Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)

Born around 124–125 in Madauros, a Roman colony in Numidia, Apuleius studied in Carthage, Athens and Rome. Around 158–159, at Sabratha, relatives of his wealthy wife Pudentilla accused him of having won her by magic; his speech in his own defence before the proconsul Claudius Maximus survives as the Apologia. He then settled in Carthage, where he became a celebrated orator and a priest, and the city honoured him with statues.

The eleven books of the Metamorphoses follow Lucius, whose curiosity about magic ends in his transformation into an ass; after many adventures the goddess Isis restores his human form, and he is initiated into her mysteries. Among the tales inserted into the story is that of Cupid and Psyche. The plot comes from a lost Greek work attributed to Lucius of Patrae; a shorter version, Lucius or the Ass, survives among the works of Lucian, though his authorship is disputed and its author is often called Pseudo-Lucian. Saint Augustine already called the novel The Golden Ass.

The date is disputed: some scholars see the novel as an early work written before the Apologia, others as the summit of Apuleius’ career in the 170s or 180s.