A Comedy of Storytelling: Theatricality and Narrative in Apuleius' 'Golden Ass'. Dissertationsschrift 9783825357207, 3825357201

Table of contents :
Cover
Titelei
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Part 1 Theatricality
1. The Nonsense of the Mime: The Golden Ass and Popular Theater
1.1. The Mime’s centunculus
1.2. Mime Plots
1.3. Mimic Self-Referentiality: Risus mimicus and the Mimesis of the Mime
2. Contrary to the Story
2.1. Representational Paradoxes at the Roman Arena
2.2. The Primary Narrative and the Inserted Tales
Part II Multiple Plotting
3. Crime, Punishment, and Redemption: Lucius’ Life as a Narrative ofMiraculous Healing
4. Conversion to Philosophy: Lucius’ Life as a PhilosophicalBiography
5. De audiendis fabulis: Lucius’ Life as a Philosophical Myth
6. The Ass from Cymae: Lucius’ Life as a Lucianic Satire
7. The Magic of Rhetoric: Lucius’ Life as an Aristophanic Comedy
Part III Narrative
8. Desultoriae scientiae stilus: From Drama to Narrative
8.1. The Writer as a Stand-up Comedian
8.2. Milesian tales
8.3. Omnis musae mancipium: Petronius’ Satyricon
9. Theatricality and Rhetoric: The Golden Ass and the Second Sophistic
9.1. Simili stilo: Apuleius’ Narrator as a Sophistic Entertainer
9.2. Varias fabulas conserere: Apuleius’ Narrative as a Specimen of Figured Speech
9.3. Acting out paideia
Bibliography
Index nominum et rerum
Index locorum

Citation preview

biblioth ek d er k lassisch en altertu m sw issen s chaf t en Herausgegeben von

jürg en paul s chwin dt Neue Folge · 2. Reihe · Band 127

alexander kirichenko

A Comedy of Storytelling Theatricality and Narrative in Apuleius’ Golden Ass

Universitätsverlag

w in ter Heidelberg

Bibliografische Information Der Deutschen Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar.

Für die vorliegende Arbeit erhielt der Autor den Heidelberger Förderpreis für klassisch-philologische Theoriebildung des Jahres 2009.

umschlagbild Francisco de Goya: Los Caprichos, Plate 39, 1796

isb n 978-3-8253-5720-7 Dieses Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. © 2o10 Universitätsverlag Winter GmbH Heidelberg Imprimé en Allemagne · Printed in Germany Druck : Memminger MedienCentrum, 87700 Memmingen Gedruckt auf umweltfreundlichem, chlorfrei gebleichtem und alterungsbeständigem Papier Den Verlag erreichen Sie im Internet unter: www.winter-verlag-hd.de

В те дни, когда в садах Лицея Я безмятежно расцветал, Читал охотно Апулея, А Цицерона не читал... In those days when in the Lyceum’s gardens I bloomed serenely, would eagerly read Apuleius, while Cicero I did not read… Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin (trans. Vladimir Nabokov)

Contents

Preface

ix

Introduction

1

Part I. Theatricality Chapter 1. The Nonsense of the Mime: The Golden Ass and Popular Theater 1.1. The Mime’s centunculus 1.2. Mime Plots 1.3. Mimic Self-Referentiality: Risus mimicus and the Mimesis of the Mime Chapter 2. Contrary to the Story 2.1. Representational Paradoxes at the Roman Arena 2.2. The Primary Narrative and the Inserted Tales

11 11 18 36 45 45 59

Part II. Multiple Plotting Chapter 3. Crime, Punishment, and Redemption: Lucius’ Life as a Narrative of Miraculous Healing

71

Chapter 4. Conversion to Philosophy: Lucius’ Life as a Philosophical Biography

87

Chapter 5. De audiendis fabulis: Lucius’ Life as a Philosophical Myth

107

Chapter 6. The Ass from Cymae: Lucius’ Life as a Lucianic Satire

123

Chapter 7. The Magic of Rhetoric: Lucius’ Life as an Aristophanic Comedy

143

Part III. Narrative Chapter 8. Desultoriae scientiae stilus: From Drama to Narrative 8.1. The Writer as a Stand-up Comedian 8.2. Milesian Tales 8.3. Omnis musae mancipium: Petronius’ Satyricon Chapter 9. Theatricality and Rhetoric: The Golden Ass and the Second Sophistic 9.1. Simili stilo: Apuleius’ Narrator as a Sophistic Entertainer 9.2. Varias fabulas conserere: Apuleius’ Narrative as a Specimen of Figured Speech 9.3. Acting out paideia

