Apuleius' Golden Ass

Question 1

who are the main characters in Golden Ass?

Answer 1

• Lucius (narrator)
• Aristomenes (fellow traveller)
• Milo (Lucius’ host in Thessaly)
• Pamphile (wife of Melo & witch who transforms Lucius into a donkey)
• Photis (slave girl & lover of Lucius)
• Isis (Egyptian goddess who transforms Lucius back into a human)
• Charite (young woman who hears the story of Cupid & Psyche from the Old Woman)

Question 1

what are the main plot points in Golden Ass?

Answer 1

• Lucius travells to Thessaly, stays w/ Milo & falls in love w/ Photis
• Lucius asks Photis to help him try out her magic → turns into a donkey (instead of a bird)
• tells him to return to human form by eating rose petals but is kidnapped by robbers first
• bought & sold by various owners & hears many tales (Cupid & Psyche)
• looses hope of returning to human form & prays to Isis who appears to him in a vision
• Isis promises to help if he devotes himself to her cult
• Lucius eats sacred roses offered by a priest & transforms back
• Lucius joins mystery cult of Isis & is later initated into cult of Osiris

Question 2

what is the literary & historical context of Golden Ass?

Answer 2

• no secure date (no contemporary r.f.)
• not part of Second Sophistic but exists in the same world
• world looks much like 2nd c. Roman Emp. in which Apuleius lives
• Lucius/Apuleius converted to the cult of Isis
• religious work? (salvation in the cult of Isis)
• philosophical work? (lust/desire vs. wisdom, Apuleius known for writings on Plato)
• manuscript title = metamorphoses
• unique vocabulary (speaks a dialect of Latin that is local ‘African Latin’)
• Apeleius born & raised in Madura but goes to school in Carthage then Athens (rhetoric)

Question 3

what main themes of the course are reflected in Golden Ass?

Answer 3

• satire
• Milesian Tale
• fantasy?

both fantastic & contemporary