on 1.6.4. in the tenth month I returned home much wealthier: On the importance of the timespan see above on 1.6.3. Larissa Loukios lies to Hipparchos in Onos 3.4 that he plans to go to Larissa, a town very much associated with witchcraft in Met.: Thelyphron’s encounter with witchcraft is also set in Larissa (2.21.3). Lucius makes no such statement to Milo. For Larissa see also above on Met. 1.7.5. in some pathless valley full of crevasses I was beset by some gigantic robbers: Lucius moves through a similar landscape in 1.2.2, but instead of encountering robbers he meets Aristomenes and his companion. Inimical landscapes are often infested by robbers, e.g. 4.6 (the robbers’ cave is described in similar terms; De Biasi 2000, 21 Of.), repeatedly in Met. 8. Likewise, Apuleius’ robbers are always gigantic: in 3.5.2 a robber has a ‘large body’; in 2.32.2 Lucius invents robbers with similar features; Tlepolemus deceives the robbers to accept him as their chief in 7.5 because of his impressive physique (robbers in Met. : Dowden 1993; Riess 2001). 7.7 a certain innkeeper called Meroe, an old woman, but still quite sexy: Female innkeepers were quite frequent and had a bad reputation, often associated with prostitution (McGinn 1998, 53-58). Meroe’s speaking name evokes merum, undiluted wine; for a possible pun with merus cf. on 1.8.6. Meroe likes to drink (1.10.3), and drinking undiluted wine is unseemly, which agrees with her sexually charged character; cf. Mero, a masculine form given to Nero explicitly to evoke his drinking habits in Suetonius Tib. 42. In ancient literature, old women are often said to drink (refs in May 2006,260ff.), and equally often are associated with loose morals and especially witchcraft. Compare Oenothea, an old woman with a speaking name in Petronius 134.13ff.: ‘wine goddess’, or ‘she whose goddess is wine’, thus Schmeling 2011, 519. In literature, old women like to drink, cf. e.g. Dipsas in Ovid Am. 1.8.1-2. Just like other literary witches, for example Horace’s Canidia, the witches in Roman elegy, Melitta and Bacchis in Lucian’s Dialogues of Courtesans 4 or Simaetha in Theocritus’ Idyll 2, Meroe is of questionable morals. Dickie 2000, 581 groups these literary women together as soon-to-be prostitutes or prostitutes who have no qualms in using love magic. Roman witches are invariably old, e.g. the Thessalian witch Erictho in Lucan; cf. Horace Epod. 5.98; S. 1.9.30; Ovid Rem. 254. Meroe’s portrait is thus primarily a literary one. Socrates’ subsequent enslavement to Meroe as her lover has been seen as an elegiac servitium amoris (‘enslavement to
130 Commentary» the beloved’) to an aloof and grasping mistress, a sexually dominant older woman, to the extent that he later will sell all his meagre belongings for her (1.7.10; Mathis 2008, Hindermann 2009, 2010). Despite her age, Socrates succumbs to Meroe’s (magical?) attractions (although Tatum 1969, 494 is rather harsh in partly blaming Socrates for his situation for finding Meroe attractive to start with). Another possible link is with Isis, through Meroe, the capital of Ethiopia and an important temple site for the Isis cult (Juvenal 6.522T). In Met. 1.8.8 Meroe makes Ethiopians fall in love with her. This would turn her into an anti-image of Isis as much as Socrates is an anti-Socrates. Apuleius perhaps wants all these negative interpretations of the name to sit next to each other. On the name most recently: Michalopoulos 2006. In Greece old women were allowed to move about outside the houses more freely, as they were deemed to be beyond sexuality, which makes Meroe, an elderly business woman, even more remarkable since she is still sexually voracious. Scitula ‘sexy’ appears only in Plautus and Apuleius, usually for pretty young girls and only here for an old hag (who is sensitive about her age and appearance, cf. Met. 1.9 and 1.12.2): Met. 2.6.7 it is used of Photis, in 5.25.5 Cupid calls Psyche puella scitula; in both cases the men are strongly attracted to the women. In 10.30.5 the adverb describes ‘Paris’ moving gracefully in a pantomime. Erotic attraction also plays a role in 3.15.8 where it describes the kind of young man Pamphile is attracted to, and in 7.21.2, where attractive women are all supposedly threatened by Lucius the donkey’s alleged randiness. the reasons for my long travels, my anxiety to return home, and my miserable plundering: At the beginning of this hospitium relationship everything is still going to plan. Enquiries by the host to the guest about their journey are normal, but by delaying Socrates against his will, Meroe falls foul of proper hospitality just as Calypso initially delays Odysseus against his will (cf. 1.12.6; Fernandez Contreras 1997,109). When the host demands more of the guest than is allowed by the rules of hospitium, hospitality goes wrong, and especially where the host does not allow her guest to leave. For similarities in Socrates’ and Lucius’ experiences of hospitality see introd. §6.1. 7.8 She began to treat me more than kindly: A loaded phrase: in 10.17.2 Lucius the donkey uses humane (‘kindly’) consciously to describe his master treating him not like a donkey but feeding him human food.'Here it ironically anticipates Meroe’s less than kind (and less than humane) treatment of Socrates and the witch’s ability to transform humans into animals. [diuturnae et dum]: An obvious dittography, excluded by all editions, and left untranslated. 7.8 a gratis dinner, gratefully received,: For Socrates, sex and food are equally important, as the construction (both nouns depend on adplicat) makes clear. Socrates is pleased for two reasons, namely as an impoverished traveller receiving a free meal, and as someone already a little attracted to his hostess before the magic is
Commentary 131 applied. He also is indebted to her, and because he is unable to pay the innkeeper for board and food, he may not feel able to refuse her. Both pleasures will be short¬ lived, as Meroe makes him work for his upkeep and takes his last clothes from him, and he now wishes to escape from her influence and finds himself unable to do so for reasons he will explain in Met. 1.9. Word games such as the anaphora of grat¬ are favourite rhetorical tools for Apuleius in Met. 1 (introd. §12). excited by lust: ‘Lust’ urigo, first found here and in 8.29.4 (also negatively, of the randy priests of the Dea Syria), indicates inappropriate sexuality; similarly Pamphile in 2.5.8 ‘bums forever in lust’ (uritur) for young lovers. Literally ‘itching’, urigo is a very negatively charged technical term in medicine, e.g. Vegetius Mulomedicina 3.52.1. 7.9 from that one single act of sex I contracted an aging and pestilential wife: Meroe is seen as old, disease-bringing and insalubrious: a medical metaphor (cf. e.g. 10.33.3, where the real Socrates is killed by the ‘harmful juice of that pestilential plant’, herbae pestilentis suco noxio), continued in contraho ‘contract’ (cf. below). Socrates is apologetic; the medical imagery displays the flipside of the common idea of love as an irresistible illness: Meroe becomes a disease against which there is no defence. On love sickness in the novels: Luchner 2004, 229-40. One single act of sex puts Socrates under the witch’s power, a motif shared e.g. by Homer Od. 10.339-468, where Odysseus does not only refuse drink and food from Circe, but also intercourse, in order to avoid falling under her spell and being transformed into an animal like his men (Schlam 1992, 69). F’s con contraho is either a dittography with con to be deleted (e.g. A and editio princeps, followed by e.g. Keulen 2007, Zimmerman 2012 and here), making annosam ac pestilentem (i.e. Meroe) its object, or con has to be supplemented to form the object of contraho, e.g. as consuetudinem (‘sex’, Van der Vliet), coniunctionem (‘relationship’, Hanson 1989) etc., or emended into another word, e.g. cladem (‘calamity’, Helm). Treating Meroe as the object who can be contracted like a marriage and a disease requires the least intervention in the text and forms a striking metaphor. 7.10 those garments: The only thing that Socrates had left that belonged to him. Again he anticipates the fate of Lucius, who first gets clothed by the Isis initiates after his immediate retransformation in Met. 11.14.3 (cf. on 1.7.2), and then has to sell his clothes in 11.28.3 for an initiation, just as Socrates first loses most of his clothes to the robbers, and then the rest to Meroe, just to be covered again with half of Aristomenes' clothes. Losing one’s clothes thus symbolises the losing and regaining of one’s humanity and independence (Schlam 1978,96, Van Mal-Maeder 1997, 102, Keulen 2007, 197). the good robbers: Bonus in Met. 1 gradually becomes more ironic, sinister and sarcastic, describing the witches in 1.7.10, 1.13.2, 1.13.6 and 1.15.6, and is used again ironically of robbers in 4.8.9 (Roncaioli 1963). working as a sack-carrier: Saccarii are sack-makers and -sellers and the men
132 Commentary who loaded and unloaded cargo ships in the ports (Digest 18.1.40.3). Socrates’ working as a porter again anticipates Lucius who will carry sacks as a donkey (van derPaardt 1978, 83). my good wife and evil Fortune: Sarcastic use of the normal term for wives; uxor is used in its regular meaning in 1.6.3 (Socrates’ wife) and 1.9.5 (wife of Meroe’s lover); Pamphile is Milo’s uxor e.g. in 1.21.6, 1.22.7 and 1.23.1, but Meroe is not Socrates’%wife’. As a legal term, it indicates the marriage between two freeborn people, which clashes directly with Socrates’ portrait as Meroe’s slave and entails the same sarcasm found in ‘good’, which is intended to correspond with the following ‘evil Fortune’ and compares Meroe unflatteringly with the ‘good robbers’ who had at least left Socrates some clothes. Greek gamos does not necessarily mean ‘marriage’, but can be any kind of sexual union, as also in the context of magical papyri, where the goal of binding spells seems to be erotic union between sexually available partners rather than marriage, cf. Dickie 2000, 570f. Lucius on the other hand wants to keep his host Milo’s marriage intact and not try to seduce Pamphile (2.6.6), i.e. Apuleius avoids this mixing of categories of wives and lovers. The chapter ends as it began by blaming the ‘evil’ goddess Fortuna, a literary rather than religious motif, cf. Plautus Rud. 501; May 2006, 322. 8 Socrates reveals that Meroe is a witch with cosmic powers, who can make the whole world fall in love with her. Aristomenes is sceptical. Ominous links with the ghost in Met. 9 (see introd. §11) and Lucius’ fate continue, especially through associating Meroe w ith Isis. 8.1 By Pollux: Pol is archaic and comic (in Plautus predominately used by men, and in Terence by women), and almost disappeared after Varro (Ullman 1943-44, 87-89), especially in the combination pol quidem, e.g. Plautus Bac. 394, Terence An. 459 etc. Its initial position in the sentence characterises Aristomenes’ reply to Socrates’ melodramatic speech as comic-bathetic, an attempt to undercut Socrates’ tragic histrionics (May 2006, 135). to suffer the worst: The expression foreshadows Socrates’ deadly fate. In 9.14.2 it is used of the miller who dies at the end of his tale through the hands of the ghost evoked by a witch on behalf of his unfaithful wife, with many thematic and linguistic overlaps. you preferred the pleasure of Venus and a hoary whore to your home and children: As in 1.7.5, ‘pleasure’ is entirely negatively charged. The infidelity of Apuleius’ Socrates to his wife is the first of many adultery plots in the novel, and is thus programmatic of its portrait of marriage. It also anticipates Lucius’ fate, whose lifestyle of ‘servile pleasures’ is condemned by the Isis priest in 11.15.1. Although Lucius studiously tries to avoid amorous connections (nexo ... Venerio) with Pamphile in 2.6.6, he enters into an affair with her servant Photis. Voluptas Veneria occurs only here, in 4.27.7, and before Apul. only in Cicero Tusc. 4.68.
Commentary 133 Scortum scorteum is a pseudo-etymological pun, a type of word game of which Apuleius is very fond (introd. § 12); here the accumulation of alliterations has a comic effect. Scortum ‘whore’ is very negatively charged for ‘prostitute’, more pejorative than e.g. meretrix (cf. Terence Hau. 104f.). In 8.1.5 Thrasyllus is characterised negatively as nobly bom, but drinking and spending his time with prostitutes (scortis). For the first time a word describing leathery material is used of a human; the etymology of scortum as derived from corium ‘hide, skin’ was widely accepted. Hides were hit and kneaded to make leather, and the joke here explicitly connects Meroe with the basest aspects of her alleged profession. Similarly, pellicula, Tittle skin’, was a term for prostitutes in Atellane farce (Varro L. 7.84; Mencacci 2005). Lar ‘home’, literally the protective guardian spirit of a specific house and household (cf. on 1.6.3), stands here for the whole home and family, which is a recurrent motif in Met. Many characters have to leave their home behind because they have succumbed to witchcraft, which destroys this link. Lucius in 3.19.6 experiences a similar fate, as he swears to abandon his home (larem) for Photis, turning into a victim of witchcraft similar to Socrates in Met. 1.6, Aristomenes in 1.19.12, and Thelyphron in 2.30.9. 8.2 he moved the finger nearest to his thumb to his mouth: He puts his forefinger on his mouth in a rhetorical and theatrical gesture to command silence (Juvenal 1.160, Pliny Nat. 33.1), but the gesture may also evoke mystery religion; it was associated with Harpocrates, the child of Isis and Osiris, symbolically sucking his thumb, originally as a sign for the god’s extreme youth, though it was later thought the god was asking for the silence required for the mystery cults: Ovid Met. 9.692; Plutarch IsicL 68 (378c). This would anticipate Lucius’ initiation into magic in Met. 3.15 and then into the mysteries of Isis in Met. 11; cf. also below (gestures: most recently Aldrete 1999, 182). Be quiet, be quiet: Socrates is fond of reduplication, see 1.7.1. The expression itself is found primarily in comedy: Plautus Cur. 156; Per. 591; Terence Eu. 834 (and Pseudo-Quintilian Decl. 6.8), giving a possible comic connotation to Socrates’ absurd position. The phrase may also recall and parody the ritual request for silence at the start of mystery initiations (cf. above). looking around for means to make our conversation safe: The sentence is very theatrical, reminiscent of comic eavesdropping scenes to ensure that no one overhears or watches a secret conversation (Plautus Mil. 955; Mos. 472fi; Trin. 146-51). In Plato Theaetetus 155e, the real Socrates tells his interlocutor to look around to ensure no (metaphorical) uninitiate is listening. Apuleius’ Socrates here wants to ensure that Meroe does not listen in; although he does not see her, and she is not physically present, she still finds out that he has told Aristomenes about her, see below on 1.12.3 and 5. that divine woman: A rather respectful reference to Meroe, induced by fear: divinus here means ‘magical’, as in 3.19.4 divinae disciplinae\ 1.8.4 and 9.29.4, where the witch is called divini potens (‘with power over the divine’), and in Greek magical papyri (Pap. Par. 160; Berol. 1.127, 299, 317, 322 etc.) where magic is called ιερά,
134 Commentary ‘divine’. The epithet links witchcraft with prophecy (cf. Cicero Div. 2.5.14 etc.), and witches are called divinae e.g. in Horace S. 1.9.30. For a second-time reader the epithet gains another, more literary, meaning, since Meroe, through mythological examples, identifies herself with goddesses in Met. 1.12 (Hecate, Selene and Calypso). do not contract some harm against you with that unguarded tongue of yours: Socrates is cautious in a speech where he is about to reveal her powers as a witch, although he uses the same word that in 1.7.9 associated Meroe with disease. Noxam contrahere occurs again in Apuleius in 11.21.6 and 23.5, both in connection to possible transgressions to be avoided during Lucius’ Isis initiations, which associates Meroe and Isis. 83 That powerful woman and inn-keeping queen: Aristomenes’ potens (‘powerful’, echoed in Socrates’ answer: divini potens) is an ironic response to Socrates’ awed semi-divine description of Meroe. ‘Queen’ is a title of respect, even divinity, cf. Met. 11.2.1 for the Moon goddess in Lucius’ first prayer; Iuno in 6.4.2 and importantly Isis in 11.5.1 and 11.26.3 carry regina as cult titles. 8.4 A witch ... with power of the divine: Socrates finally lets the cat out of the bag, and describes Meroe’s powers in cliches already encountered in 1.3.1. Saga, etymologically associated with wisdom and cleverness (sagacitas, thus a ‘wise woman’) is a common term for a witch (e.g. Cicero Div. 1.31.65; 2.63.129; Tibullus 1.2.42). It is also used in 2.21.7 (generally on witches), and Apol. 31 (to define Agamede, Medea’s cousin, in Homer//. 11.740f. as a witch). Socrates’ awed answer echoes feminam divinam (but here genuinely meaning ‘divine’) as a direct reply to Aristomenes’ sceptical potens. The description of Meroe’s divine powers anticipates the witch who calls up the larva in 9.29ff. (see introd. §11). to pull down heaven and to hang up the earth, to solidify fountains and to wear away mountains, to raise ghosts and to bring down gods, to switch out stars and light up Tartarus itself·: The general adynata from 1.3.1 are now attached to Meroe and witchcraft and more clearly associated with magic. Both lists contain eight powers, which results in superficial correspondences, but this list excels the first, as Meroe’s powers stretch beyond nature, over gods and ghosts, too. Apuleius here lists cliches especially associated with a number of witches, mostly Thessalian, or Medea or Circe from mythology, but at times portrays his witches’ impact as stronger and more menacing than that of their predecessors. This list is also more clearly arranged into four groups, with each of two powers correlating but contradictory (the heavens are lowered, the earth is raised etc.). The phonic echoes and parallelisms intensify the appearance of magical incantations and give the impression of total chaos. Meroe, Pamphile and Isis share similar cosmic powers, cf. on 1.3.1. Though Socrates attributes them to Meroe, in this novel none of the witches who allegedly can make nature bend to their wills succeed in forcing a single lover to stay with them. Instead they have to take refuge in punishing them, castrating them, etc. Love magic was however believed to be quite powerful in the ancient world, with some interesting exceptions (see above on 1.3.1).
Commentary 135 The first pair inverts the cosmic levels of up and down. Pulling down the heavens is a more generalised, but also more threatening and encompassing version of Met. 1.3, where the planets and stars are tom from the sky. The next pair inverts the order of hard and soft in a variation of the magic in 1.3 immobilising the sea, but durare is also used of magic in Met., e.g. in 2.1.4 (humans metamorphosed/hardened’ into stones) and Lucius’ skin hardening into bristle when he turns into a donkey in 3.24.4. Dissolving mountains has no equivalent in 1.3.1. The third pair, which again has no equivalent in Met. 1.3, inverts life and death, heaven and hell, and is associated with magic, cf. 2.28f. (the dead Thelyphron is conjured by the Egyptian priest Zatchlas). It forms another link between Meroe the anti-Isis and Isis, who in 11.5.1 is called Queen of the Shades (regina manium). Apuleius defines the Shades {Manes) in Socr. 15 (152f.) as those who had become gods for leading good lives, and includes Isis’ consort Osiris, whom she raised from the dead, in their number. Whereas Isis brings order to the cosmos, Meroe as anti- Isis throws it into chaos. More generally, Manes are the spirits of the dead and associated with the Underworld (CIL 10.2936), in contrast with the gods above. Cf. also above on 1.6.3. Raising the spirits of the dead was in the Greek context not necessarily negative in literature (e.g. Homer, Od. 11; for details see below on 10.3; Odysseus’ ‘ditch’ is mentioned by Apuleius as an example of magic in Apol. 31) and the real world (e.g. at the Thesprotian oracle), though e.g. Heliodorus’ necromancing witch in Aethiopica 6.14f. is equally negatively charged In Roman literature necromancy is progressively negative in its depiction. The Thessalian witch Erictho’s necromancy in Lucan 6.419-830 is clearly lurid and transgressive. Being able to force the gods to bend to the magician’s will is common in ancient magic (e.g. in 3.16.2 Pamphile threatens the sun for not disappearing quickly enough; Pap. Lond. 125.10ff.; Theocritus 7.106ff.), usually through naming the deity, see Abt 1908 44-50 (118-24). Infimare ‘to bring down’ occurs first here and in Apul. Socr. 4 (127), in contrast there, too, to sublimare ‘to raise’. The last pair inverts darkness and light, echoing 1.3.1 where the stars are tom out, but again Meroe is stronger than the adynata in 1.3 anticipate, as she can put out the lights of the stars altogether, cf. also 2.5.5, the powers of Pamphile, who can sink the light of the stars into the deepest Tartarus. Tartarus is notably gloomy and dark (Hesiod Th. 720ff.), and normally the place of punishment for the worst mythological evildoers (e.g. Vergil A. 6.542ff.). For Apuleius, though, Tartarus is more genetically the home of the dead (Socr. 5 (129)), and in Met. 6.17.1 it is Tartarus where Psyche is compelled to go and where the shades of the dead (manes) reside. Isis, too, illuminates Acheron, another word for the Underworld, in 11.6.6, and tramples Tartarus under her feet in 11.25.3. Aristomenes in 1.15.5 uses the image of staring into Tartarus to express his utmost despair after having been exposed to Meroe’s harmful magic, thus making this claim of her ability at least a ‘reality’. 8.5 remove that tragic curtain and fold up that comic backdrop: The siparium is a small theatrical curtain, which is pulled up when the acts are changed or which
136 Commentary hides parts of the stage facade, whereas the aulaeum is a laige drop curtain which is lowered at the beginning and raised at the end of comedies and tragedies. Its removal therefore indicates the end of a theatrical performance, here used metaphorically (the phrase recurs in its literal sense in 10.29.5: see May 2006, 122f. for the theatrical connotations in both instances). Aristomenes asks Socrates to stop being such a drama queen and to use non-tragic, ordinary language. Despite Socrates’ predilections for tragic language, the plot he finds himself part of moves from a mime plot, with a man scared of his sexually voracious lover who then breaks into his bedroom to take revenge, to fleeting happiness after a false death, and finally to tragic death and exile of the protagonists. Socrates’ story with its reversals of fortune is therefore a precis of the plot of Metamorphoses as a whole, and a warning to Lucius. The future imperatives could be solemn, but in the paratragic context of theatre evoked here they recall comic language, cf. also 1.24.2. The paratactic oro with imperative (as here and in 1.21.4, to indicate a request or a question, see OLD s.v. If) is comic and colloquial, cf. Plautus Am. 923 etc. 8.6 making men fall in love with her madly: Interestingly enough, the general description of love magic as powerful does not tally at all with the description of Socrates’ reaction to her: he tries to flee from her. On love magic and its problematic effectiveness see introd. §11. Indians and Aethiopians (both kinds), and even Antipodeans: The four peoples denote the world’s periphery (e.g. Herodotus 3.106.1, Strabo 1.2.28). Meroe’s influence over them gives her cosmic and erotic powers a spatial dimension. Apuleius in FI. 6; 15.16-18; Mund. 6 (301), 7 (302), 26 (348); PI 1.3 (186) sees the Indians as noteworthy for living far away beyond the Persians and near the surrounding Oceanus. Indian snakes (also in FI. 5) appear on Lucius’ Isiac cloak in 11.24.3. Aethiopians were thought to have settled both in Africa and Asia; Homer Od. 1.22-4 locates both sets as έσχατοι άνδρων ‘the most remote of men’. In Apul. Met. 11.5.3 Isis is known by the inhabitants of ‘both Aethiopias’. Meroe is also the capital of Aethiopia (Vasunia 2001, 47-53, Parker 2008, Finkelpearl 2012). This again creates a link between the witches and Isis. Anticthones are the inhabitants of the temperate zone in the Southern hemisphere opposite to ours: Pomponius Mela 1.4; 1.54, Pliny Nat. 6.81. Occasionally a link between dark skin and sexual desire is made, e.g. Aeschylus Supp. 785-805. At Horace S. 2.814f. a Roman woman’s desire for dark-skinned lovers is lampooned, which suggests this desire was considered an oddity. idle matters of her art and mere trifles: Folia, literally ‘leaves’, are insubstantial and inconsequential (Ovid Am. 2.16.45 compares the words of girls with leaves); leaves were also used for magic, e.g. PGC 24a; Theocritus 2. There may also be an erotic subtext: nugae merae is used in Plautus Cur. 199 and Poen. 348 disrespectfully of other people’s female lovers; Cicero Att. 6.3.5 is more general, of men. There is a possible pun on merus (‘mere’) and her name Meroe. in plain sight of several people: Meroe is so powerful that she does not need
Commentary 137 to hide her witchcraft, though magic is usually practised without witnesses (Met. 2.29f.; in 9.29f. the witch and her ghost act without witnesses) or under the cover of darkness, cf. above on 1.5.1. Eyewitnesses do not ensure truthfulness and credibility, cf. on 1.4.2 and 1.9.6. A reads in conspectu, F in conspectum. The former is printed by almost all recent editions, e.g. Keulen 2007, Zimmerman 2012, the latter by e.g. Hanson 1989. In conspectum would require a verb of movement, whereas in conspectu gives the more natural meaning ‘in plain sight’, especially when followed by a genitive, cf. e.g. Bellum Hispanicum 40.4 or Caesar Gal. 7.80. 9 Socrates lists Meroe’s magical feats; they offer insights into the rationale and mechanisms of human to animal metamorphosis. 9.1 Her lover: The emphatic word order ostensibly foregrounds love magic, not the cosmic magic featured in 1.8.4. he had dared to make advances: Usually temerare describes stark violations of contracts (marriage, sacrilege, also sexual violence etc., Adams 1982, 199). Meroe seems to consider herself to be the victim of a breach of ‘contract’ between her lover and herself. she turned with a single word: In 2.5.7 Pamphile, too, allegedly enacts her magical metamorphoses ‘in one single moment’. In fact, her own transformation into an owl takes long and meticulous preparation, and we can never verify Meroe’s instantaneous metamorphic skills. Verbum ‘word’ can indicate a magical incantation, cf. Horace Ep. 1.1.34; Tibullus 1.5.43; Lucan 6.446 etc. 9.2 that beast, when it fears captivity, frees itself from its pursuers by biting off its testicles: Beaver genitalia were believed to be the source of castoreum, a glandular secretion from their castor sacs, widely used in ancient medicine (Pliny Nat. 32.29-31). Beavers were therefore killed for their genitalia, and it was commonly supposed that they castrated themselves when cornered to avoid this (Phaedrus 28.1; Pliny Nat. 8.109; Juvenal 12.34. etc.); the belief is reflected in the etymology of castor (from castrare, ‘to castrate’, Servius' commentary on Georgies 1.58). Genitalia is ambiguous (penis or testicles, or both), although the plural is clearly used to indicate testicles in Met. 7.23.2. The metamorphosis is therefore aptly vindictive: the lover will slice off the part of his body that has offended Meroe. Panthia likewise suggests castration as a punishment for Socrates in 1.13.2; this accords with the sexually rapacious and violent nature of the witches in Met. Castration is a serious threat to Lucius, the victim of witchcraft, and one he dreads very much, during his time as a donkey (7.23-26: a punishment for alleged lechery); in these cases the castration is prevented, though he is referred to as a gelded horse (8.23.6) and a castrated ram (8.25.1). [because he had lusted after another woman]: Leo rightly deleted the phrase as a gloss erroneously integrated into the text; it does not add anything to 1.9.1 ‘because he had dared to make advances to another woman’.
138 Commentary 9J A neighbouring innkeeper: The only male innkeeper in the story, and uniquely not a love but a business rival. Meroe practises not only love magic, but also the rather common cursing magic meant for business rivals, but goes beyond the usual binding spells (Gager 1992, 151-74) by metamorphosing her rivals into appropriate animals (see introd. § 11). transformed: Deformare ‘to transform, disfigure' connects the punishment with the changes in both Socrates and Socrates' wife in 1.6.1 and 3, which are also ultimately a consequence of witchcraft. a frog: Frogs were proverbial for garrulity (Isidore Orig. 12.6.58), conceit or pretentiousness (Phaedrus 1.24; Horace S. 2.3.314ff., Petronius 74.13), and degradation (Petronius 77.6). Their voice is considered as harsh, loud (onomatopoetic croaking: Varro L. 5.78) and annoying (Aristophanes Frogs 226ff.). In Ovid Met. 6.340ff. Lycian farmers are turned into frogs for refusing to give Leto a drink, muddying the water by swimming in it. Other people, too, were transformed into frogs, either by Leto, Demeter or Persephone, whom they stopped from drinking water from a pond (Antonius Liberalis 35, Probus on Vergil G. 1.378). Unlike the Lycian farmers, the landlord in Apuleius is entirely innocent. Though still encouraging his customers to drink with his croaking, he accidentally makes the leftovers of his wine undrinkable by stirring up the dregs: another apt metamorphosis, see below. Frogs: Gartner 2009; in magic: Pliny Nat. 32.9. that old man swims around in a vat of his own wine ... submerged in its dregs: The dirty and filthy dregs, in the worst part of the vat, are what usually remains behind once everything else has been drunk (Cicero Brut. 69.244), and the frog’s frantic swimming stirring up the dregs makes the wine undrinkable. Meroe has successfully got rid of her rival and his business. In Met. 9.34 wine bubbling in its vats, and a frog jumping out of the mouth of a dog who himself is then attacked and killed by a ram, are some of the bad omens that warn an estate-owner of coming peril. Helm emended F’s accusative to dolio ‘in a vat’ after comparison with Met. 2.29.3 and 5.17.4, where innatare ‘to swim around in’ takes the ablative, followed by Zimmerman 2012 and here. Robertson 1965, Hanson 1989 and Keulen 2007 keep dolium, although only Vergil G. 2.451 undam ... innatat ‘to swim around in water’ has the accusative in this meaning {OLD lb). officious croaking: Although the frog’s transformation has stopped him from being a successful innkeeper, he still makes his officious and attentive noises of old. Roncus, an onomatopoeic Grecism, is here uniquely used of frogs; as it usually describes snoring humans, the human turned frog still makes a human-like sound. As opposed to the beaver metamorphosis, it becomes clear from this episode that humans transformed into animals by witches lose their human voice, but still retain their human mind. This anticipates Lucius’ fate when he himself has become a donkey but also retains his reason (3.26.1). 9.4 Another man from the forum ... because he had spoken against her: Mostly the binding spells relating to court cases ask for the opponent to be tongue-
Commentary 139 tied (Gager 1992, 116-45, whereas Meroe wishes her opponent to be constantly bleating inffectively. Aristomenes should take note, since he had insulted her in 1.8.1. and now he conducts his cases as a ram: Lawyers are often associated with sheep (Petronius 39.5); in Met. 10.33.1 Lucius calls lawyers ‘cattle from the forum’ (forensia pecora) to describe their stupidities, Artemidorus Onirocritica 2.12 links sophists and teachers with sheep. Additionally, sheep are considered fearful and stupid. Again the metamorphosis is apt and preserves the lawyer’s human characteristics of litiginousness and stupidity in his animal form, using a verb (causas agere - ‘to conduct one’s cases’) specifically associated with his human activities. 9.5 The wife of a lover of hers, because the woman had uttered some witty insult against her: This is probably another lover than the one mentioned (and metamorphosed) previously, and the offence comes from his wife, not from Meroe’s lover himself. some witty insult: In 1.12.5 Meroe accuses Socrates of slandering her in language that echoes his words here, as if she had heard him; Socrates’ punishment will be considerably harsher, though, than the slanderous wife’s. big with advanced pregnancy: A similar combination is used in 10.23.3 (again of a visibly pregnant woman), and sarcina alone in 5.12.2, where it is the weight of the unborn child itself. Cf. also 4.14.5, the bulk of a female bear. sealing her womb and holding back the baby inside: This alludes to the ancient medical concept of a ‘closed womb’: magical knots were associated with preventing childbirth, the reason why knots were frowned upon in the temple of Lucina, the goddess of childbirth: Ovid Fast. 3.257. Closing the woman’s womb is another apt punishment, as she could not keep her mouth shut, and mouth and womb are closely connected to each other in ancient thought, cf. Hippocrates, Diseases of Women 2.137 etc. (for ancient gynaecology see King 1998). Apuleius was interested in gynaecology, using the latest medical knowledge about wombs in his defence as one of the reasons for his and Pudentilla’s marriage: Apol. 68.2-69.1. Meroe is furthermore associated with Lamia, a child-devouring monster, in 1.17.5. 9.6 as everyone reckons: Another verification formula does not make this feat any less incredible. that poor woman: In Met. 1 at least, misellus describes victims of magic, cf. 1.13.3 (Meroe uses it sarcastically and contemptuously of the soon to be dead Socrates); 1.19.11 (of the dead Socrates). Lucius, too, is addressed as miselle in 2.7.7 by Photis when she warns him off playfully, which is anticipatory of Lucius’ fate as a victim of magic at her hands. just as if she were about to give birth to an elephant: Elephants were often believed to be pregnant for ten years and thus used proverbially for tasks that took a long time (Pliny Nat. praef. 28; Nat. 8.28; Plautus St. 168f. Achilles Tatius 4.4), although Aristotle thought their pregnancy lasted either 18 months or three years
140 Commentary (Arist. Historia Animalium 6.27.578a 17-24; in reality it takes a still impressive 22 months). Elephants were generally not bred in captivity but caught alive, which may have aided the misapprehension. Human pregnancy was thought to last ten months (Plautus St. 159f„ Terence Ad. 691); thus Meroe turns months into years. Five- and three-year pregnancies mentioned in Epidaurian inscriptions (possibly perimenopausal pregnancies) were magically healed overnight by Asclepius during the women’s incubation in his temple (Hippocrates Nature of the Child 30). Here the stress is on the weight the woman has to carry: elephant embryos were thought to be the size of a calf: Aristotle De Generatione Animalium 4.5.773b. (Pregnancies: see Dillon 1997, 189-92; Demand 1994, 93f.; King 1998, 107). 10 Meroe takes revenge on a whole town and exiles her main accuser to a foreign country. She takes on even more features from literary witches, especially Medea. She uses binding spells and ghosts after tomb offerings in a ditch to seal up an enemy’s house (Ogden 2001, 146). 10.1 As these things happened again and again: F has quae cum subinde, followed by most modem editors, who assume an ellipse of fierent or a similar word, as e.g. in Met. 4.26.6f. mater ... spem ... propagabat, cum inruptionis subitae gladiatorum impetus ... ‘My mother was planting hope, when a sudden attack of gladiators (happened/occured) ...’, or Tacitus Ann. 4.20.3 (Keulen 2007, 222). Indignation: ‘Righteous anger’ is a rhetorical tool. Cicero Inv. 1.100 defines it as a passage through which ‘great hatred ... is excited against a certain person’. It is used by the prosecution to achieve the conviction of the accused. One of several rhetorical-judicial terms in this section. stoning: Stoning also occurs as popular punishment in 2.27.7 (the crowd calls for Thelyphron’s widow to be stoned), and 10.6.3 (a father asks for his older son to be stoned for killing his younger son). Here however it is not a spontaneous act but formalised justice, reflecting the very rare Greek judicial punishment especially for crimes against the community and religion (Herodotus 9.5; Plutarch Quaestiones Graecae (300a); Xenophon HG 1.2.13; Aelius Aristides Panathenaicus 227D). Stoning, too, is threatened in Athenian drama as popular vengeance where the whole community was harmed: Aeschylus Agamemnon 1616, Myrmidones; Euripides, IA 1349f., Tr. 1039-41 (Helen), Orestes 442; Sophocles Ant. 35f., Oedipus in Euripides OC 435 wishes for it, etc. It is used to execute a magician or demon in Philostratus Apollonius of Tyana 4.10. In Greek poetry and comedy community-led purification can be through stoning the outsider: Aristophanes Acharnians 280f., 295; Clouds 1508. In the Roman world, stoning is not a legal punishment. In Cicero Ver. 2.1.19 and Dom. 12 it is spontaneous and outside the law, more associated with the mythical past. It is mentioned in Roman comedy, perhaps a Greek inheritance: Plautus Poen. 528, Laberius com. 94 Panayotakis (stoning: Rosivach 1987, Robinson 2007). 10.2 just as that famous Medea: A witch and the granddaughter of the sungod
Commentary 141 Helios with similar powers to Meroe. After helping Jason to get the Golden Fleece and causing the death of his uncle Pelias, the King of Iolcos in Thessaly, by magic, Medea is deserted by Jason for King Creon of Corinth’s daughter. In Euripides’ Medea, Medea takes revenge on the royal family and Jason by first asking Creon for one day’s delay before going into exile (cf. below), and using this reprieve to murder Creon’s daughter and her own sons by Jason before escaping. The comparison is apt, as Medea is especially linked with Thessaly (through Jason); Keulen 2007, 225 however finds it out of proportion, as Meroe (until now in the story at least) has not killed anyone yet. But metamorphosing people into animals causes them considerable damage; like Medea, Meroe will soon be deserted by her lover {Met. 1.12), and the comparison bodes ill for Socrates and ultimately for Lucius. In some ways Meroe is however specifically cast as different from Medea, who refrains from sexual intercourse before using magic (Ovid Met. 7.239), a common prescription (Abt 1908, 38 (112)); Meroe, on the other hand, seems not bound by any purity rules, fictional or real. Medea herself is exiled and alone when she murders Jason’s household, Meroe exiles other people. Although this comparison here is specifically from tragedy (cf. on 1.10.2), Apuleius frequently uses mythological examples for comic effect (see also next note), e.g. 10.14.7 (a comic comparison between two squabbling brothers and Eteocles and Polyneices, brothers who kill each other in battle). Thelyphron in 2.26.8 inappropriately compares himself to Orpheus. The discrepancies here leave both tragic and comic outcomes open, but Socrates’ association of Meroe with Medea implies associating himself with Jason, with possible tragic consequences for himself. for a truce of one small day: Medea asks Creon for the delay of one single day in extant Medea tragedies, cf. Euripides Med. 355 and 947, and Seneca Med. 288 and 295. The diminutive diecula, ‘one small day’, itself is comic: Plautus Ps. 503; Terence An. 710 (and Varro discussing comedy, L. 11.12), Cicero Att. 5.21, and three times in Apuleius, including 7.27 where Lucius the donkey is about to be slaughtered - but the death of a young boy gives him one day’s reprieve; a possible allusion to a lost Ennius or Accius Medea tragedy: Mattiacci 1994. burned down his whole house and his daughter together with the old man himself with the flames from her circlet: The burning of the whole house is not in Euripides {Med. 378 she rejects the idea of burning the bridal chamber), but in Ovid Met. 7.394L, Seneca Med. 147, 885f. etc. (the whole house). The ‘flames from her circlet’ shoot out from the crown Medea poisoned and sent to Creon's daughter, and bum her alive (Euripides Med. 1186f., Seneca Med. 572f.). Creon himself is burned to death by them, too, exactly like his daughter, in Euripides Med. 1213-19, as he instinctively takes hold of her. On the destruction of a whole household as a motif cf. above on 1.6.3. 10.3 carried out necromantic spells to form a ditch: Witches split the earth for magical purposes, mostly love magic and necromancy: Ovid Met. 7.243L (Medea), Am. 1.8.18, Rem. 253f; Tibullus 1.2.45L The motif of ditches used for
142 Commentary necromancy goes ultimately back to the Nekyia of the Odyssey (11.24ff.; cf. Statius Theb. 11.63) and also plays a role in literary depictions of witches: e.g. Heliodorus 6.14f. (Egyptian witch), Lucan 6.510ff. (Thessalian witch Erictho). In Met. 2.5.4 Pamphile, who shares many characteristics with Meroe, is described as ‘mistress over all sepulchral spells'. This type of incantation, devotio, is specifically linked with magical murder and binding spells, cf. 9.29. In 7.14.2 Lucius recalls his transformation into a donkey as a ‘dire curse\diras devotiones; the same phrase is used for magic in 9.23.2). For this breakdown of natural boundaries see also 1.8.4, for necromancy see introd. §11. Devotiones procurare (‘to carry out spells’) is a unique phrase, but compare e.g. Cicero Div. 2.25 rebus divinis procuratis (‘having carried out religious rites’; see OLD lb s.v. procuro). In with the accusative here indicates a goal or result, cf. also Met. 3.24.3 in avem ... gestiebam (T tried to become a bird’). For suis sibi see above on 1.6.3. as she herself told me recently when she was drunk: Socrates claims to be a trustworthy eyewitness and explains how he gets to know of events that he was not privy to. The parenthesis itself is thus another verification formula: Meroe carelessly reveals the truth about this damning tale while bragging about it drunkenly (see above on 1.7.7). The magic may have become swifter and more easily performed in its retelling, cf. comm, on 1.9.1. shut up everyone in their very own houses with the silent force of supernatural powers: An example of her control over the gods announced in 1.8.4; like the old witch in 9.29, Meroe forces the gods to obey her will, as does Pamphile in 3.15.7 (icoguntur numina), see also 1.11.2. A similar phrase is used in a magical context in Met. 3.18.3 (‘the invisible force of constrained supernatural powers’; caeca numinum coactorum violentia). Silence during prayers leads to suspicions of magic in Apol. 54. Meroe is obsessed with doors and borders (Keulen 2007, 229); the motif anticipates the futility of Aristomenes’ locking himself and Socrates firmly in their room in the inn: doors locked by magic here anticipate and invert the magical unlocking of the doors in 1.11.7. no bars could be broken, no doors torn out, and not even the walls themselves be breached: A gradation from the small locks to the large walls, with phrases used in Apuleius and others to express violent attempts (often by robbers: Tibullus 1.10.54; Statius Theb. 10.553; Cicero Ver. 2.4.52; Iustinian. Dig. 47.18.1) to break into a house. Here the influence of magic precludes the use of physical force. In Met. 4.10.1 robbers breaking into a house decide not to force the door in order to avoid any noise. Lamachus then tries to lift the bar through the keyhole. In 9.18.2 Philesitherus intends to bribe Myrmex with gold to tear open the doors. In 3.5.2 Lucius describes the wineskins trying to break into Milo’s house in similar terms to here. For the appearance of the door and its details see below on 1.11.5, for further similarities between robbers and witches see on 1.11.7.