163 163 178 185

201 201 211 219

Bibliography

227

Index nominum et rerum

235

Index locorum

241

viii

Preface This study has its origin in my 2006 Harvard dissertation (Apuleius’ Golden Ass: A Comedy of Storytelling). The title is, however, one of the very few things that the two versions – at least partly – share. Among the main objectives of my dissertation was to point to comic incongruities inherent in the notoriously multidimensional voice of Apuleius’ narrator(s). It was only later that I realized that Apuleius’ comedy of storytelling was not only funny, but also, and quite literally, theatrical in nature, i.e. that many of Apuleius’ characters, first and foremost the novel’s protagonist, notionally engaged in role-playing games, mimicking, as it were, other characters and reenacting other narrative scenarios – both intra- and extra-textual. Moreover, I realized that these role-playing activities found numerous tangible parallels in imperial performance culture. So, despite its ‘theatrical’ subtitle, this book is not so much about Apuleius’ allusions to drama – the topic magisterially dealt with in a recent monograph by Regine May (2006) – as about the intricate dialectics of mimesis and reenactment that in my view determines the tenor of Apuleius’ narrative on a variety of levels. As for many other scholars writing on Apuleius in the past two and a half decades, John J. Winkler’s Auctor & Actor has been both the main inspiration and the starting point for my own thoughts. In his truly revolutionary study, Winkler reads the Golden Ass as “a set of games that may be played in myriad ways and in which all players may win – but to which there is no right answer” (p. 200). I see my book as an attempt to modify – however slightly – this understanding of Apuleius’ narrative by placing it more firmly within the cultural context from which it originated. Unlike Winkler, I see Apuleius’ ideal (implied) reader not necessarily as someone engaging in ‘hermeneutic entertainment’ – as someone obsessively (and futilely) looking for the correct answer to the alleged mystery – but rather as someone who derives particular pleasure from the fact that the text is radically, and non-negotiably, polyphonous. It is probably too obvious to need emphasis that the voices that this kind of reader would have been expected to hear in this polyphony (or ways in which s/he would have played Apuleius’ games) are anything but arbitrary: in order to remain comprehensible, such a complex structure must be based on narrative patterns familiar to its intended readership. In the middle section of the book, I analyze in detail five of such – potentially much more numerous – patterns. These five readings – some mutually complementary, others jarringly contradicting each other – constitute interpretative paths, which, if pursued too rigorously, would in fact result in radically different books – something that has notoriously happened time and again in Apuleian scholarship (cf. pp. 1-7 below). ix

My objective is to demonstrate that the intention of the text is not to frustrate the expectations of any reader who chooses one of these ‘books’, but, on the contrary, to harness the reader’s ability to appreciate the rather discordant ambiguity produced by their overlap. I further discuss possible contexts in which this kind of readerly competence could have been trained. These I see, first and foremost, in popular theater and sophistic oratory. When I finished my manuscript, I realized that it, too, could be read as a combination of – I hope somewhat less mutually exclusive – overlapping books. Needless to say, it would please me beyond measure if my study found as many readers as possible who would be willing to read it from beginning to end. But there are other options as well, which I imagine some may prefer. Here are several that have occurred to me: Chapters 1 and 8 could be read as a study of the generic commonality between the two surviving Roman novels, Petronius’ Satyricon and Apuleius’ Golden Ass. The parallels that I uncover between these two texts comprise a wide range of aspects – from their subject matter to the essentially theatrical stance of their first-person narrators. Chapters 1, 2, 8.1, and 9 deal with Apuleius’ deep indebtedness to the contemporary performance culture: Chapters 1 and 9.1 contain an investigation of the parallels between the subject matter of the Golden Ass and narrative scenarios used in mime and in sophistic declamations, whereas Chapters 2, 8.1, and 9.2-3 focus on the pervasive emphasis on ambiguity both in imperial theatrical productions and in epideictic rhetoric. I also argue that there are three different ways in which Apuleius’ protagonist Lucius could be regarded as a kind of mime actor: as a laughable clown-like character, he resembles a buffoon of the Greco-Roman mime; many of his actions can be categorized as improvised mimicking of other characters’ actions – something that, as I show, mime actors also tended to do; finally, he adopts the same kind of improvisatory stance in his capacity as a narrator. In this connection, it is of course particularly important that this pervasive emphasis on improvisation is compatible not only with the mime, but also with sophistic epideictic rhetoric – and thus with the narrator’s status as an orator, particularly stressed in the epilogue of the novel. Read as a self-contained unit, Chapters 2 through 7 represent a detailed study of the novel’s structure and meaning. My main contention here is that the notoriously disturbing effect produced by the novel’s conclusion, which at first glance seems to be borrowed from a completely different story, is repeatedly anticipated earlier on in the text – whenever a new tale is inserted into the primary narrative. Finally, the five middle chapters (3 to 7) deal with two purely thematic concerns that have been at the center of most discussions of Apuleius’ narrative for decades: Chapter 3 deals with religion, Chapters 4 and 5 with philosophy, and Chapters 6 and 7 with both. Each of these chapters tells a different – seemx

