An Asinine Question of Authorship: Who first authored The Golden Ass?

The Synoptic Problem of Apuleius, Lucius, and the Phantoms of Photios

The influence of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses or, as known to Augustine, “The Golden Ass”, is absolutely monumental. It is the chief inspiration for the picaresque genre, which became the novel, which now dominates literature as the form par excellence.

It also has a curious story of authorship. There exists another work, in Greek, probably authored by a pseudo-Lucian (ie. someone other than Lucian — we will discuss this later), known as “Lucius or The Ass”.

Regarding the authorship of this work, Photios, the 9th century master scholar of Greek literature, tell us of another work by a so-called “Lucius of Patrae” which is either derivative of “Lucian’s” work, or vice versa (Photios says that he can only conjecture). It has long been assumed, on this evidence, that this now lost original work was the basis for the two works which have survived. Apuleius’ version is much more detailed and sophisticated than “The Ass”, so it is assumed that “The Ass” is an abridgement of this Greek original, whereas Apuleius’ work is either a translation and/or an expansion of the original.

This theory, however, has never quite sat right with me. Apuleius’ work is a Latin masterpiece, it is the type of work which you really benefit from reading in the original. It is full of assonance, rhyming, pleasing rhetoric and style, and its vignettes are greatly evocative, most of all that of “Cupid and Psyche”. If it was a translation, it was a laborious one, as by no means could Apuleius have simply glossed each word from Greek or translated in any mechanical way. Synoptic comparison of his work with “The Ass” demonstrates that while there are a few passages with extremely close wording, Apuleius’ version is far more rich, stylized, and well-wrought — and always involving elegant Latin wordplay which would require the wholesale reworking of passages in Greek to achieve.

Lucian lived more or less contemporaneously with Apuleius. If we attribute any of these works to him, we must imagine quite a tight timeline for Apuleius to then have received the work, and then translate it so carefully, and publish a finished product (with no mention of Lucian or anyone else) before his death. He then would have to become wildly popular, as Augustine explains he was among the most well-known North Africans by the turn of the 4th century. Indeed, his likeness (and name) even found its way onto commemorative medallions which have been archaeologically recovered. In an imperial building of Constantine excavated in Trier, his likeness along with Cupid and Psyche putti seems to appear in apposition to Virgil, and around the same time a statue of him was erected at Constantinople. Constantine the Great, it would seem, was no casual fan of Apuleius.¹

Lucian has long been assumed not to be the author of “The Ass” despite his attribution on our manuscripts for a couple of reasons, chief among which is the rather sloppy Greek of “The Ass”. Scholars arguing for Lucianic scholarship (which seems very unlikely to me in light of the already discussed necessary timing with Apuleius) have said that he was certainly capable of imitating this sort of vulgar style. But if an earlier version had existed, many other scholars rightly point out that it would seem beneath Lucian to produce a shoddy abridgment of some other assumedly marvelous Greek work.²

I do not think it likely or chronologically probable that Lucian could have been the original author, as it would seem improbable for Apuleius to so swiftly translate him so elegantly and for it to never be mentioned that he did so in any of our sources. Likewise, I do not think Lucian could be the author of the abridgment because why scandalize himself with such shoddy, apparently derivative work?

Evidently, Photios was not aware of Apuleius’ work. This should raise some eyebrows, and rather hints at the stark disconnect which existed between the Greek and Latin worlds in the Early Medieval, for Apuleius was clearly of considerable fame and popularity among Latins.

The idea that Apuleius could not have written the original hinges on essentially two things which cannot be easily explained by an alternative theory: Photios’ testimony of some original, and the fact that Apuleius introduces his tale as a fabula graecanica. Nota bene this adjective graecanica. It will be helpful to bring two highly-visible (albeit one with casual readers, the other in the academe, respectively) ‘summations’ of this line of argument into view…

The first is from the introduction to M. D. McLeod’s translation and edition Lucius or The Ass in the Loeb Classical Library.

It is generally agreed that both The Ass and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses are derived from the lost work³ for the following reasons:

(1) The narratives of The Ass and of Apuleius not only are the same in outline, but have numerous verbal parallels. (Apuleius’ version differs in being fuller, digressing to tell many other tales, and by introducing autobiographical elements and favourable references to Isis and Osiris into his final chapters)

(2) Apuleius tells us (1.1) “Fabulam Graecanicam incipimus” (Attempts to show that this earlier Greek version was also by Apuleius have proved unconvincing.)