Commentary 143 10.4 encouraging each other they cried out in unison: This is a group decision, swore most solemnly: See 1.5.1. The phrase can also be found in Terence/fee. 771. they themselves would not lay hands on her: Before Apuleius the phrase occurs only in Plautus As. 570, where, too, it describes a most solemn violation of the sacred. Cf. also Apul. FI. 1.1 for a similar notion of sacrilege. bring help and rescue her: Literally, ‘to bring rescuing help’, a very Apuleian combination; cf. the following phrases, very similar in meaning: 3.26.3 salutares ... suppetias, 5.5.5 opem salutarem, 7.27.8 auxilium salutare. 10.5 propitiated in this way: A religious term, used e.g. of the god Risus (‘Laughter’, 2.31.2; 3.11.4) or related to Cupid (5.22.7,6.1.2), but also employed by Apuleius to indicate (misguided) worshipping of pseudo-goddesses: Meroe (here), Photis by Lucius (2.10.5), Psyche falsely as Venus (4.29.4), the character of Venus in a pantomime (10.32.2). In Met. 11 the term is then linked with the worship of Isis (related words six times in Met. 11: 2.2, 9.4, 26.3 etc.). set the whole town free: Instead of being condemned to death for witchcraft, the witch herself, in inversion of the legal situation, ‘absolves’ the whole city (legal term: Elster 1991, 150). Importantly, Meroe takes revenge on the whole town, not only on the person who harmed her (cf. above on 1.10.2). This is a stark warning to Aristomenes not to help Socrates escape, as he will be punished, too, and, like the instigator here, will end up as an exile (in 1.12.7 Meroe rightly blames him for Socrates’ flight). the man who was responsible for that assembly she transported: In Plato R. 578e Socrates gives a fictitious example of a man transported away from his society by the gods, who would be compelled to fawn on some of his own slaves and to free them, even though he did not want to (Smith and Woods 2002, 190). in the dead of night: In Met. the phrase is ominous: in 2.25.2 (nominative) it describes the time of night where a witch transformed into a weasel haunts Thelyphron, and in 6.30.1 (genitive) the time of night when ghosts usually haunt people, whereas in Apul. Socr. 18 (159f.) it stresses the stealthiness of the Trojan Horse’s nocturnal assault. Literally ‘un-timely night’; Macrobius Sat. 1.3 defines it as time ‘unsuitable for conducting business’, Varro L. 6.7 and 7.72 as the ‘time during which nothing happens’. Virgil Georgies 1.247 associates it with silence (intempestasilet nox) and in Aen. 12.846 intempesta Nox is ominously personified as the mother of the Dirae (see on 1.18.5). Intempestus alone is negatively charged, too, as ‘unseasonable, unhealthy’ etc., see OLD 2. Although found in other texts in other cases (first in Ennius Ann. 102; 107 = 33; 160 Skutsch), nocte intempesta is first documented in this form in Accius’ Brutus (Fraet. 41 Ribbeck = 675 Dangel) and then in prose (e.g. Cicero Ver. 2.9.94 etc., Livy 37.14,40.9 etc.) and poetry (e.g. Lucretius 5.986). together with his whole house, that is, with walls and the floor itself and the entire foundation: The focus is on the house's physical inpenetrability for anyone but witches: first Meroe ensures that no one could leave it, and now the complete house and its surroundings are again subjected to her magic power and in their
144 Commentary entirety transported out of its city to a foreign country. The family and servants are included in the physical object. away to the one hundredth milestone: Lapis here stands for the more precise miliarium ‘milestone’ to mark the distance of one Roman mile (c. 1,5km), cf. Nepos Art. 22.4. Apuleius uses the same phrase in Apol. 44.6 to indicate a similarly vague but sufficiently great distance. on the highest top of a nigged mountain and because of that without water: ‘The highest top’ is a poeticism used elsewhere of mountain tops, e.g. Olympus in Apul. Socr. 8 (140); Met. 4.35.2, 10.30.1. Its ruggedness is a sign of the place’s loneliness and unsuitability for civilised human habitation (but see next note). Cf. also 1.2.6, 4.6.3 (‘rather rugged rocks’, in the description of the robbers’ cave), 8.15.5 (‘rough ridge’ infested by dangerous wolves). The absence of running water, which is usually available in a locus amoenus (or ‘pleasant place; see below on I. 18.8), contributes to the portrait of its opposite, the desolate locus horridus. 10.6 the close-built houses of its inhabitants did not offer enough space for their new guest: Apuleius surprises the reader - we would have assumed that the barren mountain top would be a place of solitude. ‘New guest’ indicates guest- friendship (cf. Vergil A. 4.10, Statius Silv. 1.5.60 and 3.2.123; Servius’ commentary on Aeneid 11.93 etc.) with all its duties and rewards, which is denied here, symbolised by the absence of water (drink and bath) and the placing of the ‘new guest’ outside rather than welcoming him into the community. she threw down the house in front of the city gate: There is no parallel in ancient witchcraft for this particular feat. In hospitium arrangements new guests often have to wait outside until asked inside (Reece 1993, 15f.), but Meroe’s victim seems permanently placed as an outsider; this could be seen as metoikia, an immigrant’s settlement in a city without acquiring its citizenship. By dropping the house outside the gate, Meroe places it outside the community, signifying the inhabitants’ continued outsider status. Note that Milo and Pamphile placed themselves voluntarily outside the Hypatan community by living physically outside Hypata’s walls: 1.20.6 and 1.21.3. 11 Aristomenes is rattled by Socrates’ story, barricades the door with his cot and tries to keep guard through the night, but finally falls asleep. Suddenly someone breaks through the door and topples over Aristomenes’ bed. II. 1 Strange ... and indeed quite dire things: This recalls 1.1.2, the novel’s programmatic statement: Socrates’ tales of witchcraft are part of the prologue’s announced stories of wonder. Lucius also calls Aristomenes’ story ‘strange’ (mira) in 1.20.4, and uses the same term again in 2.1.1 when Lucius sets out to explore Hypata, hoping for magical encounters, and in 2.6.5 (i.e. for stories about magic), all of which establishes magic as an important leitmotif of the novel. Mira memoras is a Plautine phrase, expressing amazement, still in agreement with Aristomenes’
Commentary 145 more comic attitude, cf. Plautus Am. 616, 1105, 111 7f., Epid. 553, Men. 1104. Conversely, in Met. 1.18.4 Aristomenes, relieved to see Socrates awake, happily attributes the events of the night to a ‘dire’ nightmare. Saevus is often associated with (bad) Fortuna in Met.: 2.13.2, 5.9.2, 7.16.1, 8.24.1, 11.12.1 etc. my friend Socrates: For a second time Aristomenes expresses his concern for his friend with this endearment, cf. 1.6.2. 11.2 In short... with no little anxiety, or rather fear: The new sentence here brings Aristomenes’ sudden change of mind, stressed by the litotes (understatement with double negation); although he still jokes about the situation and uses a wide range of comic words, he is sufficiently worried to barricade himself and Socrates inside their room. you have not thrown a mere pebble but a lance of fear at me: An untranslatable wordplay; compare 1.20.6 for a similarly comic and urbane effect: originally, scrupulum indicates a ‘pebble in a shoe’, which later acquired the meaning ‘anxiety’ (Terence^*/. 228, Ph. 954; Sisenna hist. 124. Cicero Clu. 76 etc.), used by Apuleius, too: Met. 6.26.5, 9.33.6, 11.27.11, Apol. 77.3. Lancea (sc. iniecta) is metaphorically used to indicate that trouble is anticipated (Plautus Mos. 570). There is also a literal meaning here, anticipating Socrates’ violent death. that old woman would use some help from divine powers: Meroe’s constant characteristics are her advanced age (see 1.7.7, verified in 1.12.2) and her ability to bend the will of the gods to her own, cf. above on 1.10.3. get to know of our conversation here: The conversation (with the deictic istos) echoes the dialogic structure of Met. 1.1.1 (‘this tale/conversation’, sermone isto) and 1.2.6. Aristomenes indicates that both of them are in danger because both participated in the conversation. 11.3 let us go to rest as quickly as possible and ... as far away as possible: Aristomenes’ anxiety manifests itself. Travelling at night is inadvisable, cf. 1.15. They cannot leave the inn before daylight without raising the doorkeeper’s suspicion. Antelucio occurs only in Apuleius: 1.15.1,9.15.1 andhere,where the unique combination with noctis stresses even more the unusually early time for their planned departure. 11.4 good old Socrates: More affectionate and less sarcastic than the use of ‘good’ in 1.7.10. worn out by unaccustomed wine-drinking and unending tiredness: In his inability to hold his drink, Socrates is the opposite of Meroe, who is a habitual drinker, and especially of Plato’s Socrates (see introd. §10.1 and Met. 1.7.3). Although story-telling is tiring (cf. Lucius’ experiences with Milo in 1.26.6), it is especially the mental and physical ordeal of living with Meroe which brought Socrates to the state he is in. already fast asleep and snoring loudly: It becomes clear in 1.15.4 that Aristomenes is the only person awake in the inn. It is initially because of drink and then of magic that Socrates does not wake up during the violent attack that follows. In 2.22.3 Thelyphron, too, is overcome by magically induced sleep, so
146 Commentary that the witch can steal his body parts. Socrates sleeps all the way through, and in 1.17.1 it is only the doorkeeper’s intervention which wakes him up. ‘Snoring’ instead of mere ‘sleeping’ here functions as a comic characterisation (Plautus As. 872; Horace S. 1.3.18). In Met., being ‘fast asleep’ (sopitus) is often associated with drunkenness, or danger from death or magic: in 3.5.5 the drunken Lucius seems to hear a ‘robber’ (a magically animated wineskin) threaten everyone in Milo’s house who is sopitus. In 4.18.4, the robbers kill the sleeping (sopiti) guardians of the house into which they break. In 5.26.4 Psyche watches Cupid sleeping (sopitum) just before she tries to kill him, and in 6.20.2 Psyche puts Cerberus to sleep on her way to the Underworld. 11.5 But I shut the door and fastened the bolts, and even placed my cot behind the pivots and pushed it tightly against the door, and placed myself on top of it: Aristomenes turns the bedroom into a fortress, using all locking systems available in antiquity, although this becomes clear only gradually. In domestic houses, doors were often batten doors where the door leaves are vertical wooden planks, held together with horizontal or diagonal cross members, surrounded by two posts or jambs (postes); and whereas entrance doors usually have two wings, interior doors could have either one or two wings. As is necessary here for Aristomenes to be able to barricade himself, Roman doors open to the inside (Pliny Nat. 36.112). They turn on two pivots (cardines) which were placed into metal sockets (foramina; Vitruvius 10.6.3) in the door sill and the lintel and were often the weak points when doors were broken into (Plautus Am. 1026, As. 388). Every door wing is closed with two bolts (pessuli), one each into sill and lintel, which offered resistance to attempts to push the door open from the other side. Wooden or iron bars (sera or repagula) were placed into sockets on each side of the doorway (Ovid Am. 1.6.24-56). Locks were also attached to the doors, which could only be opened with keys, cf. Met. 1.14.7. The bolt part of the lock itself is also confusingly called pessuli: the keys were inserted from below to open the lock’s bronze or iron pessuli. Aristomenes locks the pessuli on the door’s valve, puts a bar across (cf. on 1.11.7 and 14.1), locks the door with a metal lock (1.14.7), and pushes a bed against the pivot, to strengthen the door’s weakest part (doors: Walsh 1983; locks: Gaheis 1930). Aristomenes stresses his position on the bed as part of his defences set up against the witches, but already in the next sentence his situation becomes inverted. That his careful preparations come to nothing is not unexpected when pitted against witches who can lift whole houses for hundreds of miles (1.10). This (futile) barricading against witchcraft has a comic atmosphere: pessulus is regularly found in the comic writers (e.g. Plautus Aul. 103f., Cist. 649; Cur. 147ff; Terence Hau. 278 etc.) but not in classical Latin; foris in the singular is comic (Plautus Am. 496; Bac. 833; Terence Ad. 264). The diminutive grabattulus ‘cot’ occurs only in Apuleius Met. 1 and 2, and increases the impression of comic dinginess (Aristomenes’ and Milo’s) associated with a grabatus ‘cot’. For Cicero Div. 2.63.129 and Seneca Ep. 18.7 a grabatus is the symbol of poverty. As here, it is often a rope bed (Lucilius 251; in
Commentary 147 Petronius 98 Giton clings to the webbing of a grabatus). Adducta fore ‘shut the door’ occurs only here and in 9.30.4, indicating an important mirror scene of murder and witchcraft (see introd. §4.1 and 11). For F’s ungrammatical cardine, both emendations, cardinem or cardines, are possible, and doors usually have two pivots per valve. Aristomenes pushed his bed against the lower pivot. If the door has two valves, the plural would be appropriate here. Cf. also Met. 9.30.6 for the singular, and 1.11.7 and 3.5.2 for the plural. 11.6 At first, for fear, 1 stayed awake for a little while: Witches are unsurprisingly not part of the usual list of things which keep people awake with fear (metu) in Horace S. 1.1.76-8 (‘evil thieves, fires, their slaves’), but fear (metus) is again associated with Aristomenes three times in Met. 1.19 and becomes his main characteristic from now on. about the third watch or so: The night is divided into four watches of roughly three hours; the third watch is the three hours after midnight, and the ‘right’ time for apparitions and ghosts, cf. Met. 3.3.5, where Lucius mistakes magically animated wineskins for robbers, and both Aristomenes and Lucius (at the end of bk 2) believe, wrongly, that robbers are trying to break in during the third watch. On nocturnal magic see introd. §11. 1 closed my eyes a little: Similar phrases indicate that the person has fallen asleep in Met. 4.25.1 (Charite wakes up after a fitful sleep in the robbers’ cave to tell her nightmare) and 11.3.2 (Lucius wakes up on the beach before Isis appears to him). This suggests falsely that the following is a dream, though it turns out to be stark reality and the consequence of dabbling with witches, and essentially, unknown to Aristomenes, a necromancy (Panayotakis 1998, Hunink 2006, Slater 2007). For important divergences from ‘normal’ dreams cf. on 1.12.3. 11.7 1 had just fallen asleep when suddenly...: Note the ease with which the witches crash Aristomenes’ careful and time consuming precautionary arrangements, echoing the ease of Meroe’s previous feats (1.9). Cf. also 1.16.6 (a rope breaks) and 1.19.9 (a sponge rolls out) for equally quick and unexpected interruptions to events. The door crashes down with a similar phrase to that describing its restoration in 1.14.1 (also starting with commodum ‘just when’). This ring composition indicates the witches’ sudden disruption of normality and its reinstatement after they leave. attack heavier than you would have thought robbers capable: Robbers are several times compared to witches in Met., cf. 1.14.5. The wineskin episode (2.32; May 2007) features bewitched wineskins, believed to be robbers by a sozzled Lucius, banging very loudly on Milo’s door. Robbers usually would have reason to remain quiet, and the robbers in Met. 4.10.1 deliberately do not break down a door to avoid the noise. Instead, this is a violent and probably noisy event, cf. Vergil A. 7.62If. (Iuno breaks a door when knocking), Seneca Dial. 5.35.3 for noisy knocking. Lucius’ knocking on Milo’s door causes Photis’ complaint in Met. 1.22.2, where even normal door knocking is perceived as noisy. An association between supernatural powers and robbers is invited by some robbers themselves as scare tactics, namely when they dress
148 Commentary up as ghosts in the middle of the night (4.22.5; also a theme in Lollianus Phoenikika) to make their raids easier and terrify their victims. The noisy attack on the door also plays with motifs from hymns, elegy, comedy and mime: usually doors are asked to open up quietly so as not to wake up the other occupants of the house, cf. Ovid Am. 1.6.49T, Propertius 1.16.26, but here nobody wakes up, despite the din. The scene is also an inversion of the exclusus amator motif from elegy: here the excluded mistress breaks open the door to reach her (ex-)lover, instead of the excluded elegiac lover pining for his mistress inside. Meroe will pick up this motif when she complains to her sister about being neglected by her lover (Met. I. 12.4-6; Mathis 2008). As a lover entering an ‘unfaithful’ partner’s bedroom this scene resembles an invertedparaklausithyron (a lover’s lament outside his mistress’ locked door), similar to Propertius 4.8, where Cynthia breaks into Propertius’ room, a loud and physical event, surprising after Propertius 4.7 where Cynthia’s ghost appeared to Propertius in his sleep. In Petronius 16.1-2 Quartilla, too, breaks into the room where Encolpius and his friends are resting, in a scene inspired by mime, which often features the noisy opening of doors. In adultery mimes, it is usually the husband who comes home to find his wife in bed with another man (lit.: May 2006, 136fi). Cynthia, Quartilla and Meroe here also parody the noiseless magical, spontaneous opening of doors on the approach of divinities (Homer II. 5.749 and 8.393; Euripides Ba. 448; Keulen 2007, 45; Schmeling 2011, 45f.). On Meroe and Panthia as anti-Isises see introd. §11. the door was unbolted, or rather knocked to the floor, its hinges broken and thoroughly ripped out: The door here falls on the floor and topples over the bed, and in the next sentence the bed itself is knocked over. On sera or repagula as bars across the doorway see above on 1.11.5. To unbolt a door (reserare): Met. 1.14.7 (cf. Plautus Per. 572 for iron bars; Ovid Am. 1.6; Ars 2.636). Bars are used to lock bedrooms, too, in Met. 9.2.6 and 9.5.3. II. 8 My cot, rather short anyway, missing one foot and rotten: The bed begins its gradual personification or animal ‘metamorphosis’ (‘foot’; see also 1.12.2), which culminates in 1.16, Aristomenes’ address to his cot. Beds are often props in mime, where furniture breaks for comic effect, cf. Petronius 136.1 (Oenothea falls off a broken chair), a vivid and comic scene, which sits well with Aristomenes’ comic attitude to the situation until now. In mime, it is usually the lover who hides under the bed, cf. Met. 9.26.4 and Petronius 97.4f. (Giton hiding from Encolpius’ aggressive rival). Here Aristomenes, the one who had ‘lured’ Socrates away from Meroe, finds himself in the adulterer’s position under the bed (mime: Panayotakis 1995, 131; Bechtle 1995). The diminutives grabattulus and breviculus stress the ramshackle state of the bed. rolled out of it and thrown to the ground: Aristomenes is quite literally thrown off by his bed, which is associated with a buckling horse through literary allusions: excussum humi is a rather pleonastic reference to Vergil A. 11.640 (a man is thrown off his horse); cf. also Met. 8.5.8, where Tlepolemus* horse throws (deuolvit) its
Commentary 149 master onto the ground; contrast the old woman carefully rolled out of her bed by robbers in 4.12.3 (lectulo suo devoluta), and 1.16.6 where devolvere (not evolvere) again is gentler. Apuleius uses excutere to describe being woken up suddenly from bad dreams: 1.17.3,4.27.4; 8.9.2 (Socrates and Charite). it fell back upside down, covered and hid me: The bed falls down on Aristomenes and presses him down, but also shields and covers him at the same time. A comic situation; the inverted legs now point upwards. 12 Aristomenes overhears the two witches Meroe and Panthia discussing their revenge on Socrates. Meroe portrays herself as his victim and uses quite inappropriate mythological examples to make her point. 12.1 certain emotions naturally display themselves through their opposites: Aristomenes here reflects on the surprising phenomemon that seemingly antithetical effects are possible. Affectus, πάθος, is ‘an emotional state caused by the process of becoming aware and at the same time interpreting something (for example as fearful), which in turn causes certain bodily reactions’ (Brills New Pauly s.v. ‘Affects’ [Ebert]). Aristomenes here specifically feels fear, one of the most often discussed affects, e.g. in Aristotle Rhetoric 2.5; the Stoic Zeno identifies fear as one of the four major affects (SVF 1.211; his treatise On Affects is lost), and overcoming them is Stoic doctrine. as tears quite often come from happiness, thus even in that excessive fear 1 could not contain my laughter: Tears of joy are frequent: in 11.1.4 Lucius is both glad and has his face covered in tears. In 8.7.1 Thrasyllus cries tears of joy for Tlepolemus, whom he had killed, but tries to deceive Charite with his tears; see also Longus 4.22L, Plautus Capt. 419, Terence Ad, 409, Livy 5.7.11. They may be ‘trite’ as a concept (thus Keulen 2007, 250; Schmeling 2011, 372 on Petronius 89.16ff), but are employed functionally here by Apuleius. Aristomenes is not merely expressing amazement at inappropriate tears during happiness, his statement is more complex. He attempts to explain his hysterical laughter at a moment of the highest fear. Compare 4.27, where the old woman discusses dream interpretation through opposites, where weeping in dreams forecasts joy (cf. Artemidorus, Onirocritica 2.60). In Achilles Tatius 5.3.7 and 5.5.8, too, fear is combined with nervous, hysterical laughter (after Philomela and Procne offered Tereus the body of their slaughtered child to eat). A mix between tragedy and comedy is a characteristic of Metamorphoses generally and the tale of Aristomenes in particular (May 2006, 132ff.). quite often: Saepicule is only found in Apuleius, Met. (seven times) and Plautus Cas. 703. The diminutive strikes a comic and hence probably emotionally distanced note. In Plautus the adverb is used as a means to irony (Pasetti 2007, 21). I had been made a tortoise out of Aristomenes: A similar image occurs in 9.26.4, where a tub covers an adulterer like a tortoise shell in a scene again reminiscent
150 Commentary of adultery mimes. Here the metaphorical animal metamorphosis anticipates both Lucius' fate at the end of the Risus festival inasmuch as he feels himself transformed into a statue (3.10.2) and, even more, the (real) metamorphosis of Lucius into a donkey. On mirror scenes see introd. §2.4. As Socrates' helper, Aristomenes might have feared a ‘real' transformation into an animal, as e.g. the lawyer, innkeeper and lover in 1.9 experienced. This is however not going to happen, nor is the killing of Socrates without an animal transformation anticipated. In magic, the tortoise is apotropaic, including against the evil eye, although it is usually considered of little worth or even harmful. It is notoriously slow (Plutarch Moralia 1082e, Plautus Aul. 49), making it an unusual ‘metamorphosis’ for someone who has been constantly running quickly from place to place, cf. e.g. Met. 1.5.3, and who is constantly fleeing (1.11.4, 1.12.7, 1.14.6, 1.19.12). But in Zeno’s second paradox (Aristotle Physics 239b 14 ff.) the tortoise can never be outrun by Achilles because it started the race earlier (Apuleius mentions Zeno and his famous paradoxes in Apol. 4). Aristotle Parva Naturalia 479a3-7 thinks that tortoises whose heart had been removed would not die, which is significant as Aristomenes watches his friend’s heart being pulled out in 1.13.6; he may anticipate the same fate for himself, but then sees his friend apparently survive the attack. 12Λ thrown right down to the ground: Aristomenes is now hiding under both door and cot. From being merely on the ground (humi; 1.11.8, 12.7 and 14.2), he goes even further down: Keulen 2007, 252f. argues convincingly for F’s infimum (‘to the bottom’, as an adverb, cf. Charisius Ars Grammatica 391.22) to explain that Aristomenes is not only on the floor, but metaphorically already underneath it, in the Underworld which he imagines encountering in Met. 1.15.5. Infimum is printed e.g. by Keulen, Zimmerman 2012, Hanson 1989 etc. Molt 1938, however, prefers the grammatically less difficult emendation in infimum ‘onto the ground’; Robertson 1965 and Helm print in fimum ‘into the dirt’, but there is no indication that the room is dirty. I was watching out... with the corner of my eyes: A consequence of Aristomenes’ tortoise-like prone position; the phrase may also provide a link with Lucius’ own animal metamorphosis and curiosity, cf. 3.2.3, where Lucius, led to his trial at the Risus festival like a sacrificial victim, looks up from the comer of his eye. In 3.25.1 Lucius, just transformed into a donkey, looks at Photis in a similar way, and in 6.28.2 Lucius the donkey tries to kiss Charite riding on him by twisting his neck back. The same phrase is used when the donkey sticks his head out of the window in curiosity in 9.27.2. Finally, in 11.12.2 the donkey approaches the priest whose garland will retransform him into a human, with his body twisted like Aristomenes’ here. my clever cot: Aristomenes personifies his cot (see also 1.11.8), through the human and animal characteristic of ‘resourcefulness’ (see OLD s.v. sollertia for the personification; for animals cf. Plutarch On the Cleverness of Animats, De Sollertia Animalium). two women of rather advanced age: Surprisingly for the reader and Aristomenes
Commentary 151 it is two women who enter (note the word order), not the robbers, as we were lead to expect. Having two witches appear has narratological advantages, as this allows Aristomenes to overhear their discussions and understand the rationale of their actions. Without Panthia’s presence, Aristomenes would only have seen a woman enter the room and kill Socrates, without confirmation from her own mouth that she is Meroe. Furthermore, it offers a mirror scene (introd. §2.4) for Milo’s house, where Lucius, too, will in effect meet two witches: Pamphile and Photis. Mulier ‘woman’ is a more neutral term than anus (‘old woman, hag’); Aristomenes is speaking here as the ‘experiencing Γ and observer who does not know yet that this is Meroe, and is thus more polite than before (contrast 1.8.1 and 1.11.2, where he speaks of her in unflattering terms). On Meroe’s age cf. above on 1.7.7. 12.3 One of them carried a lighted lamp, the other a sponge and an unsheathed sword: The woman carrying the lamp will turn out to be Panthia. The witches carry three ominous objects. In 3.21.4 the lamp is a means of magic, and Pamphile whispers magic words to her lamp before her own transformation; in 2.1 If., Pamphile uses a lamp to predict the weather. Given that Meroe seems to know what Socrates and Aristomenes talked about (see below on 1.12.8), the presence of a lamp here may indicate her faculties of divination, cf. PGM 5.1-53; 5.55-69. Divination by lamps also has some links with necromancy (Ogden 2001, 193-95), which adds to the ominous feeling here. Lamplight attracts ghosts (Pliny Ep. 7.27), and torches are associated with the Furies (used for the two witches in 1.19.2), Hecate, and funerary processions (Felton 2007, 91). As lamps are cult objects in the Isiac religion (Met. 11.9f.), their presence also reinforces the continued identification of the witches as anti-Isises (introd. §11). During the lychnapsia, a festival for Isis seeking her lost spouse at night, lamps are carried: Witt 1971, 92; 122. In 1.13.7 the sponge will be used to stanch Socrates’ wound. The ‘naked’ sword (a common phrase: 4.26.7; 7.6.4; 8.13.2; 10.31.5) gives the witches masculine features: symbolically, death (Thanatos) carries a sword (Euripides, Ale. 74-6), and the sword is a most unfeminine weapon (Loraux 1987, especially 7-30). Witches, who habitually kill men (e.g. Canidia in Horace Epod. 5), visibly invert society’s gender rules. So equipped they stood around Socrates who was fast asleep: The first of four occurences of habitus ‘state, form’ in Met. 1, see 20.2 (Lucius); 21.7 (Milo), 24.7 (Pythias), all of which point to styles of dress or outfit, from which conclusions about the person’s status could be drawn. A figure standing over a sleeping person is the classical stance of a dream apparition (e.g. Homer 11. 2.20ff.). Here importantly Aristomenes describes people standing around Socrates, not himself. There are also uniquely two figures, not the single figure common in dream apparitions. These discrepancies already set the scene apart from the usual dream, which makes Aristomenes’ wish to believe (1.18.2) that he has merely dreamt these events problematic. 12.4 The one with the sword: It becomes clear from the conversation that this is
152 Commentary Meroe (cf. 1.13.3). Aristomenes here continues to be the observer and ‘experiencing Γ, working out the plot as it happens. sister Panthia: It is unclear whether the women are really sisters or whether this is an affectionate term between women of similar age, cf. Dickey 2002, 359 and Met. 1.13.2, where Panthia addresses Meroe as ‘sister’. Compare 1.17.4 where it is clear that Aristomenes and Socrates are not brothers, despite the use of frater ‘brother’ for their relationship. ‘Panthia’ is probably a form of Panthea, literally ‘The All-Divine’, although the meaning ‘The Demonic One’, which may have Isiac connotations as a cult title, is a possibility (Gwyn Griffiths 1978, 143), associating Panthia, like Meroe, with Isis. Meroe herself is called divina ‘divine’ in 1.8.2. See on 1.12.2 for Panthia’s function as a helper figure. the dear Endymion: This identification starts a series of mythological examples which compare Meroe with a goddess (note that Socrates himself had likened her to Medea in 1.10.3). Endymion is the youthful lover of the Moon goddess Selene, who was granted eternal youth and sleep. The first time Selene sees the young shepherd he is asleep, too (Catullus 6.5, Propertius 3.15 etc.), but there are important differences between the myth and Socrates’ story: Endymion is usually portrayed as a beautiful young boy, something which Socrates, who has wife and children and at this time is emaciated and pale, is not. Selene and Endymion had a long lasting and loving affair (50 children: Pausanias 5.1.4). Socrates’ current sleep is not everlasting, but induced by too much alcohol. Meroe is not driven by love to visit her sleeping lover like Selene, or (1.12.5f.) Calypso who helps her lover to leave her as the gods commanded her to do. As this mythological comparison is quite inappropriate, it has a comic effect (May 1998, 143, on Met. 10.15). Keulen 2003a, 126 considers that Meroe here identifies Selene with Hecate (identified specifically in magical texts). This is again an inappropriate comparison, as Hecate is usually considered a virgin. Apuleius, however, iuxtaposes the goddesses, but does not identify them in Apol. 31.9 in a list of magical deities. Instead, he identifies Luna-Selene as one of the intermediate powers or daemones in FI. 10.1. my Catamite: An Etruscan form of the name Ganymede found in Plautus Men. 144 and Accius 653b Ribbeck, apparently without the connotations of passive homosexuality it carries later. Beloved of Jupiter, the most beautiful of mortals (Homer II. 20.231-5), and another young man desired by the gods, who was abducted from his family to be the gods’ cup-bearer. Again there are obvious discrepancies between the beautiful boy from mythology and the run-down ugly Socrates (Babo 2000, 488). But in both myths the relationship is quite unequal: the boys are passive and the gods and goddesses the active lovers. Socrates’ self- portrait as a victim is here reinforced by Meroe, who feminises Socrates and takes over masculine connotations herself, a monstrosity in Roman eyes. ‘Ganymede’ also appears in 11.8.4 (in the Isiac procession, represented by a monkey in a Phrygian outfit, carrying a golden cup). made fun of my tender age: Meroe wishes to portray herself as the victim of
Commentary 153 Socrates’ aggression. Her age and looks are, however, not why Socrates wants to leave her (he still describes her as old but sexy in 1.7.7), it is her actions. Elsewhere in Apuleius aetatula ‘tender age’ is used non-ironically of young boys (Apol. 2; Met. 11.15.1 (of Lucius himself)) and young girls (Met. 7.9.5; 10.31.2), or both together (Met. 10.29.4). It may be a Plautinism, cf. Caecilius com. 153, Plautus Cist. 49, Most. 217 etc., usually of young girls (Pasetti 2007, 29). 12.5 poured disdain: F apparently has ta erased, and all editions print subterhabitis found in φ, a word that occurs only here. maligned me with slanders: The reader and Aristomenes know from Socrates’ narrative of her previous reactions (Met. 1.9) how badly Meroe takes to being slandered. It is not completely clear how Meroe knows that Socrates has revealed everything to Aristomenes, as he takes some precautions against being overheard in 1.8.2, but Socrates attributes magical powers to her. Still, Meroe does not only know Aristomenes’ name but also the content of the men’s conversations when they thought they were alone: that Socrates plotted his escape from her, and that Aristomenes was the escape’s instigator. She calls Socrates’ disrespectful descriptions of her ‘slander’ (probrum, repeating his use of the word in 1.9.5). She also punishes his ‘past wit’, possibly picking up previously heard words (see below on 1.12.8). Thus it appears that the witches have been able to ‘listen in’ via magic and divination (see on 1.12.3 for possible means). arranged his escape: Socrates, she thinks, planned his escape from her. Although Aristomenes may be guilty only by association, she uses similar phrases for both men’s ‘crimes’: here fitgam instruit (Socrates), in 1.12.7 fugae huius auctor (‘the author of that escape’: Aristomenes). 12.6 deserted ... cunning of an Odysseus ... Calypso-like: In the third mythological example, Meroe continues her inappropriate self-representation as a goddess, here of the loving Calypso deserted by Odysseus (Homer Od. 5.1-269). The dangerous Circe, who turns men into animals, would be a more appropriate character for Meroe to compare herself to (Harrison 1990a, 194f.). Unlike Odysseus, Socrates does not return home to his wife, but stays forever away from her; nor is Socrates an Odysseus reluctantly released by a sad Calypso, but someone who needs a friend to push him towards wishing to escape. Meroe asks whether she should weep forever like Calypso or rather kill Socrates, setting herself up either as the proverbial victim of a man who has left her, or a proactive killer (Lateiner 2009, 288). Her tears, like those of Thelyphron’s widow in 2.23.6f., 24.2 and 26.3 would be false, not driven by real grief. In the event, she will decide on the latter option, i.e. killing her ex-lover, but without shedding any false tears. Meroe here purposefully stages herself as more loving and caring than she is, and as guiltlessly abandoned by her lover. Ironically, though, her refusal to let Socrates go recalls the breaking of the laws of hospitality, of which she is guilty, just as Calypso is, by delaying Socrates’ journey and keeping him with her against his will. Especially close is the situation in Petronius 97.6, where Encolpius hides his lover Giton under