ingly coherent – story. Each of these stories, however, is to various extents destabilized by other similarly coherent stories told in other chapters. Lucius’ life is alternately presented here as an aretalogical account of miraculous healing, a philosophical biography, a kind of moralistic fable teaching how to draw philosophical benefit from frivolous fictions, a satire on a religious charlatan with philosophical pretensions, and a comic narrative – as self-ironic as it is selfcongratulatory – about an up-and-coming sophistic orator for whom both philosophy and religion are nothing but a means to an end. This book would not have been possible without the unstinting support that I have received over the years from my mentors, colleagues, and friends. My greatest gratitude belongs to my teachers at St. Petersburg and Harvard. My first exposure to Apuleian Latin dates back to 1995 and 1996 when I was lucky enough to attend two reading courses on the Golden Ass in a row – one on Cupid and Psyche offered by the late Natalia Botvinnik, the other taught by Alexander Verlinsky on Book 11. A few years later, and on a different continent, I read the entire Apuleian corpus under the vigilant guidance of Kathleen Coleman, to whom I also owe my interest in Roman popular culture in general. From Albert Henrichs I learnt more about Greek literature and religion than I ever have from anyone else before or since; his most palpable contribution to the genesis of this book was that he introduced me to Isis. And last but not least, I am particularly grateful to my dissertation advisor, Richard Thomas, for fostering my burgeoning enthusiasm for poetics, literary theory, and the novel from the earliest stages of my research. It was a great piece of luck that one of the first courses that I was asked to teach at the University of Trier was an undergraduate seminar on Apuleius’ Golden Ass. Having to discuss Apuleius with an audience that literally consisted of ‘first-time readers’ proved in retrospect to be truly crucial in helping me streamline my thoughts. For this privilege I would like to thank both the participants of this seminar, who accompanied me on this rather labyrinthine journey through Apuleius’ text, and Stephan Busch, the Chair of the Classics Department at Trier, who has always generously granted me all the freedom in teaching and research that a humble wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter can possibly hope for. Some of the thoughts that lie at the foundation of this book were presented in talks I gave in Heidelberg (June 2004), Lisbon (International Conference on the Ancient Novel, IV, July 2008), and Vienna (False Closure in Greek and Roman Literature and Art, March 2009). Discussions that took place afterwards were each time tremendously helpful. Alfred Breitenbach, Kathleen Coleman, Costas Panayotakis, Andreas Schwab, and Georg Wöhrle each read and commented on a few chapters, whereas Audrey Pitts read the entire manuscript and meticulously eradicated some of its most glaring stylistic infelicities. I also had the exceptional privilege xi

of having among my pre-publication readers the well-disposed members of the Heidelberger Förderpreis für klassisch-philologische Theoriebildung Committee (Reinhard Brandt, Martin von Koppenfels, and Jürgen Paul Schwindt) as well as Andreas Barth of the Universitätsverlag Winter. And finally, my special thanks go to Farouk Grewing, who is not only partly responsible for my metamorphosis from a Russian/American aspiring Hellenist into a Russian/German Latinist, but who – for quite a number of years now – has also been (among other things) the first to hear, to read, and to discuss with me whatever I had to say about things Greek and Roman. Needless to say, all remaining errors are solely mine, as are, unless otherwise indicated, all translations of ancient texts. March/April 2010

xii

Trier and Vienna

Introduction It is a truism to say that every literary text can be interpreted in a virtually unlimited number of ways. In most cases, however, readers of the same text who belong to the same interpretive community tend to agree at least about a few essential matters. Most readers, for instance, would probably find the story of Oedipus Rex profoundly tragic and that of the Frogs hilarious; they would consider the Aeneid to be a serious poem and most of Martial’s epigrams to be frivolous in tone. In principle, there would be nothing wrong with questioning such common assumptions, except that by doing so any reader with academic ambitions would automatically run the risk of no longer being taken seriously by the rest of his or her fellow readers. Apuleius’ Golden Ass is quite idiosyncratic in this respect, as there is no universal agreement among its readers even about such basics. Readings proposed by classical scholars cover the entire spectrum from a symbolic religious autobiography to an incongruous collection of titillating stories. It is indeed quite striking that such a variety of incompatible interpretations can be supported by the same text and that the vast majority of them can still remain firmly within the boundaries of accepted academic discourse (which most likely would not be the case with a reading of Oedipus Rex as a droll farce). The best way to appreciate the complexity of Apuleius’ novel would be to compare it with the extant epitome of its lost Greek original – the Ps.-Lucianic Onos.1 Λούκιος ἢ ὄνος is a fictional autobiographical account, whose narrator Lucius of Patrae sets out on a journey to uncover the occult knowledge of Thessalian witches. We learn quite a few things about Lucius’ background from his narrative. He comes from a well-connected family of Greek-speaking Roman citizens (Onos 55). He enjoys the advantages of the cutting-edge education of his day by attending a sophist’s school (Onos 2). Finally, he is “a writer of histories and other things” himself (Onos 55). One of the narrator’s defining character traits is his unbridled curiosity (Onos 4, 15, 45, 56). The tale has a clear tripartite structure, which quite closely corresponds to the Aristotelian notion of the ideal (‘classical’) plot2 consisting of: 1) the begin1