The 3rd reason given deals with how Apuleius’ work cannot be an expansion of The Ass. It is also a poorly presented argument but irrelevant for our purposes. It is worth including this bit from McLeod,

The question of the additional stories found in Apuleius is a difficult one. A few scholars allow him no originality at all except perhaps in the ending of his work, though a rather more popular view is that all the additional material came from Apuleius.

He does not specify who believes this, but the idea that we should allow Apuleius no originality at all ‘except maybe in the ending of his work’ is preposterous on its face in the absence of additional evidence. The fact that this can be put at all into print should suggest to us epistemological failure in the scholarship of “The Ass Story”.

The second is from a footnote on the second page of B.E Perry’s incredibly influential and (in)exhaustive work on the identity of Photios’ Lucius of Patrae and his relation to The Ass (in particular what work was first and by who), which makes it all the more ludicrous.

Apuleius tells us he is relating a Greek story (Met. I.1), his version, therefore, could not have been the original; so unless we assume the possibility of a fourth version, it follows that the two Greek versions could not have been derived independently from a common source.⁴

This statement is equally fallacious and borders on academic malpractice. Apuleius’ Lucius, after all, is a Greek in Greece. It is far from satisfactory to simply dismiss the possibility of Apuleian priority out of hand by the report of a “fabula graecanica”, in a footnote, with no elaboration or citation of any supporting work, especially given the fact that this interpretation is hardly secure, as we will explore below. Further, the deduction or “assumption” of a “fourth version” should hardly have seemed outlandish to the later Ben Edwin Perry, colossus of Aesopic Scholarship and inventor of the “Perry Index” by which all Aesopic fables are indexed. That is, Aesop, the very name which assuredly owes much to oral tradition: id est, an independent, earlier, fourth (and fifth and sixth and seventh etc.) version(s). It is difficult for me to move past such sloppy work, but this was his PhD thesis, and it is therefore forgivable — though had I been Perry’s advisor, I would not have let this footnote as is see the light of day.

Let us discuss more in detail the phrase fabula graecanica. So the passage goes,

… in urbe Latia advena studiorum Quiritium indigenam sermonem aerumnabili labore, nullo magistro praeeunte, aggressus excolui. En ecce praefamur veniam, siquid exotici ac forensis sermonis rudis locutor offendero. Iam haec equidem ipsa vocis immutatio desultoriae scientiae stilo quem accessimus respondet.⁵ Fabulam graecanicam incipimus; lector intende: laetaberis

[When] in the Latin City (ie. Rome), with no teacher leading the way, I solicitously cultivated the native language of Roman education with a toilsome labor. And so I truly apologize if I should offend as a crude speaker of this exotic language of the forum. Indeed, this change of speech itself corresponds to the style of “desultory science” which we are approaching. We begin a Greekish tale. Reader, pay attention and you will delight.

Woah! “This change of speech itself”? Why has anybody been paying attention to “Greekish”? Surely haec immutatio vocis ipsa is much better evidence of Apuleius translating than Fabulam graecanicam incipimus… Of course, one must contextualize this phrase also:

Hanson translates desultoriae scientiae as “which is like the skill of a rider jumping from one horse to another”. A desultor was a sort of vaulter or circus rider who would jump from one horse to another while the horse was in motion. However, the term desultor also comes to mean ‘a fickle person’ and the much rarer desultorius appears to gain a meaning similar to English’s desultory in Martial.⁶ It is attested only 5 times in Classical or Late Latin. In Cicero and Suetonius it refers to a vaulter’s horse. The fifth usage we will discuss below. In any case, Hanson’s literal translation of this section would certainly seem to reinforce the idea that it is a translation, right?

Now, there is actually some reason why men from the great Perry to the obscure M.D. MacLeod (not to be confused with C.W MacLeod) might need recourse to fabulam graecanicam, and that is because the traditional understanding of scientiae desultoriae is with relation to garrulousness & discursivity.⁷ Alternatively, some translators make little attempt to understand it at all. Take for example Adlington’s translation:

And verily this new alteration of speech doth correspond to the enterprised matter whereof I purpose to entreat, I will set forth unto you a pleasant Grecian feast. Whereunto gentle Reader if thou wilt give attendant eare, it will minister unto thee such delectable matter as thou shalt be contented withall.

or Graves’

…after all, this story with its temperamental shifts and changes is so Greek in character that I should have done wrong to write it in academic Latin. Now read on and enjoy yourself!

