Lucius Apuleius – The Magician of Latin Literature
Lucius Apuleius, a writer from the 2nd century AD, is one of the most influential and underrated authors of all time. His influence extends to writers such as Boccaccio, Shakespeare, Carlo Collodi, Kafka, Thomas Mann, Alberto Savinio, C.S. Lewis, painters like Botticelli, Raphael, Correggio, dramatists like Dario Fo, comic artists like Milo Manara, and has inspired numerous film and animated adaptations. Despite this, most people have never heard of him, and even fewer have read his most famous work, The Metamorphoses—the only fully preserved Roman novel written in Latin. There are several reasons for this. Fundamentally, medieval culture distanced itself from classical themes, deeming them unworthy of representation due to their origin in polytheistic culture and the content itself, which was often unacceptable and incomprehensible to the medieval mind. Not least among these reasons is the fact that Apuleius was a magician.
Now, I may be accused of theatricality once again, but what else can be said about a man who was accused of using magic to seduce a wealthy widow, defended himself with brilliant philosophical reasoning, and then went on to write a novel about magic in which the protagonist transforms into a donkey due to the use of the wrong witch’s ointment? Whether you believe in magic or not, the fact remains that Apuleius was an initiate of many ancient cults and mysteries. His aforementioned work, The Metamorphoses, concludes with the protagonist’s initiation into the cults of the goddess Isis and the god Osiris. For this reason, the author was labeled by Saint Augustine, an important figure in early Christianity, as a worshipper of demons, and both his name and works were archived in the “undesirable” section throughout the Middle Ages.
Augustine’s attack on Apuleius was not so much due to his famous defense against accusations of magic—Pro de se magia liber, translated in our region as “On Magic”—but rather motivated by Apuleius’ fame in the ancient world. News of the magician Apuleius spread widely after the trial, making him a celebrated figure up until the early 4th century, when the establishment of Christianity erased him from collective memory. During his lifetime, Apuleius was already a popular orator, entertaining the masses with his sharp wit, and he enjoyed equal popularity as a writer (De deo Socratis, De Platone et eius dogmate, De mundo, Florida). From his defense text, we know that he was exceptionally attractive, as his accuser cited his charm and beauty as proof of his involvement in magical practices. When you add these accusations, which he successfully and eloquently refuted, to his already charismatic and educated persona, it’s clear why a myth formed around him, turning him into something of an ancient superstar.
The novel The Metamorphoses, popularly known as The Golden Ass, was pivotal in solidifying Apuleius’ fame as a magician. I first encountered this work purely by chance when I was assigned it in Latin class during high school. While my peers were reading Livy, Seneca, Caesar, and other Roman authors, I was traveling on the back of a donkey. I don’t mean to undermine those authors, but a high school mind is much more entertained by descriptions of physical and sexual adventures, the main themes of the Hellenistic novel to which The Golden Ass belongs. The term “Hellenistic novel” is actually inappropriate, as the term roman originated in the Middle Ages to describe works written in one of the Romance languages. Apuleius himself referred to his work as a “Milesian tale,” revealing that the story was not his own invention but rather a reworking of an existing Greek fable (of which a Greek version has survived, translated into Croatian as Lucius or the Ass).
Reading a translation is a challenging task, especially when the author’s writing style is filled with linguistic playfulness and untranslatable puns. I realized much later, after encountering various critical editions of the Latin text (Lara Nicolini, Alessandro Fo), how untranslatable Apuleius truly is. According to his Neoplatonic beliefs—Apuleius considered himself a philosophus neoplatonicus—every term in the work was carefully chosen so that each word contained the essence of its meaning. The book is full of linguistic puzzles and wordplay, while personal names, in accordance with the saying nomen est omen, contain the key to the psychological and narrative functions of the characters. For instance, it’s no coincidence that young Lucius, the protagonist, experiences carnal love with a maid named Photis (derived from the Latin futuere—a euphemism for “making love”). The masterful translation by Albin Vilhar from 1964, which introduced me to the mysteries of Apuleius, remains the only rendition of this novel in our language (with multiple reprints by various publishers, most recently by Dereta in 2011). The cover may change, but Vilhar remains irreplaceable. And so, I fell in love with a donkey.
Let me try to spoil the novel for you in the briefest terms. The protagonist, Lucius, travels to Thessaly for business, where he stays with a friend and becomes acquainted with the pleasures of the flesh with the maid Photis, who confides that her mistress is a witch. Curious, he spies on the witch, who transforms into a bird using an ointment and flies out the window. Lucius sneaks into her room and applies the wrong ointment, transforming into a donkey.
From that moment, his unpleasant adventures begin as thieves break into the house and load their loot onto his back. What follows are descriptions of his captivity, escape, encounters with various human characters, occasional descriptions of his passions (even in animal form—if you find this obscene, I don’t recommend Petronius’ Satyricon, the only other Latin novel preserved, albeit in fragmentary form), and his eventual return to human form through the mercy of the goddess Isis.
The essence of the story is a symbolic journey of the human soul from its primitive forms, leading to its transformation into higher forms of existence through various encounters, experiences, and adventures. The protagonist’s troubles begin with his curiosity, curiositas, both for magical knowledge and for carnal pleasures with Photis. As a result, he transforms into a lower, animal form. As a true Neoplatonist, Apuleius believed in different levels of consciousness, magic, love, and existence. At the start of the book, Lucius engages in the lowest, vulgar forms of magic and love, but by the end, he understands divine love and undergoes initiation into divine mysteries. This Neoplatonic complexity is what earned the work attention and popularity during the Renaissance and ensured its survival to this day.
The humanist movement saw the revival of Platonic philosophy in Italy, spearheaded by Gemistus Pletho, who brought his version of Platonic teachings to Florence. This mystical and esoteric interpretation of Platonism, influenced by other philosophical-religious teachings like Zoroastrianism, greatly impressed Cosimo de’ Medici, who founded the Platonic Academy in Florence as a result. Italian humanists believed that works like The Golden Ass contained hidden occult knowledge to be unlocked through careful analysis and continuous education. During the Renaissance, many believed that ancient hieroglyphs held secret knowledge, a pseudoscience known as hieroglyphics. Renaissance thinkers saw the rediscovery of ancient texts like The Golden Ass as reconnecting them with the lost wisdom of a superior past.
To be continued…
References:
Apuleius, The Golden Ass, edited by Albin Vilhar, Novo pokoljenje, Belgrade, 1954.
Apuleius, La magia, edited by Claudio Moreschini, BUR Rizzoli, 2011.
Apuleius, Le Metamorfosi o L’Asino d’oro, edited by Alessandro Fo, Einaudi, Turin, 2015.
Riccardo Bruscagli, Il Quattrocento e il Cinquecento, in Storia della letteratura italiana vol. 2, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2015.
Luisa Vertova, Cupid and Psyche in Renaissance Painting before Raphael, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 42, 1979.