2

On the three versions of the ass-story (the Greek Metamorphoses, the Ps.-Lucianic Onos, and Apuleius’ Golden Ass) and on the history of scholarship on how they are related to each other, see Mason 1994. On the concept of classical plot, see Lowe 2000, who essentially provides a heavily modernized reformulation of Aristotle’s understanding of plot in Poetics 7-12 (1450b1452b). On the notion of plot in general in modern literary theory, see Brooks 1984.

1

ning, which introduces the initial tension culminating in Lucius’ transformation into an ass (Onos 1-14); 2) the middle, where Lucius’ existence as an ass is presented as a series of misfortunes that keep him from regaining his human shape and thus postpone the final resolution (Onos 15-45); and 3) the end, which contains the events immediately preceding and following Lucius’ transformation back into a human (Onos 46-56). Lucius’ aim is clearly stated almost at the very beginning (Onos 4), and his interactions with other characters rarely cross the line of what is absolutely indispensable for the development of the plot. For instance, the travelers whom at the very beginning of the tale Lucius meets on his way to Thessaly happen to come from Hypata and, by virtue of their familiarity with that city, are able to help Lucius to reach his intermediate goal – his host Hipparchus (Onos 1). Hipparchus, in turn, happens to be married to a typical Thessalian sorceress, and Abroia, as a close friend of his mother’s (Lucius runs into her at the marketplace on his first day in Hypata), is most suitable to impart this horrible secret to Lucius (Onos 4). Palaestra, the maid of Hipparchus’ wife, is the final link in the chain, and although to some extent Lucius seems to be emotionally involved with her, we are explicitly reminded that she is just a means to an end.3 Of course, the narrative fully satisfies Lucius’ (and, by extension, the reader’s) unrestrained curiosity for the miraculous. His desire to gain personal experience with magic, however, proves to be a fatal error (Onos 13), and with Lucius’ transformation into an ass we find ourselves in a totally different narrative environment (Onos 14-45). The entire action of the middle section of the tale is dominated by the fact that Lucius has to regain his human shape, but, in order to maintain the suspense created in the first part, the narrative has to keep him from achieving this goal. Waiting for a suitable opportunity to eat roses, which he knows will transform him back into a human, Lucius passes from one owner to another and undergoes a series of excruciating sufferings. Most of the episodes in this part of the tale unfold according to a very similar pattern: Lucius is exploited, tortured, and abused to the point where his life is threatened. Then, at the moment of highest suspense, a sudden deliverance comes, which transfers him to his next owner. There is a gradual transition from the narrative’s tightly plotted beginning to its more picaresque middle. The fact that Lucius’ first owners are brigands is anything but incidental. After his transformation, the narrative runs the risk of a ‘short-circuit’4 (of a too easy, too quick resolution): all that Lucius has to do to secure his successful retransformation on the following morning is simply to stay at home and wait for Palaestra to bring him roses (Onos 14). In order for 3

4

2

E.g., Onos 11 καί ποτε ἐπὶ νοῦν µοι ἦλθε τὸ µαθεῖν ὧν ἕνεκα ἤθλουν, καὶ φηµὶ πρὸς αὐτήν, Ὦ φιλτάτη, δεῖξόν µοι µαγγανεύουσαν ἢ µεταµορφουµένην τὴν δέσποιναν· πάλαι γὰρ τῆς παραδόξου ταύτης θέας ἐπιθυµῶ. Brooks 1984, 104.

