APULEIUS

The Golden Ass

Apuleius was born about 125 A.D., at Madaura, in Africa.
After studying at Athens, he practised as an advocate at Rome,
and then wandered about Northern Africa, lecturing on
philosophy and rhetoric. At Tripoli he was charged with having
won by witchcraft the love of a rich widow who had left him
her wealth. But he was acquitted after delivering an
interesting defence, included among his extant works. He then
settled in Carthage, where he died at an advanced age. Poor
Apuleius! His good fame was darkened by the success of an
amusing romance, "The Golden Ass," which he wrote, by way of
recreation, at Rome. He related the story of the adventures
which befell a young Greek nobleman who, by an extreme
curiosity in regard to witchcraft, got changed into a donkey.
It was an age of wild superstition and foolish credulity; and
his readers confused the author of "The Golden Ass" with the
hero of it. Apuleius was credited with a series of impossible
exploits, which he had not even invented. For his work is
merely a Latin adaptation of a lost Greek romance by Lucius of
Patras. But Apuleius deserves our gratitude for preserving a
unique specimen of the lighter literature of the ancient
Greeks, together with the beautiful folk-tale of Cupid and
Psyche.