154 Commentary the bed from Ascyltus, in a scene inspired by Roman mime and also compared, inappropriately, to Odysseus’ cunning invention, the Trojan Horse. As before (1.12.4), Apuleius prefers the Latin term Ulixes over the Greek Odysseus, which he never uses, even when explicitly referring to the Odyssey (Ulixes in 2.14.1; 10.33.2; Soc. 18; 24; Apol 31.7 (after quoting Horn. Od. 4.229f. in Greek); 40.4 (after mentioning Homer); 55.6; 57.4; 89.4). ‘Cunning’ is a standing epithet of Odysseus, cf. Od. 1.1, and in Latin Seneca Tro. 522f., 613f.; cf. Hyginus Fab. 141.2 (astutia). In Met., as here, astu is often used sarcastically or negatively: 3.10.1 (after revelation of the wineskins), 4.12.5 (an old woman deceives a robber), 5.17.1 (the sisters deceive Psyche), 9.7.6 (a woman’s adulterous wiles), 9.8.6 (the deceitful priests of the Dea Syria), positively only of Tlepolemus and Charite: 7.6.3 (conspiracy against Plotina’s husband), 8.2.4 (positively, of Tlepolemus), 8.9.5 and 8.14.1 (both positively, of Charite). stretching out her right hand: As Meroe is holding a sword and a sponge, the gesture here appears rather threatening. It is generally an indication of friendliness, often of hospitality, e.g. 1.17.4 (Milo offers his right hand to Lucius), 11.25.2 (Isis). In 9.38.4 the gesture is however hostile, as the right hand holds a weapon and needs to be held down. 12.7 this good counsellor Aristomenes ... the author of that escape: Aristomenes is the main instigator and enabler of Socrates’ flight, and Meroe here, quite insightfully, recalls 1.11.3 (Aristomenes’ suggestion they should escape together). A similar phrase is equally sarcastically used in 5.24.5 (of Psyche’s sisters, giving treacherous advice), and 1.7.10, but here bonus consiliator is also a bilingual pun on his name, see above on 1.6.4. Lucius picks up on this wordplay when he calls Aristomenes ‘my excellent comrade’ (comes optimus) in 2.1.2. For a possible anticipation of Lucius’ own fate in 6.31 cf. below on 1.13.2. very close to death, lying underneath the cot and observing all of this: Aristomenes is ‘guilty’ of being an eyewitness in this first of several passages stressing his credibility as an observer of Socrates’mutilation and death, cf. 1.13.5; 14.4; 18.1; 19.1. Eyewitness claims of this nature, used for verification, are, however, problematic in Metamorphoses (May 2007). Subcubare ‘to lie underneath’ is also used in 9.26.4 of an adulterer in hiding, who, like Aristomenes, resembles a tortoise, cf. 1.12.1. thinks that he will get away unpunished: Although Aristomenes escapes unharmed after the wet treatment of 1.13.8, he believes in 1.15.6 that he could be crucified for allegedly murdering Socrates. Even though he is spared death, his self¬ exile from his wife and family (1.19.12) will be his permanent punishment. these insults against me: Cf. e.g. nostra contumelia ‘insult to us’ in 5.10.6, or tuas inquisitiones ‘search for you’ in 6.8.6, for the unusual construction with the possessive pronoun instead of objective genitive. 12.8 1 will make sure that he later - no, soon - no, right now - feels sorry: Meroe works towards a climax of immediacy from the future to the here and now, followed by a similar climax (below), where the movement is from the past to the
Commentary 155 present. Both notions culminate in an immediate and present threat to Aristomenes. Meroe seems to make her mind up about his punishment on the spot, and decides on instant justice. Faxo, a future tense, is archaic (and legalistic), but used by Apuleius eight times, e.g. in Met. 1.25.4. There is a single occurrence offaxo ut in Plautus As. 897, whereas facio ut is the normal construction in classical Latin. his past wit and present curiosity: She refers to witticisms as e.g. 1.8.1. In 1.7.4 the conversation between Aristomenes and Socrates is described as ‘wit’ (<dicacitas), and in 1.9.5 Socrates narrates that a lover’s wife had slandered Meroe ‘wittily’, dicacule; another sign that all their conversations were magically overheard by Meroe. The accusation of curiosity is not as justified as e.g. against Lucius in 3.21 observing Pamphile’s metamorphosis, or the warning ecphrasis of Actaeon’s ‘curious glance’ in 2.4.10, since Aristomenes did not plan to look at Meroe. Like Actaeon, however, he will be punished for looking; Meroe’s speech is the starkest warning yet for Lucius not to observe witches performing magic from a hiding place, something he will do in Met. 3. See 1.2.6 for Lucius’ character as a curious man. 13 Despite Panthia’s suggestion to kill Aristomenes, Meroe decides to leave him alive so he can bury Socrates, whom they kill in a perverted sacrifice. Before the witches leave, they void their bladders over the prostrate Aristomenes. 13.1 wretch that 1 was: Aristomenes now realises that he himself will be a victim of witchcraft; thus he transfers Socrates’ epithet ‘wretched’ (miser, cf. above on 1.6.1) to himself for the first time (used again in 1.17.7). I broke into a cold sweat, my insides were shaking and shuddering: He is physically shaking with fear as the consequence of the emotions felt in 1.12.1. Cold sweat from fear is a commonplace: Vergil A. 3.175, Ovid Met. 5.632; Pliny Nat. 29.90, Seneca Tro. 487 etc., and in Met. 2.30.8 (Thelyphron after the discovery he has been mutilated) and 10.10.1 (a slave in panic). In 11.7.1 seeing Isis makes Lucius experience joy and fear at the same time, and he sweats (but not cold sweat). For the intensity of the physical reaction cf. 1.18.7, where Socrates’ knees are shaking, and Vergil A. 3.29f. (Aeneas’ reaction on seeing the portent of Polydorus’ bleeding tomb, with verbal parallels: ‘an icy horror shook my limbs, and my blood ran cold with fear’; mihi frigidus horror / membra quatit gelidusque coit formidine sanguis). cot, unsettled by my trembling,: Sucussus ('jolting’) is attested only in tragedy before Apuleius, in Pacuvius trag. 257f. Ribbeck (cited in Cicero Tusc. 2.48), Seneca Oed. 570; Thyest. 696. It is used again in 3.21.4 when Pamphile transforms herself into an owl. dancing in pulsating motion over my back: The personification of the cot continues (palpitare ‘to pulsate’ is almost exclusively used of the body parts of living creatures), as it begins to ‘dance’ when the shaking transmits itself from
156 Commentary Aristomenes to the bed. Elsewhere beds dance in erotic contexts: Photis warns Lucius that she can make the bed shake for him in 2.7.7. See also Catullus 6.10f.; Ovid/fm. 3.14.26; Juvenal 6.21f.; Petronius 98.4. 13.2 the good Panthia ... sister: Aristomenes calls her ‘good' out of sarcasm (cf. on 1.7.10) as well as using the euphemism for reasons of taboo (Burriss 1931). See on 1.12.4 for the address as ‘sister’. pluck this one apart first like Bacchants, or bind his limbs and cut off his manhood?: Panthia suggests two options here - either to dismember Aristomenes (and presumably use his body parts for magical purposes, introd. § 11), or merely to castrate him. Lucius the donkey is himself threatened with castration (see above on 1.9.2 and below), and several times with dismemberment: by robbers for attempting to flee together with Charite in 6.31 (note that Aristomenes is accused of having instigated Socrates’ flight in 1.12.5; for further similarities between robbers and witches see above on 1.11.7), and in 8.31.4 (to substitute for a lost meal). Baechatim ‘like Bacchants' is a word that occurs only here and has a Plautine flavour (Pasetti 2007, 92). referring to Dionysiae ritual: caught up in divinely inspired enthusiasm, Bacchants tear apart living creatures, and often eat them raw (Euripides Ba. 735). This continues the tragic connotations of the scene. Aristomenes, consequently, is likened to Pentheus, the cousin of the god Dionysos, who spied on the mysteries of the Bacchants and was tom apart alive by his own mother Agaue in a Bacchic frenzy (Ba. 1125ff.). This constitutes another warning to Lucius, who in Met. 2.4 will see a statue of Actaeon, who is tom apart by his dogs as a consequence of his curiosity. Pentheus and Actaeon are cousins (their mothers were daughters of Kadmos and Harmonia). The Plautus-inspired word, however, undercuts the serious and potentially tragic threat. Similarly, it is incongruous and therefore comic that the women are deliberating whether to act like Bacchants rather than being driven into a frenzy by a god’s overwhelming power against their will like Agaue. In a metaphorical sense, baechatim recalls a Greek proverb found in Diogenian. 3.74 and 4.10 (Aristophanes fr. 922 Kock, cf. Wealth 1024) γραΰς καπρώσα και βακχεύουσα, which indicates that some old women do the wrong things at the wrong time of life, i.e. dancing in a frenzied way, going wild after men and getting drunk. This is a good description of Meroe. Apuleius is fond of proverbs (though only one fragment of his De Proverbiis is extant). Virilia are literally the male organ, but perhaps thought of as testicles; most occurrences of the word are in contexts of castration (Adams 1982,69-70). 13.3 her name in fact fitted Socrates9 stories: Aristomenes has now worked out, perhaps from the threats to himself and his manhood, the accusations and verbal echoes (cf. above on 1.12.5), that this must be Meroe. Previously he had not identified her (1.12.4). This aside confirms that Aristomenes believes all of Socrates’ stories so far are ‘fact’ {reapse), which themselves are intended to prove the truthfulness of Aristomenes’ narrative. On the implied warning to Lucius and the novel’s verification through Aristomenes’ story see introd. §5.
Commentary 157 bury the body of that miserable wretch with a little earth: Soil will play an important role again in 1.19.11 (note verbal echoes) at the end of the tale, when Socrates is indeed buried* Even a handful of earth satisfies the correct rites of burial, which are necessary for Socrates’ soul to pass into the afterlife correctly and stop his ghost from returning - compare Antigone symbolically, but ritually correctly, burying her brother with a handful of dust (Sophocles, Ant. 256). Even strangers should bury a corpse if they find it to avoid pollution. Aristomenes first (wrongly) suspects Meroe of planning an even more ignominious end for him (cf. on 1.15.6), but even for witches the burial of their victims is important in order to avoid revenants haunting them (introd. §11). Meroe is not interested in a proper and dignified funeral, but a ritual protection of herself and Panthia from vengeful spirits. Allowing Aristomenes to survive is therefore entirely in Meroe’s own interest. Misellus, here expressing contempt and scorn, recurs in 1.19.11 (Aristomenes buries Socrates’ body). It was used in 1.9.6 of the woman condemned to prolonged pregnancy by Meroe, and in Met. 1 is associated with victims of witchcraft Contumulo incorporates the word for grave or burial mound (tumulus), and its other occurrences with humo (Ovid Tristia 3.3.32, Ibis 462, Martial 8.57.4) always have the connotation of burial. Meroe makes it clear to Aristomenes that she requires him to bury Socrates. (Burial: Parker 1983, 44ff., Felton 1999, 10; Griffith 1999, 29ff. and 169). 13.4 turned Socrates’ head to the other side, and sank the whole of the sword up to the hilt into him through the left side of his throat: That is, into the front of the neck above the collarbone or the throat. She turns Socrates’ head to his right side, which indicates that the choice is deliberate, perverting the imagery of sacrifice (see introd. §11). The scene is full of epic language and allusions (see introd. §2.4). Meroe apparently kills Socrates, although to the reader’s and Aristomenes’ surprise he wakes up the next morning, just to die again when drinking from the river. For the revival of dead bodies, often for necromantic purposes, including cutting the victim’s throat, see introd. §11. 13.5 caught the burst of his blood carefully in a little leather bag: For blood in magic and the stealing of organs for magical purposes see introd. §11. Sanguis is the red blood of living persons, whereas in 1.19.9 Socrates’ remaining blood is called cruor ‘spilled blood’ - it is clear from the large eruption of blood that this is the moment Socrates dies (Mencacci 1986). Aristotle considered the heart the seat of the soul and the body’s vital force (De Partibus Animalium 2.1 647a 24-31), and since Herophilos of Alexandria it was already known that it is the heart that pumps the blood around the body. Apuleius’ observation on the blood flow here and in 1.19.9, where Socrates dies for the second time, is medically correct, and the language, too, is medical (sanguinis eruptio, ‘burst of blood’, cf. e.g. Celsus De Medicina 7.3.2, Pliny Nat. 24.136; 29.46; Scribonius Laigus 62; 105; 46, 47, 77 etc.). Aristomenes watches professionals at work, skilfully dissecting this victim as possibly many others before him.
158 Commentary not a single drop was anywhere to be found: Blood as evidence of crime: 4.11.2 (the robbers bind up Lamachus’ mutilated arm to avoid being traced through drops of blood; see below on 1.13.7 for further parallels), Petronius 137.12 (of killed geese). I saw with my very own eyes: Aristomenes repeatedly stresses his status as eyewitness as verification, especially as no evidence (e.g. blood) will remain of the witches’ intervention to corroborate his version: see Met. 1.4.2 for a similar emphasis, and above on 1.12.7. 13.6 not to deviate... from the ritual of the sacrifice: This cynical and perverted ritual of tearing out Socrates’ heart is modelled on the haruspex’ inspection of the internal organs of sacrificial victims (probatio victimarum), cf. Cicero N.D. 2.24, Seneca Thy. 155i.,Phoen. 159f..Dial. 5.\4.2 = DeIra3.14.2. Aristomenes continues the use of technical terms to distance himself emotionally from the horrible events: victima is the technical term for sacrifice, cf. Met. 4.29.4 (sacrifices for Venus). 1 believe: Aristomenes attempts to rationalise the events; cf. 1.17.3, where the surprisingly revivified Socrates says T believe’ to account for the doorkeeper breaking into their bedroom. good Meroe: The juxtaposition of ‘wretched’ and ‘good’, the standing epithets of Socrates and Meroe respectively, highlights that the two witches, both called bona in this chapter, victimise both men, both called miser (see below). inserted her right hand through that wound all the way to his insides, searched around, and pulled out my poor comrade's heart: This is the same hand with which she had previously pointed at Aristomenes in a threatening manner (1.12.6). Having his heart pulled out is the only part of his ordeal Socrates seems to remember (1.18.7). Again Aristomenes uses a technical term for the inspection of the organs of a slaughtered victim (scrutari), cf. Ovid Met. 15.136L, Lucan 6.629 (during a necromantic episode), Seneca Oed. 372. On witches removing internal organs from their victims see introd. §11. Especially the heart is desirable to witches: Plautus Bac. 27; Ovid Fast. 6.137ff. and 159-62, Petronius 63.8. Jordan 2004,262f. associates this sacrifice with the myth of Aristomenes of Messene (see above on 1.6.4). my poor comrade: On Aristomenes* use of contubernalis and miser for Socrates see above on 1.6.1. he poured out, since his throat had been cut open by the impact of the weapon, a sound, or rather an inarticulate rasp, through the wound, and bubbled out his life-breath: Socrates’ death rattle, cf. 10.28.4 (the last breath of a dying woman), combines known (Met. 9.38.7 gulam sibi exsecuit, ‘he cut out his throat’, of a successful suicide) and unique phrases based on an intricate wordplay for Socrates’ life substance ‘bubbling’ away (rebulliret). Here, as well as in 1.18.7, spiritus indicates both ‘breath’ and ‘spirit’; animam ebullire ‘to give up the ghost’ is used colloquially in Petronius 42.3 (Seleucus’ speech) and 62.10, and Seneca Apoc. 4.2 (Claudius’ death). Rebullire is, however, unique to Apuleius and has a negative
Commentary 159 undertone, also in 5.26.5 (the bubbling flame harms Cupid); 9.34.2 (wine bubbles as a result of black magic), and the unusualness of the expression makes it even more striking and sinister. 13.7 Panthia stanched the wound where it was gaping widest with the sponge: Fresh sponges (see above on 1.12.3) were used to cleanse and close wounds (Dioscurides De Materia Medica 5.134; Pliny Nat. 31.47). A sponge soaked in cold water was applied to the chest against shock (Aristophanes Frogs 483, with Dover, 1993, 255 ad loc.), and in Met. 8.18.7 sponges soaked in vinegar are used to reduce swellings on bruises. A magical interpretation is possible, too: Thelyphron’s ears and nose are similarly replaced by a witch with wax models in 2.30.6, and Erictho stuffs blood, stones and a mysterious fish into the corpse she uses for necromancy (Lucan 6.666-76). F writes spongiam, and Keulen 2007, 274 defends it as a double accusative (but see above on 1.2.3 fronde). This is awkward, whereas the instrumental ablative found in φ (in a later hand) and de Buxis, printed e.g. by Hanson 1989 and Zimmerman 2012, can be paralleled from Met. 4.11.2. There offulcio, a rare technical word found in Apuleius, and Ps. Apul. Herb., occurs again in a similar context of stanching a wound and stopping it from bleeding so that perpetrators would not be caught. Hey you: Colloquialism, see on 1.3.2. sponge, born in the sea, make sure you travel there through a stream: This foreshadows the ending in 1.19.9, where Socrates leans towards a river and dies for good, as a magic formula and command to entice the sponge to return home. Cave plus subjunctive is found frequently in Met., always as a direct address following, as here, heus (2.10.2; 2.18.3; 2.23.3; 8.26.4). If a negative command is intended, Apuleius inserts ne\ thus here a positive command to the sponge to ensure it falls out of Socrates’ body must be meant. Other scholars see a negative warning in cave (‘make sure you do not cross...’) and associate it with the events in Plato’s Phaedrus evoked in Met. 1.18 and 19 (see on 1.18.8). Although grammatically Apuleius is consistent, it is still possible that here he deliberately plays with the phrase’s fluid meaning and wants a first-time reader to see mainly the command of the magic formula urging the sponge to fall out, and a second-time reader, having seen Socrates sit down near a plane tree, to notice the allusion to Plato (Positive command: Frangoulidis 1999,382 and 2001,26; negative command: Van der Paardt 1978, 83, De Biasi 2000, 219f. with n. 97, Mattiacci 2001, 85If.). Nascor (‘to be bom’) can be used of plants (e.g. Pliny Nat. 2.211) as well as animals. The nature of the sponge was a matter of debate in antiquity; Aristotle leaves the question open in De Partibus Animalium 4.5.681 a 1 Of., but in Historia Animalium 1.1, 487b9—11; 5.16, 548bl0—15 he classifies sponges correctly as animals (cf. also Pliny Nat. 9.146, 148 and 31.47). Apuleius, interested in fish and marine life (passages in Harrison 2000, 65ff.), would have known it to be an animal. 13.8 they both together: The transmitted ab*euna (F, a letter was erased between
160 Commentary b and e), changed in φ to abeunt by a later hand, makes no sense, as the witches do not depart now but proceed to punish Aristomenes. Rohde's emendation ambae una is palaeographically plausible (printed e.g. by Keulen 2007, Zimmerman 2012 and here) and offers the least intervention in the text. The resulting archaism and wordplay (contrasting ambae ‘both’ and una ‘together’, derived from unus = ‘one’) describes the witches as acting in unison. removed my cot, squatted with legs apart over my face, and discharged their bladders: The ramshackle bed offers no resistance to the witches who had effortlessly moved it before when breaking down the door. The witches’ voiding their bladders is described in a squeamishly technical way (vesica ‘bladder’ as in e.g. Celsus De Medicina 3.12.6, Seneca Ep. 82.12; Petronius 27.6 etc.). The urine serves here primarily as a magical confinement spell to stop Aristomenes from moving, cf. Petronius 57.3 (a circle of urine around a person is believed to prevent them from escaping) and 62.6 (a circle of urine around his clothes helps a man to become a werewolf and human again afterwards), cf. Watson 2004, 653. Urination can also be punishment for adulterers (Horace S. 1.2.44), and for telling lies (Horace S. 1.8.37ff.). The witches express their contempt for Aristomenes, and as such this may be another anticipation of Lucius’ own humiliation during the Festival of Laughter. the wetness of their filthy urine: Apart from the moral outrage shown in Met. 8.29.4 (against the despicable priests of the Dea Syria), the superlative spurcissimus ‘most filthy’ in Apuleius is entirely associated with urine: Apol. 6 (Spanish custom to brush their teeth with urine), and Met. 1.17.5. Mador ‘wetness’ has a similar connotation of filth: before Apuleius it is only found in Sallust Hist. 4.16, where it is also associated with water and sewage (but used again for water in Met. 7.18.1). 14 As the witches leave, the room is magically restored to its previous condition. This leaves behind a confused and frightened Aristomenes, who sees the absurdity of his situation in metaphors of death and rebirth. In the end, he decides to flee from the inn as soon as possible. 14.1 Just when they had passed the threshold: As soon as the witches cross the metaphorically and magically important threshold, the magic reverses itself and becomes undone (see introd. §10.2 for the importance of thresholds in the novel). This is the first of three instances of evadere (‘to escape’) in this chapter; here it is the witches who escape, then Aristomenes first in a rhetorical dialogue with himself envisages others accusing him of having escaped death (1.14.5), and then plans to escape from the inn himself (1.14.6). back... back... back... back: The anaphora of re· is not pleonastic, but vividly stresses the fact that everything broken so abruptly is fixed again by an apparent complete restoration of normality. the doors rose back up again undamaged to their previous state: the pivots
Commentary 161 settled back into the bolt-holes, the bars returned back to the posts, the bolts ran back into the locks: The phrase is a detailed inversion of the breaking down of the doors in 1.11.7. Foramina (‘bolt-holes’) are sockets in which the door pivots sit, cf. above 1.11.5, not to be mistaken for the keyhole, also calledforamen in 4.10.2; claustra ‘bolts’ are parts of the lock, see Gaheis 1930. Repagula are door bars placed across doors on the inside, cf. above on 1.11.5 (bars are used to lock doors e.g. in Plautus Cist. 649; Cicero Ver. 2.4.94, Cicero Div. 1.70; Ovid Met. 5.120). Normally, the door bars are movable, and postes (‘posts’) to which the repagula return, are not. Even if the postes here were stiles and not the jamb, it would not be the natural reading of the scene to assume the bar would be up again before the stiles which complete the door, as the point here is the magical restoration of normality. Thus F’s reading postes ad repagula is emended in most modem editions (e.g. Hanson 1989, Zimmerman 2012) by moving the preposition ad to govern postes, as here; Keulen 2007, 280 however defends F’s reading as depicting the unusual world of witchcraft. 14.2 even now stretched out on the ground: Aristomenes’ position has not changed even after the witches have left (cf. 1.12.2), a possible outcome of the witches’ confinement spell (see on 1.13.8). Aristomenes continues to resemble Socrates in his position of dejection and nudity (cf. 1.6.1), and he will emulate him further when later he never returns home to his family (1.19.12; cf. on 1.13.1 for another convergence between the two). Aristomenes becomes a substitute Socrates for the one killed. His unchanged position on the floor is an indication that the witches really were there, and this was not a nightmare. A warning to Lucius, see introd. §5. lifeless, naked, cold: Aristomenes experiences what is a regular outcome of a witch’s magic, and has undergone a symbolic death, alternating with rebirth imagery: inanimis, a variant of inanimus, has a double meaning, as it may mean ‘deprived of breath’ (as used of Thelyphron in 2.25.6 who was put to sleep by a witch’s magic), but also ‘inanimate’, cf. 11.1.2; PI. 1.8 (196). The winds under the influence of witches’ magic in 1.3.1 are inanimes; Aristomenes freezes in the cold of the night, as he is covered in sweat (1.13.1) and urine, but in 2.30.3 the dead Thelyphron can hardly move his ‘cold limbs’ as a sign of death. soaked in piss: In Apuleius’ time, lotium (used here and 1.18.6 ) is more colloquial than the technical urina (used in 1.13.8 ), cf. Isidore Orig. 11.1.138. as if just recently delivered from my mother’s womb: Aristomenes is helpless like a newborn baby (for the phrase: Pliny Nat. 7.56, Gellius 3.16.21, the latter with ‘er’ utero). Newborn babies were washed in urine (Cato Agr. 157.10; Pliny Nat. 20.83; Soranus 2.12 (81). 1 rejects this custom), then placed on the ground (Soranus, 2.10 (79). 1); see Watson 2004,654. Edere is used again of giving birth in Met. 10.23.3 . rather half-dead: Aristomenes is as filthy and terrorised by witches as Socrates was when he first met him, and resembles Socrates, sitting half-dressed (1.6.1) as the tropaeum to Fortune (1.7.1) in his immobility. For Apuleius’ predilection for semi-compounds see introd. §12. my own survivor and posthumous child: He has metaphorically died and is
162 Commentary reborn as his own posthumous child, i.e. a son bom within ten months of his father’s death, according to the laws of the Twelve Tables 4.4. The imagery anticipates Lucius’ metaphorical death and rebirth as part of his Isiac initiation in Met. 11. a candidate for the fated cross: The cross was in use as an execution tool during Apuleius’ time not only for slaves but also for the lower classes (to which a majority of the novel’s characters belong, including, apparently, Aristomenes). It is also attested since Cicero (Verr. 2.5.72) for non-Romans and free provincials. Aristomenes refers to this feared punishment again in Met. 1.15.6; even after his ‘death’ and ‘rebirth’ he feels bound to die again an immediate and brutal death. The punishment for the higher classes was exile, and effectively this is what Aristomenes will voluntarily ‘condemn’ himself to by living away from home in Aetolia (1.19.12). The robbers in Met. 4.11 quite realistically fear crucifixion, and in 10.7.7 a slave is called cruciarius, ‘destined for crucifixion’. In 3.9.3 Lucius himself, though not a member of the lower classes, is threatened fraudulently with crucifixion at the Risus festival - as it turns out, this is part of the festival’s comic play-acting. Again similarities between Lucius’ future fate and Aristomenes are highlighted (cf. next note. Slavery and the law: Robinson 2007, 105f.; Avila Vasconcelos 2009). 143 What wiU become of me when it is revealed in the morning that he had his throat cut?: Aristomenes is afraid of being wrongly accused of murdering Socrates; he still fears this in 1.19.4. He is right to be afraid, cf. 1.15.4, where the doorkeeper voices exactly this suspicion. He starts an emotional monologue in the shape of a declamation (on declamations delivered in first person narratives and involving magic see van Mal-Maeder 2007, 103; 124). This anticipated false accusation foreshadows Lucius’ during the Risus festival for a crime everyone except him knows he has not committed (Met. 3.3: killing three men with his sword), and for the robbery in Milo’s house (Met. 7.1). Iugulare has the general connotation of violent slaughter (Plautus St. 581), but Socrates’ throat (iugulum) has indeed been cut; here and below (1.14.5) it still has both meanings, but the doorkeeper will be using it in the wider sense (1.15.4), unwittingly scaring Aristomenes even more into fearing to be punished for cutting Socrates’ throat. The question with instrumental ablative quidfiet me ‘what will become of me?’ is archaic and colloquial, cf. Plautus Mos. 1166, Terence Hau. 715, Cicero Fam. 14.4 etc. The future perfect indicative paruerit (lit. ‘when it will have been revealed’) logically preceeds the action offiet. The two future indicatives vividly indicate that Aristomenes considers his fate to be real and certain, in which case a perfect tense is regularly used; ubi frequently takes the indicative, cf. Plautus Ps. 664 ubi prandero, dabo operam somno (‘When I have eaten, I will sleep.’), Sallust Cat. 1.6 etc. To whom will I seem to be saying things resembling the truth, though I am conveying the truth?: This is a frequent concern in a novel portraying unlikely events, and in legal proceedings (e.g. Cicero Part. 34; 44 etc.). Lucius makes a similar appeal to the reader to believe his description of the Isis initiation’s power
Commentary 163 in 11.23.6, ‘for it is true’ (quae vera sunt). Aristomenes here imagines his defence speech against the accusation of murder, and has to admit the argument from plausibility is not very likely to help him, as witchcraft is in itself implausible; see the sceptic’s attitude in Met. 1.3. Apuleius himself successfully undermines his opponents’ arguments about his involvement with witchcraft in the Apologia by denying its verisimilitude (Apol. 58: non est verisimile). Lucius has similar concerns to Aristomenes during the Risus festival. He fears that the weight of the plausible accusation will lead to his condemnation, although he is innocent (3.4.4 ‘although he might speak the truth’, vera; his words echo Aristomenes’ here). In 3.8.6 one of the prosecuting magistrates during the Risus festival argues that Lucius should be interrogated under torture, because the events are so unlikely (nec enim veri simile est). In 3.4, Lucius’ self-defence during the Risus festival raises a problem for the second-time reader’s willingness to believe Aristomenes here, as Lucius after claiming to speak the truth proceeds to tell a tall tale of lies (see also on 1.5.1). Within the novel’s universe, we will find out, Aristomenes’ narrative is indeed ‘true’ {vera), as many of his experiences anticipate those of Lucius (who, of course, as the ultimate narrator of the novel, is in control of Aristomenes’ story). The story of the novel as a whole thus rehabilitates the at first incredible story of Meroe’s sponge. Although the novel itself of course is fiction, Aristomenes’ story prepares the reader to believe Lucius’ even more incredible tales. The text transmitted by F is printed by e.g. Hanson 1989, Keulen 2007 and Zimmerman 2012 whereas Helm, Robertson 1965 etc. print (p’s proferens (a confusion often found in these manuscripts). 14.4 You could at least have called out for help: Aristomenes now imagines entering a fictional dialogue with a likely accuser, a sermocinatio (cf. Quintilian Inst. 9.2.31 and Apul. Apol. 26 with Butler and Owen 1914, 69 ad loc.). you, such a big man, were incapable of standing up to a woman?: The fictitious interlocutor stresses that a strong vir (etymologically related to vis, ‘strength’) should be able to fend off a mere ‘woman’, mulier (Santoro FHoir 1992, 186f.). A human being is butchered before your own eyes: This insistence on women using a specifically masculine way of slaughtering the victim with a sword (see above on 1.12.3) makes Aristomenes’ defence even less likely. For the stress on Aristomenes as an eyewitness cf. above 1.12.7. 14.5 why ... Why: The anaphora supports the imaginary accuser’s convincing and pathos-driven rhetoric. the same band of robbers: Latrocinium translates as ‘band of robbers’ rather than as ‘robbery’ here, as the imaginary accuser is weighing categories of people as likely murderers rather than assessing the deed itself. Aristomenes continues to compare the witches to robbers, cf. above on 1.11.7. did their savage cruelty spare an eyewitness: The phrase occurs only here and in Quintilian Inst. 9.3.48, but saeva is also used of the cruel deeds of Meroe in
164 Commentary 1.11.1. This question is picked up and answered in 1.15.6, where Aristomenes thinks he has been spared (pepercisse) for a worse death out of cruelty (saevitia). This kind of unselective violence is elsewhere in Met. attributed to a rabid dog, which in 9.2.2 attacks hunting dogs and pack animals (saevitia; pepercisse). Aristomenes will refer to his cot as his only eyewitness in 1.16.2, ironically refusing to be himself the sole eyewitness to the events. you could indict them for their crime?: Lucius, too, fears that he might be murdered by robbers, once he has been recognised as a possible eyewitness to their crimes in 3.29.7. Getting rid of an eyewitness is however not the witches’ ultimate reason, which Aristomenes never realises, as they require a ritual burial for their victim (see above on 1.13.3). The legal language is also found in Cicero Clu. 186 and Ovid Met. 6.578 (Philomela’s weaving as an indication of Tereus’ crime), and in Met. 7.2.2 (Lucius’ ‘flight’ as ‘proof’ that he robbed Milo’s house), 8.9.3 (Thrasyllus’ crime). because you evaded death, return to it now: His imaginary interlocutor has turned into the judge and condemned him to death. 14.6 1 kept turning this over and over again in my mind, and night began to turn into day: Aristomenes goes over the same thoughts again and again; once more, the choice of words anticipates Lucius’ trial during the Risus festival in 3.1, where Lucius obsessively ‘again and again’ contemplates his own trial. Nox ibat in diem (lit. ‘Night began to go into day’) is a unique phrase, aptly chosen as Aristomenes himself is unable to go away, although he is obsessed with fleeing (cf. above on 1.12.1 and 14.1). just before daybreak: It is strictly speaking still night and thus too early for travelling, cf. 1.15, where Aristomenes’ wish to leave before daybreak makes the doorkeeper suspicious. On anteluculo see introd. §12. to take to the road, although with fearful steps: The fearful steps are metonymic for his fear; in 1.19.12, after Socrates’ death, he flees ‘fearfully’ (trepidus) into voluntary exile. See also on 1.17.8. 14.7 I grabbed my little sack: Aristomenes, a travelling salesman, should have considerable luggage with him. In 1.17.8 viam capessere (‘to take to the road’) is associated with picking up a ‘little sack’ (sarcinula). Lucius, too, travels with one in 1.23.7 and 11.26.1 (on his journey to Rome), and a group of pack animals and people pick up their ‘little sacks’ and ‘take to the road’ in 8.21.2. Again Lucius’ fate is anticipated by Aristomenes’. Sarcinula is especially frequent in the novels (Petronius 3x, Apul. 5x). after inserting the key 1 pulled back the locks: Unlike the witches, who can open and close the door immediately, effortlessly, and apparently noiselessly, Aristomenes has to undo the locks painstakingly (compare above on 1.11.5). The pessuli ‘locks’ here are part of the locking mechanism, as in 9.20.4. these excellent and faithful doors: Aristomenes now ironically personifies the door, as he has been personifying his bed; and although he does not liken it directly
Commentary 165 to the witches (by calling it bona or the like), he still associates the door with them through similar enough adjectives, used sarcastically. For another personification of a door see below on 1.22.2. Aristomenes will use the same ironic adjective {fidelis ‘faithful’) of the doorkeeper in 1.17.4. Most instances of fidelis in Met. are either ironic or misleading: e.g. 4.7.4 the robbers’ scared housekeeper, who will soon commit suicide in fear of them, addresses them as ‘my most trusty {fidelissimi) saviours’; in 9.17.3 the faithless Myrmex is known for his fidelitas, and in 10.24.3 a slave involved in a murder plot is called fidelis. doors, which had been unbolted of their own free will at night, opened with difficulty only and very reluctantly then with repeated insertions of their very own key: The phrase stresses that it is really the right key for the door, gives the door a certain personality again, and contrasts the witches’ effortless opening of the door. Aristomenes instead needs several attempts in his nervousness; inserting a Roman key can be quite a difficult process (Gaheis 1930). Aristomenes exaggerates: strictly speaking the door had not opened up out of its own will, as it was the witches who pushed it open. He also repeats ‘at night’ as a contrast to the approaching morning (1.14.6). ‘With difficulty only and very reluctantly’ is used e.g. in Plautus Poen. 236, Seneca Ep. 118.17; Valerius Maximus Memorabilia 6.9.14 etc. (all with the positive aegre only); it is notably picked up again in 1.19.10, when Aristomenes, nervous and terrified, barely manages to drag Socrates’ body away from the river. 15 Aristomenes’ attempt to flee is thwarted by the inn’s doorkeeper, who refuses to open the front door. The doorkeeper makes some throw-away remarks about Aristomenes’ wish to flee before sunrise because he might have cut his friend's throat. This sends Aristomenes into despair. 15.1 where are you?: See 1.17.1 for the doorkeeper asking Aristomenes exactly the same question; the two mirror each other’s language, e.g. in this chapter ignoras (in 2 and 3) ‘don’t you know’. Open the tavern gates!: Aristomenes has left the bedroom, but now needs to leave the inn; double doors {valvae ‘gates’) are usually used of palaces or temples {e.g. Cupid’s palace in 5.1.6), but also in Propertius 4.8.51 (where Cynthia gate-crashes her lover’s party to find him unfaithful; the grand word is attached incongruously to a disreputable inn (cf. 1.4.6) for comic effect. The doorkeeper was lying on the floor behind the tavern door and even now still half asleep: A doorkeeper sleeping on the job is a literary topos: Ovid Am. 1.6.4f., Propertius 4.5.48. Plautus’ doorkeeper Leaena is, like the doorkeeper here, described as semisomna (‘half asleep’) in Cur. 117, a status at times associated with drunkenness: Curtius Rufus 83.8; Phaedrus 4.16; Quintilian Inst. 4.2.124; Seneca Dial. 10.14.4. The doorkeeper’s prone position echoes Aristomenes’ in 1.14.2 when he realises he is still trapped under the bed after the witches have vanished. Aristomenes is surprised that the doorkeeper is still asleep despite the noise the witches made when entering and leaving.