It is understandable that it is a difficult phrase to translate. Desultorius is not a common word, and what is the ‘desultory science’? I believe Hanson is close in understanding the sense here, but I must propose that he is missing something.

The title of a Menippean Satire by Varro, the 1st century polymath and genius, is the aforementioned fifth usage of desultorius. We know little of this satire except that when it was received by Nonius Marcellus, the fourth century lexicographer and grammarian, it had the subtitle περί τοῦ γράφειν⁸ “about writing”.⁹ To use such a rare word, in a relatively forced manner, in the proem of a satirical text which was surely very much inspired by the Menippean Satire genre, of which was Varro’s work, is very unlikely to be a mistake. Whether it was a nod to Varro in general or this particular work, we cannot say, but we know that Apuleius claimed not only to have read Varro extensively but to have been a great admirer, saying in his Apologia

…memini me apud Varronem philosophum, virum accuratissime doctum atque eruditum…

…I remember in the [writings of the] philosopher Varro, a man very precisely educated and well-spoken too,…

I find it very unlikely that stilo desultoriae scientiae in the first section of what can only be described as a prosified Mennipean or Varronian satire could be a coincidence, given Varro produced a satire entitled Desultorius: On Writing.

In my view, this is suggestive of the fact that the overall sense of immutatio vocis is, in a very Apuleian, dare I say, desultory, fashion, a way of bringing reference to the Varronian work and of preparing us for the burgeoning neologism and lexical creativity which is about to take place in his own work. Apuleius is asking us to forgive him for this progressive style of writing and focus and his excuse is his narrator’s crudely acquired Latinity.¹⁰

As for fabula graecanica, Apuleius is always looking for an occasion to neologize or use rather recherché language, and based on the incredibly decisive statements found above, we would expect a “Greek Story” to be written as some variation of fabula graeca. This already should make us suspicious of the idea that this necessarily means Apuleius is simply translating some Greek romance. Hanson translates the phrase best, as “Greekish” ie. “kinda Greek”, “half-Greek”, or, most charitably, “adapted from Greek”. The story is, after all, a romance — a Hellenistic form which had become popular in the 1st-2nd centuries AD. Additionally, it is possible that the story of a man foolishly being transformed into an Ass existed as a bit of Greek folklore. Or that the term merely refers to the fact that the story mostly takes place in Greece with Greek characters, which is typical for Romance (even the characters in the certainly Latin original Satyricon have Greek names). In any case, this choice of “Greekish” seems rather odd if we are expecting Apuleius to be introducing a translation of an original Greek work. The tale itself must take place in Greece, in particular Thessaly, for Thessalian women were famed for their magic,¹¹ in particular, the character of the witch in these tales is based upon Chrysame of Thessaly, a priestess who used magical mastery over herbs to defeat the Ionians.

Even this term graecanicus would seem to call back to good old Varro. A search of The Latin Library¹² reveals that the adjective graecanicus occurs nine times in Classical or pre-Classical Latin. One usage is from Cato, trochileas graecanicas¹³ “Grecian systems of pulleys” another is in Pliny graecanica pavimenta¹⁴ “Greek-style pavement”, then Suetonius toga graecanica¹⁵ “Greek-style toga”, then Tertullian gentilitati graecanicae aut barbaricae¹⁶ “hellenistic or barbarian paganism” , which all but in Tertullian¹⁷ would seem to imply a meaning of “Greek-style”. The remaining 5 are either from Varro¹⁸ (in two places in three instances) or Apuleius (used thrice, elsewhere as graecanico cingulo¹⁹ “Greek-style belt”, and graecanicam pyrricam²⁰: “the Greek-style pyrrhic dance”). Indeed, it is from Varro that we are given our only real elucidation of what graecanicus means, at least in grammatical terms. According to his authority, it refers to a Greek word which is no longer declined like a Greek word but acquires Latin inflection by analogy. Specifically, to Varro it is a category of nothus a “bastardization” or “counterfeit”.

What are we to make of these the close proximity of these two potential Varronian connections? This is a question I would prefer to defer to future research (we have only inspected the Proem here!) or the reader, but having no confidence in the Academy’s curiosity hereof, I will venture to suggest that Varro was very much at the top of Apuleius’ mind in the Proemium of Metamorphoses.²¹ Given the importance of oral narratives in the Metamorphoses itself, I am even tempted to conjecture that Apuleius intends to tell us that, in this case, the fabula graecanica is the bastardization of various Greek oral²² tales, rendered into an eloquent Latin, perhaps inspired by Varro’s satires.