Lucius to embark upon his adventures, the narrative has to force him out of the house, and brigands are obviously the best candidates to fulfill this function. The identity of his second owner – a noble girl kidnapped by the brigands – is rooted in the brigands-episode (Onos 22-27): her function consists in bringing about, by her unfortunate death, suitable conditions for Lucius to be brought to the marketplace and thus to the realm of unbridled chance (Onos 34-35). The situation where Lucius the ass constantly changes hands is ideally suited to de-laying the final resolution in a variety of ways. The succession of the captive girl’s slaves (Onos 28-34), who after her death are the first to sell the ass, the effeminate priests of Dea Syria (Onos 36-41), the miller (Onos 42), the gardener (Onos 43-45), and the soldier (Onos 46), creates a truly kaleidoscopic vision of a journey through various aspects of low life, which enables the author to portray Lucius’ sufferings in constantly changing settings. Lucius’ last buyers (two slaves – a cook and a confectionary baker) form a providential transition to the denouement of the tale, which is as tightly plotted as its beginning (Onos 46). Because of the nature of his new owners’ profession, Lucius’ super-asinine propensity for human food is discovered and rouses the interest of their master Menecles, the producer of public shows from Thessalonica (Onos 47). Lucius’ rendezvous with a rich matron (Onos 50-52) makes his new master come up with the idea of giving a public show involving Lucius the ass copulating with a convict woman (Onos 52). The moment when Lucius is on stage with his prospective lover is reminiscent of other points of high suspense familiar to the reader from earlier episodes: Lucius feels ashamed of performing a sexual act coram publico and scared of the wild animals that are supposed to tear his partner apart right after its consummation (Onos 53), and the reader instinctively knows from his earlier experience with the text that a sudden deliverance must come, as indeed it does when Lucius notices roses among the flowers decorating the bed on which he is reclining, eats them, and becomes human again (Onos 54). The section that follows Lucius’ retransformation is quite short. Lucius has regained not only his place in humanity, but also, through his recognition by the proconsul, his status in society. His brother comes to pick him up, and now they are both set to go back home (Onos 55). The action is complete; its main conflict is resolved without leaving any loose ends or unanswered questions. This nearly impeccable completeness is disturbed only by a short scene, which at first seems to be a mere digression but which on closer inspection turns out to constitute the real punch line of the entire narrative (Onos 56). Before Lucius departs, he decides to visit the rich matron who was so fond of his sexual prowess when he was still an ass. Contrary to his expectations, she rejects his advances as she discovers that, along with his asinine appearance, he has lost what she used to treasure most about him – his oversized male member. The situation, quite funny in itself, is depicted with a further beautiful touch of humor: Lucius completely misconstrues the nature of the woman’s affection for 3

him and at first assumes a rather condescending attitude towards her. He accepts her invitation to dinner, because he thinks it unduly contemptuous to reject a woman who loved him even as he was an ass. When he finally decides to undress, he assumes he is doing her a great favor. The woman, however, is not at all impressed and, quite fittingly, brings in the metamorphosis motif again by remarking that from a beautiful and useful animal Lucius has been metamorphosed into a pitiful monkey.5 The humor here is so poignant and unparalleled in the rest of the tale that this episode can be perceived as the true culmination of the protagonist’s comic adventures. To sum up, the Greek ass-tale is based on a tightly plotted series of events that are all closely interrelated. Moreover, the story events can be easily reduced to a straightforward moral lesson. Throughout the tale, the narrator constantly emphasizes the disastrous consequences of Lucius’ uncontrollable curiosity: curiosity is the primary cause of his initial interest in magic that leads to his metamorphosis, and it is responsible for some of the self-inflicted calamities during his existence as an ass (e.g., Onos 15, 45). The easy morality of this comedy of curiosity is perfectly self-evident and does not even have to be explicitly formulated in order for the reader to get the message.6 However, the narrator prefers to make sure that the reader will not miss the point, and in the last sentence proudly announces that, upon his retransformation back into a human, he was delivered from the consequences of his misplaced asinine curiosity.7 Thus, thematically, too, the narrative has made a full circle, at the end of which the protagonist learns an obvious moral lesson. The moment we turn from the Greek ass-tale to the Golden Ass we note a striking contrast. The most conspicuous difference between the two is that Apuleius transforms the linear story of the original into a frame for numerous inserted narratives.8 The very fact that, in contrast to the relatively unassuming Greek story, we deal with multiple fictions intricately interwoven with each other loosens the coherent cause-and-effect sequence of the story events of the original narrative and makes it more difficult for the reader to perceive them in their totality. The most radical deviation from the classical model of plotting in Apuleius is of course the novel’s deus ex machina ending. As Marsilio Fusillo notes, “in terms of narrative structure, the ending [of Apuleius’ Golden Ass] is not circular or parallel but tangential, introducing a new topic, unconnected to 5 6 7

8

4

Onos 56 σὺ δέ µοι ἐλήλυθας ἐξ ἐκείνου τοῦ καλοῦ καὶ χρησίµου ζῴου ἐξ πίθηκον µεταµορφωθείς. On the curiosity motif in the Onos, see Kirichenko 2008 (b), 345-350. Onos 56 ἐνταῦθα θεοῖς σωτῆρσιν ἔθυον καὶ ἀναθήµατα ἀνέθηκα, µὰ Δί᾿ οὐκ ἐκ κυνὸς πρωκτοῦ, τὸ δὴ τοῦ λόγου, ἀλλ᾿ ἐξ ὄνου περιεργίας διὰ µακροῦ πάνυ καὶ οὕτω δὲ µόλις οἴκαδε ἀνασωθείς. I join Hugh Mason (1994) in assuming that the original Greek Metamorphoses, which served as Apuleius’ main source for the ass-tale, did not contain any of the inserted tales.