166 Commentary but does not discuss that Meroe and Panthia managed to enter the inn, apparently unhindered by the doorkeeper. In 1.15 Aristomenes suspects the doorkeeper is too drunk to notice. The situation here is an inverted paraklausithyron, as Aristomenes begs to be let out, not in, like the usual excluded lover of elegy or comedy (see on 1.11.7; James 1987,49; Keulen 2007,468-71). 15.2 the roads are infested with robbers: A theme introduced in 1.7.6, where Socrates is robbed by bandits, and picked up in 2.18, where Photis warns Lucius against young men ‘infesting’ public places; 2.32, where Lucius naturally assumes that the creatures outside Milo’s house at night must be robbers; and 4.18, where Thrasyleon’s robbers make sure to move around at night and kill the guardians of the house they are about to plunder. Although the doorkeeper has obviously not heard the witches breaking into the house, it is ironic that it is robbers; so often associated with witches in Met. 1, whom he fears here (see above on 1.11.7), perhaps a sign of the witches’ involvement in causing his slumber with a confinement spell. Socrates, too, has some vague memories of what happened when he was asleep, cf. 1.18.7. at this time of night: It is suspicious to wish to travel at night when it is dangerous, cf. above on 1.14.6. Hoc noctis is an adverbial accusative plus partitive genitive, just as 1.15.5 illud horae or 6.12.2 istud horae (‘at that moment’), or Plautus Am. 154, Cur. 1 etc. even if you have some kind of crime on your conscience and, to be sure, wish to die: The doorkeeper’s refusal to let Aristomenes leave is farcical. Ironically, Aristomenes at this point only wishes to flee, but the doorkeeper seems to plant the idea of suicide (here from a bad conscience) into his head. In 1.19.12 Aristomenes uses the same construction to talk about the same deed, the death of Socrates. I am not such a pumpkin-headed fool that I would die for you: An allusion to the stock characters of the stupidus or bald mimus calvus acting as the fool in mime, cf. Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis (‘Pumpkinification’) deriding the Emperor Claudius. Pumpkins are used metaphorically in Petronius 39.12 for fools. The doorkeeper claims he is not a stupidus, but his behaviour belies this claim, as he misreads the situation. His reaction is unexpected, as his task at an inn is usually to keep danger out, not the guests shut in. A doorkeeper’s life can be in jeopardy (see above), and he reacts this way here as he does not want to die accused of a possible crime he has not committed (Effe 1976,366ff.; other scholars see the scene as illogical, e.g. Shumate 1996, 71-74). Being falsely accused of murder is a running theme of the novel, cf. 1.14.3 for Aristomenes’ fears, or Met. 3 for Lucius. During the Risus festival trial, Lucius deems himself innocent as he fought against the wineskins in self-defence, but still fears the trial in the Hypatan theatre for murder. 15.3 Daylight is not far off: It is still dark; he agrees with Aristomenes’ observation in 1.14.6. what can robbers take away from a traveller who is in complete poverty: In Met. the traveller is always portrayed as a powerless victim of stronger, lawless powers, a fate that Lucius will share while he is a donkey (Schmidt 1979, 173ff.).
Commentary 167 Or don’t you know, you idiot: Aristomenes maliciously echoes the doorkeeper's ignoras (1.15.2) countering an accusation of ignorance about the danger of thieves with one of stupidity about the likelihood of robbers robbing a poor man. In 1.6.4 Socrates accused Aristomenes of ignoring the vicissitudes of Fortune, and in 1.22.2 Photis accuses Lucius of being the only one ignorant of Milo’s lending practices. Aristomenes makes it clear that he does not accept the doorkeeper’s declaration that he is not a stupidus or fool. a naked man cannot be stripped, not even by ten wrestlers: Most other instances of the proverb (Plautus St. 92, Seneca Ep. 14.9, 57.13; Juvenal 10.22, cf. Plautus As. 92 etc.) make robbers the thieves and none specifies numbers. Here Aristomenes stresses the violent image but plays down any associations with robbers by making them wrestlers, who despite their strength could not complete the task. Cf. Persius 4.39 for five athletes given a difficult task they cannot do. For the rise in numbers compare the inflation from two to twelve normal people needed to lift stones hoisted by single heroes between Homer 11. 12.445f. and Vergil A. 12.897- 900. Aristomenes used another proverbial expression with nudus before (1.14.2), and is very aware that he himself is underdressed, since he has given one of his two garments to Socrates, who himself had been robbed of his own clothes (1.7). 15.4 he rolled onto his other side, still worn out and half asleep: Aristomenes cannot see the doorkeeper and must guess this action from any indistinct sounds he hears. He assumes that the doorkeeper is half drunk and lying on the floor outside the door, and accuses him of typical drunkenness. In 1.17.4 he calls him ‘drunk’ outright (for marcidus ‘worn out’ associated with drunkenness, cf. e.g. Seneca Suas. 6.7; Med. 69; Statius Silv. 1.6.33). In 1.17.3, unexpectedly waking up, Socrates calls himself marcidus, implying that he had drunk too much before - which he had, cf. 1.11.4. In Λ/ei., marcidus is often associated with drinking and sexual exhaustion (especially Photis’ and Lucius’, 2.17.4; 3.14.5; 3.20.4; compare Psyche in 5.22.3), or once for a drug-enduced sleep in 10.11.3. Semisopitus ‘half asleep’ occurs only here, but cf. 1.11.5 (Socrates) on the dangerous connotations of sopitus in Met. ; the description now links the doorkeeper with Socrates, as both are apparently asleep and drunk and possibly under the somniferous influence of witchcraft. Thelyphron is also put to sleep (2.25.5) by the witches about to steal the corpse’s body parts. you didn’t slit the throat: Dramatic irony: the doorkeeper, so obtuse to anything else that has happened, uses the verb iugulare in its wider meaning of‘slaughter’; he cannot know that Socrates has indeed had his throat cut in 1.13.4. The doorkeeper now expresses exactly the kind of suspicion that Aristomenes was afraid of in 1.14. that fellow traveller of yours, with whom you stopped here so late: The doorkeeper reveals the reason for his suspicion of Aristomenes: they arrived close to night time, and now one of them wants to leave again while it is still night. taking your refuge in flight: The half-asleep doorkeeper displays some uncanny insight, as this is exactly what Aristomenes, true to form, is planning.
168 Commentary 15.5 I remember that at that moment the earth gaped wide open and I saw the depths of Tartarus and in it the dog Cerberus hungering ravenously for me: The vision of Tartarus and Cerberus exemplifies Aristomenes’ changed attitude to poetry (contrast on 1.8.5), with which he responds to Socrates’ talk of death. The poetic description of the earth gaping wide (cf. e.g. Vergil A. 4.24, 8.243-46; Seneca Oed. 582f. for terra dehiscente) is here used poignantly for Aristomenes’ own situation as a victim of witchcraft: witches split open the earth themselves for necromancy, Meroe herself has power over Tartarus (cf. above on 1.8.4) and used a ditch in 1.10.3 to lock her victims into their houses. Aristomenes indirectly blames Meroe for his predicament and likely death. As Aristomenes paints his memories vividly while at the same time distancing himself emotionally from the experience (‘I remember’), he now realises that his usual method of avoiding danger, flight, is cut off for him, leaving him no way to save himself; ‘flight’ is a characteristic word for Aristomenes (cf. on 1.11.3). There is no profound psychological change in Aristomenes here (although Keulen 2007, 299 claims it), as his fears of death and unjust punishment have been obvious before (1.14). He sees exactly the place, Tartarus, the magical manipulation of which (cf. 1.8.4f.) he had believed to be impossible. He now is convinced of the magical power of witches. Other passages in Met. where characters face death often refer to the Underworld, cf. 3.9.8 and 3.10.3 (Lucius emerges from the ‘land of the dead’ after realising the Risus festival trial is not real), 6.17 (Psyche is confronted twice with descending into Tartarus and therefore death before another route is suggested); 7.7.4 (a robber melodramatically escapes the jaws of Orcus), 7.24.1 (Lucius barely escapes a death sentence he likens to the shades of Orcus). On Tartarus as the home of the souls of the dead (manes) see above on 1.8.4. Contrast Lucius’ metaphorical voluntary descent into the Underworld to ‘Proserpina’s threshold’ during his Isiac initiation in 11.23.6. Cerberus is the guard dog of the Underworld, often depicted with three heads (e.g. in 3.19.2; 4.20.2), who ensures that no one enters or departs from the Underworld unallowed. He is naturally found in Psyche’s katabasis in 6.19.3, living up to his stereotypical representation as barking fiercely but in vain at the souls of the dead who he cannot harm any more. Like Psyche, Aristomenes is still alive and thus in danger of being hurt by the hungry, ferocious dog. 15.6 spared my throat not out of mercy, but out of cruelty had reserved me for the cross: Aristomenes here imagines a death similar to that of Socrates, on iugulari cf. on 1.14.3 and 1.18.1. As in 1.14.2, Aristomenes assumes that he will be crucified for murder, probably under Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis (‘Cornelian law against assassins and poisoners’; Summers 1970, 515f.). 16 Aristomenes leaves the inn’s ‘gates’, on the other side of which the doorkeeper is lying, and returns to his bedroom with his friend’s body. He attempts to commit suicide by hanging himself from a rope taken from his cot. It breaks, and he tumbles onto the floor, together with the body of Socrates.
Commentary 169 16.1 I returned to my bedroom and began to deliberate with myself about a sudden kind of death: Though unsuccessful, Aristomenes’ suicide sets a pattern for the novel; a man trying to hang himself aims for an ignoble death without honour, but Aristomenes does not have a real choice of means (see introd. §6.4 on suicide). It is not immediately clear how much time passes during Aristomenes’ deliberation (the imperfect tense of deliberabam can cover a considerable amount of time), and whether consequently the sun has risen by now, cf. also below on 1.17.1. 16.2 Fortuna did not supply me with any other death-bringing tool than the cot: Fortuna is characterised as a bad and malevolent influence throughout Aristomenes’ tale, cf. introd. §10.3. For the contrast of the 'death-bringing’ with ‘the life-saving’ weapon see on 1.16.3. This is a military image (also in Quintilian Decl. 289.3), and not an appropriate description for the rickety cot. Reality will catch up with Aristomenes. Well now, my cot, most dear to my heart: The phrase is a parody of Sallust Jug. 14.22 ‘well now, brother, most dear to my heart’ (iam iam frater animo meo carissume). The ironising discrepancy between the highly emotionally charged scene in Sallust and Aristomenes’ comic attempted suicide is typical of Apuleius. The pathos-laden address in Sallust concerns the betrayal of Adharbal and his brother by their adopted brother Jugurtha, while Aristomenes is afraid of being accused of fratricide (cf. 1.17.4). Apuleius’ preference for archaism displays itself here. Addresses to beds are intertextually charged: e.g. Greek tragedy (Sophocles Tr. 920ff.; Euripides Ale. 177-80 is an emotional address to Alcestis’ marriage bed) and love poetry (Catullus 61.111; Propertius 2.15.2; Ovid£/?. 10.55 (Ariadne)). Greek novels feature sentimental addresses to beds: Cleitophon’s attempted suicide, too, is preceded by a dramatic monologue (Achilles Tatius 3.16f; Effe 1976, 369). For Chariton cf. on 1.16.3. Cf. also Ovid Am. 1.6. and Dido’s pathetic address to her and Aeneas’ bed in Vergil A. 4.659. Many such addresses to beds are followed by suicide (Dido) or death (Alcestis), intrinsically linked with the love the bed has witnessed (Finkelpearl 1998, Mattiacci 1993). Aristomenes’ bed has seen nothing of the kind, which makes the allusion inappropriately comic. This is the final personification of the ramshackle cot, which started in 1.8. The only witness of Aristomenes’ innocence, personified yet unable to speak for him, then becomes the tool for his suicide attempt. Cf. 1.11.8 on the bed as a stage prop. In Petronius 94.8 a bed (grabatus) is also considered as a tool for suicide by hanging in a scene inspired by mime. Comic, too, is this direct address to the bed as a parody of prayer, with epithets and relative clauses that contain its aretai or ‘virtues’. The address in the second person is typical of the ‘Du-Stil’ of prayer. This is continued by solum ‘alone’ below, which invokes the specific and unique powers and virtues of the deity addressed. who have suffered together with me so many trials and tribulations: The phrase fits the highly emotional and tragic context, but adds comicality through the farcical situation: exanclare ‘to suffer’ occurs often in combination with aerumnae (‘distress’, for which see above on 1.1.4 and 1.6.2; 8.1.1; cf. Ennius seen. 103
170 Commentary Jocelyn = 102 Vahlen2), or labores (Met. 6.4.3; 11.12.5; 11.15.1; cf. Pacuvius 290 Ribbeck; Cicero Luc. 108; for both cf. Lucilius 1083). It is an archaism, cf. also Plautus St. 273 and Met. 7.6.5; 7.11.3, 11.2.4. It also recalls Odysseus, the much suffering epic hero (see Hunter 2012, 245). as my accomplice and spectator: For a similar combination of accomplice and eyewitness, cf. Rhetorica ad Herennium 2.7, Apul. Apol. 42. See above on 1.14.5 for the problem of eyewitnesses. 16J whom alone I can summon as a witness for my innocence: The voiceless bed invoked as a witness to speak for Aristomenes is comic and bound to fail. ‘Witness for innocence’ is a legal phrase, cf. Cicero Flac. 64; Livy 9.26.13, and cf. Met. 7.25.8 for an appeal to a similarly futile witness (the speechless donkey is invoked to testify). the saving weapon: The adjective salutare (lit. ‘life-preserving, healthy’) is often the opposite of ‘death-bringing’ mortiferum (Cicero Leg. 2.13; Celsus De Medicina 8.4.21; Seneca Ep. 121.19), but here ironically both mean the same: salutare can be a euphemism, occasionally linked with death, as in collegium salutare for burial clubs, cf. the more common vitalis for ‘dead’ (see 1.19.2). Apuleius exploits both possible strands of meaning. Compare Chariton 5.9.10, where the rope as the instrument of suicide is addressed in a similar manner, as an instrument of victory and salvation (see Mattiacci 1993, 266f. and introd. §6.4). The paradox shows the absurdity of Aristomenes wanting to escape one death by another. In fact, had his suicide been successful, the bed would not have been deemed a witness of his innocence as he hopes for, but his suicide would have appeared as proof of his guilty conscience. I am heading for the Underworld: A euphemism for suicide, cf. 6.29.7, where Psyche is asked why she is hurrying (festinas) to Orcus (similar: 6.31.3). See also Calpurnius Flaccus Deci 29; Tacitus Ag. 44.5; Ann. 4.28 for similar euphemisms. 16.4 1 proceeded ... into the noose: The long and detailed description and syntax enhances the suspense. rope with which the cot was woven together: Loosening the cords which hold up the mattress leaves the impression that the already ramshackle bed may become very unstable, which is misleading to some extent, cf. below on 1.16.6. a small beam which projected from underneath the window towards the other side: Roman windows were usually high up and looked towards the inside of the courtyard rather than the outside. The window is probably too small or too high up to escape through - or it could be blocked (Plautus Mil. 379). A beam (tigillum is a rare word) is also used in 9.30.7, where the miller, apparently killed by a ghost, hangs dead from a rafter. For other similarities between the miller and Aristomenes’ tale see introd. §11. Altrinsecus must here mean ‘pointing to the other side’, i.e. from the window into the room. It is an archaic word from comedy, in itself deflecting anticipation of a serious threat to Aristomenes’ life emerging. It occurs five times in Met.: cf. 1.21.4 (again in connection with windows and in a comic setting), but before Apuleius only in Plautus (Mer. 977, Mil. 446, Ps. 862, Rad. 1158).
Commentary 171 forced the other part of the rope tightly into a knot,... climbed onto the cot, raised myself up for death, and placed my head into the noose: Sublimare 'to raise up’ elsewhere in Met. is used concretely of flying: 3.21.6 (Pamphile becomes a bird); 5.16.1 (Zephyrus lifts Psyche’s sisters), or in 1.8.4 ominously of raising the dead from the Underworld to the land of the living. Aristomenes here intends to head in the opposite direction, to the underworld; he literally raises himself from the ground he is constantly associated with (1.11.8; 12.7; 14.2); cf. Accius trag. 576 Ribbeck ex humili sede sublima euolat (‘he(?) flies up high from a lowly seat’). As Keulen 2007, 310 also notes, four out of five instances of the diminutive funiculus in Met. describe scenes of suicide attempts by hanging (1.16.4; 6.30.7; 8.22.5; 8.31.2), once funis (1.16.6) is used for the same rope. Apart from Apuleius, the word mostly occurs in agricultural writers. 16.5 1 pushed back with one foot the prop on which 1 was supported: The image of Aristomenes precariously balancing on one leg on top of the cot, kicking at it with his other foot, is farcical in its impracticality. the rope should tighten around my throat and cut off the function of my breath: Obstructed airways form a motif linking Lucius, Aristomenes and Socrates in Met. 1: in 1.4.1 Lucius’ choking on a cheesecake is described as hindering his air passages; in 1.19.3, Aristomenes again almost chokes (on bread); Socrates in 1.18.7 lacks breath and seemingly chokes on cheese. Most editions print officia, de Buxis’ and (p’s correction of F’s officio (Met. 2.4.9 agitationis officium ‘function of movement’, 2.29.3 vitae officia ‘functions of life' seem to offer good parallels for officia). Other emendations have been tried: e.g. Jacobson 2004, 38 suggests the reading ostia ‘opening’ as more natural with discluderet; the singular is considered a possibility e.g. by Hanson 1989. Robertson 1965 doubtfully considers <officinam ab> officio (lit. ‘the workshop from its function’). 16.6 suddenly: A long build-up of tension in a long sentence is followed by a sudden reversal of fortune, and the quick succession of dramatic events prevents the successful suicide. Speediness in action and changes of fortunes are leitmotifs in Met.; Cf. also 1.11.7 and 1.19.9 for similar changes. the rope, rotten anyway and old: For once, Apuleius does not use the diminutive for rope, but adjectives to indicate the ramshackle nature of the prop, which recalls its initial description in 1.11.8. Aristomenes’ carefully planned suicide fails because of the low quality of his equipment, a comic motif (May 2006, 138ff), but unexpectedly it is the rope, removed from the bedframe, and not the bed itself (‘rotten’in 1.11.8) that breaks. If the bed had broken once kicked (1.16.5), Aristomenes would be dead. I fell back down from the height and collapsed on top of Socrates ... and together with him was rolled down onto the ground: Yet again he rolls onto the ground (devolvor), echoing evolvere from 1.11.8. Superruere ‘to collapse on top’ occurs only here and 2.26.3 (the dead Thelyphron’s wife throws herself over his body); in both cases living humans are thrown on top of corpses who
172 Commentary will subsequently come alive temporarily. Here Aristomenes does not realise that Socrates is still ‘alive’, and so has to add the horror of pollution through a corpse to his fear of the doorkeeper and false accusation before the law. Nevertheless, the image of the two friends rolling on the floor wrapped up in their bedding has a comic aspect, and furthermore will lead the doorkeeper to suspect a homoerotic entanglement. 17 The doorkeeper bursts into Aristomenes’ room. Socrates wakes up unexpectedly and berates the intruder. Overjoyed, Aristomenes kisses and hugs his friend, who pushes him away, as Aristomenes stinks of urine. Socrates seems oblivious to the night’s events. They pay and leave the inn. 17.1 And look: Cf. above on 1.4.4. at precisely that moment: Here and 2.20.3 (witches interrupt funerals, again in the mirror story of Thelyphron, see below) are the only occurrences of the exact phrase, but compare 7.2.1, 9.24.1 and 9.34.2 (during supernatural omens), as well as Suetonius Tib. 14.4 and Seneca Ep. 77.13. the doorkeeper burst in, shouting at the top of his voice: In Petronius 94.8f. a lodging-house keeper breaks into Encolpius’ room immediately after his attempted suicide in a similarly farcical scene, which may be a parody of idealised Greek novels (Schmeling 2011, 386f.). It is unclear whether Apuleius echoes Petronius here (introd. §2.2) and likely that both authors are inspired by mime. Breaking into a room is against the normal behaviour of doorkeepers. The unannounced and violent entrance here echoes the witches and anticipates the sudden entrance of the magistrates at the beginning of Met. 3; they come and arrest Lucius for the ‘murder’ of what then turn out to be wineskins, again associating the experiences of Aristomenes and Lucius (Sandy 1973,234). Furthermore, the scene is very similar to 2.26.3, where Thelyphron wakes up from a sleep induced by witchcraft and later finds out that the corpse he has been paid to guard has woken up. On mirror scenes in Met. see introd. §4.1, on the tale of Thelyphron introd. §5. The rare introrumpere (‘to burst in’, Caesar Gal. 5.51.3 in a siege context, then again in Gellius) is used here and in 2.26.3 for sudden entrances into a room after a night of witchcraft that is about to be exposed. Where are you, who were in such an excessive hurry in the middle of the night and now are snoring, all wrapped up: The doorkeeper has a point, as Aristomenes wanted to leave before dawn, and he reacts with sarcasm as both Aristomenes and Socrates are on the floor after the collapse of Aristomenes’ bed, apparently wrapped up intimately together in the bed’s blankets. Socrates was the one snoring before (1.11.4). As Aristomenes is awake and thus does not snore, the doorkeeper either mistakes the noise of Aristomenes’ crashing on the floor for snoring, or this is the first indication that Socrates is not quite as dead as hitherto assumed. Even if the doorkeeper were able to distinguish the two men wrapped in their bedding, it would
Commentary 173 not have been possible for him to distinguish through a closed door which of the two had been screaming to be let out before. There is no evidence anywhere else that the doorkeeper mistakes Socrates for Aristomenes here because of a possible facial resemblance (considered by Keulen 2007, 315). Even if Aristomenes is not immediately visible, as he is now covered by the bed, the question asked by the man who has kept him locked up in the tawdry inn against his will is comic (cf. Plautus Aul. 268, Cas. 963 etc.; Terence Eu. 472 for similar questions), and a repetition of Aristomenes’ question to the doorkeeper in 1.15.1. Seneca was fond of the phrase alta nocte ‘in the middle of the night’ and the first to use it, together with Lucan 6.570f. {Med. 729, Tro. 197; Dial. 6.26.3). In Met. 2.25.2 the phrase seems to indicate a time relatively early in the night Either way, the doorkeeper clearly exaggerates, though the exact time of day is debatable. Aristomenes said in 1.14.6 that dawn was beginning, whereas the doorkeeper assumed it was still night in 1.15.2. It is not clear how much time was spent by Aristomenes deliberating his suicide, see on 1.16.1. On the importance of night time cf. introd. §11. 17.2 I do not know whether he was roused because of our fall or because of that man’s dissonant screeching: Aristomenes’ claim of ignorance serves to stress the instantaneousness of their fall to the ground together and the doorkeeper’s interruption, as well as to verify his story - he does not claim to know for sure what he cannot know, making what he does tell Lucius more credible. The same negative description of the doorkeeper’s shouting is used in 3.29.4 of the donkey’s braying, and in 8.26.2 of the excited squeals of the Dea Syria’s priests. roused ... Socrates got up first: Completely unexpectedly, Socrates wakes up from apparent death. The ‘apparent death’-motif is another key theme in Met. and a kind of metamorphosis (of fortune; Tatum 1972,308f.); apart from Socrates here, whose ‘resurrection’ will turn out to be short-lived, Thelyphron’s corpse in Met. 2.29 similarly revives temporarily with the help of an Egyptian priest. The realisation of Lucius in 3.9 that he will not be condemned to death at the Risus festival is expressed in terms of returning from the kingdom of Proserpina and Orcus. His alter ego Psyche is resurrected from an ‘infernal and truly Stygian sleep’ (6.21.1) by Cupid, just as Lucius will descend into the Underworld and gain a second life as part of his initiation into the Isiac mysteries in 11.23. It anticipates the story in 10.12 of the young son of the evil stepmother, who is given a sleeping potion instead of poison and wakes up after having been buried, to be reunited with his family (Nethercut 1968, 116). The fact that Socrates at this stage is actually dead or a revenant turns the following discussion into a kind of necromancy (introd. §11). For Platonic associations with death and metempsychosis see introd §10.1. The quick-moving action prevents Aristomenes from expressing any astonishment at his friend’s miraculous resurrection, as the presumably dead Socrates is quicker to get up than Aristomenes (possibly still affected by the witches’ binding spell). Apuleius here is deliberately ambiguous about Socrates’ status: he uses two words he associates on the one hand with someone waking up from a deep sleep (experrectus, a participle
174 Commentary of expergiscor ‘to wake up'; thus in 11.1.1 and 11.20.2; the alternative participle expergitus is used for Thelyphron’s waking up in 2.26.2 after a nocturnal encounter with witches, but also in a wider sense in Apol. 43; Met. 2.14.5 and 4.22.5), and on the other hand with the resurrection of the dead: in 2.30.4 die living Thelyphron ignarus exsurgit ‘rose up unwittingly’ when called by the witches, and the dead Thelyphron’s corpse ‘rose’ in 2.29.2: adsurgit cadaver. It’s not without reason that all guests despise these tavern-keepers: Socrates seems to mistake the doorkeeper for the innkeeper; he is not a reliable witness of events. Innkeepers have a bad reputation, see above on 1.5.3. Socrates’ litotes is picked up in 1.18.4 by Aristomenes in a similar truism, where he makes a trite and sentendous statement about nightmares caused by overindulgence. The parallelism is enhanced by two emendations: here the text of F (ne-inmerito) and of the later hand in A (nec-inmerito) has been corrected by Rossbach to non-inmerito; in 1.18.4 again a correction for F’s ne is required. 173 that curious fellow: Curiosus is negatively charged; Socrates accuses the doorkeeper first of curiosity, then of worse. On curiosity in Met. see introd. §6.3. when he rudely burst in: This echoes the doorkeeper in 1.17.1 exactly (irrupit ... introrumpit). I believe with the intention of nicking something: Socrates makes unreasonable and false accusations of theft against the doorkeeper. Socrates’ confusion and irritability is apparently due to his being woken up from a deep sleep, but see introd. §11 on the issues of necromancy and the veracity of Socrates’ speech. The doorkeeper had himself previously (1.15.2) mentioned robbers. Socrates’ echoing of previous language indicates that he must have been dimly aware of some of the events taking place when he was ‘dead’ asleep. Staying at an inn has its dangers, cf. the similar situation in Cicero’s De Inventione 2.14, where an innkeeper kills one of two travel companions at night and manages to implicate the survivor in the murder. A similar episode in Div. 1.57 involves the dream apparition of the victim of a murderous innkeeper to his friend. Other stories include innkeepers being robbed or indeed robbing their guests (Petronius 62.12 with Schmeling 2011, 259). Declamations may have contained similar tales for future orators to practise on (Smith and Woods 2002, 175-80, van Mal-Maeder 2007, 124). shook me with his mighty shouting out of a very deep sleep, although 1 was really quite worn out: In 1.15.4 Aristomenes describes the doorkeeper as groggy and half asleep. Socrates, oblivious to what has happened, was clearly drunk the night before, and seems to attribute his sorry state to too much alcohol and deep sleep. Aristomenes will not contradict him - at this moment he may believe that Socrates’ ‘murder’ was a nightmare (an assessment which will only change once Socrates reports his own matching ‘dream’, see below on l. 18.7). Socrates’ apparent oblivion to the preceding noise that Aristomenes’ (and his own) fall and the doors have made may be the first indication that something is wrong with him. Deep sleep
Commentary 175 and death can be indistinguishable (e.g. Cicero Tusc. 1.97; Livy 41.4; Seneca Ep. 66.43; Death and Sleep are brothers, cf e.g. Homer //. 16.682). The phrase may therefore reflect something more sinister. Charite in 4.27 wakes up frightened from a prophetic dream in a similar conflation of death and sleep. 17.4 happy, swiftly, and drenched with unexpected joy: Aristomenes seems to be happier about the discovery that he cannot be indicted for murdering his companion than about Socrates’ unexpectedly healthy state. Similarly ‘drenched’ in joy are Thelyphron in 2.26.5 and Myrmex in 9.19.4 - both men’s happiness will, like Aristomenes’, be short lived. In 1.18.6 Aristomenes is accurately described as ‘drenched’ in urine. Conversely a young man is ‘drenched in harmful anger’ in 10.25.1; apart from Apuleius, gaudio perfusus occurs also in Livy 26.50.9. Laetus atque alacer ‘happy and swiftly’ is elsewhere in Met. only used of Lucius: 3.29.6 (the donkey keen to eat roses); 11.1.4 (Lucius purifies himself for prayer), though not an uncommon combination, before Apul., e.g. frequently in Cicero (for Aristomenes anticipating Lucius’ fate see introd. §5). my most trusty doorkeeper: The address as fidelissime ‘most faithful’ is as ironic as Aristomenes’ previous description of his bedroom door as ‘excellent and faithful’ (probae et fideles) in 1.14.7. my friend [and my father and] and my brother: Aristomenes’ hyperbole is driven both by his relief that his friend is apparently fine and his desire to talk up his proof of innocence. Frater is used affectionately rather than of a real relative in a list, culminating in ‘brother’, in 8.7.2 (Thrasyllus on Tlepolemus); in 9.7.3 the cuckolded husband calls his wife’s loverfrater. In 2.13.6 Diophanes’yfater may be related or a close friend (see also on 1.12.4). Frater is used for ‘men not too distant in age’ (Dickey 2002,327, see above on 1.6.1, whereas pater indicates a distinct age difference (Dickey 2002, 120-22 lists some rare hyperbolic exceptions). There is unlikely to be much age difference between them. Aristomenes uses comes ‘friend’ of Socrates again in 1.18.1, 19.5 and 11. The combination frater seu comes is used in Petronius 9.4 by Giton to describe the problematic relationship between him, Encolpius and Ascyltus, with comes indicating less intimacy than frater, which can have an erotic subtext (Schmeling 2011, 28 ad loc.\ and which therefore may be a particularly unfortunate turn of phrase here. It reinforces the doorkeeper’s possible conclusions on what he sees, namely two men entangled in an apparent erotic embrace in the same sheets on one overturned bed. The doorkeeper is ignorant of what really motivates Aristomenes’ extraordinary behaviour, so in his point of view, Aristomenes’ exaggerated assertion of innocence has to appear as a rebuke to him for his accusation, not as a celebration of a lucky escape. Pater ‘father’ can be affectionate, cf. Petronius 98.8 (Giton flatteringly to Eumolpus, with Habermehl 2006, 309 ad loc. for parallels), Plautus Capt. 238. The examples cited as affectionate terms by Keulen 2007, 320 to defend et pater meus however still contain a noticeable age difference and are from comedy’s inverted Saturnalia atmosphere, where a master names a slave his father or patron.
176 Commentary It is never used in that meaning in Apuleius. See also below on 1.21.4 for kinship terminology used for non-related persons with a clear age difference. Zimmerman 2012, Robertson 1965 and this edition accept Salmasius’ deletion of etpater meusf Hanson 1989 and Keulen 2007 include the phrase in their texts. whom you falsely accused me of having murdered last night when you were drunk: Cf. 1.15 for previous accusations that the doorkeeper was drunk. Also see 1.18.2 on Aristomenes’ own experiences and those of Socrates: Aristomenes himself admits he was so inebriated that his judgement on the experience seems to have been clouded by the wine, and he now accuses the doorkeeper of the same. Nocte "last night' picks up the doorkeeper’s alta nocte, again stressing the affinity of night and murder in the story. This is the only instance of calumniae "slander’ and related words, frequent in Apologia, in Met. 1 embraced Socrates and tried to kiss him: Before Apuleius, deosculari "to kiss’ only occurs in Plautus, always in erotic contexts: Cos. 136,453,454,467. This eroticism continues the (very mild) homoerotic subtext of the scene. In Apuleius it is erotic only twice: Met. 2.10.6 and 2.16.2 (Lucius and Photis), and more often describes a one-sided kiss of an inanimate object: in 3.24.2 Lucius kisses the container of the magic ointment, in 4.11.6 a robber the sword he uses for suicide. In 2.26.3, a mirror scene to here (also with amplexus), his wife embraces the dead Thelyphron. Aristomenes’ kiss at first indicates exuberant emotions, as in 1.24.5 (Pythias kisses a more passive Lucius in friendship) and 2.28.3 (Thelyphron’s relative kisses the priest’s hand in supplication), but in the end turns out to have been the one-sided kiss of a dead, inanimate object. 17.5 stunned by the stench of that filthy liquid: Importantly, Aristomenes realises that he is indeed covered in urine (for which humor is a euphemism: Seneca Dial. 4.3.2), and that he believes it was the witches’, not his own, urine that drenched him. For the association of spurcissimus ‘most filthy’ with urine in Apuleius see above on 1.13.8. those Lamiae had stained me: The mythological Lamia (Leinweber 1994, 77) went mad when the jealous Hera killed her children by Zeus, and spent the rest of her existence devouring children. Abhorrent and filthy Lamiae (Aristophanes Wasps 1177, 1035 = Peace 758) feature in old wives’ tales as malevolent spirits who eat small children. Scholiae on Wasps 1035 identify the Lamia as an ugly old woman. All Lamiae are however capable of appearing beautiful and seductive when planning to devour a future husband after marriage (Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 4.144L), showing obvious parallels to Meroe’s seductiveness despite her age (cf. 1.7.7). This comment with its connotations of pollution (miasma) indicates that even here, where Aristomenes as the ‘experiencing I’ is unsure about Socrates’ state, he still believes the witches were indeed present and humiliated him, and not that he had wet his own bed. Aristomenes the ‘narrating Γ knows what happened. Psyche’s cruel, envious and childless sisters in 5.11.5 are denounced as Lamiae (Cupid speaking); in 1.19.2 Aristomenes calls the witches ‘Furies’. In Horace Ars 340 lamiae is used of witches.
