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APULEIUS
about the time of the birth of Christ. The treatise is divided into two sections.
The longer part is devoted to cosmology, beginning with an account of the
aether and descending thereafter to various aspects of earth. After a bridging
discussion on the harmony between constituent parts of the earth, the second
section is devoted to theology; God, known to men under different names
(compare the Isiac aretalogy in the final book of the Metamorphoses), animates
and preserves all things. Systematic comparison with the original reveals how
Apuleius has lent his translation a Roman flavour for his Roman audience.
There is citation of Roman as well as Greek poetry. Various concordant
aspects of city-life at Rome are adduced to exemplify the harmony in the larger
world. Beyond these cultural changes, minor divergences reveal the translator's
philosophical predilections. He stresses the higher significance of the theological
facet, claiming that God can be known only through meditation. There is more
emphasis than in the original on the concord in the world, and less on its
eternity. The distinction in the Greek between God's transcendent ousia and
his immanent dunamis is adapted to accommodate the demons of De deo
Socratis. Style and latinity occupy a position intermediate between that of
De deo Socratis and that of De Platone; occasional evocations and rhythmical
riots reveal the characteristics of the first, but the general presentation is more
akin to the sobriety of the second, perhaps lending substance to the notion
that De mundo and De Platone were composed at Rome in the 150s.
ill
It is right to treat Apuleius' novel as the climax of his work not because a late
date is indisputable (though the probabilities support composition in Africa
after 160) but because it is the most original and the most justifiably celebrated
of his writings. Augustine remarks that Apuleius called it Asinus aureus, ' The
golden ass', but the manuscript-evidence favours the title Metamorphoses.
The plural would appear inapposite if the hero-narrator Lucius did not make it
clear in the proem that the theme is transformation and restoration of' men's
shapes and fortunes'. So the title embraces not only Lucius' changes of shape
but also his changes of fortune, above all his spiritual conversion; and it makes
ancillary reference to the changes wrought in other characters like Thelyphron,
experiencing a change of countenance, and Psyche, who achieves apotheosis.
In spite of its unusual aggregate of eleven books, the romance is carefully
structured. In 1 -3 Lucius describes how he visited Thessalian Hypata, embroiled
himself in a casual affair with a slave-girl, persuaded her to assist his metamorphosis
into a bird, and was accidentally changed into an ass; this initial
section includes also Aristomenes' account of how his friend Socrates lost his
life at the hands of a witch, Thelyphron's testimony of how his rash offer to
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