CLAS / HIST 4091 / 5091: The Roman Empire

Reading (5) for October 12, 2007. Apuleius and the World of the Golden Ass

Apuleius The Golden Ass (trans. Kenney) pp. 18-71, 106-120, 136-194

Apuleius (c. 125 - c. 170) was a leader of the provincial bourgeois aristocracy in Africa, a brilliant lawyer and traveling orator who was deeply interested in philosophy, magic and religion. His most famous work is a novel with the title of Metamorphoses (“Changes”, both physical and mental). It retells, with great elaboration, a story common in the ancient world and commonly referred to as “The Golden Ass.” Apuleius’ text has thus also been given this title since antiquity (i.e. Metamorphoses, or The Golden Ass). As with most ancient novels, it combines techniques and elements from other genres into a hodgepodge which wanders through various aspects of life, love and literature. A picaresque romance in the service of mystery religion, it combines adventure (magic, sex and violence) with Neoplatonic mysticism (human error, suffering, redemption).

When you read, you should primarily aim to have a good time. Enjoy this novel for what it is, but also try to watch for material which is relevant to social and cultural history. The Golden Ass is set in second-century Thessaly, a territory in the province of Macedonia (modern Greece, see map on reverse). As such, this novel gives us all sorts of clues about life in this province (and all provinces) if we watch carefully. As Fergus Millar has said, “The novel offers us a complex and significant portrait of a provincial society: The network of relationships among the provincial aristocracy; the political functions, displays and generosities of the rich, as acted out in front of their local communities; the crude accumulation of wealth side by side with extreme poverty; an economy that was both monetized on the one hand and gave a large place to hunting in the wild on the other; a world where brigandage was rife, but where society could close its ranks to exert force, and was fully armed to do so...”

Questions

Because the text is long, you may want to keep a log (even some photocopies) of passages that you think are relevant to each question.

1. Should The Golden Ass even be used as a historical source? What are the problems with using fiction for history? Are there any advantages to fiction over non-fiction as a source for social history?

2. What authority (local, provincial, imperial) affects daily life? How are law and order maintained?

3. What tensions appear between the various groups of society? Why do they arise? How are they resolved?

4. How can we distinguish the honestiores (upper classes) from the humiliores (masses)? Think of the way they look, the way they act, their economic interests, their social relations, their public activities?

5. In what do people believe? What aspects of ancient religion would we regard as superstitious? How much of this superstition is exaggerated for effect in this fictional work?

7. How does the ancient economy work in this novel? What do people do to make ends meet? How deeply does a money (as opposed to a barter) economy penetrate down the social ladder?

8. What role does brigandage and crime play? Who are the authorities responsible for controlling this? Why are they effective or ineffective?