Commentary 177 shoved me away violently: Socrates reacts understandably strongly to the inexplicably euphoric embrace of his urine-soaked friend. 17.6 Get off: is an exclamation from comedy (Plautus/fm. 310; 580\Bac. 73 etc., cf. Apul. Socr. 5(131) apagesis). Socrates all of a sudden uses a comic register and becomes the comic character; a metamorphosis after the happy awakening from the apparent death he is entirely unaware of (May 2006, 139f.). bottom of a latrine: Here used literally, but in 9.14.3 it is a metaphor for a despicable woman, and in PI. 1.13 (207) for a despicable place. he began to inquire good-humouredly into the reasons for this stench: The obvious solution would be that Aristomenes had been unable to hold his urine in his drunken stupor (Panayotakis 1998, 122). The nuances of comiter range from ‘pleasantly’, ‘courteously’ to ‘good-humouredly’; given the ambivalence of their relationship and the unpleasant physical circumstances, comiter here is probably less enthusiastic than in 1.24.5 (Pythias embraces Lucius affectionately) and more like 1.26.1, where Lucius declines Milo’s invitation politely and unenthusiastically. 17.7 miserable as I was: Aristomenes has many reasons to feel miserable - he reeks of urine and is the butt of his friend’s jokes. He is also still wet, polluted and under the spell of witchcraft. For the association of miser with victims of witchcraft in Met. 1 see above on 1.6.1, and on Aristomenes as a victim see 1.13.1. I improvised some absurd joke: See 1.2.5 and 1.20.2 for the connection of absurdity with lying and fiction, and with inventive joking in 10.16.7; all examples indicate scepticism about the ‘absurd’ things said and Aristomenes’ awareness that his joke is weak and unbelievable. Just as in 1.7.4, Aristomenes does not reveal the joke itself. Ex tempore is used twice in Apuleius’ ‘False Preface' \o Socr. (fr. 1 (103) and fr. 4 (108); see on 1.1.5 on the nature of the ‘False Preface *) to stress, as here, the speeches’ improvisatory nature. towards a different subject of conversation: Aristomenes never shares the content of his dream with Socrates, and instead uses an obvious distraction technique to avert attention from what he might wish to think of as a nightly ‘accident’. took his right hand: Cf. 1.6.5, where Aristomenes gives Socrates a hand to help him up, and 1.26.2, where Milo pulls Lucius to his table with gentle force (see there for further parallels). 17.8 1 picked up my little satchel: On the satchel see above on 1.14.7. 18 Socrates does not seem to have any obvious scars, and happily jokes about having had a dream in which he was mutilated. Although Aristomenes tries to reassure himself that he, too, only had a nightmare, Apuleius’ choice of words is deliberately vague and often ominous, thus indicating that there is more to the events of the previous night than a mere nightmare brought on by too much drink. They leave the inn and later sit down for breakfast.
178 Commentarγ 18.1 We had already travelled some way: The prosaic phrase (Cicero Att. 6.5.1, Fin. 3.48; Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.69, Gellius 16.8.16) recalls Met. 1.2.4, where Lucius encounters Aristomenes and the sceptic early in the morning. It is followed by one in highly poetic language. when everything was illuminated by the rising of the radiant light of day: It becomes clear now that they still left before daybreak, earlier and more hastily than would be normal for ancient travellers. Aristomenes again demonstrates his reliance on imperfect visual perception (cf. his statement in 1.5.1 on the all-seeing sun). The language suggests the men have successfully left past events behind: the intended contrast between epic sunrises and the sordid events of the previous night gives a false feeling of closure and happy ending typical of Met. (Harrison 2000, 246f., Harrison 2003), followed then by more unexpected endings after the apparent closure. Several books in Met. start with a new dawn; iubaris exortu is tragic-epic for the rising sun (e.g. Pacuvius trag. 347 Ribbeck; Vergil A. 4.130, but also in Columella 10.294; Suetonius Aug. 94.4). It is also used in 2.1.5 (Lucius, newly woken up in Hypata, exuberantly hopes for a miracle), 4.4.1 (the donkey starts on a new journey), 8.30.2 (the Dea Syria priests flee before sunrise). ‘Everything was illuminated’ is used frequently at the beginning of books, in 7.1.1 (the Sungod’s chariot illuminates everything), 11.2.3 (the Queen of Heaven illuminates the world). In Apol. 16.12 it is used to illustrate Apuleius’ openness to scrutiny. I ... kept staring: Apuleius here uses arbitrari in its Plautine meaning of ‘observing without being observed’, cf. also 3.21.3; Plautus Capt. 290, Epid. 695, Aul. 607. The meaning more contemporary to Apuleius’ own times (‘to consider’) is used in 1.20.3. carefully and attentively: Harrison 2006, 60 here reads, with one of Helm’s doubtful suggestions, curiose et sedulo to add a conjunction to the transmitted curiose sedulo. Zimmerman 2012 emends, again inspired by Helm, to curiose sedulo<que>, which has the same meaning and is followed here. Both adverbs occur in asyndetic combinations with others (Met. 3.16.4, 5.8.3, 6.2.1), and in 7.1.6 both words are used in coordinated sentences. Although very close in meaning, curiose, usually ‘carefully’, here still has the added meaning of curiosity, whereas sedulo (3.3.3, 3.20.2) ‘carefully’, an archaising and comic word (Van der Paardt 1971,41), stresses Aristomenes’ painstaking and earnest attention. my friend’s throat: When Socrates wakes up, the condition of his throat becomes the centre of attention, with iugulum and related words occurring four times in 1.18. After the exuberance in Aristomenes’ declaration of his affection for Socrates (and realisation that he will not be arrested for Socrates’ murder) in 1.17.4 he has now returned to the more neutral term ‘friend’. the place where 1 had seen the sword plunged in: The choice of words, similar to 1.13.4, recalls the witches’ cutting of Socrates' throat in their perverted sacrifice and reinforces that Aristomenes actually ‘saw’ it happen but cannot detect any evidence for it now.
Commentary 179 18.2 You are mad: Vesane is poetic, as the vocative before Apuleius occurs mostly in epic poetry (Statius Thebaid 3.627; 5.663; Valerius Flaccus 5.673; Propertius 3.12.7 etc.). The insult is often used, as here, as part of a warning against people not doing the right thing by a person with superior knowledge (Dickey 2002,363). buried in your cups of wine: He blames the cups again in 1.18.5 below. Poculo ... sepultus ‘buried in your cups’ is a unique expression, but vino sepultus ‘buried in wine’ is epic and ominous, here as in 7.12.4 (the robbers are drunk with wine, but will soon be killed by Haemus/Tlepolemus). ‘Buried’ is anticipatory of their real deaths: Vergil A. 2.265 (the Trojans’ death after the night of the Trojan horse), A. 3.630f. (Polyphemus), or Ilias Latina 730 (Rhesus). Note also ‘buried in sleep’ (somno) in Lucretius 5.974; another variant in non-epic literature: ‘in undiluted wine’ (mero) in Ovid Rem. 806; Propertius 3.11.56; Petronius 89.56. a really bad nightmare: If a dream or nightmare is caused by too much drink, it does not have any meaning: Cicero Div. 1.60; Artemidorus Onirocritica 1 p. 3,18-21 Pack; Plato Λ. 571c. On dreams in Met. 1 cf. above on 1.12.1; dreams form important guidelines for the readers about events in Met. (Carlisle 2008). Aristomenes prefers the easy option to interpret Socrates’ apparent liveliness, instead of thinking it might be the work of Meroe, who is able to raise the ghosts of the dead (1.8.4). For the phrase see also 1.8.1 and below 1.18.4. 18.3 Socrates is untouched, healthy and unhurt: Similar lists in Apuleius are linked with magic: in Apol. 43 a boy allegedly used for prophetic magic is ‘healthy, unharmed, talented, beautiful’ (puer sanus, incolumis, ingeniosus, decorus), and in Met. 2.24.3, a list (including, like here, ecce) occurs in the context of witches harming and physically dismembering bodies, where a corpse’s physical integrity is proof for the absence of witches’ interference. Socrates is apparently sanus, as opposed to Aristomenes, who addresses himself as its opposite, vesane, in 2 above (cf. Apol. 80 sanam an insanam, ‘healthy or mad’). Where is the wound, the sponge? Where, finally, is that scar so deep, so fresh?: Apuleius follows the three adjectives with three nouns. Both the wound and the sponge used to close it off (see on 1.13.7 for medical uses of the sponge in wound healing) should be visible. Aristomenes juxtaposes fresh and healed wounds to indicate the situation is completely incredible. A scar would have taken much longer to develop than a few hours, cf. 6.21.2 where the scar covering Cupid’s wound indicates the passing of time. The tricolon moves from something likely to something unlikely to be seen, and the absence of all three convinces Aristomenes that he has had a nightmare. Both alia ‘deep’ and recens ‘fresh’ are associated with vulnus (altus: Celsus De Medicina 5.26.35a; Petronius 136.7; Silius Italicus 9.155; recens: Cicero Ver. 2.2.187; Celsus De Medicina 5.19.22; 5.20.1 a; 5.26.20a; 7.15.2 (with sponge as treatment)), but only recens with cicatrix ‘scar’ (Celsus De Medicina 5.18.28; 5.28.17c; Petronius 113; 9; Scribonius Largus 26.9). The text follows F but tidies up the question marks (with most modem editions); no changes or additions are required.
180 Commentary 18.4 It’s not without reason that trustworthy doctors maintain that people swollen with food and booze have vicious and oppressive dreams: Although Aristomenes previously stressed that Socrates and perhaps the doorkeeper were drunk, he now considers the possibility that he himself has overindulged in food and drink like a glutton. This kind of swelling is unhealthy: also in 2.31.4 (Lucius is ‘swollen with drink1 after Byrrhaena’s dinner), 7.27.3 (the donkey distends his belly with food); cf. Quintilian Inst. 2.10.6 (quadrupeds). It is Aristomenes’ turn to be sententious, and he echoes Socrates’ equally trite remark in 1.17.2. It was a widely known commonplace in antiquity to assume that overeating and -drinking would cause nightmares (refs in Panayotakis 1998, 117ff.). Caelius Aurelianus On Chronic Diseases 1.3.55f. argues that too much food and drink, the feeling of heaviness and sweating, and the feeling of choking are all signs of nightmares, but in Met. these feelings have connotations of prophecy, a sign that there is more to the dream than just drink: cf. 4.27.1, where Charite calls her prophetic dream ‘most vicious’, saevissimo; cf. Tibullus 1.5.13f. (nightmares and witchcraft) and Seneca Here. F. 1082f. for ‘vicious’, and Cicero Div. 1.4 for ‘rather oppressive’ (graviora) dreams. Trustworthiness is a key concept for doctors in Met., cf. 10.8.2, where a doctor is associated with fidus, although as an honest and capable doctor he is an exception. In 10.25.2 a different doctor is more stereotypically associated with ‘known perfidy’. Distrust of doctors was rife in Rome, and doctors in Met. are usually incompetent: in 10.2 they fail to diagnose the obvious, and in 10.25 sell poison intended to kill (Panayotakis 1998, 124). For further ironic uses of the word fidelis see above on 1.14.7 and 17.4. 18.5 did not restrain myself sufficiently from the cups: A definite understatement; Aristomenes admits tacitly that he has drunk quite a lot and agrees with the doctors’ sentiments. last night... a rough night: ‘Rough night’ is a conventional phrase: Cicero Att. 10.8.7; Plane. 101.2, Calpurnius Siculus Eel. 3.46, Valerius Flaccus 2.291. Again the stress is on the nocturnal experience; cf. above on 1.4.1. brought me dire and wild visions: The choice of words here strengthens the idea it has all been a dream: optulere ‘to bring’ is used of a dream in 9.31.1, which reveals to a woman her father’s horrible fate: he has been killed by a ghost. Also used of dreams in Vergil A. 4.557, [Seneca] Oct. 116, Annius Florus Epitome 2.17 (imago se optulit ‘a vision presented itself’). Similarly, imago in Met. frequently indicates night visions, both dangerous (8.9.3, Charite) and more benign (11.13.6, of Isis). In 4.27.5 the old woman advises Charite that night dreams (imagines) often show the opposite to what will happen (May 2006, 252-55; 260). The language is ambivalent: Aristomenes describes the witches, too, in similar terms in 1.19.2, where he also calls them Furies. Dirus is often used of magic and witchcraft: 2.22.3 (magical incantations); 2.29.4 (invocation of the Dirae or Furies in a priest’s declaration of power over a corpse); 7.14.2 (Photis’ magic) and 9.23.2 (an adulteress’ curses); 9.29.3 (a ghost about to murder a husband).The other
Commentary 181 instances of truces imagines, Livy 5.2.9 (imago = semblance, appearance) and Pliny Pan. 52.5 (imago = image), are not to do with dreams. I still believe: See on 1.19.2 spattered and polluted with human blood: As the witches caught every drop of blood that Socrates had lost, Aristomenes is telling an untruth; instead, he is spattered with urine, verified by Socrates’ comments, see 1.17.6. He seems to be fishing for information from Socrates, trying to find out what he remembers from the previous night. He uses cruor, ‘cloned blood’, not sanguis (for the difference see above on 1.13.5). The nuance here at first appears not to be crucial, but it will turn out to be so in 1.19.9, where Socrates only loses a ‘little blood’ (cruor). It functions as a marker to anticipate Socrates’ death (Keulen 2007,334), just as blood is spattered as a bad omen in 9.34.2. Impiatum points to pollution, cf. 3.3.9 (an accused defiled by so many murders), 9.1.1 (‘polluted’ hands of a man about to kill the donkey). Aristomenes touched Socrates when both tumbled on the floor in 1.16.6, enough to catch pollution (see above on 1.13.3). 18.6 He smirked: Ridere in Met. often indicates sarcasm, and can be perceived as threatening or exclusive, e.g. during the Risus festival (May 2006, 183ff.; laughter in Met.: Schlam 1992,40f.). But you are not doused in blood, but in piss: Socrates had questioned Aristomenes about the cause before, and still assumes that Aristomenes had wet his bed, cf. above on 1.17.6L The language reflects the move from the sublime to the ridiculous: sanguine perfiisus ‘doused in blood’ is a frequent and thus easily recognisable poetical phrase, often in epic contexts: Vergil G. 2.510; A. 11.88; Lucan 8.375; 10.74; Propertius 3.3.45; Ovid Met. 1.157 etc. By contrast, ‘doused in piss’ is a unique combination of the words. For the dousing cf. 1.13.8, and for the colloquial nature of lotium see 1.14.2. I myself had a dream, too, that I had my throat cut: Apuleius plays with the concept of double dreams as harbingers of truth in ancient thought and creates a paradox: importantly, Socrates had a similar ‘dream’ to Aristomenes, which secretly should confirm to Aristomenes that his experience overnight was true. Either they both had the same nightmare, which in itself proves its truthfulness, or the experience was real. Double dreams that will come true feature frequently in the novels: Achilles Tatius 4.1.5, Longus 1.7-8 (the couple’s parents); Heliodorus 8.11 (Charikleia and Theagenes), 9.25 and 10.3 (Charikleia’s parents); Petronius 104.If. (Lichas andTryphaena), cf. Panayotakis 1998,128; 1995,150; Habermehl 2006, 387. The double dreams in Met. 11 are straightforward announcements dealing with Lucius’ Isiac initiations: in 11.6.3 Lucius and the Isis priest Mithras share a dream sent by Isis about Lucius’ remetamorphosis, cf. also 11.13, followed by another two double dreams anticipating Lucius’ subsequent initiations (11.22 and 27; most recently: Frangoulidis 2012). Dreaming about having one’s throat cut like a sacrifice (on the murder’s sacrificial nature see above on 1.13.4 and introd. §11) is actually a sign of good luck for all men, cf. Artemidorus Onirocritica
182 Commentary 2.51, with May 2006, 254f., but Socrates’ experience will turn out to be not a lucky dream, but dreadful reality temporarily believed to be a dream {somnium, putavi). Apuleius plays with his audience’s expectations: the murder was real and ominous. 18.7 believed that my heart itself was torn out of me: Socrates seems to have some memory of what has happened in 1.13. even now I am out of breath: The feeling of pain he had in his sleep has given way to one of general weakness. There is also dramatic irony and intentional word play, as Socrates has indeed lost his breath because of the witches, where he emphatically breathes out his last breath; see on 1.13.6 for the various meanings of spiritus. He currently thinks he is still breathless because of a nightmare. Cf. 8.6.6 (Charite’s spiritus fails after discovering her dead husband) for a similar double meaning of‘life’ and ‘breath’. Deficior can have a double meaning, too, i.e. ‘fainting’ (Panayotakis, 1998, 120f; 124). The two meanings are however linked, see 5.22.3 (Psyche’s faint is death-like). In 1.19.1 deficientem ‘wasting away’ describes the start of Socrates’ second death. my knees are shaking, I stagger when I walk: The shaking knees could be a sign either of a hangover or of his blood loss and death. Apuleius keeps up the suspense, and also associates Socrates here with both Aristomenes (cf. 1.13.1) and Lucius, especially as in 2.31.4 staggering is a sign of Lucius’ overindulgence in drink (cf. Columella 10.1.1.309, Ovid Met. 3.608L). In 4.4.2,6.30.5 and 7.20.3 Lucius the donkey totters (titubanti gradu). Michalopoulos 2006 takes these obvious signs of weakness as a pun on a pseudo-etymologisation of Socrates’ name (σώς= ‘healthy, κράτος = strength, with Socrates appearing as the opposite of his name). I crave some food to warm my spirits again! Warming Socrates’ spirits with food has worked before in 1.7.3. Here it indicates dramatic irony, as Socrates’ dead body is probably cooling down, and eating food will contribute to his second death instead of restoring him as previously. Cibatus occurs also in 1.24.3 and 9.5.5, PI. 1.16 (214) and Hermagoras fr. 7 (again in the context of serving delicious food). 18.8 Look: Apart from the prologue (1.1.5), this is the first of many instances of the exclamation en in Met. (25 times; in Met. 1 also in 19.8; 22.7; 23.5), always in direct speech. breakfast is prepared and ready: Aristomenes hopes to return to apparent normality with breakfast (for which cf. on 1.2.4), and prepares the food quickly, as he is speaking. 1 lifted my satchel off my shoulder: The mantica (a rare variant of the sarcinula used in 1.14.7, also in Lucilius Fr. Inc. 1207; Catullus 22.21, Persius 4.24; Horace S. 1.6.106) was made out of leather and carried, as here, over the shoulder, so that parts of it hang over shoulder and back. In taking down his satchel he incongruously imitates an epic phrase in a very non-heroic context: umero exuere ‘to lift off one’s shoulder’ is normally used of weapons (sword: Vergil A. 9.303; quiver: Ovid Met. 2.419) or cloaks (Statius Theb. 6.835ft, cf. Silv. 5.2.67).
Commentary 183 Let’s sit down next to that plane tree: The plane tree introduces the stereotypical locus amoenus or ‘pleasant place’ (De Biasi 2000, Mattiacci 2001) near water. Apuleius in Mund. 36 (369) discusses the usefulness of a plane tree to drinkers to whom it offers shade, referring to Vergil G. 4.146. Importantly it evokes the beginning of Plato Phaedrus 228e-230e, see introd. § 10.1, but Apuleius’ Socrates will die and be buried here. Retrospectively, a second-time reader recognising the link with the Phaedrus will re-read the witches’ address to the sponge (see above on 1.13.7) as foreshadowing Socrates’ death near a river, as Plato’s Socrates refuses to cross a river until he has placated the god of Love out of fear of the consequences. Apuleius here humorously runs through some Platonic topoi and good-naturedly pokes fun at them. In Phaedrus 229c-230a, Plato’s Socrates deflects Phaedrus’ question about the truthfulness of mythological creatures and stories; Apuleius ’ Socrates and Aristomenes experience the potency of witchcraft and witches associated with mythological creatures in a setting similar to Plato’s. Plato’s locus amoenus shows evidence of human hands (230b8; cf. Montiglio 2000, 94.), whereas Apuleius’ landscape is utterly desolate and devoid of human intervention. In a wider sense, a locus amoenus became a topos in the study of poetry. It is an idealised and beautiful landscape, e.g. Horace Carm. 2.11.13, Ars 17, Petronius 131, where nevertheless terrible things may happen, as often in Ovid, e.g. Met. 3.407-508, where the beautiful landscape is the setting for both Narcissus’ and Echo’s metamorphoses. Apuleius’ landscape here, too, shows few anomalies to indicate that something terrible will happen (cf. 1.19.7), unlike the descriptions of definite loci horridi in Met. 4.6fF. or 6.13ff., where the landscape already indicates its hostility (Schiesaro 1985). Still, some scholars point out the danger of the landscape here: Nethercut 1968,111 f. associates rivers in Met. with death. Psyche in 6.12 almost kills herself in a locus amoenus (again marked pointedly by a plane tree’s roots drinking from a river). 19 Socrates eats some of Aristomenes' food, and it quickly becomes clear that something is amiss, with connotations of death and the Underworld. When Socrates is thirsty and attempts to drink some water from the river, the sponge dislodges itself from his chest, he keels over and dies. Aristomenes buries Socrates’ body and becomes an exile, living in constant fear. 19.1 I, too, took some food from the same satchel: With the pronoun in its stressed front position Aristomenes points out that he took the same food, and therefore that it must have been the witches’ magic, not the food, which killed Socrates. Aristomenes, however, ate only very little. I watched him stuffing himself greedily: The notion of greed (avide/avidus) for food and drink repeatedly underlies Socrates’ behaviour: three times in this chapter (also 1.19.7 and 8; Keulen 2007, 341). Avidus with drinking is found elsewhere in Met.: 4.7.3 (an old woman), 8.11.3 (of Thrasyllus drinking hastily and carelessly), and with eating in 6.31.1 (robbers), 11.13.2 (Lucius eats roses). Socrates' greed is
184 Commentary ominous, and prepares his ‘second death’. His appetite, and Aristomenes’ feeding of it, foreshadows the ritual of ‘feeding’ the dead, whose emaciation suggests and causes that greed. Grave offerings to the Greek dead included honey, milk, water and wine (see on 1.4.1; Homer Od. 11.27ff. in the Nekyia), and the dead are occasionally called ευδειπνοι, ‘well-feasted’ (e.g. Aeschylus Ch. 483f.). Unknowingly, Aristomenes feasts his dead friend lavishly with food also offered to the souls of the departed. Apart from here, Apuleius seems to associate essitare ‘to eat’ with animals: in 7.27.3 the donkey is accused of repeated overeating (essitando), and in 10.16 he frequently entertains his master by eating food (essitabam), and in 9.36.4 dogs devour (essitare) cadavers. wasting away with a rather more intense gauntness and paleness of boxwood: Gauntness characterised Socrates during their first meeting (1.6.1). Then and now they think food would be the medicine against his visible weakening. Retrospectively, his gauntness and paleness also anticipate his resemblance to a larva or ghost, cf. 9.30.3, where a ghost displays ‘pallor of boxwood and gauntness’ (lurore buxeo macieque), see introd. §11. Buxeus is commonly associated with death and ghosts. Similarly, pallor is often the colour of ghosts, cf. 8.8.6 (Tlepolemus’ ghost), but also of illness (e.g. Psyche in 5.25.5 and a woman in 10.2.6 are sick with love; on the story see below) or deadly fear (e.g. 8.21.3, after seeing a man-eating snake; in 10.10.1 a man is grasped by ‘deadly pallor’ when his crime is found out). In 1.18.3, where Aristomenes describes Socrates as healthy and unharmed, he only comments on his possible wounds or scars, and not on his facial colour. Revenants have corporeal faculties and could speak, which explains Socrates’ physical presence, ability to eat and to change his complexion (revenants: Felton 2007, 98). See on 1.18.7 for the double meaning and translation of deficere. 19.2 so much had his lifeless colour changed his appearance: The striking and purposely ambiguous phrase must be construed as a euphemism, as here it means ‘deadly pallor’, not‘colour of life’. Vitalis means ‘deadly’in e.g. vitalia=grave clothes, cf. Petronius 77.7 and 42.6 (vitali lecto = funerary bed), Seneca Ep. 99.22, possibly a colloquial use (Schmeling 2011, 166); cf. also salutare ‘saving, helpful’ in 1.16.3. out of fear was I recalling the image of those night-time Furies: Metus ‘ fear’ is a key emotion for Aristomenes (in 1.11.6 he remains awake at night ‘out of fear’), and in 1.19 he subsequently fears discovery (19.4) and the witches (19.12). Aristomenes has also constantly been portrayed as having a vivid imagination, and calling the witches Furies continues their supernatural portrait from 1.17.5 (as Lamiae) and 1.18.5 (dirae). Etymologically connected to furere ‘to rage’, the Latin Furies are proverbially wild equivalents of the Greek Erinyes, goddesses of vengeance, often portrayed with snakes instead of hair and carrying torches (the witches carry a lamp: 1.12.3). Aristomenes is now willing to accept Socrates’ portrait of his situation as tragic; Furies wreak revenge e.g. in Aeschylus Eumenides. Cf. Horace S. 1.8.44f. for the witches Canidia and Sagana as Furies. The name is also used for Psyche’s evil sisters in 5.12.3.
Commentary 185 193 that first bite of bread I had taken...: Aristomenes labours the point how small the bite actually was (frustulum occurs only here, but compare frustatim (cut into bite-size pieces, three times in Met.), and frustum in 6.11.2, again of bread). Food sticking in his throat and nearly suffocating him recalls Lucius’ experience with the cheese polenta in 1.4.1, but there the bite was rather large despite Lucius trying to downplay its size. Here it is Socrates who eats a large piece of cheese, but both Aristomenes and Lucius almost die because something sticks in their throat. Mediae fauces (‘the middle of the throat’) is associated with epic death scenes where weapons hit the throat (Ilias Latina 977; Lucan 6.239), and in Met. has associations with death and the Underworld (6.14.2; 7.7.4), rendering this scene ominous, too. could neither move down nor come back up again: Remeare ‘to return’ has some connotations of the ‘apparent death’ motif in Apuleius, noticeable here for a second-time reader. It is used e.g. in 6.19.5, 10.11.3, and in 11.23.6 in this meaning, see on 1.17.2 for details and context. It can also indicate a simple return, e.g. 6.11.1 (Venus returns from a banquet). 19.4 the very lack of fellow travellers made my fear mount: Aristomenes is as always concerned about witnesses; in 1.5.1 he calls upon the Sun as a witness, in 1.14.3 he asks who will believe his story, and in 1.16.2 he can only appeal to his bed as his witness. The absence of eyewitnesses for his innocence, Aristomenes fears, will result in him being accused of Socrates’ murder. Commeantes ‘fellow travellers’ at times has Underworld associations in Met., e.g. 6.4.1; 6.17.1, and echoes remeare in 1.19.3 which, too, has infernal connotations. In 6.18.5 Apuleius uses commeantes for the dead; in Apol. 64.1 Apuleius calls Mercury the ‘go-between of the upper and the lower gods’, superum et inferum commeator. For the importance of fear in 1.19 see on 1.19.2. 19.5 For who would ever believe ...: Aristomenes, dramatically, invites Lucius (and the reader) to see his predicament: if Socrates disappears and/or his body is found, enquiries will reveal who his travelling-companion was, and it would be natural for the one survivor out of two to come under suspicion (cf. above on 1.17.3). Aristomenes is fond of rhetorical questions, cf. 1.14.3. Lucius, however, believes him without a doubt (see next note), as he announced in 1.4.6. one of two companions: Cf. the similar phrase in 1.2.4, where Lucius joins as the third and states that he will believe Aristomenes’ stories. For Aristomenes calling Socrates comes ‘friend, companion’, see above on 1,17.4. 19.6 as soon as he had wolfed down enough food, he began to feel unbearably thirsty: Eating large amounts of cheese naturally causes thirst. Socrates’ thirst is furthermore motivated within the plot by his uncertain status. Ghosts need nourishment, amongst other things with water and milk, the food of the dead, cf. on 1.19.1. Usually, detruncare means ‘to cut pieces from’, but here functions as a variant of contruncare (employed in 1.4.1 of Lucius’ devouring a large chunk of cheese); again the parallelism between the characters bodes badly for Lucius. 19.7 a good part of the best cheese: Aristomenes is a cheese dealer; he offers
186 Commentary the best to his comrade and makes sure that his audience knows the cheese is not to blame for Socrates’ subsequent demise. Columella 7.8.2 notes that the best cheese has as little rennet and as much milk as possible. Cheese was a normal ingredient of a Roman breakfast (Martial 13.31). not very far from the roots of the plane tree: The locus amoenus in 6.12.4 also features a plane tree standing close to water, for the setting see above on 1.18.8. {Haud...) longe ‘(not...) far off’ is here used for the first time in Latin as a preposition with accusative (OLD 2a), apparently in analogy to prope (‘near’) which, too, is used both as adverb and preposition with accusative. a gentle stream was gliding lazily, like a peaceful pool in appearance, rivalling silver or glass in its colour: The description of the locus amoenus, of which a river is a typical element (cf. also 4.4.3; 8.18.7), serves as retardation, in an allusion to Vergil A. 8.86ff. with verbal echoes, where the Tiber calms its waters for Aeneas. Here the pathetic fallacy is lulling Aristomenes into a false sense of security: there is no indication that a horrible event is in store in this beautiful landscape; in this Apuleius’ treatment resembles that of Ovid in his Metamorphoses, where violence erupts in a beautiful setting without warning (Hinds 2002). The scene anticipates another warning to Lucius against dabbling in magic: 2.4.9 (Actaeon’s statue reflected in the ‘gentle waves’ in Byrrhaena’s atrium; De Biasi 2000,221). Drinking from the idyllic river enacts the witches’ command to the sponge to travel through a ‘stream’ {perfluvium) and seals Socrates’ death. Roman glass was either white or green, therefore an apt comparison for water; cf. Plato Phaedrus 229b, Theocritus 22.37f. for water compared to glass in a locus amoenus (Schiesaro 1985, 212). The setting of Cupid’s palace in 5.1.2 displays a similar locus amoenus, with a ‘spring transparent with glassy moisture’ {vitreo latice). Water is likened to glass in e.g.Vergil G. 4.350, A. 7.759; Ovid Met. 4.355 etc. It is compared to silver in Met. 4.6.4 {undas argenteas near the robbers’ cave); cf. Homer II. 2.753; Ovid Met. 3.407 (as a silvery mirror for Narcissus; for parallels see above on 1.18.8). 19.8 Fill yourself up with the milky liquid of this spring: Given the command to the sponge in 1.13.7 to cross a river, Aristomenes’ suggestion to Socrates to drink from one ominously implicates him in Socrates’ second death. The unique comparison with milk is somewhat surprising after the previous stress on the water’s clarity, but milky liquid is appropriate to Socrates’ situation. Milk and water are part of the libations poured for the dead, and cult objects in Isis worship. The sound effect {latice ... lacteo) may have played a role, too: Nicolini 2011,41 with n. 83. He got up: The first hand of F first wrote, then deleted, ille after adsurgit, a correction followed by most editors, e.g. Zimmerman 2012. waiting a little to find a more level edge of the river bank: In Plato Phaedrus 230c Socrates is glad about a grassy slope to rest his head on when he lies down. The description of the river’s edge is poetic {e.g. Ovid Ep. 5.27, Fast. 2.222, Met. 1.729; 5.598), before Apuleius only once found in prose (Curtius Rufus 7.9.5). In
Commentary 187 Apul. Met. it features in 2.14.2 (in a rather poetic description of a sea storm) and 4.2.6 (in a description of a typical locus amoenus). he got down on his knees: Oblivious to the witches’ curse, Socrates bends down to drink. Lucius when a donkey, to prove he does not have rabies (or ‘hydrophobia’), bends down and drinks similarly greedily in 9.4.1 (with verbal echoes). 19.9 He had as yet hardly brushed the water’s moist surface with the tip of his lips: Just the tiniest touch of the lips suffices for the witches’ curse (see on 1.19.7), to come to fruition. On the contrast to Plato’s Socrates see introd. §10.1. Apuleius uses extremis labiis in a wider sense in 9.23.1 (the only other occurrence in Latin), when an adulterer’s drinking is interrupted when the husband returns unexpectedly. Ros ‘moisture’ in Met. is often associated with typical loci amoeni (4.2.5; 4.17.3; 4.31.4), but also with magic, cf. 3.18.1 and 23.8 (both instances with fontanus, thus ‘spring water’ as a magical ingredient), and in 6.13.5 it describes the deadly connotations of the waters of Styx. the wound in his throat gaped open into a deep hole: A somewhat dispassionate description in medical language. Dehiscere ‘to gape open’ is commonly used, in Apuleius as well as in poetry, of the earth splitting (1.15.5), but also occurs in medicine (bones in Celsus De Medicina 8.1.26), although the combination with vulnus is unique. The phrase recalls 1.13.7, the description of the gaping wound. Pator ‘hole’ before Apuleius is used only in medical texts (Scribonius Largus 46f., in connection with a sponge used to stop a nosebleed). Apuleius uses it four times in Met. that sponge rolled out of him suddenly, and only a little blood accompanied it: The sponge enacts Panthia’s command (1.13.7). It was never far from Aristomenes’ mind, e.g. in 1.18.3 he wonders about the sponge’s whereabouts. The lack of gushing blood now indicates that Socrates has been dead ever since the cutting out of his heart (Mencacci 1986, 28ff.), when he became a revenant. The witches had caught most of his blood in a small leather bag, and the little that remains is called cruor (spilled or drying blood, cf. 1.18.5). Sponge and blood reconfirm for Aristomenes that the witches really had appeared in the inn at night and killed Socrates. 19.10 his lifeless corpse: Cf. 9.37.6 for a similar description of lifelessness as death, and contrast 4.4.5, where exanimatum merely means ‘breathless, exhausted’. The related adjective has a similar range of meaning: in 4.26.8 Charite is breathless (exanimem) with fear, and in 2.30.5 the living but sleeping Thelyphron acts like a lifeless ghost (exanimis), whereas in 9.30.7 and 10.28.4 exanimis is used of corpses. In 10.5.2 it is deliberately vague, as the apparent corpse is not, in fact, dead and will come to life again in 10.12. For similar word games cf. above on 1.13.6 and 1.14.2. The same ambivalence may be intended here: the exact definition of Socrates’ state is left unclear by Apuleius, who never applies any of the usual Latin terms for ghosts to him (Felton 1999, 28). Only a second-time reader gets the ultimate clarification of his ghostlike nature when the same words are used in the description of the ghost (larva) in 9.29f.; see introd. §11.