Whereas there is no evidence of Apuleius being aware of Lucian whatsoever, this Varronian connection would seem to be, if not clear, definitely translucent. And while it is true that the Onos has many similarities in text to Metamorphoses, sometimes with something additional, though more often with less, this alone is not nearly sufficient evidence to decide the relationship between the two texts. Again, on the other hand, Apuleius is clearly trying to obliquely tell us something in his Proem, and I feel that history has misunderstood it.

Why is it not possible to imagine Apuleius’ work as the original, or at least, more original than has been previously understood, followed by a faithful translation by second author, perhaps making some changes such as introducing Lucius’ place of residence in Patrae, or making Lucius a Roman²³ rather than a Greek? Why could this then not be finally epitomized in the late period as a form of comical smut, removing much of the exposition and all the vignettes and reducing it to the bawdy and profane? Indeed, the second author here may have been Apuleius himself: this might make some sense of this fact that in the Latin work, the risible narrator is a Greek, while in the Greek work, the narrator is apparently a Roman.

Indeed, Apuleius took particular notice of the requirements of tailoring speech for a Latin and Greek audience respectively, so the fifth “orphan chapter” of Florida or De Deo Socratis²⁴

Iamdudum scio quid hoc significatu flagitetis: ut cetera Latine materiae persequamur. Nam et in principio vobis diversa tendentibus ita memini polliceri, ut neutra pars vestrum, nec qui Graece nec qui Latine petebatis, dictionis huius expertes abiretis.

I have long intuited what you politely demand: that I pursue the rest of this material in Latin. For I remember in the beginning, with you all pulling in different directions, promising that neither part of you all, whether asking for Latin or Greek, would depart deprived of this speech.

And in Florida XVIII, 38-39

Eius dei hymnum Graeco et Latino carmine vobis ecce iam canam illi a me dedicatum […] ita ut etiam nunc hymnum eius utraque lingua canam, cui dialogum similiter Graecum et Latinum praetexui

I will now sing this god’s [Aesculapius] hymn to you all with a composition in Greek and Latin, dedicated to him by myself… And so now, just as I will sing this his hymn in both languages, I have prefaced it with a dialogue similarly in Greek and Latin.

Might this suggest that Apuleius in fact wrote the so-called Metamorphoses of “Lucius of Patrae”? As noted above, that the farcical narrator of the Latin Metamorphoses is Greek, while he is apparently a Roman transplant living in Patrae in The Ass, could simply be a fact of Apuleius tailoring two versions of his tale for his respective audiences. A Roman may laugh at the foolishness and humiliation of a Greek, and a Greek may laugh at the foolishness and humiliation of a Roman. That the ending of the Latin Metamorphoses is so different from the Greek epitome we have needn’t concern us. Indeed, even that Photios makes no mention of any Isiac material needn’t concern us. The tone of the last chapter of Metamorphoses is so different that it’s entirely conceivable that it was at some point detached in the Greek tradition before the epitome was produced (and the epitomist contrived an ending) — or that Apuleius chose to simplify the story in Greek for fear of religious offense or really any other reason which would now be obscure to us.

There may be a hint in section 55 of The Ass

And so I said, “My father is [omitted!], my name is Lucius, and my brother is Gaius. We hold our remaining two names in common. I write prose treatises and other works. He writes elegiac poetry and is a good soothsayer. Our native city is Patrae of Achaea.

There is no better description of Apuleius than the consolidation of the character of Lucius and Gaius²⁵, we in fact possess elegiac poetry of his, preserved in the Apologia, and of course he was a prodigious producer of all manner of prose works, especially historiae, that is, investigatory treatises or narratives. Apuleius was similarly no stranger to magic or soothsaying or astrology, and was held by the 5th century as a magician with powers approximating those of Apollonius of Tyana.²⁶

The association with Patras is curious. Apuleius in the Latin Metamorphoses is at once speaking autobiographically (particularly in the 11th book), yet also distancing himself from the narrator, making the narrator a Greek with perennial ties to Thessaly,²⁷ yet studied in Athens just as Apuleius.²⁸ Apuleius would be using a similar effect in his Greek Metamorphoses.

