Part 15

Some reader may now ask as Apuleius anticipated: “Who is this man?”[364] So I must refer all to my other writings about him and briefly characterize him here for the uninformed.[365] Apuleius was born about A.D. 125 in the Roman colony of Madaura where his father was a leading citizen and official. He was educated at Carthage, Athens and Rome, was certainly bi-lingual and probably tri-lingual as he must have known Punic as well as Latin and Greek. Returning to Africa, he practiced successfully the art of a sophist, giving public discourses, many of them impromptu. Specimens of these are extant in a collection of extracts from his speeches called the _Florida_. He married a wealthy widow, mother of a university friend at Athens, and was promptly sued by his in-laws for having gained her hand by magic practices. The brilliant speech in which he defended himself at Sabrata against their charges, the _Apologia_, is extant and constitutes his autobiography. St. Augustine called him a Platonist and he did indeed try to convey Plato’s ideas to his contemporaries in works on _The God of Socrates_, _Plato and his Doctrine_ and other lost writings. His fame when he was alive rested on his oratory and it was so great that he was honored by statues and made priest of Aesculapius at Carthage. But his undying glory comes from his novel, the _Metamorphoses_. The date of its composition is uncertain as indeed are most of the dates of his life. He lived from about A.D. 125 to A.D. 171, that is, in the time of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He was therefore a contemporary of Lucian and may have met him as Walter Pater imagines in _Marius the Epicurean_. What concerns us here is his novel and its relation to the Greek Romances.

The _Metamorphoses_ of Apuleius is a long story written in eleven books. It is an ego-romance with Lucius a Greek acting as narrator and hero.

“The plot is simple. The hero Lucius who is greatly interested in magic is enabled by the aid of the maid-servant of a witch to achieve transformation. But a mistake in the use of the unguents changes him not into a bird as he had planned, but into an ass. Although he knows that the antidote is a meal of roses, he is kept by Fortune from securing release through long months and meets various adventures until at last through the aid of the goddess Isis Lucius the Ass becomes again Lucius the Man.”[366]

The similarity of this plot to that of the Greek _Lucius or Ass_ is apparent at once. But its unique differences caused by diversification of anecdotes and long additions become clear as we read the narrative.

Lucius in the beginning was travelling in Thessaly riding his white horse over the high mountains when he fell in with two other travellers. One of these as they rode on together related a horrible story of how his friend Socrates saw a companion murdered by a witch. The scene of the story was set in Hypata, the very city to which Lucius was going. And the narrative of it by its effect on Lucius reveals all his credulity and curiosity about witchcraft.

Lucius was entertained at the house of Milo to whom he brought a letter of introduction and soon he learned from a relative in Hypata, named Byrrhaena, that Milo’s wife Pamphile was a witch. Hypata was full of stories of marvellous happenings and soon Lucius heard another of these thrillers at a dinner-party given by Byrrhaena. It was the story told by a guest Tlelyphron of how he watched a corpse for pay and thereby suffered mutilation of his face by a foul beldam. It was on the way home from the party that Lucius, jittery and drunk, fought his fatal battle with three bold robbers who afterwards, at his trial for murder at the Festival of Risus, god of laughter, were proved to be wine-skins!

Now Lucius was determined to investigate magic rites by personal experience so he made ardent love to Pamphile’s servant Fotis until the enamored girl consented to let him peer through a crack in the door of Pamphile’s bed-room and see her mistress transform herself into an owl. This marvel witnessed, nothing would satisfy Lucius but to attempt a similar transformation. Unfortunately Fotis gave him the wrong unguent for the necessary lubrication of his body and he became not a bird, but an ass! The careless maid swore that the antidote was simple, merely a meal of roses, and if he would quietly spend the night in the stable, in the morning she would bring him a breakfast of the flowers. Unfortunately before dawn robbers arrived, pillaged the house and stole, along with Lucius’ own horse and Milo’s ass, Lucius the ass to carry the plunder. This was the beginning of a long series of adventures for the man-ass before he could achieve re-transformation.