188 Commentary fallen head over heels into the river: The verb cemuare is an archaism; Apuleius uses a related word, cernulus ‘head first’, in 9.38.10 (a man dramatically cuts his throat with a knife and falls head first on the table), a mirror scene with further verbal echoes of 1.19. Apuleius uses the vivid present indicative (instead of the more frequent perfect indicative, cf. Plautus Persa 594 etc.) with paene, to show this is exactly what happened where paene is enough to express the unreality of the situation. Unusually, the conditional clause (nisi) also has an indicative instead of the more common subjunctive, a colloquialism Apuleius repeats in 4.21.4f. nisi quidam lanius ... despoliavit latronem 'but a certain butcher ... stripped the robber’ (with adversative nisi). with difficulty and painfully: A constant characteristic of Aristomenes, cf. 1.14.7 (he unlocks the door with difficulty) and 1.7.3 (he has to look after Socrates for the first time, ‘with difficulty’). 19.11 I wept over my poor friend for a while and covered him with sandy soil forever: Socrates is now mourned for the second time (cf. 1.6.2, where his family erroneously mourns him for dead), and less elaborately than the first time. Meroe’s plan to spare Aristomenes so he can bury his friend has worked out. Aristomenes is still worried about being caught, although burying Socrates is not suspicious as such: the burial of a corpse even accidentally stumbled upon is expected (see above on 1.13.3). The nature of Socrates’ proper burial indicates it is an act of kindness as well as self-preservation (Aristomenes’ as well as the witches’, see introd. §11). Apuleius’ ‘sandy soil’ seems to allude to Ovid Rem. 579-608, where Ovid advises lovers to avoid solitary places but always have a friend with them. Phyllis in 596 lies on sandy soil (in harenosa ... humo) weeping for Demophoon, and then hangs herself. A friend, Ovid says, would have stopped her from doing it. In Apuleius, the friend cannot stop the death but at least provide a proper funeral. Misellus can be a euphemism for the dead (though not always in Met., cf. above on 1.9.6): see Petronius 65.10, Catullus 3.16 (on a dead sparrow; cf. Schmeling 2011, 272). Sempiterna is either a neuter plural adjective functioning as an adverb (‘forever’, cf. Plautus Aul. 147 sempiternum) in contrast with pro tempore ‘for a while’, thus stressing the contrasting timescales, or (less likely) an adjective with vicinia (i.e. ‘in the stream’s eternal neighbourhood’). 19.12 shaking and exceedingly terrified for myself, 1 fled: Aristomenes continues his flight from the consequences of witchcraft (cf. 1.14.6) and resumes his errant lifestyle (cf. 1.5.3). He takes over and imitates Socrates’ role, e.g. by voluntarily exiling himself and thus imposing upon himself the usual Roman punishment for murder, although he has not committed one. He also anticipates Lucius’ fate as a voluntary exile. Metuens is the third mention of fear in 1.19, which does not leave Aristomenes even long after the actual event of Socrates’ second death. through distant and trackless wastelands: An image of desolation and lawlessness, cf. the similar landscape in 1.7.6 where Socrates was robbed; in his fear of the witches, Aristomenes risks being attacked in the wilderness. The similarities
Commentary 189 between robbers and witches continue, cf. on 1.11.7. See also 3.28.6,4.27.2 (Charite calls for her husband through ‘trackless wastelands’), 8.30.2 (the priests of the Dea Syria flee to a desolate area) for a similar pathetic fallacy. as if I were a man guilty of the murder of a human being: Aristomenes almost exactly recalls the doorkeeper’s unwitting suggestion he might be guilty of a crime (1.15.2: tibi conscius), which he by now has internalised (conscius mihi), left behind my own country and home, and embracing voluntary exile: Just like Socrates in 1.6 and 8.1, and Thelyphron in 2.30, Lucius receives yet another warning not to dabble with witches at the risk of exile, and in Met, 11 he turns away from his old life and interest in witches and pretty girls to a life devoted to Isis and Osiris in his exile in Rome. Aristomenes’ exile is mainly from his family, though his lifestyle, and his trade route, has not changed very much. Exposure to witchcraft results in pollution, which in itself can lead to exile (Parker 1983, 123; 222ff.), which might contribute to Aristomenes’ reluctance to return home. I now live in Aetolia, having taken a new wife: Aristomenes has now done exactly what he had criticised Socrates for in 1.6, by exiling himself from his home where he is presumably mourned for dead by his wife, and remarrying in a foreign country. Aristomenes’ decision to remarry must indicate that he sees his previous marriage as annulled. Exile dissolves Roman marriages, as marriage is only possible between two full Roman citizens, and exile deprives Aristomenes of any legal position he may have held. For a Roman marriage unusually not dissolved by exile cf. the remarkable (and entirely made up) story of Plotina in 7.6ff. Before his ‘exile’ Aristomenes had already travelled to Aetolia, a large region in central Greece, see 1.5.3. It is odd that he now choses to approach Hypata again, despite his fear of witches, while he incongruously remains an exile from his real home Aegae. Van Thiel 1971,1, 53 sees this as proof of an Apuleian addition to the original plot. 20 Aristomenes’ travelling companion still does not believe his story, but Lucius reaffirms both his willingness to believe implausible tales and his delight in stories offering entertainment and distraction. The repetition of similar words from the tale’s introduction in 1.3 uses ring composition to signal the episode’s closure. 20.1 This was Aristomenes’ story: Lucius does not report his reaction immediately after the first tale has ended. that companion of his, who from the very beginning had rejected his story: The scepticism of the unnamed companion from 1.2 frames the whole story and has not been changed by it, just as Lucius’ credulity has not, either. Respuebat 'to reject’ (the opposite of accipere ‘to accept’ in Apol, 90) picks up 1.3.2 tu ... respuis. Sermo ‘story’ is frequently a programmatic word, e.g. in 1.2.5; 2.6 and 3.2, in the tale’s introduction and frame. with stubborn incredulity: Cf. 1.3.2 for a similar phrase at the beginning of Aristomenes’ tale. Incredulitas is an Apuleian neologism.
190 Commentary 20.2 Nothing is taller than this tale, nothing more absurd than that lie: The accusations of lying and absurdity, as well as the words used, are repetitions from 1.3.1 and 1.2.5 respectively, see also 1.17.7 for Aristomenes creating an ‘absurd’ lie to distract Socrates. The ring composition closes an unlikely and incredible tale which will be verified for a second-time reader by Lucius’ own experiences in Hypata; the debate here ostensibly centres on whether belief in magic is justified, but it also covers the nature of fiction itself, a leitmotif of Met., discussed e.g. in the prologue (see introd .§7 and 8). Fabula ‘tale’ here indicates that the sceptic judges the story to be fictitious; fabulosus, too, often doubts a story’s credibility, cf. e.g. the judgement of Pliny Nat. 11.232 (a tale about witches is fabulosum’) or 33.8, where the story of Prometheus is fabulosa, but that of Midas even more so; cf. 1.4.6 for the variety of meanings of the word (May 2006, 124ff. and 141). a gentleman, as your dress and your bearing demonstrate: Throughout his experiences in Hypata, Lucius’ character is judged according to his handsome appearance, the irony of which will become apparent after Lucius has turned into a quadruped, when his behaviour will often be interpreted as that of a typical donkey, again simply because of his appearance. This starts soon after his transformation in 3.27. Ornatus *a gentleman’ is a compliment (‘endowed with good qualities’) usually found in the superlative, cf. e.g. Apol. 62, but also, as here, in the positive: Apol. 101.6 Corvinius Celer, vir ornatus. For habitus see on 1.12.3. The meanings of both words merge, both refer to the appearance of a person, though habitus focuses on their dress, habitudo on their actual physical appearance from which conclusions can be drawn about their status and character: 1.23.3 (Milo discusses Lucius’), 2.13.1 (Milo enquires about the Chaldean’s appearance to find out more about his character), 2.8.1 (Lucius discusses Photis’). They are coordinated here probably because of Apuleius’ predilection for word games; the same pairing occurs only once more in Latin, in 9.39.2 (of a Roman soldier). 20.3 1 believe nothing to be impossible: This picks up the sceptic’s nihil ‘nothing’ from the previous sentence in a programmatic statement. The idea that nothing is impossible is Lucius’ firm belief, and a repetition of 1.3-4. The reader, at the moment perhaps inclined to be sceptical, is invited to discard any doubts and rationalism for the time being and accept the reality of ghosts and witches once Lucius becomes the main actor of the story. Lucius continues to be the credulous opposite of the sceptical interlocutor, e.g. in 2.12, where Lucius’ belief in Diophanes’ integrity is corrected by Milo: the man is a charlatan. In 9.13.5 Lucius still has not much wisdom, but wide knowledge (minus prudentem, multiscium), and he is naive and credulous throughout the rest of the novel. He also never questions Aristomenes’ motive for telling his story to a complete stranger near the town where the witches he tries to escape from live, despite possible damaging consequences for himself. whatever the Fates decree, that in its entirety happens to mortal men: Fatum indicates inevitability in Lucius’ belief system, cf. e.g. 4.3.1 (‘entangled’ (implicitus) in his fate, after experiencing some mishap), 10.2.3 (blaming Fate
Commentary 191 for a woman’s character) and 10.13.1 (Lucius feels tossed about by Fate). Keulen 2007, 365 associates this with a Stoic philosophical system, but the expression seems to be a manner of speaking; Apuleius alternates Fate and Fortuna to indicate metamorphoses of fortune throughout the novel. Fortuna instead of Fate is held responsible in a similar fatalistic notion in 9.1.5. Fate is blamed e.g. in 5.22.1 ‘the cruelty of Fate’, 9.38.4 ‘through iniquity of Fate’; cf. Mel· 7.6.5; ApoL 96; PI 1.10 (201). For the philosophical background of this kind of determinism cf. e.g. Fry 1984, 147f. (on Apuleius) and Frede 2003 (on Stoicism). If Lucius’ vague belief in determinism is to be taken seriously throughout the novel, then Isis may be seen as behind all events in Met. (Drews 2012, 130). 20.4 For you and I and all men experience: Lucius moves from himself and the speaker to humanity in general; the all-encompassing statement includes the reader who is drawn in as part of the majority. The self-depiction of Lucius as the vanguard of naivety continues in 1.20.5. Usu venire ‘to occur in one’s experience’ is also used mApol. 16.12 and 50.3; compare Socr. 19 (164). The infinitive continues the accusative-with-infinitive construction of the previous sentence and is still dependent on arbitror ‘I believe’ (cf. Keulen 2007, 366fi). wonderful and almost impossible things: For the connotations of the wonderful and strange cf. on 1.11.1; infecta = ‘undoable’, thus ‘impossible to do’. when told to some ignoramus: Lucius both in 1.3.3 and here associates scepticism with lack of sophistication and offends the interlocutor (Graverini and Keulen 2009, 209). 20.5 But 1 for my part believe this man ... and also keep in mind my gracious thanks for him: More than simply believing the story, Lucius is entranced and grateful. Gratas gratias ‘gracious thanks’, an expression of exuberance, is only found in Apuleius, here and in 9.13.5 (cf. also 10.32.2), and the meaning is interchangeable with gratias egi ‘I gave thanks’. A similar phrase occurs in Plautus Poen. 133f. (grates gratiasy but the text may be corrupt). by Hercules: See on 1.3.3. he distracted us with the charm of such a delightful story: This picks up again the promise of enjoyment of the prologue (1.1). The tales within the novel provide just this kind of entertainment (in 4.27.8 the story of Cupid and Psyche is described as ‘delightful narrations and old wives’ tales’, in 6.25.1 Lucius describes it as a ‘pretty little story’, bella fabella). Used elsewhere for tragic and comic tales alike, lepidus (‘delightful’) is a remarkably insensitive description for Aristomenes’ harrowing tale: there is a notable lack of appropriate reaction to the horror of the story, an approach that will be repeated throughout Met., compare e.g. the reaction to Thelyphron’s story of his mutilation through witches, which causes the audience to laugh (2.31). On Lucius’ misreading of the story and consequences for assessing his character see introd. §9. ‘Charm’ and ‘delight’ are key literary concepts in Met. (see on 1.1.1; 1.2.6), especially festivitas ‘charm’, both in its rhetorical origin and in its importance
192 Commentary for the novel, cf. Cicero Inv. 1.27, Rhetorica ad Herennium 1.13. Gellius 10.3.4 connects it with comedy (May 2006, 141). Passing time pleasantly is important in Met., but although the old woman who tells the story of Cupid and Psyche wishes to while away Chari te’s time and comfort her, her story is also a warning for Lucius just as the story of Aristomenes was. The old woman, too, uses avocare (To distract’: 4.24.3 and 27.8). I came to the end of a harsh and lengthy road without toil or tedium: Lucius feels that the story has indeed done what he had imagined it would do in 1.2.6, i.e. alleviate the hardships of the journey with delightful entertainment, picking up aspritudinem ‘harshness, steepness’ from the story’s introduction (the nature of the road has not changed). This also looks forward to 1.23.8, where Milo’s judgement of Lucius’ long journey takes account of his real tiredness, which gives the lie to Lucius’ pleasantry here. Crucially during Lucius’ experience as a donkey, hearing stories alleviates his own pain and suffering, even though in 3.29.1 Lucius the donkey is exhausted by a similarly lengthy journey over steep mountain summits (montis ardui vertice et prolixo satis itinere). 20.6 this good mount of mine: Lucius refers to his horse in similar terms in 3.26 (twice) and 7.3.5, and the robbers call it his ‘white mount’ (candidum vectorem) in 7.2.1. It is also Apuleius’ term for a horse in Apol. 21 and FI. 21.4; cf. also Met. 1.15.4 for convector as ‘travelling companion’. up to this city gate here: They have just arrived at Hypata, as anticipated in 1.5.2. Lucius nevertheless makes sure in 1.21.2, when he asks an old woman about the city’s identity. not on his back but on my ears: This is a programmatic passage, afrer Lucius had stressed the importance of hearing stories (1.2) and castigated those not listening to stories with open mind and ears (1.3.2). Aristomenes’ story has fulfilled the prologue’s promise of delights to the listener and Lucius’ requirement in 1.2 (James 1987,42). Apuleius also jokes with the reader here, as it is unclear whether Lucius was riding or on foot during the telling of the tale after dismounting in 1.2.3, and it is not clear whether he has mounted his horse again. His horse is part of the audience of this tale, which anticipates Lucius’ fate as a donkey, when he himself will happily listen to many tales in silence. The idea that good stories make journeys easier is commonplace: Plato Phaedrus 227d, Vergil Eel. 9.64. A similar antithetical joke is made in 1.18.6. Compare also Socr. 19 (165), where credulous people think ‘not with their mind but with their ears’ (non animo sed auribus). 21 Lucius splits from Aristomenes and his friend and reaches Hypata. He asks an old woman for his host Milo’s house. She describes Milo as a miserly moneylender living outside Hypata’s city walls in pretended poverty. Lucius’ prospects of a bad reception in Milo’s house raise issues of ancient hospitality (introd. §6.1).
Commentary 193 21.1 This was the end of our conversation and our shared journey: Conveniently, both end at the same time, but in the parallel scene in Onos 1 the travel companions share some food, before taking Lucius to Hipparchos’ house. The sharing of food promised as a reward for the story (see above on 1.4.6) never happens in Apuleius, thus not emulating the parallel story of travelling companions meeting, sharing food, and perhaps sleeping quarters, as Aristomenes and Socrates do in 1.7 (Keulen 2007,371). The importance of Lucius not getting any food but stories is set up for the rest of the book, in a clear Apuleian change from the original. both my companions went off to the left towards the nearest little farmhouse: Aristomenes does not quite enter Hypata with Lucius, although he apparently has not learned anything from his previous encounters with witches in that place. Still, he may be about to engage again in the cheese trade, as his rural destination indicates: villula occurs five times in Met. (3.29.5; 7.19.4; 10.4.4; 10.24.3), the same frequency as villa, which indicates laiger country houses. Laevorsum ‘to the left’ is an Apuleian neologism, only found here and in FI 2.9. Both the veib (abierunt) and the transmitted noun (comites) are plural; the adjective uterque should be emended to correspond with them, as has been done e.g. by Keulen 2007, Zimmerman 2012 and here. 21.2 1 on the other hand: Ego vero occurs here for the third time in Met. 1 (cf. 1.11.5 and 20.3), always to refocus attention on the speaker. Lucius now at last becomes the main character in his own story, instead of merely retelling those of other people. to the first inn 1 spotted on approach: See 1.4.6 for the same phrase with the dative (ingressuiprimum ... stabulum, used to emend F’s ingressus by Elmenhorstius). F’s transmitted participle ingressus would result in an awkward description of the order of events, making Lucius first enter and only afterwards spot the inn. The emendation results in a phrase that reminds the reader of Lucius’ broken promise to share food with his fellow travellers. The ablative ingressu (printed by de Buxis) is also grammatically possible, but weakens the parallels. Instead, he will be joking alone with the innkeeper and then miss out on food at Milo’s house. This scene prepares Lucius’ character as a problematic guest. Inns could be positioned outside town walls (and kept by old ladies, cf. below and Plautus Ps. 658f.% I am stopping outside the gate (devortor extra portam) ... at the third inn, with that old woman ... Chrysis (in tabernam tertiam, apud anum illam ... Chrysidem). Milo’s house, too, has a setting reminiscent of Roman comedy (May 2006, 156-80), which is prepared here. inquired from some old woman innkeeper: Although the following chapters from here to the end of Met. 1 run parallel to the story of Onos (with the exceptions of the Pythias story and Milo’s exaggerated stinginess: Van Thiel 1971, 1, 63-67), Apuleius makes one important change: Lucius questions an old woman, an innkeeper, for directions to Milo’s house. In Onos Loukios asks his travel companions, a possible indication that the tale of Socrates was an Apuleian addition to the original (methodology of interpolation: Sandy 1970, 469). If Lucius had learned anything from Aristomenes’ story he would be careful, but his story now repeats in many
194 Commentary ways that of Socrates. The old woman is deliberately invented by Apuleius to be similar to Meroe, who is also an aged innkeeper talking to a lonely traveller (cf. 1.8.3). A similar scene with an old lady occurs in Petronius 6.4-7, where Encolpius has lost his way to his hotel room and asks directions from an old woman, who promptly directs him to a brothel. Intertextuality is possible (introd. §2.2). Apuleius’ old woman may be an inversion of Homeric hospitality scenes which often feature polite and helpful young maidens (for examples see introd. §6.1). Additionally, he uses imagery from the character of the prologue-speaker from comedy (May 2006, 157ff.). Anus and its derivatives are generally very negatively charged, see on 1.7.7, and all these associations were applicable to Meroe. Here they create a red herring. Apuleius deliberately misleads his readers. Hypata: Both Aristomenes and Lucius travel there (1.5.4) and encounter witches. Lucius makes sure that he is in the right place for his business, although it is unclear what it is. For Lucius’ uncertainty about the exact locality see 1.20.6. 21J Milo, one of your first citizens: The change of character and name from Hipparchos in Onos to Milo is probably due to his primarily comic characterisation as a miser reminiscent of Plautus’ Euclio in Aulularia (May 2006, 161-6). A real Hipparchus Hypatensis is recorded in Inscriptiones Graecae IX (2) 5 and 14 (Scobie 1975, 121), but this is unlikely to be the reason for the change. She smiled: The old innkeeper is trying to be charming and flirtatious with Lucius, again echoing Meroe’s tactics before she ensnared Socrates. Milo is regarded as the first man here, because he lives outside the city boundaries and the whole town: The old woman wilfully misunderstands Lucius, pretending that his question is about the first place to reach when approaching Hypata, and punning on primus (‘first’) and primoris (‘first citizen’; Nicolini 2011, 56). Living outside the city walls is, however, unusual for a leading citizen, as this suburban area is technically not part of the urbs, but of the continuous occupation outside the city walls (Goodman 2007, 26; 14-16), where not all laws pertinent to the city automatically apply. Meroe had previously dumped the house of her enemies, who were locked up inside it, outside city walls (1.10.6), with probably detrimental consequences to their status. In Onos 1 Hipparchos lives in a little house with a garden ‘near the city’, but there is no indication of any isolation from society. For Milo’s wife Pamphile, however, it is appropriate to live outside the city walls, indicative of her life as a witch and outsider from society (Lucan’s Erictho, e.g., lives in the wilderness). The pomerium is a strip of land surrounding a city’s walls, especially Rome’s, but the term is used more widely by Apuleius of Greek cities in FI. 19.2 and Met. 9.9.5. The conversation in Plato’s Phaedrus takes place in a locus amoenus outside the walls (£ξω τείχους), as Apuleius notes in Socr. 19 (164; extra pomerium). The Phaedrus allusion may again associate Lucius’ with Aristomenes’ experiences (cf. above on 1.18.8), especially as Lucius in 2.1 sets out to explore Hypata and encounters a locus amoenus of his own. It includes trees surrounding the pomerium. Then Lucius imagines this landscape filled with witchcraft.
Commentary 195 21.4 Joking aside... most excellent mother: "Mother’is a respectful address often used for older relations and friends; in 2.3.5 Lucius addresses his aunt Byrrhaena as parens (the title is repeated twice in 3.12), and in 3.7.3 Lucius calls Milo parentem ... meum, but here it is used in a wider sense respectfully by a younger to an older person who is not related, cf. 4.26.1 (Cbarite addresses the robbers’ old housekeeper as mi parens); see on 1.17.4. Unlike Encolpius in Petronius, Lucius does not fall for the joke but recognises it as such and dismisses it, wishing to show himself as an urbane but serious person who understands the old woman’s jest and comicality. please For the imperative with oro see above on 1.8.5. where he is from and in which house he dwells: The old woman picks up Lucius’ choice of words (1.21.5), and Milo himself unwittingly repeats it in 1.23.5. It associates Milo’s house with a hostel (deversorium) which puts up guests. A similar question is used in 4.9.2 (the robbers discuss which houses are best to rob, and then decide on that of Chryseros, who shares some similarities with Milo, cf. on 1.21.5). See also on 1.5.3 for cuiatis; the word with its links to the language of Plautine prologues and its type of questions functions as a genre marker, associating Milo’s house with the topsy-turvy world of Roman comedy. Do you see ... those windows at the very end, which look out towards the town, and on the other side the door which looks back out onto the nearest alleyway: It is hard to imagine that both windows and the door are visible at the same time to Lucius and the old woman, since they apparently look in opposite directions. The description of the alleyway (angiportus) and the windows may denote them as comic markers, as both are not necessarily visible in comic stage directions, but talked about e.g. in prologues (May 2006, 157ff., Marshall 2009, 55). Milo’s house is generally portrayed as resembling households from Roman comedy. Like a comedy’s prologue-speaker, the old lady indicates the inhabitants of the houses, the characters, and the setting of the scene. Although her description possibly does not do justice to Milo’s house, it influences the gullible Lucius enough to assume that she is right and Milo is stingy. Lucius nevertheless decides to stay with him rather than the old innkeeper (perhaps having for once heeded the warning against female innkeepers in Aristomenes’ tale; van Mal-Maeder 1995, 109). See also 1.16.4 for altrinsectds, in the connection with a window, and 3.17.3 and 5.2.1, both in the combination with aedium% to describe the layout of houses. 21.5 Milo ... amply stuffed with money and exceedingly rich, but a man with a bad reputation for extreme avarice and the most contemptible stinginess: Milo’s miserliness is described in forcefully exaggerated expressions, which, at least in Lucius’mind, will become reality. It is comical and grotesque, much worse than that of Hipparchos in Onos 1.5. Lucius believes her, and first jokingly (1.21.8), and then rudely (1.26.7) comments on Milo’s character. In 2.11.4 he calls him bonus, perhaps ironically, although Lucius* and the reader’s assessment of Milo’s character fluctuates between these opposites, especially after the Risus festival incident (see below). Milo is characterised slightly more benevolently by Lucius at times, with frugality (a Roman
196 Commentary virtue: parsimonia: 1.24.1) and asceticism (abstinentia: 1.26.1), and functions as a contrast to Byrrhaena, who is a generous, albeit still problematic, host. Avaritia is a frequent negative character trait in satire (Zimmerman 2006,93). Milo will be echoed again in the nummularius (banker) Chryseros in 4.9, with some verbal overlaps (e.g. sordidus); sordes combines the concept of filthy squalor with meanness and stinginess. Both try to hide their riches by living in apparent poverty and segregated from society, and finally both fall victims to robbers (see on 1.23.6). All other instances in Latin of nummatus ‘stuffed with money’ are constructed with bene (Cicero Agr. 2.59; Fam. 7.16.3; Horace Ep. 1.6.38; cf. also nummatior in Met. 1.7.6). Milo is here described as an instance of the Greek type of the φιλάργυρος (cf. Onos 1.5) as reflected in the Roman comedy stock types of misers and moneylenders (May 2006, 161-66), who are miserly for the sake of it. As opposed to vir (1.21.8, in Lucius’ reply), homo here indicates contempt (Keulen 2007, 381 f.). 21.6 He constantly lends out capital on interest with gold and silver as security: The technical terms make Milo a professional moneylender (Quintilian Decl. min. 3.11.9; Suetonius Ves. 1.3, c. 5 times in Justinian Dig.). Arrabo (‘down- payment’, a Greek loan word) is archaic, mostly found in Plautus and Terence (Rud. 44, Mil. 957 etc., Terence Hau. 603 etc.), and then again in the archaists. Gellius notes it is a ‘sordid word’ (17.2.21), which in Apuleius is used only here, by a rather Plautine character denouncing her neighbour. locked up in a tiny house and always anxious about his brass! It is in the old innkeeper’s interest to let Milo’s house appear as inhospitable as possible, in the hope of getting Lucius’ custom for herself (Keulen 2007, 379; Van Mal- Maeder 1995, 105ff). The old woman’s Plautine language (e.g. ampliter, arrabone, habet, ancillulam; May 2006, 165f.) is echoed by Lucius in 1.22.6 and Milo’s own words in 1.23.6. Milo’s house, despite its description here and Milo’s deprecatory statement, is quite large: Lucius’ chamber is large enough for him and Photis, and Milo’s stables contain several animals, not a sign of poverty. On Lucius’ assessment of Milo’s character cf. above on 1.21.5. Being locked up is programmatic for Milo and his house: Milo, living outside the city walls, is a recluse, as is shown by his closed house, which Photis needs to open in 1.22 and 2.32 (during the wineskins episode, cf. also above on 1.21.3). On the other hand, he seems involved in the Risus festival, which indicates some interaction with other Hypatans. Chryseros (see on 1.21.5) again parallels Milo in his reclusiveness, as he lives ‘alone and solitary, content with a small but sufficiently fortified house’ (solus ac solitarius, parva sed satis munita domuncula contentus: 4.9.6). Aerugo ‘brass’ is literally ‘copper rust’, metaphorically ‘money’, cf. Juvenal 13.61, but also especially amongst the satirists it is used for ‘jealousy’ (Martial 2.61) and ‘avarice’ (Horace Ars 330; cf. also the association offerrugo ‘iron rust’ with Envy in Ovid Met. 2.798), which may be part of the woman’s negative propaganda. Although he has his wife as a companion of his calamity: The unmarked term
Commentary 197 for ‘wife’ here gives no indication of Pamphile’s extraordinariness; it is remarkable that the old woman, keen on depicting Milo’s household in the worst possible colours, does not add the fact that Pamphile is a dangerous witch and keen on young men like Lucius. Although Milo does not seem to know about his wife’s witchcraft, other Hypatans do: a barber seems to suspect Pamphile and Photis when the latter tries to steal hair from his shop (3.16). Comes ‘companion’, used for wives sharing their husband’s fate (Livy 40.1.45) or Laodamia (Ovid Am. 2.18.38; Trist. 1.6.20), draws the promiscuous Pamphile in a misleadingly positive light. F has cum uxore etiam... comite habeat, which was changed by a later hand into uxorem... comitem, printed by most modem editions. 21.7 he does not keep any servants except one Kittle slave-girl: At first sight this appears to be true as Photis opens the door, takes care of Lucius, and does the cooking in the house (2.7), but in 3.28 Milo appears to have many more slaves, cf. also 2.15.5; 4.9. Single-slave households would be rather unusual for a man of Milo’s riches, as it is unusual even for poor Romans (cf. Juvenal 3.166; Norden 1912, 71). Here it is an indication of the comic environment, as misers from Greek and Roman comedy often only have one single female slave (May 2006, 163). Although ancilla is used as the feminine of servus by Apuleius (Avila Vasconcelos 2009, 223), ancillula strengthens the sense of allusion to Roman comedy (Pasetti 2007, 27; it indicates a comic stock type, cf. Quintilian Inst. 11.3.112). Half of all occurences of the diminutive ancillula in Latin are in comedy. he ... walks around in the dress of a beggar: See also 1.12.2 and 1.20.2 for habitus, which is used at times to indicate dressing up in order to deceive, cf. Porphyrio’s commentary on Horace, Ars 95 (Peleus and Telephus) and Servius’ commentary on Aeneid 1.242 and 2.44 (Odysseus); the phrase suggests that Milo is disguising his wealth. 21.8 1 broke into laughter: Lucius responds to the old woman with a smile and similar jokes to her own, displaying himself to be urbane and good-natured. My friend Demeas: In Onos 2 the friend is called Dekrios or Dekrianos and described as a sophist, a characterisation completely absent from Met. Apuleius changes the name to Demeas, a name frequently found in Greek New and Roman comedies for old men (Menander, Dis Exapaton, Samia, Misoumenos; Caecilius, Syracusii; Terence, Adelphoe). Evidence for real-life Dekrianoi is collected by Van Thiel 1971,1,36 n. 91, but it is unlikely that their existence prompted the change. advised me kindly and thoughtfully: Lucius expresses his sarcasm through a clever wordplay, as a conflation of consulere with dative (‘to look after') and with in aliquem (%to take a decision against someone’; Keulen 2007, 386). Lucius displays himself again as a witty entertainer able to distort words and meanings; cf. above on 1.4.6, and 11.29.3 for the same construction, where Lucius begins to suspect the priests of Isis of not having dealt with him plainly. he recommended me to such a man: ‘Recommendation’ is a key term for the relationship between Milo and Lucius, here and 1.22.8 (Milo to Lucius), 1.24.1
198 Commentary (Lucius). In 7.1.5, where the robber falsely accuses Lucius of having tried to ingratiate himself with Milo (<conciliaverat), it has a more negative connotation. as I was about to set out on my journeys: Lucius' status as a traveller in foreign parts is constantly stressed: 1.24.7, 1.26, 2.12.5, 2.18.4, 3.1.4, 3.3.9 and again in 11.28.1; it makes him an outsider, which is held against him in his mock trial at the Risus festival in 3.3, and which makes his submission to Milo’s guest-friendship a necessity. It associates Lucius with other victims of witchcraft who are referred to as travellers: Socrates (1.7.6) and Thelyphron (2.21.7). to fear neither a cloud of smoke nor kitchen smells: Nidor here and in ApoL 57 (also with fumus, in a comic context of a parasite smelling food prepared from some distance away) is the smell of roasted meat; its absence indicates the lack of cooking in Milo’s household and thus of proper meals, which is what Lucius now expects, and which will eventually come to pass. In Met. 3.7, however, Lucius finds Photis cooking a meat stew. Lucius here falls in line with the old woman’s comic characterisation of Milo through lack of cooking smells, cf. Plautus’ Euclio in Aul 300f. (‘he constantly cries for heaven and people to witness ... if any smoke gets out of his house from his hearth-beam’ (de suo tigillo fumus si qua exit foras); Shanzer 1996, 451; May 2006, 162). In 2.24, no food is provided for Thelyphron, as the master of the household has died. In other Met. passages, nidor is an unpleasant smell: 3.18.4 (of burnt goat hair); 4.3.10 (diarrhoea); 8.22.7 (a torture victim covered in honey to attract ants). The phrase is, however, unique. Usually two words are coordinated: fumus and nebula e.g. in Lucretius (3.428; 430; 436; 6. fumus and nidor e.g. Cicero Pis. 13; Pliny Nat. 12.81; 20.158. 22 Lucius knocks on Milo’s door and is answered by Photis. She eventually introduces him to Milo, who accepts Lucius’ letter of recommendation from Demeas of Corinth and offers his hospitality. 22.1 1 walked a little further and approached his entrance, and began to knock: This begins a comic door-knocking scene (May 2006, 159-61). In what follows, verbal parallels between this scene and the inset story of Socrates and Aristomenes in the inn (e.g. see below on 1.22.2 and 5) form a specific warning to Lucius, which he again promptly ignores. his firmly bolted door: Petronius 97.7 is the only other instance of oppessulare ‘to bolt’ before Apuleius, who uses it twice in this chapter (cf. 1.22.5) and in 9.30.6 in another door-knocking scene, where slaves pummel the door to ask their master to come out. shouting loudly: Vocaliter is first found in Apuleius (here and possibly in 9.30.6, but the text is uncertain); the Latin word indicates that Lucius shouts loudly (thus e.g. Molt 1938, 101 ad loc., May 2006, 159 and here) rather than that he knocks loudly on the door (Keulen 2007, 390). After Apuleius it is used in Tertullian Adv. Prax. 3 p. 230.19 for people shouting.