the rest of the work.”9 Unlike the conclusion of the Onos, Isis’ epiphany at the end of the novel does not function as a legitimate answer to the problems that have been raised in the rest of the novel but, on the contrary, seems to be artificially added on to the coherently constructed plot structure of the original. As a result, it transforms much of the original plot into a series of non-functional loose ends. We are dealing here with a rather paradoxical situation: whereas traditionally, in Euripidean tragedy for instance, deus ex machina endings were used to resolve conflicts that otherwise could not be resolved from within the plot,10 Apuleius brings his protagonist to the very threshold of a perfectly logical resolution only in order to abandon it and replace it with a highly counterintuitive ending. Moreover, the plot structure of the ass-tale is not the only thing that Apuleius subjects to this kind of fragmentation. The manner in which he constructs the figure of his protagonist can hardly be reconciled with the conventional notion of personal identity. Unlike the self-coherent, mimetically credible Lucius of Patrae, Apuleius’ Lucius is a chameleonic character who is pre-sented now as an astronomically wealthy aristocrat from Corinth, now as a poor man from Apuleius’ own North African hometown of Madaurus.11 As a result of these transformations, the obvious moral message that the narrator of the Onos communicates to the reader becomes blurred too, as it gives way to an incongruous mixture of lofty sermon and comic burlesque. Given all these blatant inconsistencies, it strikes one as rather surprising that modern readers of Apuleius continue, against all odds, to perceive his novel through the lens of the classical plot paradigm. Modern interpretations of Apuleius’ novel can be broadly divided into three groups: ‘unitarian’, ‘pluralist’, and ‘postmodern’.12 ‘Unitarian’ readings declare a certain portion of the text (as a rule, the tale of Cupid and Psyche or the Isis book) to be the key to its overall meaning and then force the rest of the narrative into a classical plot based on that portion. As a consequence, the Golden Ass becomes either a fictionalized philosophical treatise13 or a coded Isiac aretalogy (alias roman initiatique).14 ‘Pluralist’ readers, on the contrary, disappointedly admit that the Golden Ass does not comply with the classical principles of plotting and declare it to be a work by a skillful but careless rhetorician, who sacrificed consistency for the sake of frivolous amusement.15 Finally, ‘postmodern’ readings, initiated by John J. Winkler’s Auctor & Actor, see the chief goal of the novel in ‘hermeneutic entertainment’ – “a set of games that may be played in myriad ways and in 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Fusillo 1997, 223. Dunn 1996, 26-44. Apul. Met. 2.12 nam et Corinthi nunc apud nos, etc. 11.27 audisse mitti sibi Madaurensem, sed admodum pauperem. On this peculiar change, see van der Paardt 1981. Cf. Schlam – Finkelpearl 2000. E.g., Gianotti 1986. E.g., Merkelbach 1962; Martin 1970; Hani 1973; Frangoulidis 2008. E.g., Perry 1967, 236-282; Anderson 1982, 75-86.

5

which all players may win – but to which there is no right answer,”16 – and where the decision as to how to integrate disparate clues provided by the text is predicated upon whether or not the reader knows how the novel ends. On closer look, however, it turns out that, Winkler’s two-readings theory, too, despite its radically non-committal sophistication, aims to justify a typical classical plot assumption, that “Lucius’ life-story had to lead up to a conclusion that would seem surprising beforehand but detectable in retrospect.”17 The main objective of my book is to demonstrate that deliberate noncompliance with the classical plot paradigm is the cornerstone of Apuleius’ narrative aesthetics and to interpret this aesthetics as a product of the cultural context from which his novel originated. Here is how Apuleius himself – a Second Sophistic philosophus Platonicus, who thrilled huge audiences with his rhetorical performances in theaters throughout his native North Africa – described this context (Apul. Fl. 18): tanta multitudo ad audiendum convenistis, ut potius gratulari Karthagini debeam, quod tam multos eruditionis amicos habet, quam excusare, quod philosophus non recusaverim dissertare. nam et pro amplitudine civitatis frequentia collecta et pro magnitudine frequentiae locus delectus est. praeterea in auditorio hoc genus spectari debet non pavimenti marmoratio nec proscaenii contabulatio nec scaenae columnatio, sed nec culminum eminentia nec lacunarium refulgentia nec sedilium circumferentia, nec quod hic alias mimus halucinatur, comoedus sermocinatur, tragoedus vociferatur, funerepus periclitatur, praestigiator furatur, histrio gesticulatur ceterique omnes ludiones ostentant populo quod cuiusque artis est, sed istis omnibus supersessis nihil amplius spectari debet quam convenientium ratio et dicentis oratio. You have come to listen to me in such great numbers that I should rather congratulate Carthage for having so many friends of learning than excuse myself for not refusing to deliver a speech here despite being a philosopher. For the great multitude of those gathered here corresponds to the size of the city, and the venue has been selected to accommodate such a great multitude. Besides, what one should heed in a hall of this kind is not the marble paving of the floors, the boards of the proscaenium, the pillars of the stage, the height of the roof, the resplendence of the paneled ceiling, or the circumference of the seats. Nor should one heed what takes place here at other times: the nonsense that a mime actor talks, the conversation in which a comic actor partakes, the loud cry a tragic actor enunciates, the risks a ropedancer takes, the thefts a juggler perpetrates, the gestures a pantomime imitates, or whatever else belongs to the art that the rest of all these stage performers demonstrate to their audience. No, one should disregard all these things and pay no further attention to anything but to the listeners’ judiciousness and to the speaker’s articulateness.