In the robbers’ hide-out in the mountains Lucius heard the robbers tell three fine stories of their brave chieftains. There too he saw a band of robbers bring in a captive beauty Charite and heard her piteous tale of how she was kidnapped on her wedding-night for ransom. To cheer this weeping girl the old woman who cooked for the robbers told in their absence the story of Cupid and Psyche.

An old wives’ tale she called it, but Apuleius lifted the folk-tale to the realm of the Olympian gods by making it the love romance of Venus’ son Cupid and Psyche, a mortal maid. Venus herself was the cruel step-mother who tried to separate the lovers and set all sorts of impossible tasks for Psyche. But the heroine triumphed over every task by the aid of Cupid’s minions on earth and in air. Finally the king of heaven, Jupiter himself, called Psyche to his high throne to receive the gift of immortality and summoned all the great gods and goddesses to celebrate her nuptials with the god of love himself.

This happy love romance diverted Charite only briefly, but soon her lover disguised as a robber came and rescued her and after causing the destruction of all the robber band carried her away with Lucius to safety. Charite’s story, however, unlike Psyche’s was not to end happily. For after her marriage to her Tlepolemus, a former suitor Thrasyllus because of jealousy made way with her husband in a boar hunt, pretending his death was an accident. Later when the villain was making ardent love to the widow, the shade of her husband appeared and recounted his murder at the hands of his friend. Charite by subtle plans was able to put out Thrasyllus’ eyes for vengeance and then stabbed herself over her husband’s tomb. Thrasyllus in repentance starved himself to death.

Lucius the Ass again left to the mercy of Fortune had a series of degrading adventures which tended to make him a pessimist. He witnessed the obscene orgies of a lewd band of Syrian priests. He heard four naughty Milesian Tales of corrupt women: “The Lover under the Tub,” “The Baker’s Wife,” “The Sandals under the Bed,” “The Fuller’s Wife.” These Milesian Tales of triangular sex episodes are succeeded in the novel by another group of tragic stories which stir deeper waters. The first is a record of the terrible oppression of the poor by an arrogant young nobleman and how three fine young brothers who went to the defense of the poor family lost their lives in a noble cause. Then follows a tragic story of an amorous step-mother and her attempt to poison her unresponsive step-son. And finally comes the awful narrative of five murders committed by one sadistic woman. Book Ten concludes with the plan to display Lucius the ass in obscene union with this condemned criminal at a public exhibition. To avoid this horror, Lucius ran away from Corinth to the sea-shore at Cenchreae and there found his salvation.

For lying asleep on the sea-shore that night he had a vision in the moonlight of the goddess Isis. In all her refulgent beauty she told him of herself and gave him hope. For she assured him that at the spring festival of the launching of her sacred vessel she would give him certain aid. And indeed it was at that festival in the midst of all its brilliant pageantry that the priest of Isis offered the ass a garland of roses and munching them he became man again. No wonder that after that Lucius had only one desire: to serve his savior.

Night after night he had new visions of the goddess and under the direction of her priest he fulfilled all the arduous preparations for the initiation into her rites. Finally one night left alone in her temple he was vouchsafed that mystic experience which only the elect may achieve, death, rebirth, revelation.

“I approached the borderland of death, trod the threshold of Proserpina, was borne through all the elements and returned; at midnight I saw the sun shining with a brilliant light; I approached the gods of the nether and the upper world and adored them in person near at hand.”[367]

After such exaltation Lucius consecrated himself forever to the service of Isis. Soon going to Rome he continued his worship at her temple there and by her direction was twice initiated into the mysteries of the god Osiris though the expense was great for “this poor man of Madaura.” Under the blessing of Osiris he prospered greatly as an advocate in the Roman Forum and finally under the god’s direction he was allowed to become one of the Pastophores or high-priests of the cult. So ends his metamorphosis and the novel.