Commentary 199 22.2 a young girl came out: This is Photis, who will move to the foreground in 1.23 and 24. Later Lucius will enter into an erotic relationship with her and use her to experience magic. Her first introduction by diminutives (ancillula, adulescentula) is not unfriendly, and offers only a small indication yet of her importance to the later story. Adulescentula ‘young girl’ is a particularly comic diminutive (before Apuleius only in Plautus and Terence, once in Varro fi*. Non. p. 550), usually of pretty young girls, and continues to set a comic atmosphere (Pasetti 2007,27; cf. on 1.21.7). Photis’ opening of the door seems to confirm the comic motif that Milo has only one slave. It is unusual for a young woman to expose herself to the dangers of the outside world (an important plot element e.g. in Menander’s Dyskolos/Grouch). Theophrastus 28.3 stresses that only courtesans would open doors in person. When later Lucius plans to have an affair with Photis, her forwardness here is a good sign that she might be willing. Hey you: Typical for comedy, see on 1.3.2. The scene in Onos is reasonably close to Met. 1.20-24, but this exchange is an apparent Apuleian addition with no equivalent in the Greek text. who have been beating our door so energetically: Another comic note in the door knocking scene, as verberare is often used of people, e.g. slaves, being beaten (OLD s.v. 3); Photis personifies the battered door as a slave (see also on 1.14.7, where Aristomenes, too, personifies a door), a notion found e.g. in Plautus As. 386f., where the slave calls a door his fellow slave (fores conservas) and requests it not to be beaten (verberarier). in what form do you desire to borrow?: Photis is Lucius’ equal when it comes to wordplay: the question addresses the practicalities of borrowing money, but also anticipates Lucius’ metamorphosis into another species. The ambiguity of sub qua specie (‘under what appearance’: OLD s.v. species 7, or ‘with what security’: OLD s.v. 19) supports the pun found in mutari (‘to undergo metamorphosis’) and mutuari as intentional: literally mutuum indicates the amount of money to be loaned (mutuum accipere = ‘to borrow something'; Norden 1912,180); in 3.18.4 bewitched wineskins ‘borrow’ (mutuantur) human breath. Lucius is driven by desires, e.g. his wish to explore magic, so cupis ‘do you desire’ is apt, although Photis cannot know her sentence to be so prophetic. Cf. also the similarly portentous use of cupis in 1.15.2, where the doorkeeper asks Aristomenes whether he wishes to die. A second-time reader will notice that it is Photis, who will turn Lucius into the shape he does not desire (into a donkey instead of an owl), who asks this question (Winkler 1985, 188L; Keulen 2007, 391). are you the only one who does not know that we do not allow any collateral apart from gold and silver?: Questions about the interlocutor’s ignorance are frequent in Met. 1, see on 1.6.4 or 1.15.2. Generally, Photis’ correct use of technical terms shows her to be a moneylender’s capable slave. 22.3 Give me a better omen than that: A variant of melius ominare (Plautus Rud. 337, Cicero Brut. 328, Vergil G. 3.456; Keulen 2007, 392). The reference to
200 Commentary ill omens anticipates a fate for Lucius similar to that of Socrates. Cf. 1.5.5 for a similarly negative feeling on door steps. if I might find your master inside the house: Lucius joins in with Photis’ comic parlance. As in 2.7.1, offendere ‘to find' is comic, cf. e.g. Plautus Am. 613. what is the reason for this interrogation?: Neither Photis nor the reader or Pythias (1.24.7) will ever get an answer to this. 22.4 I bring a letter for him: This letter of recommendation appears here for the first time, although it was mentioned before in Onos (1.4, and then again in 2.2, the corresponding sentence to this one here). It seems less important here than in Onos where Hipparchos sees it before admitting Loukios into his house. Its existence is common knowledge in Met. 1.1.5 in the robbers’ report, where it is deemed a forgery (for which there is no evidence). Keulen 2007, 394 assesses Lucius’ attitude to be ‘not sincere’ and sees this as evidence to characterise him as a flatterer or parasite on his mission to flatter a patron for food and his inheritance. It is, however, not at all clear that Lucius is intentionally out to deceive Milo, but rather he behaves like a problematic guest once invited and becomes an unwitting, naYve parasite (May 1998; 2006, 143-156). Despite being a naturally distrustful person, Milo offers Lucius his hospitality before actually reading his letter of introduction. Demeas of Corinth: For Demeas see above on 1.21.8, for Corinth as Lucius’ possible hometown see introd. §9. Wait for me just here: Comic language: the archaic imperative opperimino is found only in Plautus True. 197 and here, the same form with a different verb in Plautus Ps. 859; Epid. 695. 22.5 bolted the door again and made off inside: The repeated stress on bolting doors recalls Aristomenes’ unhappy experiences with locked doors (e.g. 1.11.5). See on 1.22.1 for the rare oppessulare ‘to bolt’. In Plutarch That we ought not to borrow 3 (828f.) a moneylender’s standard behaviour is to shut the door in the face of would-be borrowers (Keulen 2007, 389); again Photis shows herself to be her master’s capable slave. F’s transmitted text needs emendation; Helm’s capessit (‘she took herself'; cf. Plautus Rud. 179 quo capessit) is a possibility, but Apuleius’ usual term, as Zimmerman 2012 notes, is facessere (a conjecture by Philomathes). She draws attention to parallels in 2.15.4, 2.24.3; 4.20.1 etc. He asks you in: Rogare in the context of hospitality is a technical term ‘to invite as a guest’ (sc. ad convivium, ‘to the meal’, cf. also 1.26.1; May 2006, 151). The word is an important marker of guest-friendship (introd. §6.1) and thus repeatedly occurs in the relationship between Milo and Lucius (also in 2.11.4; cf. 3.12.2 for Byrrhaena’s invitation to Lucius in similar terms). 22.6 I took myself inside: The same phrase is used in the roughly parallel scene in 2.2.3, where Lucius will encounter Byrrhaena, his second host in Hypata. I ... found him reclining on a rather short cot, and only just starting his dinner: The cena is the main and most formal meal for Romans, the time of which
Commentary 201 gradually moved from mid-day to, as here, the early evening. The short couch (exiguo ... grabattulo) recalls both the old woman’s exiguo lare ‘tiny house’ (1.21.6) and Aristomenes’ dingy cot, again inviting comparison between the inset tale and Lucius’ fate. Smallness becomes a leitmotif for Milo, see also 1.23.4. The furniture in Onos 2.3 is also small and insignificant, but at least the bed provided for Lucius is big and stable enough for Lucius’ and Photis’ love-making in 2.15. Milo will ignore the proper rules of hospitality (introd. §6.1). F writes accumbantem, emended by Robertson 1965 to accumbentem (followed by e.g. Zimmerman 2012 and here). Both words mean ‘to lie down to table’, but Apuleius uses accumbere in this meaning six times in Met. 22.7 His wife was sitting at his feet: This is the dangerous witch Pamphile, introduced, like her servant Photis before, in an unobtrusive way. Her name translates both as ‘loved by all’ and, fittingly, ‘loving all’. Pamphile gives the appearance of a good wife, and Milo seems oblivious to her magical skills (and infidelities: see 3.15 for her nymphomaniac tendencies), as he e.g. laughs incredulously at her prediction of the weather in 2.Ilf., a feat of magic that Lucius again takes very seriously. In Greece, only men lay down to dinner, and respectable women did not attend, whereas in the imperial period in Rome women attended mixed banquets. Although Milo’s dinner parties are provincial, still Pamphile’s attendance in 2.Ilf. indicates that the household follows traditional and old-fashioned Roman customs, in which according to Valerius Maximus 2.1.2 married women sat whereas their husbands lay down to dinner. This was certainly the case in the time of Augustus. Already in Valerius’ own (who sees this as evidence for the decline of morals) and certainly in Apuleius’ time, both sexes lay down for dinner together. Lying down together indicates an erotic relationship: Roller 2003, 399 finds evidence for married women lying down to dine with their husbands, always as a public display of a legitimate relationship. In 8.8.8 Charite’s dead husband warns her not to lie down at table in a new marriage (sc. with his murderer), showing that reclining together at meals is entirely possible in Apuleius’ time as a sign of intimacy between husband and wife. Pamphile’s sitting rather than lying down, and her subsequent leaving of the room (l .23.1), thus may indicate Milo’s pretensions to old-fashioned and out-dated morality as well as his stinginess in providing sufficient dining furniture. Her behaviour implicitly states that Pamphile is chaste, which she turns out not to be. Pamphile’s ostentatious propriety will influence Lucius’ decision not to try to interfere with Milo’s marriage (2.6.6). Pamphile does not have to leave the room because of the tiny size of the dining room (thus Walsh 1995,151). The room is large enough for all three later, when Lucius quite happily has dinner with Milo and Pamphile in 2,11, where Milo and Lucius lie down and Pamphile leads the conversation (although it is not clear whether she lies down or sits). The table is yet again small and the dinner insufficient in 3.13.1 (after the Risus festival episode). In Onos 7 Hipparchos’ wife is absent from the parallel scene to 2.11, following Greek custom, where women were
202 Commentary banned from symposia. Byrrhaena in 2.18ff. is also present at her own banquet, but Loukios never seems to have dinner with Habroia (Byrrhaena’s equivalent) in Onos (women and banquets: Bradley 1998, Dunbabin 2003). an empty table was placed before them: Mensam (ad)ponere is the normal term for ‘setting the table' (cf. Met. 10.16.3, FI. 6.10; Plautus Men. 212; Cicero Att. 14.6.2 etc.). To Lucius, the empty table in front of his host seems to confirm the old woman’s description of Milo. In Onos 2.3 the table is also empty, although Hipparchos is about to start dinner. As it is customary to remove tables after courses and bring in new ones for the next course, an empty table at the start of a meal should indicate that either Milo is between courses, or will indeed only eat from an empty table, i.e. nothing at all. In FI. 6, however, when describing Indian gymnosophists, Apuleius seems to imply that some time may pass between setting a dinner table and serving food, as ‘before food is served’ (ubi mensa posita, priusquam edulia adponantur) these wise philosophers hold conversations about ethics. Lucius will get neither food nor pleasant philosophical education at Milo’s table. Keulen 2007, 399f. compares Heracles’ hosting by Molorchus in Callimachus’ The Victory of Berenice (Aetia 3, frr. 54-60j Harder) and Encolpius’ in Petronius 135ff., where the dinner guests are frustrated, too, albeit for very different reasons, as well as Callimachus’ Hecale. There are some important differences in each author’s execution of the hospitality scene, though: Hecale, an old lady, serves Theseus (who was on his way to Marathon to slay the bull) a rustic but carefully prepared and described meal; Molorchus, too, eventually serves a meal to Heracles. Lucius gets no food at all. For other occurrences of the Hecale motif in literature and Milo’s direct reference to it see below on 1.23.6. Apuleius also plays here with notions of hungry parasites from comedy, whose dinner expectations are thwarted (May 1998; 2006,146ff), and with Lucius’ gullibility, as he allows the old woman’s biased characterisation of Milo to influence his understanding of Milo’s dinner arrangements. In this context, the possible association of Lucius and Hercules is interesting, as Hercules in comedy or satyr play (also in Euripides Alcestis) is often portrayed as a greedy devourer of much food (e.g. craving pea soup in Aristophanes Frogs 63; see Stafford 2012, 105-17). pointed at it and said ‘Look, this is our hospitality1: As in many Homeric hospitality scenes, Lucius’ arrival coincides with a time of feasting, and Milo points out to Lucius that he understands the principle of guest-friendship (hospitium), but an empty table is not boding well. Monstratus ‘pointing’ ocurs only here, 5.28.9 and in Ausonius; all three instances are in the ablative. 22.8 After he had read It quickly: The formalities of guest friendship are quickly and unceremoniously dispensed with in this ‘inhospitality’ scene. I am grateful to my friend Demeas, who has recommended such a great guest to me: Ostensibly, this is a straightforward echo of Lucius’ sarcastic phrase in 1.21.8 “My friend Demeas ... recommended me to such a man”. The only other
Commentary 203 occurrence of tantus hospes ‘such a great guest’, in Ovid Met. 8.570 (Archelous and Theseus), is significant, as Lucius’ father’s name is Theseus (1.23.6). There is no need to see any possible homoerotic connotations of conciliare here (thus Keulen 2007, 402, comparing Petronius 127, ‘to provide someone with a sexual partner’), or of Milo’s request that Lucius take his wife’s place at his feet in 1.23.1. 23 Milo offers Lucius a seat and a bed, but no food. 23.1 he ordered his wife to get up, and ordered me to sit down in her place: It is unclear whether Pamphile only gets up or leaves the room entirely. Milo’s equivalent in Onos 2 (Hipparchos) does not require his wife, who is sitting next to him, to leave, and there is no indication that he sends her out of the room, although this might have been lost to the epitomisation. See above on 1.22.7 for the cultural associations of wives attending dinner. Providing a seat, often the seat of honour, for the visitor is an important element of hospitality (introd. §6.1). Here and 9.22.6 iubet is a technical term for a dinner invitation (cf. also Petronius 21.6 with Schmeling 2011, 64), but Lucius is ordered to sit at Milo’s feet, further indication that only one couch may be standing in the triclinium instead of the usual three. 1 was now hesitating because of my sense of modesty: Lucius is now being the polite guest. ‘Modesty’, verecundia, is one of Lucius’ self-characterisations before and after his metamorphosis; it is used again by Milo about Lucius in 1.23.3, and again Lucius is modestly hesitant in 1.26.2. In 7.22.1 lies told about his behaviour as a donkey offend his ‘modest silence’ (verecundum silentium), and in 4.23.1 he is proud of his ‘ass’s modesty’, perhaps as an indication that his character is the same before and after metamorphosis (and thus not a pretence put on as a tactic here to ingratiate himself with Milo, as Keulen 2007,409 argues). The other person in Met. who is verecundus is the doomed father of three in 9.35.2. Elsewhere verecundia is noticeable for its absence: the two cooks lose it specifically in 10.14.7 when they accuse each other of stealing food, and in 2.17.2 Photis lacks verecundia in her impersonation of Venus when seducing Lucius. It is a characterisation that Apuleius claims for himself as he associates his own verecundia with his addressee’s modestia in FI. 17. he grasped the fringe of my garment and pulled me down: This is bad hospitality, as Milo does not touch Lucius (he will do so later in 1.26.2; Fernandez Contreras 1997, 119). Cf. 2.13.4 (a young man grasps the false prophet Diophanes’ coat, lacinia) and Plautus As. 587, Petronius 100.5, Suetonius Cl. 15.3 for similar instances. Here the edge of the garment rather than the entire one is meant (for which see above on 1.7.2). Before Apuleius this meaning is possibly only found in Petronius 12.6 (Walsh 1978, 22, although Schmeling 2011, 38 there interprets lacinia as vestis, i.e. the whole garment). 23.2 Sit down here ... I sat down: The second time Milo requests Lucius to take a seat. Lucius passively submits to Milo’s insistent command.
204 Commentary out of fear of robbers we cannot provide any seats or even any sufficient furnishings: The motif of robbers is reintroduced here; Lucius will remember this in 2.32.3 when he fights the wineskins outside Milo’s house believing them to be robbers; robbers indeed break into Milo’s house in 3.27.7 and steal Lucius turned donkey. Robbers present a danger not only for Milo, but generally in Lucius’ world (1.7,1.11.7, 1.14.5, 1.15.2f. etc.). Robbers are not feared in Onos, where Hipparchos is generally more agreeable and less farcical and miserly, but in both novels the robbers’ presence is generically determined, and attempts to defeat them are usually doomed (robbers in the Greek novels: Achilles Tatius 3.9, Heliodorus 5.22 etc). Chryseros similarly refuses to have adequate furniture because of his fear of robbers, and in 4.9f. sleeps in dirty rags on top of his gold sacks (further similarities with Milo: see on 1.21.5). It is odd that Milo’s main worry about robbers is their apparent ability to steal dining room furniture, since normal triclinium couches would provide lying down space for three persons and therefore are rather massive. In the event, it is not furniture but unsurprisingly Milo’s gold and quadrupeds that are stolen in 3.28. 233 I would guess already from that handsome appearance of your body and that utterly maiden-like modesty of yours that you are the offspring of a noble family: Milo’s reference to Lucius’ ancestry recalls 1.2.1 on Lucius’ origins, where Lucius defines himself via the maternal line; Milo is more general here, and soon he reveals Lucius’ father’s name as Theseus; in 2.2.8 generosa probitas ‘noble behaviour’is also used to describe Lucius through his mother, and in 2.2.9 Byrraena uses ‘handsome’ speciosus of Lucius again in a mirror scene to this one. In Socr. 23 (175) Apuleius notes that to call someone generosus is a compliment to the parents, and continues in Socr. 24 (176f.) to cite Accius trag. 520 Ribbeck parva prodite patria ‘offspring of a small country’, a phrase similar to the one Milo uses here. Demeas seems to affirm Lucius’ good birth in his letter. Lucius’ good looks may be detrimental: in Apuleius’ trial for magic a by-line was to accuse him of physical beauty (Apol. 4), and worryingly, Byrrhaena warns Lucius in 2.5 of Pamphile’s predatory nature as soon as she sees ‘a handsome young man’. But Lucius’ constant description as physically attractive lays a false trail; in the event Pamphile does not appear to be interested in Lucius’ charms at all. For habitudo as physical beauty and part of Lucius’ characterisation see 1.20.2, for his appearance and ancestry see introd. §9. Lucius characterises himself to Photis in 3.19.5 as someone who has always despised embraces with respectable women {matronalium amplexuum), perhaps an indication that hitherto he has indeed been of ‘maiden-like’ modesty (cf. Onos 11 for an even stronger expression of this notion of indifference to female allure). 23.4 my friend Demeas also announces this in his letter: This kind of character reference may be used in real letters of recommendation: Fronto, ad Verum 1.6.7 (p. 111.14 van den Hout) praises the subject’s ‘modesty’, verecundia. beg you not to spurn the smallness of our little hovel: In the following, Milo will remind him of Hecale’s hospitality for Theseus, see on 1.23.6; again Milo insists
Commentary 205 on the same action twice (cf. 1.23.2), making any attempt at resistance by Lucius futile. The diminutive gurgustiolum is only found in Apuleius, but was rediscovered from his texts in the Renaissance (see introd. § 13). Even gurgustium is a rare word (Cicero Pis. 13.3 for a cheap tavern; N. D. 1.22) and has negative connotations as a pauper’s house of humble dimensions and sordid/shadowy character. Apuleius’ use of the diminutive makes the hovel even shadier; gurgustiolum occurs again in Met. 4.10.4 in a very similar context (Chryseros pretending to be poor; see on 1.21.5 and 23.2). Milo’s extremely negative portrayal of his home may be fishing for compliments rather than a true depiction of the house’s state. 23.5 that adjacent bedroom over there will be a worthy little shelter for you: The bedroom is close, accessible from the dining area, but not as small as Milo makes out. It is big enough for the love scenes between Lucius and Photis in Met. 2. Offering a bed for the night, usually in the portico immediately near the front door, is key to proper hospitality (Reece 1993, 32), and for once Milo does not disappoint Lucius. Again, no mention is made of Lucius’ slaves and their sleeping arrangements, although in the corresponding scene in Onos 3 Palaistra specifically prepares a mattress for Loukios’ slave. In 11.22.4 the only other combination of cubiculum and receptaculum appears in a religious context, as the room of a priest (Egelhaaf-Gaiser 2000,449). Cubiculum describes a temple in 11.17.1, but so far in Met. 1 it has previously been used only of Socrates’ and Aristomenes’ room (1.16.1), making their fate another unheeded warning for Lucius. Receptaculum is commonly used in military contexts to describe a shelter or a place of retreat (Cicero Pis. 11, Pliny Nat. 10.100). Look: The connection et in the transmitted et ecce awkwardly splits adiacens and illud cubiculum; Liitjohann’s palaeographically plausible emendation en ecce (cf. 1.1.5) echoes Milo’s deictic gesture. Be sure to enjoy your stay with us: A similar phrase in 2.19.5 (Byrrhaena to Lucius) is another indication of a mirror scene, and of an unwitting rivalry between Milo and Byrrhaena as Lucius’ hosts. See also above on 1.21.4f. for deversari ‘to dwell’ used by both Lucius and the old woman talking about Milo’s house. The paratactic fac plus subjunctive is colloquial, and frequent in Apuleius, e.g. Met. 2.18.5 fac sine cura sis, ‘make sure not to worry’; 2.23.8; 6.7.4 {fac ... matures, ‘make sure you hurry’) 23.6 you will make our house bigger with your reputation: In the equivalent phrase in Onos 2 it is Loukios’ ‘forbearance’ (άνεξικάκως), not reputation, that will increase the house’s name. Dignatio (also ‘esteem, respect, status') is used in Met. 11.21.8 and 29.4, of the gods favouring Lucius with allowing him to undergo initiations. a shining example: Prophetic and ominous: in Met., specimen is often a physical spectacle, e.g. 2.4.5 (ecphrasis of Actaeon), 4.29.2 (Psyche), 11.17.5 (Isis; cf. also 11.1). In Met. 3, Milo will take part in turning Lucius into a public spectacle during the Risus festival. content with a rather small house: Milo unwittingly echoes the old woman's
206 Commentary description of the house (1.21.6) and anticipates the fate of Chryseros (4.9.6, see on 1.21.5) who hides his riches in a ‘small little house’ (parva ... domuncula). Like Milo’s house eventually, his is plundered by robbers who assume that4 larger houses’ are more easily conquered. you ... emulate the virtues of Theseus, who shares his name with your father, and who did not spurn the humble hospitality of the old woman Hecale: Whereas Theseus stayed with Hecale, Lucius did not in the end stay with an old woman. Milo hopes Lucius will be, like Theseus in Callimachus’ Hecale, an exemplary guest, but Lucius previously only emulated his dinner companions in an undignified eating competition (aemulus; 1.4.1). On Callimachus’ Hecale and its links with guest- friendship in this scene see introd. §6.1. The highly literary intertext of the epyllion (a short hexameter poem with un-heroic themes) is comically misrepresented and misused, with Milo styling himself as Hecale. Inspired by his father’s name, Lucius becomes a comic and debased version of Theseus, who, unlike the mythological hero, will not receive any food from this miserly host. This is the second time Milo asks Lucius not to spurn (aspernari) his small house (cf. 1.23.4). In the end it is not the size of the house, but Milo’s character that Lucius despises, see 1.26.7. Theseus was king of Athens. Lucius has links to Athens as well as Corinth, if the letter indicates this correctly. This tallies with 1.1.3 where the prologue-speaker mentions Corinth and Athens as places of his origin and suggests his identification with Lucius. 23.7 his little maid ... Photis: Photis is again described with a diminutive, cf. 1.21.7; the repetition ensures the recognition that this is the girl who opened the door earlier. She has a speaking name with many meanings: ‘Hottie’, as she warns Lucius to stay away from her foculum (‘brazier’, a bilingual pun) in 2.7.7, or ‘Light’ (Greek φως, interpreted as the wrong light, opposed to the true light of Isis (Krabbe 1989,136ff). This corresponds to Lucius’ name, which means ‘light’ in Latin (from lux), and which may misleadingly indicate a close bond between the two. ‘Lucius’ is the Latin version of the protagonist’s name in the original (Loukios). De Smet 1987, 618f. argues rightly that both meanings are intentionally present at different parts of the novel. The name is found in inscriptions, and the ending in -is indicates the slave names of Greek and Roman comedy (Sandy 1997, 248; Keulen 2007, 418). The girl in Onos is called Palaistra, a more obviously speaking name: ‘Wrestling School’ is a metaphor used for a brothel in Plautus Bac. 66 and Terence Ph. 484. The love-making between her and Loukios in Onos 6-10 is also decidedly more athletic than Photis’ and Lucius’ in Met. 2.16ff, and extended metaphors fashion Palaistra as Loukios’ wrestling teacher. Lucius’ and Photis’ love-making, on the other hand, is full of comic and elegiac metaphors, and their relationship, although mostly utilitarian for Lucius, is also based on mutual attraction (Hindermann 2009). store them: The phrase is a close translation of its equivalent in Onos 2; a command is given, and its execution reported in similar words in Met. 1.24.3; Milo is dominating the scene.
Commentary 207 23.8 from the store-room: Usually promptuarius is an adjective: Apol. 54.8 e cella promptaria ‘from a room serving as storage’; Plautus Am. 156 quasi e promptaria cella (‘as if out of a storage room’, metaphorically for prison), where, like here, it indicates a store-room. oil for rubbing and towels for wiping and everything else necessary for the same purpose: Again Lucius’ fate recalls that of Socrates through a very unusual phrase and a similar context (baths; cf. 1.7.3). Although he listens to both Aristomenes and Milo, Lucius does not take in the repeated warnings to avoid witchcraft. Keulen 2007, 419 (with examples) notes that other uses of cetera usui ‘necessary for the purpose’ specifically indicate food. Milo implicitly restricts the term to bathing utensils and thus poignantly does not offer Lucius any food. bring The transmitted imperative profers (instead of the more common form profer) is paralleled in 2.6.6 aufers and 6.13.5 defers. lead my guest to the nearest baths: Rich Romans usually offer the use of their private baths to their guests in the countryside; middle and lower class townhouses have no bathing facilities. It is an indication of Milo’s status that he apparently has no bath house of his own, or perhaps of how he wishes to appear to his neighbours and Lucius. As one of the ‘leading citizens’ [primores, see on 1.21.3) of Hypata he should have the capacity to expand his house built outside the city walls. The absence of private baths allows the mirror scene to develop closer parallels to Aristomenes’ hosting of Socrates in 1.7. Aristomenes was on his way to the baths in Hypata (1.5.5) when he encountered Socrates and therefore witchcraft, again offering an ominous paradigm for Lucius. Bathing before dinner is normal; in Met., also in 4.7.5 (robbers), 3.12.5 (Lucius after the Risus festival trial and before dinner with Milo, see below), 8.29.2 (the priests of the Dea Syria). The usual time for bathing is between two and three in the afternoon (Martial 10.48). Lucius' refusal to accept a bath from Milo makes him a bad guest (introd. §6.1). The guest’s bath is usually provided by female servants [Od. 4.49 etc.), here Photis. For Lucius, though, the decision to redirect her efforts tactfully to looking after his horse rather than himself (1.24.1) so that he can secretly buy his own food may appear the more natural decision. Producere ‘to lead’ is used again in 3.12.5 (again Milo and Lucius use public baths) and 11.23.1 (as a preparation for initiation). he is quite tired from his difficult and lengthy journey: Lucius constantly stresses how tired he is in bk 1, see 1.26 (twice). The language here recalls the description of the landscape in 1.2.2 and belies his elegant claim in 1.20.5f. that hearing Aristomenes’ story has taken his tiredness away. 24 Lucius asks Photis to look after his horse’s needs and sets off to the food market and the baths alone. He buys himself some fish for dinner and encounters his old friend Pythias, Hypata’s aedile. The Pythias episode shares some similarities with the meeting of Socrates and Aristomenes as well as the Byrrhaena/Habroia episode in Met. 2 and has been seen
208 Commentary as an Apuleian addition. As Loukios shares a meal with his host in Onos, he has no need to go food-shopping. The episode creates interesting links with Lucius’ initiation into the Isis mysteries in Met. 11 through possible parody of Isiac rituals as well as continuing the comic atmosphere of Milo’s house in Hypata. 24.1 reflecting upon his character and frugality: For Romans, parsimonia ‘frugality’ is a traditional virtue (Konstan 1983, 35); in Apul. Apol. 95 parsimonia is a positive characteristic of Sallust’s language. Cf. Plautus Trin. 1028f. for a wish to return to the good old days associated with parsimonia. Lucius is willing to play lip service to Milo's thriftiness to ingratiate himself In the comic setting of Milo’s house, however, Milo’s parsimoniousness can be associated with greed for money for its own sake which underlies the comic plot e.g. in Plautus’ Aulularia. A certain general manipulative selfishness is manifest in Lucius’ calculations (ratiocinans), but evidence for positively evil intentions is thin (although Keulen 2007, 422 attributes obsequious flattery and malevolent motives, possibly legacy hunting, to Lucius). Lucius seems more naive, an unintentional flatterer: cf. also on 1.22.4. wanting to recommend myself more closely to Milo: On 'recommendation’ as a catch phrase for Lucius’ and Milo’s relationship, see 1.21.8. Lucius plays up to Milo’s stinginess by ostentatiously denying his own needs, which is surprising, given that we first meet him as a prolific eater (1.4.1). He will however shortly attempt to indulge himself with expensive seafood, as he has concluded that there is not much chance of a good meal out of Milo. Ironically the ultimate goal of the parasite’s flattery and obsequiousness, food and dinner, will elude him during the whole of bk. 1, although he makes providing himself with dinner his top priority. Lucius keeps up this kind of obsequiousness in matters to do with eating when he is a donkey, cf. 10.16.4 (Lucius keeps eating food to entertain his master although he is already ‘quite well stuffed’), and becomes the flatterer and comic parasite of the scene (a consistent characteristic of Lucius: May 1998; 2006, 143-56). Interestingly, Lucius there does the opposite from here: he devours as much human food as possible to please his master, with the successful result that the master calls him his parasite. By contrast, here Lucius seems to win Milo over by voluntarily forgoing his claim to his host’s food. I don’t need any of these things, as they accompany me on my way everywhere: Lucius’ toilet kit would contain strigils to scrape off the oil from the body, flasks with oil or perfume, and a sponge. On oil flask and strigil as accoutrements of the comic parasite see e.g. Plautus Per. 123ff, Pollux 17 and 18, with May 2006, 147; as bathing essentials Yegtil 2010, 12f. Lucius speaks the truth, and he goes on to have a bath after his immediate ill-fated trip to the food market. 24.2 this is of the highest importance to me: Contrast Lucius’ change of mind in 11.26.3,where his daily prayers to Isis become of the highest importance to him (praecipuum... studium). Photis: The plain address here indicates the lack of romantic attachment, which will soon change once Lucius has decided to seduce her (2.7 etc. he calls her ‘my Photis’, Photis mea\ Dickey 2002, 281). Furthermore, her owner is also listening,
Commentary 209 and seducing his property might not be the best action for an ostentatiously tactful guest. take these few coins here and buy hay and barley for my horse, who carried me swiftly: Lucius constantly takes good care of his horse, descending in 1.2.3 to ease the horse’s tiredness, cf. his joke in 1.20.6. Perveho ‘to carry’ is used of quadrupeds in Met. 6.28 (Lucius the donkey), and Socr. 23 (173; horse). Hay and barley are recommended fodder for horses, e.g. barley in Aristotle Historia animalium 573b 10-11; 595a 28-29; 595b 6-10; Varro R. 2.7.7 and 2.8 recommends both for equines; Charite orders the donkey Lucius to be given both in 7.14.4 to spoil him. Again a diminutive {nummulis) is used in connection with Photis, but also functions as an indication of the parsimony Lucius feigns - he gives her only a few small coins to provide for his horse. On hospitality for horses and consequences for Lucius’ assessment of Milo’s hospitality see introd. §6.1. For the archaic future imperative emito ‘buy’ cf. above on 1.8.5. 24.3 I myself headed for the baths: In Onos 3 Loukios has no trouble going to the baths after giving Palaistra some money for the horse; it is Apuleius who turns Milo’s and Lucius’ relationship into a fraught parody of hospitality. As Lucius heads to the baths, only to encounter unexpectedly an old friend (Pythias) in 1.24, he echoes the experiences of Aristomenes exactly, cf. on 1.7.2. I made for the food market: Lucius is characterised here as a wastrel and parasite in search of a rare and expensive culinary treat, in stark contrast to the persona he ingratiatingly presents to Milo. Buying fish is a literary trope from comedy {e.g. Plautus Capt. 474), where parasites, a characterisation that Lucius is frequently given, buy it as a luxury product (Davidson 1993, 54).This comic touch supports the textual emendation to cuppedinis (F writes cupidinis, a later hand in φ has cupedinis; subsequent occurrences of the word have been tacitly changed in the text). In Apol. 29.6 Apuleius uses cuppedinarius ‘seller of delicacies’, a rare word, in a scene associated with Roman comedy {cuppedia: Plautus St. 714, cuppedinarii: Terence Eu. 256). The Forum Cuppedinis was a food market in Rome, no longer extant in Apuleius’ time. It is either an alternative name for the macellum (grocery market), or a specific pan of the forum in Rome, and Forum Cupidinis is either a nickname or a mistake for it (both terms are associated by Varro L. 5.146; Richardson 1992, 164). Either way, this is a striking Romanisation of a provincial market. Lucius is not intimidated by this one unpleasant encounter, as he visits the same market again in 2.2, when he meets Byrrhaena. He again forgets the example of Aristomenes, who had headed to Hypata’s markets in 1.5.4 for unsuccessful cheese trading. Keulen 2007, 427 compares Lucius’ actions here with that of the Theophrastian shameless man {Characters 9), who goes shopping without regard for his reputation. Given that Lucius has not had food all day, this judgement is a bit harsh. 24.4 some sumptuous fish displayed for sale: Piscatus (‘fish as caught’, OLD) is a Plautine word, used twice in the same chapter to stress the comic situation, cf.