16 17

6

Winkler 1985, 200. Winkler 1985, 98.

This is a context in which elite culture (philosophy and sophistic oratory) and low culture (the mime and other kinds of popular entertainment) not only share the same venues and appeal to the same audiences but also, as we shall see, engage in active exchange of subject matter and histrionic techniques.18 I read the Golden Ass as a product of this theatrical atmosphere in which vulgar farce peacefully coexisted with philosophy and exquisite rhetoric. In recent years, there has been a significant amount of research on both sophistic and theatrical elements in the Golden Ass. Most of these studies, however, have been limited to a search for allusions to either drama19 or the literature of the Second Sophistic.20 Although I will also pay close attention to Apuleius’ intertextual echoes, my overall aim is different. What I would like to do is, first and foremost, to read the Golden Ass as an aesthetic phenomenon with a distinctive profile of its own – as a narrative deeply indebted to popular theatricality, and yet compatible with the elite culture of the period. The procedure that I adopt in my investigation is, broadly speaking, archaeological. The surface from which I begin my discussion in Chapter 1 consists of the most conspicuous elements of popular theater that can be found in the novel’s subject matter. Then, in Chapter 2, I delve a little deeper and point to what I see as theatrical patterns in the narrative’s structure; my main claim here is that Apuleius’ primary narrative does not cohere along the lines of a single ‘classical plot’ but is a result of a deliberate intertwining of multiple plots. In Chapters 3 to 7, I discuss five of such possible plot patterns in detail. Finally, in Chapters 8 and 9, I turn to what Apuleius himself would have probably called dicentis oratio, namely to the text’s status not as a theatrical play but as a firstperson narrative.

18 19 20

On the second century AD theatrical culture, see Zucchelli 1995. On connections between theater and oratory in the Second Sophistic, see my Chapter 9.1. The most comprehensible recent study of Apuleius’ allusions to drama is May 2006. E.g., Sandy 1997; Harrison 2000.

7

Part 1 Theatricality

1. The Nonsense of the Mime: The Golden Ass and Popular Theater 1.1. The Mime’s centunculus In his long discussion of riddles in Book 10 of the Deipnosophistae (448b459b), Athenaeus mentions Cleon, Nymphodorus, and Ischomachus, famous actors of Italian mimes, and gives two examples of ‘riddles’ that they used in their performances (Ath. Deipn. 453a): τοιοῦτοι δ᾿ ἦσαν οὓς ἐποίουν γρίφους, οἷον ἀγροίκου τινὸς ὑπερπλησθέντος καὶ κακῶς ἔχοντος, ὡς ἠρώτα αὐτὸν ὁ ἰατρὸς µὴ εἰς ἔµετον ἐδείπνησεν, “οὐκ ἔγωγε,” εἰπεῖν, “ἀλλ᾿ εἰς τὴν κοιλίαν.” καὶ πτωχῆς τινος τὴν γαστέρα πονούσης, ἐπεὶ ὁ ἰατρὸς ἐπυνθάνετο µὴ ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχει, “πῶς γάρ,” εἶπε, “τριταία µὴ βεβρωκυῖα;” The riddles that they made were of the following kind: for instance, some countryman ate too much and became sick; when a doctor asked him whether he had stuffed himself with food to the puking point, he replied: “No way! I have stuffed it into my belly.” Or: some beggar woman had a pain in her stomach; so when the doctor asked her whether she was heavy [with child], she said: “How could I be? I haven’t eaten for three days!”

These silly, barely translatable puns find parallels in the Philogelos – a late antique collection of jokes, which doubtless goes back to a much earlier period and which was connected to the mime as early as in the Suda.1 For instance (Philog. 4 and 120), σχολαστικοῦ ἵππον πιπράσκοντος ἠρώτησέ τις εἰ πρωτοβόλος ἐστίν. τοῦ δὲ εἰπόντος δευτεροβόλον εἶναι, εἶπε· Πῶς οἶδας; ὁ δὲ ἀπεκρίνατο· Ὅτι ἅπαξ ἐµὲ ἔβαλε κάτω καὶ ἅπαξ τὸν πατέρα µου. A scholasticus wanted to sell a horse. Someone asked him whether it had already dropped [its] first [teeth]. The scholasticus said that it had already dropped its second. “How do you know?” said the other one. He replied: “Because it has once dropped me and once my father.”