Let us now return to the beginning. In the first chapter Apuleius announced that he is telling a Greek story. The main outline of his plot is indeed identical with that of the Greek _Lucius or Ass_, which as we have seen, is an epitome of the Greek _Metamorphoses_ by Lucian. Apuleius’ novel is clearly later than Lucian’s because of rich and notable additions to the plot of the epitome _Lucius or Ass_. These additions are Milesian Tales, the Cupid and Psyche story and the great eleventh book portraying the worship of Isis, who redeemed Lucius from ass to human shape.

The change in the tone of telling the whole story is significant for while the earthy character of the original folk-tale occasionally appears and there are recurrent glimpses of Lucianic wit and satire, Apuleius’ _Metamorphoses_ is neither a comic romance nor a satire as Lucian’s clearly was. Apuleius wrote a serious novel, a sort of Pilgrim’s Progress of the Ass-Man in his quest for knowledge of marvels. Whereas Lucian through satire degraded a simple folk-tale, Apuleius exalted it by making the journeyings of Lucius a search for the spiritual meaning of life. His hero walks alone. The love romance in his story, the Cupid and Psyche tale, starts with the Platonic conception of the relation of Eros and Psyche, Love and the Soul, and therefrom is lifted to the realm of the Olympian gods. And finally the retransformation of Lucius is no chance event, but a salvation wrought out by the mystic worship of Isis.

The subjectivity infused in the plot by these additions is enhanced by the fact that the hero-narrator Lucius is identified with the author, implicitly at first in the Preface and in incidental comment of author to reader; in the last book by the identification of Lucius with “the poor man of Madaura” so that the whole narrative becomes personal experience. This fact involves another difference from the structure of the Greek love romances. The action of these love romances, as Riefstahl points out,[368] is a “closed” one: in the misfortunes which threaten the lovers through Fortune, they must always remain faithful to each other and stout-hearted in order to be re-united. So the circle of the action is “closed,” for it is a great cycle in the life of the hero which places him at the end just where he was in the beginning. The action in Apuleius is “open,” for the hero is bound and pledged to nothing. He goes through his adventures with a light heart. He does not need to prove his faith to any one. He does not need to stand up to a test or even to remain true to himself. He must needs wander, but there is no set purpose in his journeyings. His sufferings are as spiritual as corporeal. He is aware too of the misery of others in the world. And in profound despair he must beg divine aid.

It is absurd to compare the plot of the whole novel with the typical pattern of the Greek love romances and Fotis with their heroines as Riefstahl does.[369] The only great human love-story in Apuleius’ main plot, that of Charite, is a tragedy. It is like the Greek Romances in being a story of high life and in this too is unique among Apuleius’ novelle. But it is utterly different from the Greek love romances in structure and tone. The only parallel to them is to be found in the inset story of Cupid and Psyche. Here the tale is of two young lovers unhappily separated by the cruelty not of Fortune but of a greater goddess, Venus herself. And only after the hard testing of one of the pair, this time the lady, are the two lovers reunited. Thus the conventional happy ending of the plot is achieved. But for the author’s philosophical mind such a beautiful story must start with a touch of Platonic symbolism in the very names of the lovers, Cupid and Psyche, and must be concluded in high heaven, for only among the immortals may such perfect happiness be won forever.

From this account of Apuleius’ _Metamorphoses_ it is already clear that his great novel is a synthesis of various types of Greek Romances. Its closest parallel is in the Greek _Lucius or Ass_, for the bare outline of the plot of the first ten books is like that of the Greek work. But all recent research tends to prove that Lucian’s original _Metamorphoses_ was satiric in character, therefore very different in tone from Apuleius’ serious work. So although they share the characteristics of a romance of adventure, with stories of magic and of robbers forming principal episodes, the motivation and the aim of the two romances are utterly different. This difference is emphasized by Apuleius’ two longest and most startling additions to the plot, the love-story of Cupid and Psyche and the story of Lucius and Isis.

