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APULEIUS OF MADAUROS*

© 2003, Bruce J. MacLennan

I would tell if it were permitted to tell; you would know if it were permitted to hear.
— Apuleius (Met. XI.23)

Biography
Platonic philosopher, popular orator, author of a risqué novel, accused sorcerer:
what are we to make of Apuleius? He was born about 125 CE in Madauros
(modern M’daurouch, in Algeria), a thriving, multicultural Roman colony. His
family was prosperous and his father was the chief magistrate of the colony.
Punic was probably his first language, but his family was deeply immersed in
Roman culture and he became proficient in both Latin and Greek. He received a
thorough education at Carthage, Rome, and Athens, and after extensive travels
returned to Carthage to become a popular philosophical orator, a well-respected
citizen, and high priest of the imperial cult; statues were erected in his honor. He
was a major figure in the revival of Greek literary culture known as the Second
Sophistic, and some of his rhetorical gems are collected in his Florida (Literary
Flowers). He died some time after 170 CE. In addition to his novel, he wrote
music, hymns, poetry, satire, erotica, fiction, and treatises on Platonic
philosophy, mathematics, music, astronomy, medicine, history, botany, and
zoology, only a few of which survive. His insatiable curiosity, especially about
religion, mythology, mysticism, and magic, occasionally got him into trouble.

Prosecution for Magic


When Apuleius had completed his stay in Athens, about 156 CE, and was on his
way to visit Alexandria, he was introduced to Pudentilla, a wealthy widow
somewhat older than himself, and they married. Some of her relatives, who
were probably afraid of losing control of her money, brought a charge of sorcery
against Apuleius, alleging that he had seduced Pudentilla by magic. This was a
serious charge, for sorcery was punishable by death.
Apparently he was acquitted, and his Defense (Apologia) is a valuable source of
information about ancient magical practices for, ironically, in the process of his
defense he displays considerable knowledge of magic. (Indeed, Defense is a
comparatively recent title; all the manuscripts call it some variant of On Magic.)
He says that he is a philosopher, and that philosophers and magicians engage in
superficially similar practices (e.g. collecting plants and animals), but for
different purposes. He ridicules his accusers for their ignorance of philosophy
and for their impious confusion of religious ritual with magic. Overall, it is a
masterful rhetorical display (perhaps thanks to some rewriting after the trial).
He was acquitted, but was he guilty? As his Defense argues, he had little need of
love spells to win Pudentilla, but that does not prove that he did not practice

* To appear in Meet the Philosophers of Ancient Greece (tentative title), ed. P.


O’Grady.
magic. (St. Augustine considered Apuleius and Apollonius of Tyana to be
“threats to the faith” because they were reputed to have performed miracles
comparable to Christ’s.) He is also generally credited with translating and
adapting the Asclepius, a well-known Hermetic text. In particular, it is not
implausible that Apuleius practiced theurgy: ritual techniques for union with the
gods, which were popular with later Platonists and can be traced to his time.
Theurgical and magical techniques are superficially similar, for they both depend
on symbolic associations and make use of objects, incantations, etc. for their
symbolic value.