210 Commentary Plautus Mos. 66f, 729, 730; Rud. 299; 911; Turpilius com. 22, Pomponius com. 119 (May 2006, 152f.). Fish may be a sign of riches and indulgence in Greek comedy. In Rome luxuriousness is more associated with the consumption of meat, whereas comedy maintains the high price of fish as a luxury. Lucius’ expedition therefore evokes a comic atmosphere. In his own trial for witchcraft, Apuleius himself had been accused of buying fish for exorbitant sums of money, allegedly for magical purposes (Apol. 29; cf. Abt 1908 66 (140)ff. for the use of fish in magic, and p. 39 (113) for the occasional prohibition of eating fish for magicians, e.g. Pap. Ber. 1.290). His defence was that he did not eat them but dissected them for scientific reasons. For fish and its symbolism for Isis see introd. §10.2 and below on 1.25.4. Opiparis, 'sumptuous’, is applied to dinners and another comic word found mostly in Plautus and Apuleius (Met. 10.13.6). Interestingly, Cicero in Off. 3.58f. tells an anecdote about the banker (<argentarius) Pythius (see below on 1.24.5 for the name’s possible significance) duping the knight C. Canius with the help of piscatores and a sumptuous (opipare) dinner, during which the fishermen threw down fish at the feet of Pythius. Cicero’s language, too, is generally Plautine and comic. he set [sc. the price] at one hundred coins ...for twenty denarii: One nummus (i.e. sestertius) is a fourth of a denarius (cf. 9.31.3). Lucius negotiates a 20% discount. Prices in the novel are unreliable because of their use for comic effect, and the price of this fish is very high when compared with the more modest prices in contemporary Egypt (a twentieth of Apuleius’ price, or less). This inflation is reminiscent of comedy with its exaggerated prices for fish. Cf. e.g. Achamians 885, Diphilus, Emporos 32 K-A, where the price of fish is their weight in silver, Eupolis Kolakes 160 K-A etc., e.g. Plautus Aul. 373f., Bac. 96fi, Capt. 474, Men. 273, Mos. 67, Terence Eu. 256f. Prices in Met. are often exaggerated: compare the discrepancies between 17 denarii for the donkey in 8.25.6 and the 20 paid here for the fish dinner. In 2.13.4 Diophanes’ fee of one hundred denarii is astronomical. In 10.17.1 the cooks are paid 44 denarii by their grateful master for their donkey Lucius, which is signposted as a high amount. Finally, in 9.6 five denarii for a large empty jar are another astronomical sum (Duncan-Jones 21982, 248-51, Fick 1985, 133fi, Davidson 1993, 55fi, Pailler 2004, 120). Cf. 1.5.4 for the Plautine nature of the food-shopping (praestinare) and the association of Lucius with Aristomenes in that scene. 24.5 Pythias: The male name is typically Pytheas (Scobie 1975 emends accordingly), e.g. Pliny Nat. 34.52. For Pythius in Cicero Off. 3.58f. see on 1.24.4. Pythias is usually a female slave name in comedy, cf. Turpilius 188 Philopator (in a list of courtesans), Terence Eunuchus, Horace Ars 238 (where Pythias is an example of a generic comedy name). A comic intertext is likely, given the use of comic language throughout the scene; officious aediles feature in Plautine comedy, see below on 1.24.8. Other explanations of the name include a link with the philosopher Pythagoras, as Pythagoreans refuse to eat fish (Krabbe 2003, 15 and 156), or associating Pythias with Pythia, the prophetess of Apollo, as a religious reference to
Commentary 211 Lucius’ future with Isis (thus Grimal 1971,344f., Plaza 2006, 73, see also below on 1.25.4). See Zimmerman 2006, 94f. and Keulen 2007, 436 for elements of Roman satire in Pythias’ character. fellow student of mine in Athens in Attica: Athens is Lucius’ place of study, cf. 1.4.2. Apuleius, too, studied in Athens and after some time away met an old friend from university (Pontianus) again while passing through Oea on a journey, with far reaching consequences (introd. §1.1). Athenas Atticas is comic: Plautus Epid. 502, Mil. 100 and 451 etc.9 and frequent in Apul., cf. FI. 18.15. It is notable that Lucius did not attempt before travelling to Hypata or now that he has met Pythias to claim guest-friendship with his old friend (nor with his aunt Byrrhaena whom he encounters in Met. 2), but takes a letter of recommendation to the stranger Milo. Pythias, crucially, here also does not offer hospitium to Lucius (whereas Byrrhaena does). He also will turn out to be a liability, and as Lucius is surprised at his role as a magistrate he obviously has not kept in touch. The scene has no equivalent in Onos. Repetitions in the Byrrhaena sequence may be signs that the Pythias scene is an Apuleian addition to the original, and characteristic of the troubled hospitality Lucius experiences in Hypata throughout his stay. Describing Pythias as a fellow student allows Apuleius to lay another false trail, as during the previous encounter of old friends (Socrates and Aristomenes) the friendship ends in death. In some ways Lucius is about to repeat their fate, although with less dire consequences (see below on 1.24.6). after all this time: An adverb is required before multum; Apuleius writes aliquam multum in 5.26.1 and 11.26.1, which makes Colvius’ correction to aliquam here likely (printed e.g. by Zimmerman 2012). Hanson 1989 and Keulen 2007 print F’s aliquantum; in 1.18.1 Apuleius uses aliquantum as adverb, and in 1.19.1 aliquanto (but neither with multum). rushed up upon me, embraced and kissed me fondly: Cf. 1.17.4 for a similar emotional outburst amongst friends (with verbal echoes). Here it anticipates 3.24.2, where Lucius embraces and kisses the box of ointment like an old friend (amplexus ac deosculatus). 24.6 My dear Lucius: The first time we hear Lucius’ name, introduced 'naturally’ during an episode where his own experiences and his function as a narrator become central (rather than, as until now, as a passive and gullible narratee of stories). For the name's meaning see on 1.23.7. It may anticipate Lucius’ initiation into the ‘true light’ of Isis in Met. 11 (Isis has a cluster of luc- words associated with her: 11.2; 5; 6; 9; 10; 22). On late naming of characters in the novel see on 1.5.3. by Pollux ... by Hercules: Two typically comic exclamations: other than in 1.8.1 (the meeting of Socrates and Aristomenes), the mild oath pol indicates surprise rather than invective, but is a marker for the comic context of the scene, together with hercules. See also on 1.3.3. our teacher Clytius: Another 'speaking name’, literally 'the famous one’, from κλυτός, cf. Latin inclitus, which is what Lucius calls, amongst others, Plutarch in
212 Commentary Met. 1.2.1 and his own family in 3.11.1. The name is very rare, and no philosopher or rhetor of the name is known. It is perhaps a nickname; in 9.17.1 the councillor Barbarus is nicknamed Scorpio, because of his sharpness. Students tend to give their teachers nicknames; calling their teacher ‘famous’ might characterise Pythias as urbane; some nicknames discussed in Heath 2004, 40f. include e.g. ‘Marathon’ for Ptolemy of Naucratis (Philostr. VS 595). Apuleius names a brother of Priam in Socr. 18 (161) as Clytius, and there may be a link between the names of Lucius’ father Theseus and his teacher. Klytios, the son of Antiope and Eurytos of Oechalia, brother of Iphitos, was, according to some ancient sources, a (rather undistinguished) Argonaut, together with Theseus (Hyginus Fab. 14; Scholia to Apollonius Rhodius list both, although Ap. Rhod. 1.100 specifically notes Theseus' absence; Plutarch Theseus 29.3 considers Theseus’ presence in the expedition). The name is an emendation by Seyffert, accepted by all modem editions. Magister ‘teacher’ is an imprecise term; here it must describe a professional teacher of rhetoric or law (cf. Cicero De Orat. 1.52), though it can also indicate a schoolmaster (Cicero De Orat. 1.244) or even a mere paedagogus (slave looking after infant boys; e.g. Plautus Bac. 152). 24.7 what is your reason for this journey?: Similar questions are asked in 1.7.7 (Socrates) and 1.26.4 (Milo asking Lucius); Pythias will not get a straightforward answer, which leaves the reader, too, still in the dark about Lucius’ reasons for travelling to Hypata. You will know tomorrow: An odd reply: Lucius was not planning to meet Pythias (with whom he had lost touch, and of whose presence and rank in Hypata he was oblivious), but now seems to suggest impulsively meeting up again the next day, but never follows this through: after the fish fiasco he may have decided to stay clear of Pythias for the rest of his time in Hypata. The events of his second day in Hypata are equally unplanned: Lucius goes to the market again, but then encounters Byrrhaena, goes to her house, chats up Photis and sleeps with her after a dinner with Milo (2.1-17). We can only assume that his mysterious ‘business’ (1.2.1) never comes to pass. Pythias, too, will never find out. what is this?: Cf. 1.6.2 (asked of Socrates). 1 am happy your prayer has been granted: Elliptical, i.e. ‘I congratulate you on attaining your ambition’, with genitive of thing wished for (OLD 3a). you have attendants and rods of office and the outfit that utterly fits with the role of a magistrate: Lucius recognises his friend’s rank by his ostentatiously carried status symbols. Lixa here uniquely indicates an attendant to a magistrate (cf. 1.25.4; its usual meaning is camp follower, often with negative connotations). If those here are thought to be the ones carrying the virgae (cf. below), then they are lictores, attendants to senior magistrates. There is some epigraphic evidence that municipal aediles (who had the same tasks as the Roman aediles) were allowed two lictors with fasces: the tombstone of the aedile L. Severius Severinus in Nemausus from the first half of the second century AD (C1L 12.3273), displays two fasces; see also the tomb
Commentary 213 of C. Vestorius Priscus in Pompeii (Schafer 1989,389 = Cl4) from 75/6 AD; both died in their early twenties, having achieved aedileships. Lictors may have accompanied aediles in larger cities like Formiae or Arpinum. Virgae are thin sticks attached to the fasces (Schafer 1989,200ff.) or held in the lictor’s right hand, but are not official emblems of power. The day after Lucius’ encounter with the wineskins, he is collected and brought to court by two lictors {Met. 3.2.1). Here the process in the small town Hypata is described as if the courtroom were in Rome, but Elster 1991 rightly warns against taking Apuleius ’ portrayal of legal proceedures at face value. For habitus ‘ state, bearing’ see 1.12.3; 1.20.2,1.21.7, where it also identifies outer appearance. 24.8 I am administering food supplies and pricing ... and serve as aedile: Suetonius CL 18.1 indicates that there was an official department, Urbis annonaeque curae, to supply com to a city or an army; annona usually means the supply or price of com; looking after the prices of the market was part of an aedile’s office (Cicero Leg. 3.7; Tacitus Hist. 4.38). Pythias will turn out to act not like a law-abiding magistrate, but a perpetrator of wanton violence and cruelty. Aediles have some negative connotations in Plautus. Rud. 372f., St. 352f., Capt. 823 (cf. also Epid. 25f., on praetors rather than aediles) indicate that in comedy pompous behaviour is compared to behaving like an aedile, reproducing perhaps connotations of its Greek equivalent agoranomos ‘market clerk’ (agoranomoi: MacDowell 1971, 313; Fick-Michel 1991, 117; Keulen 2007, 438). In Plautus Mil. 727-30 a good agoranomos sets the prices of the goods in the market. In Alexis’ Phaedo 249 K- A an agoranomos is imagined to stop Callimedon from buying too much fish (cf. Amott 1996,706-8 on the fragment; Davidson 1993,61; 1997,188L). In Athens his tasks include enforcing the law against fraud in the markets, checking the quality of all products except com, and collecting sellers’ taxes (see Athenaion Politeia 51.1 and Plato Laws 849a-50a, 917b-f for a comprehensive list). Ath. Pol. 10.177 indicates he is entitled to punish offenders on the spot by pillorying them. According to Laws 917b-c he has to ensure that no haggling takes place, and 917c-d indicates that traders may be beaten if they swear a false oath on the quality of their wares. Of course, it is the fish that is beaten in Apuleius, not the fishmonger, but this may indicate that a severe law lies behind Apuleius’ comic representation. Apuleius here evokes less a Greek magistrate than a Roman official, as his aedile is accompanied by lictors. Gerere may indicate acting theatrically, cf. 11.8.2 (a man dressed up as a soldier in an Isiac procession: see May 2006, 324-27 for the theatrical implications of that scene), cf. Stich. 353 aedilitatem ... gerit; but it is possibly a technical phrase, used without negative connotations in Servius’ commentary on Aeneid 6.861.5 on Marcellus. to purchase: Obsonare is a comic word, cf. Plautus Capt. 474; Men. 220 (<opsonium\ usually for buying food, especially fish, cf. Apol. 29.6 (May 2006, 87-92). I tried to decline: Abnuere, ‘to nod dissent’, is a gesture of refusal, cf. Apol. 48,
214 Commentary 76, 100; Met. 2.27.7; 4.13.1; 6.6.1. In Met. 1.21.2 its opposite adnuere indicates agreement. 24.9 that rubbish?: Comparable derogatory terms are used of fish in 1.25.1: nugamenta ‘junk' (a comic neologism); Apol. 34.7 quisquiliae ‘waste’. The archaic word occurs before Apuleius only in Novius com. 88 R. and Caecilius com. 251, and two rather theatrically rhetorical passages in Cicero, Sest. 94 and Att. 1.16.6. Petronius 75.8 (Trimalchio) uses the neuter plural form. I could hardly ... wrest them away from the fishmonger for twenty denarii: The only other piscator in Met. appears in the pseudo-theatrical procession of Isis (11.8), a metafictional and self-referential summary of the novel as a whole (May 2006, 324-27). The phrase is graphic, and inconsistent with Lucius’ previous description of the financial transaction as seemingly unimportant in mere subordinate clauses. Extorquere is used in Apol. 67 for a financial transaction, in Apol. 93.6 of a promise (about, amongst other things, financial arrangements); in Met. 5.6.4 and 8.7.6 it describes a long winded process of begging. 25 Pythias has Lucius’ fish destroyed because of their high price. This is the closest Lucius gets to enjoying food throughout the whole of Met. 1, just to have his hopes for dinner thwarted once again. 25.1 he ... grabbed my right hand: In Homeric hospitality, the host takes the visitor by the right hand (e.g. Od. 1.121), but Pythias does not offer hospitality and only continues the series of troubled or interrupted guest friendships Lucius experiences in Hypata. Although Milo will eventually offer his hand to Lucius (to pull him towards his empty table once again, 1.26.2), he notably first touches Lucius’ clothes, not his body, in 1.23.1. led me back into the food market: This scene is often compared to Petronius 12-15, where the advocati nocturni (night policemen) enter to restore order. Pythias here is a comic figure, primarily interested in maintaining his authoritative stance. Although the forum or market itself does not feature on the comic stage, references to action taking place in the forum, including the buying of fish, abound in comedy, cf. on 1.25.3. this junk?: For nugamenta ‘junk’ see on 1.24.9. 25.2 I pointed out a little old man to him: The fishmonger is a little old man {seniculus is found only here), and is thus easily cowed by Pythias. He recalls possibly a stock character from comedy, found in Plautus Rudens, mimes and farces. The fisherman on a Lipari vase which Panayotakis 2010, 332f. cites as a possible image from a mime of Sophron is an old man with white hair. he was sitting in a corner: This follows normal customs for retailers selling their wares (Dicaeopolis in Aristophanes Acharnians 837f.; Menander Perikeiromene 284; Plato R. 2.317c etc.; Amott 1996, 382). This motif is comically inverted in The Melting Pot, a play by the comedy writer Alexis (frg 131, 5-6 K.-A, cited in
Commentary 215 Athenaeus Deipn. 6.226c; Keulen 2007,445f.) for an absurd new ‘law’ that forced fishmongers to serve their customers standing up to avoid bartering, a clear comic invention. Even if this strange law were real, the punishment of the customer rather than the fishmonger does not follow the rules. he immediately barked at him with a rather harsh voice: Cf. 3.16.4 for increpare (Photis is shouted at by a barber who suspects her of stealing hair), and for vox aspera (‘harsh voice’), a rhetorical phrase, cf. e.g. Cicero Orator 150; Quintilian Decl. min. 333.16; Curtius Rufus 7.1.22. in accordance with the official powers of an aedile: Aediles do not carry the imperium claimed here (Summers 1970, 521), only the lesser magistrate’s power potestas. Lucius hints at Pythias’ presumptuousness, which is in keeping with his consistently pompous characterisation. Well now: Cf. 1.16.2 for the same reduplication (iam iam), an archaic expression. 25.3 spare my friends or any of our guests at all: The gradation here moves from individuals linked though amicitia ‘friendship’ in its personal as well as socio¬ political dimension to the more general and ritualised guest-friendship between individuals who not necessarily know each other; both systems are characterised through reciprocity, which is noticeably absent in Lucius’ exchanges with his friends and hosts. you mark up worthless fish with such high prices: Abuse of fishmongers is traditional in Greek Middle and New Comedy (Nesselrath 1990, 291-6). For example, Alexis 204, 3f. K-A and Antiphanes 145 K-A feature complaints about fishmongers’ extortionate prices, Amphis 30 K-A about the fish’s poor quality, and Antiphanes Neaniskoi 164 K-A about the paltry size of the fish. In Plautus Capt. 807-26, a parasite complains loudly about fishmongers. On the price of fish, see above on Met. 1.24.4. Indicatis ‘you mark up’ here repeats 1.24.4; Lucius and Pythias are echoing each other. the flower of the Thessalian region: On Hypata’s importance in contemporary Thessaly see above on 1.5.4 and 2.19, Byrrhaena’s praise of her home town. Flos with a genitive refers to the pick of the class, its ‘flower’, e.g.ftos poetarum (Plautus Cas. 18); Asiae (Juvenal 5.56); Italiae (Cicero Catil. 2,24 etc.). equivalent of a craggy wilderness: In Pythias’ rant Hypata undergoes a metaphorical metamorphosis from a flourishing city into a lonely wilderness, because its inhabitants disobey the rules of hospitality (rules which indeed are broken often enough in Met. 1). This sets the scene for 2.1, where Lucius imagines magic and metamorphosis to be omnipresent in Hypata, where nothing is as it seems. costliness of your groceries: Edulia ‘groceries’ is used e.g. in Apul. Apol. 29 (food bought from cuppedinarii ‘delicatessen sellers’, cf. on 1.24.3) for the purpose of eating it - rather than using it for magic), FI. 6 (see above on 1.22,7), and several times in Met. in comic contexts discussing food (5.3.3; 5.15.1; 6.28.6; 10.13.3; 10.16.3).
216 Commentary 25.4 But not with impunity: Apuleius drives the idea of the interfering magistrate to its comic conclusion: the aedile comically purports to punish the fishmonger for overpricing his goods, but the real victim of his ire is Lucius, whose loses both his dinner and his money (1.25.6). On comic aedilesfagoranomoi see on 1.24.8. ‘Not with impunity’ recalls here specifically and ominously Met. 1.12.7T, where the witch’s threat to Aristomenes is also followed by faxo (... paeniteat ‘I’ll make sure ... he’s sorry’). evil people must be summarily punished: As in 5.30.2 (Venus to Cupid), the reference is to the right of coercitio, the ‘authority of Roman magistrates to intervene where they judged the public order had been violated by citizens and non¬ citizens, restricting their rights and exercising sovereign power.’ (Brill's New Pauly s.v. coercitio [Gizewski]). He poured out my basket in our midst and ordered his official to step on the fish and crush all of them with his feet: A much debated scene: it may be inspired by comedy, cf. Plautus Capt. 807-26, where the parasite Ergasilus complains about bad quality fish sold in the forum and threatens the fishmongers with his shopping basket, effectively playing the role of an aedile (Shanzer 1996,447ff; May 2006, 152ff.). The fish-trampling is also often seen less probably as a cryptic allusion to Met. 11 with reference to Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris 358b, 363f. where the phallus of the dismembered Osiris is fed to fish (introd. §10.2). The fish-trampling, according to this theory, is then a symbolic Egyptian reference for the destruction of the enemies of the gods (Ra and Horus), inflicting much religious punishment on the fishmonger (extensive bibliography in Keulen 2007,449, who also lists possible Pythagorean associations). This is problematic: the forum is not really a sacrificial space. A (reconstructed) episode from the Life of Aesop 37, 39 and 44 has Aesop bring vegetables home for his master’s wife to cook, but she tramples them on the ground (Winkler 1985, 284). In 9.35.4 a rich young man tramples his neighbour’s crops in spite (fruges ... obterendo, note the same word); no Isiac connections have been claimed for that scene. 25.5 Satisfied with the severity of his character: The phrase has a positive, moralistic connotation, cf. 1.23.6 for the similar construction contentus lare parvulo ‘content with a rather small home’. In Tacitus Ann. 13.2.1 severitate morum indicates Roman strength of character. Severitudo instead of severitas, however, suggests a Plautine atmosphere, as before Apuleius it occurs only in Plautus Epid. 609. 25.6 I was taken aback and completely dumbfounded by his actions: Dumbfounded silence is Lucius’ normal reaction in shock and wonderment, cf. 2.7.4 (on Photis’ seductive appearance); 3.9.8 (on revelation of the wineskin bodies), and elsewhere in Met. it is only used only of his alter ego Psyche in similar situations: 5.2.3 (when seeing Cupid’s riches for the first time), and 6.10.4 (at one of Venus’ tasks). Cf. also 1.8.2 for a similar reaction. Obstupidus is archaic, before Apuleius only in Plautus Mil. 1254, Pacuvius trag. 53 Ribbeck, and Gellius 5.1.6. 25.6 I ... retreated to the baths: Lucius picks up where he left off in 1.24.3,
Commentary 217 when he had set out to the baths before being distracted by his need to purchase food. Lucius has gained nothing for his efforts since then. the useful advice of my wise fellow student: For this use of ironic sarcasm to characterise people see e.g. above on 1.7.10. Validus here means both ‘having legal authority’ and ‘bold’ (Keulen 2007, 452). Again Lucius is punning. The only other instance of a consilium validum (in 5.10.6) is not straightforward, either, as Psyche’s sisters plan to give her bad advice. Although Lucius has seen through Pythias’ pretentiousness, he continues to act nicely, anxiously keen to uphold his own social status. He lets Pythias get away with his foolish actions and swallows his humiliation without public comment, just to make disparaging remarks behind Pythias’ back to the reader. He has a similar treatment in store for Milo in 1.26.7. Prudentia ‘wisdom’ is an important motif in Met., a moral virtue, based on e.g. Cicero Fin. 5.16 which defines it as the ‘art of living well’, here used ironically and never attained in the first ten books of Met. (Graverini 2012); cf. also 10.33.3, where Plato’s Socrates is a real exemplar of the virtue, an ‘old man of divine prudentia’. I was deprived both of my money and my dinner: See introd. §6.2. after I had bathed I took myself back to Milo’s house and thereafter to my bedroom: On bathing before dinner see on 1.23.8. Compare 8.29.2 and especially 9.24.1 for a similar phrase (lauti cenam petebamus, ‘having had a bath we headed for dinner’). 26 Milo makes the tired Lucius sit with him and questions him relentlessly, before finally allowing him to retire, still without dinner. The scene is a doublet of 1.23f. (with 1.26.1 abstinentia ‘abstinence’ (below) further qualifying Milo’s previous parsimonia ‘frugality’ in 1.24.1), another indication that the Pythias episode is an Apuleian addition. Milo continues to be a problematic host, disregarding and abusing the laws of hospitality. 26.1 And look: Compare the equally sudden interruption by a slave with a dinner invitation from Byrrhaena in 3.12.2 (with verbal parallels: et ecce ... rogat te ‘and look,... she asks you in’), which Lucius, that time successfully, declines (see introd. §2.4 for mirror scenes). the maid Photis: As above in 1.24.2, the description does not show any erotic attraction Lucius might feel for her, which is especially significant, since it is not within her owner’s hearing. This shows that his decision to seduce her in 2.6.6 (where he calls her ‘servant’, famula) is primarily practical in nature, once he has discovered her and Pamphile’s involvement in magic. Your host asks you in: For rogare as a technical term cf. on 1.22.5. expert in Milo’s asceticism: Abstinentia here means ‘not eating’ (whereas in 10.34.5, shortly before Lucius’ retransformation, it is used of sexual abstinence). It is used in a similar way in Met. 11.19.3 for Lucius’ initiation into the Isis cult, where he worries about the difficulty of abstaining from certain foods (but not all
218 Commentary foods!) and sexual encounters. Although not for Lucius in Met. 1, abstinentia is generally a positively charged word, especially in De Platone, where it is associated with pudicitia and patientia (‘modesty’ and ‘patience’) and the opposite of cupido and desiderium (‘longing’ and ‘desire’; PI. 2.3 (224); 2.6 (229); 2.20 (247); 2.21 (250)). Lucius sees himself as a ‘good reader’ {cognitor) of Milo’s character {OLD la; cf. Socr. 16 (156), where the daimon is the individual’s most intimate cognitor). He plays along with Milo, trying to live up to the parsimonious host’s expectations by being abstemious himself in order to flatter him, and thinks that he will not get dinner anyway. Lucius continues to use expressions which can be interpreted either positively or negatively, cf. on 1.4.6; this is at variance with what Lucius really feels about Milo, whom he finally calls ‘rancid’ (below). courteous excuse: Lucius is smoothly polite. See on 1.17.6 for the variety of meanings of comiter, 1.24.5 for a similar use to here. discomfort of my journey: Lucius uses vexatio twice in 1.26 to describe the exhaustion caused by his travels, see 1.26.6. In 4.17 the robber pretending to be a bear is allegedly tired from the ‘vexations’ of his journey. not with food but with sleep: The obvious contrast to the story of Aristomenes and Socrates with its stress on eating, drinking and sleeping (Keulen 2007,455) may raise concern about Lucius’ fate in Hypata. Cf. the repetition of the phrase in 1.26.7. 26.2 When he heard this, he came himself, put his right hand in mine and began to drag me along gently: Photis relays Lucius’ refusal, and Milo himself shows up to press Lucius into attending his dinner party. Both Lucius and Milo are polite on the surface; ‘gently’ {clementer) here corresponds with Lucius’ previous ‘courteously’ {comiter), but Milo’s pulling along of Lucius becomes typical: cf. 3.10.3 (iniecta manu ... dementi violentia, ‘with gentle force’) and 3.12.5, where Milo gently manhandles Lucius away after the Risus festival. For Aristomenes taking Socrates by the hand twice see 1.6.5 and 1.17.7. The gestures in either case show that Milo and Aristomenes are dominant. For adorior with infinitive ‘to set to work’ see OLD 3b. while I hesitated, and while 1 resisted modestly: The anaphora and increasing lengths of the cola intensify the polite struggle between the two. For a similar repetition of dum, although with participles, cf. 9.32.2, where it enhances the contrast between a hard-working gardener and the leasurely donkey. 263 I was now obeying his stubbornness against my will: Lucius’ obedience to Milo stresses the power imbalance between them, turning Lucius less into an honoured guest than into a client, or worse, the parasite who has to suffer abuse from his patron in order to get a meal. Lucius as donkey is called a parasite in 10.17, where he also has to ‘obey’ his patron. In Onos, Loukios and Hipparchos share a good meal and sweet old wine, the situation in Apuleius is thus deliberately more farcical and stresses Lucius’ lack of success. Obstinatio ‘stubbornness’ is found only in prose, e.g. elsewhere in Apuleius in 2.20.6 (Thelyphron is ‘confused by everyone’s stubbornness’, in a similar context of persuasion used to keep him
Commentary 219 attending a dinner party and entertaining everyone with his story) and 10.26.5 (of a murderess, with strongly negative connotations). Lucius cannot resist the combination of physical force and verbal persuasion. Obstinatio, too, recalls the introduction of Aristomenes’ story; in 1.3.2 and 20.1 Aristomenes’ unnamed travel companion is twice called ‘obstinate’. that cot of his: Readers, recalling Aristomenes’ story, are meant to anticipate the worst. Is our friend Demeas in good health?: Questioning the visitor is natural, but subject to the rules of hospitality. Milo breaks these, as he does not allow reciprocity or exchange of information, but one-sidedly interrogates his guest (introd. §6.1). For the only other instance of the question in Latin cf. Apol. 44.7 (sarcastic enquiries about a sick slave-boy’s health). How is his wife? How are the children? How are the slaves?: The order of Milo’s questions, from wife down to slaves, suggests an inappropriately intrusive interrogation, reaching even down to the lowly members of Demeas’ household. There is no indication that the household slaves were very dear to Demeas, a rich old man with several slaves like Menander’s Demeas in Sarnia; but, though vernae are often close to the family, as slaves bom as part of the household, it is not necessarily the case that Milo (or Lucius) had any close or friendly encounters with them (Avila Vasconcelos 2009, 137). Their inclusion in Milo’s conversation, instead, shows the rude intrusiveness of the questions. The move from the inner circle to the periphery of acquaintances continues in the following sentence, and reaches its climax with the provincial governor (praeses), the person whose position is most remote from Demeas. Anaphora of quid is one of Apuleius’ favourite rhetorical devices in his speeches for heightened rhetoric and emotional intensity: examples include Apol. 46, 79, 102; FI. 3; Met. 4.34.3, 10.2.7, 11.15.3. Here Milo’s questions lack verbs, indicating their curt insistence. Keulen 2007,458 suggests that the fact that Demeas is married with children, whereas Milo is apparently childless, may indicate the reason why Lucius moves on from Demeas to Milo: as a legacy hunter wishing to ingratiate himself with the rich patron in hope for future money. But there is no evidence that Lucius is driven by primarily financial motifs throughout the novel, and his gullibility and naivety make any kind of planning of this kind unlikely. I told him each single thing: Lucius is an obliging entertainer, although he still does not get his part of the bargain, a meal. For similar phrases cf. Met. 8.14.1; Ovid Ep. 6.39; Pliny Nat. 35.23; Quintilian Inst. 4.286. 26.4 the reasons for my journey: Again we do not hear what Lucius’ business and reasons for travel are. Compare 1.7.7 for a similar scene of bad hospitality, where Meroe questions Socrates about the reasons for his own journey and then detains him. 26.5 when I had run through these properly: Lucius’ replies seem to clarify the purpose of his travels for Milo at least, while Lucius the narrator still does not give away to the reader any information about his background and connections to Demeas.
220 Commentary he then enquired about my country and its leading citizens, and finally about its governor: A variant on the anaphora of the previous sentence. This time Milo widens his enquiry from Demeas’ family to all people of his own rank (cf. 1.21.3, where Milo is one of the primores of Hypata). Finally, the climax of Milo’s questioning is the person whose position is most remote from Demeas. The governor is also evoked in 9.39.5, where praeses is a rather unspecific term for the proconsuls and imperial legates in charge of a province. Since Tacitus Ann. 6.41 it indicates the governor of a province. Milo’s question makes it clear that in the second century Thessaly belongs to the province of Macedonia (Bowersock 1965,282), and that he is here asking about the governor of Achaea, who is placed in Corinth in 10.23.2 and 28.3. in most minute detail: For scrupulosissime in Apuleius cf. Apol. 26.8; Met. 5.8, 9.42, 10.16. The adjective also appears in 3.3.5 and 9.30.1 (the reader is ‘attentive to detail’, scrupulosus). 26.6 he realised: Lucius, dropping off to sleep and incapable of giving coherent answers, has ceased to be a source of entertainment and intelligence to Milo, who finally allows him to go to bed. after the discomfort of such a cruel journey: See above on 1.26.1. 1 was also tired out by the string of stories: Met. 1 begins (1.1.1) and ends on this image of a series of stories stitched together. In 2.15.1 Lucius has learned his lesson: desperate to meet up with Photis and resenting Milo’s relentless string of tales, he feigns to be still exhausted because of his journey, and retires to his room. The choice of similar words links the events: Milo wants a repeat performance, this time with Lucius listening, but is unsuccessful. Lucius’ exhaustion here will be repeated many times throughout Met.: somnolentus ‘sleepy’ is first found in Apuleius, also in 8.12.5 and 10.26.6; defectus ‘weakened’ is often, though not exclusively, used of Lucius (4.4.2; 9.12.1) and his alter ego Psyche (5.22 (twice), 5.25.4; 6.1.2). stopped talking in the middle of my words, and in my weakness was vainly prattling vague fragments of words: Lucius, so far good with words, is now reduced to a haltering stammer, too incoherent and tired to imitate and use the word games that have characterised him throughout Met. 1. finally he let me go to sleep: Again this is a possible inversion of Homeric hospitality, where the quality of the provision of food and entertainment is usually so generous that a guest reminds his host of the time to go to bed (e.g. in Od. 3.333L Athena-Mentor needs to remind Nestor; Reece 1993, 31). The phrase is Apuleian, cf. Met. 2.15.3, 3.13.1 and 5.4.1. 26.7 that rancid old man’s: Lucius is still inspired by the old woman’s initial negative description of Milo in 1.21. Lucius here criticises Milo’s lack of proper hospitality, a possible inversion of the customary blessing. In a comic dimension, Lucius as parasite expresses secretly to his reader/audience what he really thinks about his host while still being outwardly nice to him; compare the revealing
Commentary 221 deprecatory asides to the audience by the parasite Artotrogus while flattering his master Pyrgopolynices in Plautus Mil. 19-24. chatty and starving dinner party: It seems that Milo will eventually take up his responsibilities as a host and feed Lucius. Roman satire often describes a dinner party gone wrong (e.g. Horace S. 2.8, the Dinner of Nasidienus) but associates boorish dinner hosts with providing too much and pretentious food (cf. Petronius’ Dinner ofTrimalchio). The absence of food, however, especially for a disappointed parasite out for a free meal, is a motif from comedy (May 1998; 2006,143^-156). In the mirror scene in 2.15 Milo will do the all talking, receiving Lucius’ criticism for it, but here loquax ‘chatty’ refers less to Milo who asks shortish questions than to Lucius who unwillingly has to provide detailed answers. weighed down with sleep not food: This repeats the phrase Lucius uses before this story-telling session (1.26.1); the ring composition stresses that Milo’s hospitality has gained Lucius precisely nothing. Loukios in Onos 3.3, however, enjoys a meal with good wine, which makes this change and addition by Apuleius even more striking. The phrase is unique, though somno gravatus is found in epic (Vergil A. 6.520 (Deiphobus), Ovid Met. 5.658, Valerius Flaccus 2.568) and prose (Livy 25.24.6 vino somnoque; Pliny Nat. 10.137; 33.27; 33.156), and for cibo gravatus cf. Livy 1.7.5. Lucius' fate will thus be different from Socrates’, who ate well but slept badly, see also 1.18.4 for people that are ‘swollen with food’ (cibo ... distentos) sleeping badly. having dined on stories alone: Lucius’ pursuit throughout Met. 1 has been to get a decent dinner. He has not managed this, and goes to bed hungry (introd. §6.2). Fabulis may be a pun on fabuli (beans) and fabulae (stories), a good Plautine joke (Keulen 2007, 26), cf. Plautus Poen. 8 ‘you who haven’t eaten, eat your fill of stories/beans’ (saturifitefabulis), where the play itself becomes the food for Plautus’ audience, thus recalling a Plautine prologue at the end of a book in Met. Note the ring composition with the repeat of the prologue’s fabula in the last sentence of Met. 1. Talking is no longer an adequate substitute for food, as it had previously been for Lucius, e.g. when he climbed the hills to Hypata on his ears (1.20.6). I returned to my bedroom and surrendered myself to my desired sleep: His retiring turns out to be much less straightforward than Lucius describes here. He fills in more details in 2.6: Photis took him to his room, tucked him in and flirtatiously kissed him good night. Although he is too tired to respond, he will recall her attentions later when they become useful, and when it is narratologicaliy appropriate to mention them, i.e. after his decision to seduce Photis. Given his exhausted state, the description in 2.6 unsurprisingly indicates a certain one-sidedness to Photis* flirtation.
INDEX adynata 27, 34, 66-67, 72-73, 105-107; 135 Apologia 1, 36 apparent death 4, 5, 7, 32, 94, 110, 157, 173,185 Apuleius, life 1,33,36,122-123, 139 archaism 3,6,41-43 Aristomenes 10, 22, 31-32, 64-65, 104, 117-119, 124, 149,168,188-189 Aristomenes, name 124,154 Aristomenes, story 8-10, 14-18,68-85 bathing 19,68-71, 86-89,116,120,126- 127,144,207-209,216-217 burial 39-tO, 84-85,122,157, 188 comedy 4, 7, 21, 23-25, 42^*3, 95, 99, 101,104,108,110-111,115,118-120, 124-125, 127-128, 133, 135-136, 140-141, 145-146, 149, 152, 156, 170, 175, 177, 193-200, 208-210, 213-216,221 cosmic magic 37, 66-67, 72-73, 132, 134-136; 142 Cupid and Psyche 6, 11-12, 34, 49, 92, 99,113,176,191 curiosity 11,16,22,64-65,76-77,79-80, 99,104-105,150,155-156, 174 De Deo Socratis 97-98,177 Demeas 8, 19, 84-87, 90-91, 197, 200, 202,204,219 donkey 11, 21, 24, 46, 97-98, 104, 108, 110,156 doorkeeper 78-81,165-167, 172-173 dream 82-83, 151,174, 179-181 Egypt 13-14,24, 34,64-65,93-94 epic 6-7, 18-19, 101-102, 107, 112, 118, 124, 128,131,135,151,153-154,157, 167, 170,178-179,181-182,185,194, 214,220-221 Ethiopia 33,72-3, 94, 130, 136 eyewitness, reliability of 21,27, 112,117, 136-137,142,154,158,162-164,170, 174, 178, 185 Festival of Laughter, see Risus festival fish 21, 35, 39, 88-9, 119, 159, 207, 209- 210,213-216 food 10, 17, 19-21, 35, 47, 66-7, 70-1, 82-3, 88-91, 103, 110-111, 114-115, 118-119,127,130,180,182-183,185, 201-202,208,215-218,221 foreshadowing 10, 16, 35, 110, 113, 126— 127,131-132,150,162,168,172-173, 196 foreshadowing see also mirror scenes Fortuna 10, 35-36, 67-71, 80-81, 126- 127, 132 Gellius 3,42 ghosts 12,39-40,68-69,72-73,123,147, 157, 184, 187 horse 19-21, 24, 64-65, 88-89, 98, 102- 103, 128,192,209 hospitality 18-20, 126-128, 130, 144, 153-154, 194, 198, 200, 202-203, 205-207,211,214,217,219-221 inset tales 14-18,27,92,104, 116, 191 Isis 10, 13-14, 20, 24, 30, 33-36, 106, 114,130, 133, 135, 151, 181,216 Lamia 80-1, 139, 176 locus amoenus 32,144,183,186-187,194 loss of home 122, 133 Loukios 8,15.100,104, 118 Lucius, character 5, 16-17, 21-22, 25, 27-30, 32, 45, 95-96, 100, 105, 109- 111, 125, 190, 204,216, 220 Lucius, name 206, 211 magic 11, 17, 28, 36-41, 66-7, 105-108, 133, 136, 151, 157, 160, 179
Index 223 medicine 111, 114, 131, 139-140, 157- 158, 161,179-180, 187 Meroe 14, 16, 18, 33-34, 37-38, 40-43, 70-71, 74-79, 94, 106, 121, 125-126, 130-143, 145, 148, 151-157, 168, 176, 188, 194 Meroe, name 30, 31, 33, 94, 129, 136, 156 Metamorphoseis 8, 15-16, 94, 96,118 metamorphosis 11, 14-15, 24-26, 36,41, 94, 98, 110, 121-122, 125, 129, 137- 140, 148, 150, 177, 199,215 Milesian Tales 5-6,14,24,44,64-65,92 Miller’s wife 12,37,40, 123,127, 170 Milo 8, 10-12, 18-20, 84-91, 102, 104, 132,144,146,151,154,190,192-197, 201,204-208,217-218 mime 5, 7, 125, 136, 148, 150, 154, 166, 169, 172,214 mirror scenes 9,18,43,172 necromancy 18, 37-38, 41, 74-5, 119, 135,141-142,147,174 Odysseus 15, 18-19, 76-77, 107, 123, 125, 130-131, 135, 142, 153-154 Onos 8, 15, 46, 100-101, 103, 118, 194- 195, 199-206,209,218 Pamphile 10-11, 34, 36-37, 39, 41, 84- 87, 95, 104, 106-107, 118, 130-132, 134-135, 137, 142, 144, 151, 155, 171, 194, 197, 201,203,206 pantomime 13,29, 114-115, 130,143 paraklausithyron 148,166 Petronius 4-6, 19, 106, 172, 194, 214 Photis 8,10-11.14,16,19,37,39,84-87, 90-91, 94, 101, 106, 130, 132-133, 139, 143, 147, 151, 156, 166-167, 176, 190, 196-200, 208,221 Photis, name 206 Plato 2, 25-27, 30-33, 93, 100, 104, 120, 122, 124, 126, 159, 183,186,194 Plutarch 15, 22, 26-29, 33, 36, 64-65, 100, 109, 111, 126-127, 150,200 prologue 4,6,9-10,23-26,44-45,64-65, 92-99, 112, 144, 191 Pythias 21, 28-29, 35, 88-89, 210, 212- 213,216 reader, first vs second time 10, 13,24-26, 30,34,40,99,106,115,134,183,190, 199 reception 44-49 revenants see ghosts Risus festival 10-11, 117,196 Rome 1,5, 13, 33,96-97, 101-102, 122- 123,126,180,189,194,201,209-210, 212-213,215-216 sacrifice 38-39, 76-77, 157-158 Sextus 26-29,64-5,100,112 slaves 101,132, 162, 197,199,205,219 Socrates, character 10, 15, 17, 31-33, 38-39,45, 68-85, 120-121, 125-126, 152-153,167 Socrates, name 182 Socrates, philosopher 30-33, 122, 124— 126 spectacle 17,68-71,105,125,128-129 spells 36-37, 74-75, 106-107, 138, 140, 142,160-161, 166,173 sponge 76-77, 82-83, 151, 159, 179, 186-187 style 3,41-43,46,98 suicide 22-23,80-81, 169-171 Thelyphron 10, 17, 38, 146, 172-173, 175 Thessaly 10,21,28,31,38,4<M1,64-65, 68-69, 88-89, 97-99, 100-102, 107, 117, 119,128-129 tortoise 66-7,94, 149-150,154 tragedy 7, 35,42-43, 120, 123-125, 128, 135-136, 141, 149, 155-156, 169, 178, 184 Underworld 11, 32, 34-35, 96, 72-73, 78-81, 106, 111, 123-124, 135, 150, 168, 170-171, 173,183,185 witchcraft 22, 26, 44, 48-49, 100, 106- 107,133-134,140-143,146,197 witches 10-12,14,16-17,33,39-40,72- 73,106.129,147,180, 184
Aris & Phillips Classical Texts Apuleius: Metamorphoses or the Golden Ass: Book 1 Apuleius' Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass, our first complete Latin novel, tells the story of Lucius, a young man turned into a donkey by magic because of his unfettered curiosity. After many adventures he is finally saved by the goddess Isis, whose follower he becomes. The famous first book of the novel introduces the protagonist’s character, his interest in magic and his gullibility, but also important themes of the novel such as metamorphosis from man into beast. Lucius listens to stories about magic and witchcraft told to him on his journey to ancient Thessaly and narrates them to the reader. A substantial part of the first book accordingly concentrates on the self- contained tale about a certain Socrates and his unhappy experiences with murderous Thessalian witches. Apuleius himself had been put on trial for allegedly using erotic magic to make his future wife fall in love with him, a theme which also appears in Metamorphoses 1. Throughout the novel, Apuleius portrays Lucius as an unreliable first person narrator and thus implicates the reader of the novel in the same character fault that drives its protagonist: curiosity. This new edition of Book 1 presents the Latin text with a modem translation, substantial introduction and accompanying notes. Regine May is Lecturer in Latin Literature in the Department of Classics at the University erf- Leeds and the author of Apuleius and Drama: The Ass on Stage (Oxford 2006) and numerous articles on Apuleius and the ancient novels. Further titles in the Arts & Phillips Classical Texts series include: Ovid: Amores II (Booth) Ovid: Metamorphoses (four volumes) (Hill) Longus: Daphnis and Chloe (Morgan) Lucian: A Selection (McLeod) Augustine: De Civitate Dei (multi-volume) (Walsh) Plutarch: Malice of Herodotos (Bowen) Plutarch: Life of Cicero (Moles) Propertius: Book I (Baker) Seneca: Four Dialogues (Costa) Seneca: 17 Letters (Costa) For fitrther information on other books in the Aris & Phillips Classical Texts series, please consult our website www.oxbowbooks.com