On this question, I will (perhaps hazardously) conjecture the following:

The Isiac 11th book was early detached from the Greek Metamorphoses manuscript tradition. The epitomizer, however, knew that the work was of Apuleius, and added an abrupt ending thereto which hints at the original authorship, but “preserved” (or rather conjectured) the fact that the narrator came from Patras as could be implied²⁹ by section 2 of The Ass, as the home city of the narrator would need be stated in their formulaic proof of citizenship.³⁰ Apuleius would have conceived a slightly different sort of character for his Greek work, and thus his narrator in the Greek Metamorphoses is delivering a scholarly letter as opposed to merely being “on business”.

Metamorphoses was Apuleius’ Magnum Opus, at least that would appear to be the case by the 4th and 5th centuries. It certainly would seem to have been his most well-wrought work. Is it realistic to assume that a Sophist so concerned with pleasing both a Greek and Latin audience would choose to sequester his greatest work to the (generally) less prestigious of these two?

A theory of Apuleian priority would explain the very problematic fact that nowhere in all the discussion of Apuleius is it mentioned that he would be famous in no small part for an adaptation of a Greek work. It would also explain the fact that Apuleius makes no reference whatsoever to Lucian, but certainly was at a minimum aware of Varro and would seem to pay homage to him, and not any Greek satirist.

It would also explain another thing which we have touched on: that events in Apuleius’ life known from his Apologia (which was delivered in court in a capital case and must consequently be taken as verifiable biographical information) very much mirrored a number of scenarios common to both versions of this tale. Apuleius began life with a great inheritance and went to Greece to study rhetoric. He soon wandered throughout that country (and thence through Asia Minor, Egypt, and Rome), all the while investigating and taking fantastic interest in magic. Lucius in The Ass is getting into trouble all the time in the story on account of his excessive interest in magic, and excessive lust for women. Mirroring this is Apuleius, who was charged with several capital crimes in connection with his wife, whose family accused him of using magic to convince her to marry so that he may funnel away their wealth. Throughout this court case, it is mentioned that Apuleius knew and possessed simply too much on magic, and Apuleius all the while hints at his knowledge thereof as well.

That the work is autofictional is in fact the position of Augustine, who took for granted the fact that the Golden Ass (the title by which he knew this work) was a work of autobiography or autofiction. So in Book 18, xviii of Civitate Dei

Nam et nos cum essemus in Italia audiebamus … stabularias mulieres inbutas his malis artibus in caseo dare solere … viatoribus, unde in iumenta ilico verterentur et necessaria quaeque portarent postque perfuncta opera iterum ad se redirent; nec tamen in eis mentem bestialem, sed rationalem humanamque servari, sicut Apuleius in libris, quos Asini Aurei titulo inscripsit, sibi ipsi accidisse ut accepto veneno humano animo permanente asinus fieret, aut indicavit aut finxit

When I was in Italy I heard [that] innkeeping women initiated in these wicked arts were in the habit of giving something to travelers in a piece of cheese whereby they were at once turned into a draft animal and would carry whatever was necessary and after the work was done would again return to normal — but did not in any case take to a bestial mind but remained soberminded, just like Apuleius in his book, which he wrote under the title ‘The Golden Ass’, said or dissembled to have happened to him, whereby having taken a poison he became an ass with his human mind remaining.

I’ve included almost the entire passage here on account of it’s vivacity and Apuleian language,³¹ which is, it must be said, suggestive towards Augustine’s good knowledge of Apuleius.

Of course, it is impossible on the evidences we have to prove any way or another. Were we to have the longer Greek work, it would probably be easier. My objective in writing this is to show that there are good arguments for Apuleian priority, and that simply reshuffling the order in which we imagine these three works to be written can explain all the textual evidence which is suggested as proof of this other work being first.

This is certainly a minority view. But as I have written about in previous posts here, often classicists are so blinded by the ubiquity of the fact that most Latin works are adapted from Greek that one runs into all manner of misconceptions about what the Romans were actually doing. What often seems like a scientific study of recension and synopsis, is of faulty methodology and thinking, because we hope against all odds that our wits can tell us decisive facts about texts which have been utterly lost; but our wits, it would seem, also deceive us, and imbued with the delusion of rhetoric, we convince one another that our methods are sound and scientific. This article, I must admit, I can hardly prove to be an exception — but nonetheless I believe it most sensible, most curious, and most grounded in the limitations of our texts of all these arguments. I vainly hope some will be persuaded to agree.

1. Gaisser, J. H. (2008). The Fortunes of Apuleius & The Golden Ass: A study in transmission and reception. Princeton University Press, pp. 25-28.

2. Perry (1920) (see fn. below) must be the starting point for further review of this discussion, despite his being deficient in curiosity of Apuleius’ place in all of this.