The Metamorphoses
Apuleius is most famous for his Metamorphoses (Transformations), better known as
The Golden Ass, which has come down to us through a single eleventh-century
manuscript. In a first-person account the hero Lucius tells how, by dabbling in
magic, he was accidentally transformed into a jackass, and about his subsequent
(often ribald) adventures and eventual salvation. The basic storyline is not
original, for we have another version, falsely attributed to Lucian; folktales of
this sort are common, and this one may have originated in Egypt. However,
Apuleius makes two significant additions to the original story.
The first is an embedded narrative, the well-known tale of Cupid and Psyche (in
origin, perhaps, a Northwest African folktale). The story begs for an allegorical
interpretation (since “Cupid” and “Psyche” mean Love and Soul), and many
have read it as a Platonic allegory of the soul’s redemption through love. For
after many trials, Psyche is raised to heaven, where Jupiter offers her a cup of
ambrosia:
“Drink, Psyche, and you will be immortal. Cupid will never leave your
embrace, and your marriage will last forever.” (VI.23)
In time, Psyche gives birth to a daughter, whom mortals call Pleasure (Voluptas).
An allegorical reading seems inevitable.
The second major change is in the last book of the novel, the so-called “Isis
book,” in which the hero repents and appeals to the goddess Isis to “restore me
to myself” (XI.2). The narrator describes a magnificent epiphany of the goddess,
in which she says:
“Behold, Lucius, I am present, moved by thy prayers, I, Nature’s mother,
mistress of all the elements, the first-begotten offspring of the ages,
mightiest of deities…” (XI.5)
Upon restoration of his humanity, Lucius decides to become an initiate in the
mysteries of Isis, after which he addresses to the goddess a beautiful prayer,
which begins:
“Thou, O holy and perpetual savior of the human race, ever bountifully
cherishing mortals, dost apply the sweet affection of a mother to the
misfortunes of the miserable. Nor is there any day or night, or even a
slender moment, which passes unattended by thy blessings.” (XI.25)
Later he was initiated also into the mysteries of her consort, the god Osiris.
The Isis book is suffused with a genuine piety, which contrasts with the wittier
and more superficial tone of the earlier books (except “Cupid and Psyche”).
Nevertheless, the entire novel has been read as a Platonic allegory of the
transformation of the soul and its salvation from the miseries of an
unenlightened life. Even it bawdy parts have been explained as a purification
intended to relieve the soul of excessive lust, which is supported by the
traditional association of the ass with sexual license. Further, Apuleius says the
ass is “most hateful” to Isis, for it is associated with the god Seth-Typhon, who
killed and dismembered Osiris (later restored through Isis’ magic). Thus the
hero, through purification and sublimation of love, achieves union with Isis and
is spiritually reborn by identification with Osiris.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to say whether Apuleius intended any such
allegorical interpretation. The narrator states at the outset that his intention is to
entertain, but the true purpose may be hidden under multiple layers of irony and
intentional misdirection. Apuleius was a very sophisticated rhetorician and he
toys with his reader.
This leads to the vexed issue of whether the Metamorphoses is autobiographical.
There are many parallels between the hero Lucius and the author Apuleius.
Indeed, until recent times it was taken for granted that they were the same, and
the author was often referred to as “Lucius Apuleius.” One apparent similarity
is the unfortunate consequences of their excessive but superficial curiosity about
magic. Apuleius also drops tantalizing hints, such as when he mentions that the
hero comes from Madauros. On the other hand, there are also significant
differences, so we cannot take the novel as a source of biographical information.
Nevertheless, the real depth of feeling in the Isis book and the ritual details,
which have been confirmed from other sources, have convinced most scholars
that at least this part reflects Apuleius’ personal experience. For example, in his
Defense (sect. 55) he claims to have “learned complex rituals, many rites, and
various ceremonies out of an eagerness for truth and service to the gods.”