Apuleius writes a love romance like the Greek only in the story of Cupid and Psyche. For the episode with Fotis is a sex-story of convenience and the Milesian Tales added to the plot of _Lucius or Ass_ carry out this Fotis-motif of sex and lechery.[370] The one long love-story of human beings, Charite’s story, is indeed a love romance of a noble lady and her noble lord, but it is a complete tragedy in episodes, tone and ending. Only the Cupid and Psyche story is the true type of Greek love romances.

The third great interest in the Greek Romances besides adventure and love was religion. To this Apuleius gave a new emphasis and a new importance. In the center of his novel in the inset story of Cupid and Psyche he pictures the old familiar Olympian gods in their conventional mythological characters, but as realistically and with as implicit a satire as Lucian used in his “Dialogues of the Gods.” Venus is a very jealous and cruel step-mother. Jupiter is a lusty, amorous, irresistible king. Cupid is at first undutiful, mischievous and wanton. The story of Lucius and Isis is, however, a serious story of a great religious experience. Through prayer, visions, priestly instruction, ceremonials, initiation and communion Apuleius becomes one with the goddess to whom he is to devote the rest of his life. The worship of Isis is pictured spiritually from the depths of experience by Apuleius who according to his own statements had actually been many times initiated in her cult.[371]

Throughout these three parts of Apuleius’ novel with their successive emphasis on adventure, love and religion, virtually all the conventional devices of the Greek Romances are employed. In the stories of adventure there are rapidly shifting scenes, though in a more limited spatial area. The Greek love romances lie according to the time of their action in the geography of the colonies of great Greece or within the boundaries of the hellenistic-oriental world from Byzantium to Egypt, from Sicily to Babylon. The action is carried out through long sea voyages, varied with storms and shipwreck. The wide world, the spatial separations are overcome only through the faithfulness of the lovers. The Ass-story takes place in narrower compass, in old Greece between Patrae, Hypata and Corinth. To Lucian’s geographical set Apuleius adds Rome. In these two versions of the Ass-story all the life of mankind is represented concretely and in close perspective. The action concerns little people living in one locality or for purposes of trade taking short journeys hither and thither on land.[372] Other conventional devices in Apuleius’ stories of adventure are the introduction as important characters of robbers and robber chieftains, narratives with emphasis on external events, descriptions like that of the robbers’ cave.

In the love-story of Charite the interest centers in a lover and his lass; both are persons in high life, both are faithful. A dream furnishes an apparition of the dead husband. But the villainy of a treacherous friend makes the story a tragedy involving murder and suicide. The story of Cupid and Psyche, true to the type of the Greek love romance, starts with a religious beginning, the worship of a mortal girl Psyche as the goddess of love; is motivated by a Greek oracle; describes at length the proving of the heroine in tasks imposed by the will of an unfriendly deity; depicts Psyche’s apparent sleep of death; and finally consummates a happy ending for the lovers through a saving god, who is Cupid the hero himself. A pastoral note which affiliates the story with _Daphnis and Chloe_ is introduced by the presence of the friendly god Pan, who acts as a wise old adviser and comforter to Psyche in her great despair. And the conventional use of _excursus_ creates a new pictorial character in brilliant descriptions of Venus charioted over the sea, of the Palace of Cupid, of Cupid asleep, of the wedding banquet of the lovers.

In the story of Lucius and Isis in Book Eleven, many of the conventional devices of the Greek Romances appear: dreams, epiphanies, religious festivals, a _dea ex machina_. So in Chariton Aphrodite and Fortune contend for the control of the lovers; in Xenophon of Ephesus Artemis and Isis are the two saving goddesses; in Heliodorus Apollo and Isis are prominent though the philosophies of the Gymnosophists and of the Neo-Pythagoreans have a share in the plot; in Achilles Tatius Artemis reigns supreme; in Longus Pan and the Nymphs guide the destinies of the young lovers. The difference in Apuleius is that the whole quest of the hero is for some meaning in life and when magic, adventure, mythology and human amours can not supply it, he finds through conversion a union with a mystic goddess who sublimates his emotion and absorbs his life into her service.

