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APULEIUS
cile their philosophy with the religious ideas of the Egyptians, and Plutarch's
De Iside et Osiride is the most valuable testimony of this.
This treatise explains how and why the cult of Isis and Osiris is worthy of
the Platonist's adhesion, and Apuleius' acceptance of the thesis is manifest in
both Apology and Florida. It also offers a clue to the Platonist—Isiac interpretation
of the ass-story, •which probably originated in Egypt. Plutarch explains
that in the dualistic system of Egyptian belief the ass resembles and is controlled
by the Satanic principle of evil, Typhon. When Lucius is turned into
an ass through magical practices he passes into the dominion of Typhon; and
the completely new climax introduced to the novel, by which Apuleius following
the example of Xenophon of Ephesus introduces the saving hand of Isis,
provides an appropriate deliverance for an asinine Lucius enslaved by Typhon.
How far should this Platonist—Isiac interpretation be pressed? The romance
begins with the request of Lucius to the reader ' not to disdain to inspect the
Egyptian papyrus inscribed with the subtlety of the Nile reed', and this statement
certainly invites symbolic interpretation. But two controlling factors
counsel against excesses. The first is the fact that Apuleius follows closely the
Graecanica fabula, which militates against detailed allegory; secondly, he
writes for a lay readership immune from arcane allusion. The main lines of the
story could be profitably exploited by the Middle Platonist. In addition to
Isiac interpretation of the donkey's career, there is the condemnation of
magical practices which becomes more comprehensible in the light of the theory
of demonology outlined in De deo Socratis, and the animadversions on lust
and greed which reflect a central preoccupation of Plato. Moreover, details
and motifs introduced into the romance indicate Platonist—Isiac connexions,
as when the Egyptian priest Zatchlas appears in the Thelyphron story, or again
when Lucius' horse Candidus, implicitly contrasted with the tawny ass of
Typhon and evoking the white steed of the tripartite soul in the Phaedrus,
turns up quite superfluously in the final book. But to interpret the whole
romance as a coded aretalogy strains all credibility. Photis is a most improbable
' mystagogic-allegorical figure' antithetic to the true light of Isis; and again the
aedile Pythias' command to the vendor to jump on Lucius' fish in the market
seems impossibly recondite as an indication of a religious attitude. Similarly
the story of Psyche can be generally accepted as Platonist allegory of the progress
of the soul, with allusions to the Isiac initiation in the final book, but the
suggestion that every detail is invested with mystological significance fails to
persuade because the folk-tale cannot sustain such a close-knit interpretation,
and even if it could Apuleius' intended readers would have failed to comprehend it.
The characterization in the novel firmly subserves its purpose. Lucius
inevitably has a static role. As a man he learns nothing, and becomes an ass;
as an ass he evinces no moral progress (how could he?), and his rescue is
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