Platonic Philosophy
Apuleius was not an important philosophical innovator, but his philosophy is
typical of the Platonism that was taught in his time. According to his work On
Plato’s Doctrine, reality has four levels: the First God, the Ideas, the Celestial Soul,
and Matter (the unformed, featureless potential underlying everything).
The First God is the transcendent first principle, which he describes as “one,
unmeasurable, creator, attracting all things, blessed and blessing, excellent,
lacking nothing, conferring everything,” and further as “celestial, ineffable,
unnameable, not to be spoken, nameless, whose nature it is difficult to discover,
and when found cannot be enunciated to the multitude” (De Plat. I).
The Ideas are eternal forms or patterns of existence, existing outside of space and
time, conceived of as thoughts in the mind of God.
The Celestial Soul is the necessary mediator between the eternal Ideas and the
physical world, which is extended in space and changing through time. As
Nature, she governs the world (as her body) by giving the Ideas material
existence, by thinking them in time and by embodying them in space. As such,
the Celestial Soul is also the source of all individual souls, for they exist in time
and space (in individual bodies). Our individual souls have levels that reflect
those in the universe: divine spirit, mind, soul proper, and body.
An important Platonic principle is that any two opposites must be united by a
mediator. For example, the Celestial Soul unites the timeless being of the Ideas
with the continual becoming of the physical world. So also Platonists of
Apuleius’ time saw the necessity of a class of intermediate spirits, the daemons,
between the gods, who are immortal and impassive, and humans, who are
mortal but “passionate” (susceptible to emotions): daemons are immortal and
passionate. Due to their intermediate station, they are crucial as mediators
between gods and humans; they are “angels” (from a word that means
“messenger”). However, because they are subject to irrational feelings, they are
not always beneficial for humans, and might even act “demonically.”
Each person has a daemon in his or her soul: the highest, intuitive part of the
mind, the divine spark or spirit. In addition, each person is assigned a guardian
daemon, who accompanies them through life and is their advocate after death.
Apuleius describes daemons at length in his essay On the God of Socrates, which
discusses the daemon that Socrates said was his guiding spirit.
Apuleius distinguished three levels of providence. The highest is that of the First
God, by which he organizes the universe for his beneficent divine purpose. The
second, which operates within the bounds set by the first, is that of the heavenly
gods and may be identified with fate, the consequences of our birth into time and
space. The third providence is that of the daemons, who govern change and
natural processes, subject to the decrees of fate. Human free will operates within
the bounds set by providence.
Apuleius says that ethics teaches one how to live well. Virtue is a state of mind
in which one is harmonious within oneself and with others. He advocates such
classical virtues as prudence, courage, moderation, and justice, the latter
including piety (justice towards the gods). One of the most important virtues is
wisdom, which he defines as “knowledge of things divine and human” (De Plat.
II). The principal good for humans lies in knowledge and contemplation of the
Supreme Good, identified with the First God, which we may know through our
faculty of intuitive understanding (nous).
People are neither good nor evil by nature, according to Apuleius, but education
can teach people to be good, because vice is fundamentally a consequence of
ignorance. Ordinarily, perfect virtue is unattainable by humans, but a sort of
perfection is attainable by the philosophical sage, who, through contemplative
and practical devotion to the virtues, might attain, through sudden
enlightenment, a state of union with the realm of Ideas. Such a person could
expect to be deified after death:
“For the soul of the wise man, being liberated from its corporeal bonds, will
return to the gods, and in accord with the desert of a life passed in purity
and sanctity, will through this obtain a condition like that of the gods.” (De
Plat. II)
Conclusions
The 1566 Adlington translation of The Golden Ass is often reprinted, but outdated
and inaccurate and therefore to be avoided. Fortunately, good modern
translations are available, including those by Hanson (with facing Latin text),
Kenney, Walsh, and others. Unfortunately, English translations of Apuleius’
other surviving works are harder to find. The only contemporary translation of
the Defense is in a collection of Apuleius’ rhetorical works (see below). Taylor’s
somewhat dated translations of The God of Socrates and Plato’s Doctrine are bound
with his 1822 translation of The Golden Ass, which is available in a modern
edition from the Prometheus Trust.

References
Apuleius, The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura. Transl. H. E. Butler.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909.
Apuleius, Apuleius’ Golden Ass and other Philosophical Writings. Transl. Thomas
Taylor, Vol. XIV of Thomas Taylor Series. Somerset: Prometheus Trust, 1997.
Apuleius, The Golden Ass. Transl. P. G. Walsh. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.
Apuleius, The Golden Ass, or Metamorphoses. Transl. E.J. Kenney. New York:
Penguin, 1998.
Apuleius, Metamorphoses. Ed. & transl. J. Arthur Hanson (2 vols.), Loeb Classical
Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989.
Apuleius, The Rhetorical Works. Transl. & annotated by S. Harrison, J. Hilton, &
V. Hunink. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Includes the Defense and The
God of Socrates.
Apuleius, The Works of Apuleius. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1911. Includes
Metamorphoses, God of Socrates, Florida, Defense, but not Plato’s Doctrine.

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