The greater subjectivity of the Apuleius’ romance as compared to the Greek Romances is attained by the aloneness of the hero, his quest and its implicit meaning, his individual satisfaction. This subjectivity is intensified by the complete adoption of the ego-narrative. Far more attention is paid by Apuleius than by the Greek romancers to the narrator and to his point of view in telling the whole romance. Achilles Tatius was afterwards to attempt the use of this device of narration in the first person, but he soon lost sight of the narrator in the narrative and even at the end he never let him reappear. Lucian adopted completely the _ich-roman_ form, but, as far as can be known, without rich characterization of the teller. Apuleius uses to the full the advantage of having a man-ass as narrator, for his composite hero has a duplex view-point of man and animal and displays a double humor, of man and beast. All this keeps the hero-narrator before our eyes and we become ever more and more interested in the effect of the events narrated on his inner life and on his final solution of life.

Riefstahl points out that in the Greek love romances there is some striving after subjectivity in the presentation of external events. The possibility of expression is not yet rich, but by soliloquies, by descriptions of emotions, by reflections on events expressed in γνῶµαι the romancers are working from objective to subjective presentation of their material. The soul is treated as an individual entity separated from the body and contrasted to it. On this foundation in the love romances rests the inner structural arch of spatial separation and spiritual fidelity. The relation of the objective and the subjective creates somehow the scale on which all these romances take their place. The love romances are at the objective end of the scale, the older ones particularly, dynamic events holding writer and reader spell-bound. In Longus a peaceful atmosphere is created because there are few exciting events, little travel, only the study of the development of love in two adolescents in a quiet pastoral setting, but the expression is not adequate. Longus senses the dual conception of Eros, in man and in nature, for the love of the two young shepherds is set in the teeming, growing life of the outer world, but he does not develop fully this subtle implication. Achilles Tatius inclines toward the subjective direction through his attempted use of the ego-narrative. But the fullest subjective treatment is found in Apuleius. In Achilles Tatius as in Apuleius, the aim of the hero is a µυστήριον but with him it is the µυστήριον of love; in Apuleius it is the _sacrorum arcana_.[373] The powerful cosmic force of love appears only in Apuleius and there it is embodied in the personality of Isis. The goddess describes herself to Lucius as “the natural mother of all things, mistress and governess of all the elements, the initial progeny of worlds, chief of the powers divine, queen of all that are in hell, the principal of them that dwell in heaven, manifested above and under one form of all the gods and goddesses.”[374]

The whole story of Apuleius pictures, according to Riefstahl, the striving of the individual towards the All. The cosmic Eros has taken the place of the ancient Greek Eros, who was a terrible power, often identified with the blind, cruel Τύχη. To this cosmic Eros Apuleius has given the name of Isis.[375] Riefstahl to be sure pushes too far his theory of an underlying philosophical content in Apuleius, representing the romance “as an artistic unit ... and as an issue of the writer’s intellectual interests and personality,” “ein künstlerisch gestaltetes Anschauungsbild der existenziellen Lebensgrundlage des Neuplatonismus.”[376] Yet he does point out astutely the fundamental difference in Apuleius which makes his _Metamorphoses_ another distinct type of romance, the subjective philosophical.

A word now in retrospect. By the end of the second century A.D., this new genre of literature, the romance, had developed to full stature. Already besides the author of the Ninus romance, Chariton, Lucian and Apuleius had written their stories, and perhaps also Xenophon of Ephesus. The different types of romance were already established: the historical romance, the love romance with its secondary interests of adventure and religion, satirical romance, the subjective philosophical romance. The pastoral was soon to be added. That is, in the second century of our era, a new type of literature was created, a type which was to be the most popular in the modern world.[377]

It is strange to find that so distinguished and perceptive an historian as Rostovtzeff in his histories of Rome does not recognize the significance for the early empire of this new literary form. In describing the second century, he writes:[378]