3. ie. the Metamorphoses of “Lucius of Patrae”

4. Perry, B. E. (1920). “The Metamorphoses ascribed to Lucius of Patrae": Its content, nature, and authorship”. Princeton University Press. p. 2

5. The last few words of this phrase, accessimus respondet, are indeed probably corrupt, in particular respondet which is witnessed as respondit and corrected by Hanson — but this does not seem an issue worth any reconstructive surgery: some makeup and a good smile will do just fine.

6. Lewis & Short and Thesaurus Linguae Latinae ad loc.

7. ibid.

8. The Greek as witnessed is corrupt, often landing on something like peri tou traphein. Riese emended in his 1865 edition of Varronian fragments to peri peiratōn “about pirates” because our only two fragments from this satire are naval in nature, and the shortest of the two mention pirates. However, a hand who is short on his Greek is far more likely to confuse a letter or two than play a game of scrabble from the relevant characters, which is what would be required for peri peiratōn to have been the original text. It is also not at all clear to me that Nonius would have had so many complete works of Varro at hand; we know he did not have the 150 which are said to have existed. What Nonius may have possessed was a Varronian anthology of excerpts, one of which was a naval scene from Desultorius. Indeed, Lindsay’s edition does not even see the issue as fit of mention in his apparatus, and prints peri tou graphein.

9. Whence these Greek subtitles came has been an issue of much controversy, see for example Astbury, R (1977). VARRONIANA. Rheinisches Museum Für Philologie, vol. 120 no. 2, pp. 173–184. As said above, I believe it can be no coincidence that Apuleius would use such a rare word, and in my view this rather suggests that these subtitles had been circulating at Apuleius’ time, whether or not they were Varro’s own.

10. For further wise discussion on the interpretability of the proem, cf. Wright, Constance S (1973) “‘No Art at All’: A Note on the Proemium of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses.” Classical Philology, vol. 68, no. 3, pp. 217–19.

11. cf. Edmonds (2019). Drawing Down the Moon: Magic in the Ancient Greco-Roman World. Princeton University Press.

12. www.thelatinlibrary.com, though for my search, I specifically used an export thereof found here: https://github.com/cltk/lat_text_latin_library, searching using a very simple Python script.

13. Cato, De Re Rustica, iii

14. Pliny the Elder, Nat. His., I.63

15. Suet. Dom., iv

16. Tertullian De Virginibus, II.1

17. My good friend Kaelestia wonderfully noted and shared the insight that Tertullian’s choice of words here is probably for the purposes of assonance with barbaricae more than anything else. I am inclined to agree.

18. DLL IX, X

19. Ap. Florida, xv

20. Ap. Met. X.29

21. I will cautiously venture to conjecture that Apuleius may have begun this work as a true Menippean Satire, verse and all, and eventually surrendered to prose. See Wright for the (in my view strong) possibility that Metamorphoses was intended for oral delivery.

22. The orality of Metamorphoses cannot be overlooked. The entire romance is full of insets which are served by the tongues of the many characters thereof, including the Cupid and Psyche tale. This alone might be enough for some to believe that the Eselroman “donkey romance” was a pre-existing oral narrative with the purpose of warning against fooling with magic.

23. See Perry (1968). “Who Was Lucius of Patrae?” The Classical Journal, vol. 64, no. 3, pp. 97–101.

24. These sections were transmitted with the manuscripts of De Deo Socratis, but have been assigned to Florida, though some conjecture the fifth and last orphan chapter as introductory for De Deo Socratis. This question is irrelevant for our purposes. Jones includes them in his edition of Florida as Florida 1-5*.

25. The two stereotypical names of a Roman, evidently also with the Roman tria nomina

26. Gaisser pp. 22-24

27. Met. I, 2

28. Florida XVIII, 15; Metamorphoses I 24

29. In Metamorphoses, Lucius first speaks with a traveler who is from Aegium, modern day Aegio in the northern Peloponnese, some 25 miles from Patras by the low road — a day’s walk, and Lucius in The Ass travels by horse. This suggests to me that even if Apuleius was working from a Vorlage, the epitomist is working from an inferior text, and the true home city in the exemplar would be Aegium. Lucius in The Ass is merely delivering a message from Patras.

30. cf. Perry (1968)

31. eg. iumentum, stabularia, but in particular, ilico, which appears rarely outside of preclassical works, and appears only one place elsewhere in De Civitate Dei (5, vii) but appears 30 times in Metamorphoses alone.