1

According to the Suda, the author of the Philogelos was the 1 century BC mimographer Philistion (Φ 364 Adler ὁ γράψας τὸν Φιλόγελων). On the date and authorship of the Philogelos, see Andreassi 2004, 27-37. See also Reich 1903, 454-475; Nicoll 1931, 114115.

11

Ἀβδηρίτης ἀκούσας ὅτι κρόµµυα καὶ βολβοὶ φυσῶσιν, ἐν τῷ πλέειν αὐτὸν γαλήνης οὔσης πολλλῆς, σάκκον πλήσας ἀπὸ τῆς πρύµνης ἐκρέµασεν. An Abderite had heard that onions and other bulbous plants made [people make] wind. Once, when he was traveling by sea, there was absolutely no wind. So he hung a full sack at the stern.

Although no one seems to share anymore Reich’s unquestioning trust in the Suda’s attribution of the Philogelos collection to the mimographer Philistion,2 it is impossible to deny that the buffoonish absurdity of these jokes is perfectly congenial with the mime.3 For this reason, it seems to be justified to use the Philogelos as indirect evidence for mime humor. The stock figures ridiculed in the Philogelos fall into three distinct categories. Some jokes rehearse age-old stereotypes about ethnic groups (Abderites, Sidonians, and Cumaeans).4 Others feature character types reminiscent of Theophrastus’ Characters (εὐτράπελοι, ἄγροικοι, etc.) or such comic figures as ὀζόστοµοι familiar to us from Greek epigram.5 But by far the largest number of jokes focuses on the character of σχολαστικός – variously rendered by translators as ‘pedant’, ‘professor’, or ‘schoolmaster’.6 Apuleius’ Lucius, too, is once directly referred to as scholasticus,7 and, as J. J. Winkler has argued, the overall combination of helpless naïveté and highbrow education indeed makes his character highly compatible with the inept intellectual of the Philogelos.8 When Lucius approaches Hypata in Book 1 of the Golden Ass, he seems to enter the world of mime jokes. The first thing he does is to stop at an inn to ask for directions. The brief conversation that he has with an old female innkeeper sounds almost like one of Athenaeus’ ‘riddles’ too (Apul. Met. 1.21): ‘nostine Milonem quendam e primoribus?’ adrisit et: ‘vere’, inquit, ‘primus istic perhibetur Milo, qui extra pomerium et urbem totam colit’. “Do you know Milo, one of the outstanding citizens?” She smiled and said: “Milo is indeed regarded as outstanding here, for his house stands outside the city limits.”

2 3

4 5 6 7 8

12

Reich 1903, 454-475 on “Philistions Philogelos.” Cf. Wüst 1932, 1750. Winkler 1985, 163 n.54: “The evident mime-content of the Philogelos might simply have been the basis for the Suda’s conjecture that Philistion, the archetypal mimographer, was its author.” See also Andreassi 2004, 38-39. Andreassi 2004, 51-54. Andreassi 2004, 54-58. For the overview of translations of the term into modern languages, see Andreassi 2004, 43-44. Apul. Met. 2.10 heus tu, scolastice. Winkler 1985, 160-165.

There is one episode in Book 1 of the Golden Ass that displays particularly strong connections with scholasticus jokes. On his first day in Hypata, Lucius goes to the marketplace to buy food for supper. After some bargaining, he ends up buying fish at a price that he finds somewhat too high (Apul. Met. 1.24). When he is about to leave the market, he runs into his former fellow student Pythias, a local official in charge of the food-supply. Once he finds out how much Lucius has paid for the fish, he becomes angry with the merchant. But, instead of helping Lucius to get his money back, he “punishes” the malicious vendor by ordering his attendant to trample on the fish (Apul. Met. 1.25). What turns Lucius and Pythias into scholastici here is on the surface simply the fact that, like some of the scholastici of the Philogelos (e.g., Philog. 54), they both studied in Athens – the preferred destination for Hellenistic and Roman intellectuals.9 More importantly, however, this comic sketch is based on the same kind of absurd humor as most of the scholasticus jokes. As a rule, these jokes involve a ridiculous intellectual pedantically engaging in a per se normal routine in a context in which this routine becomes absolutely counterproductive. For instance, a scholasticus hides when he sees a doctor because he is ashamed of being healthy (Philog. 6); wants to teach his ass to abstain from food and is distressed by the fact that the ass dies just at the moment when he has learnt not to eat (Philog. 9); offers to sell a friend one thirty-year old slave instead of two fifteen-year old ones (Philog. 12); wears a bandage on his foot after stepping on a nail in his dream and is accused by his friend of stupidity for sleeping barefoot (Philog. 15); does not trust his eyes when he sees his friend alive, because the person who has told him that the friend is dead is more trustworthy (Philog. 22); does not dismount from his horse while crossing a river in a ferry because he is in a hurry (Philog. 31); sees nothing wrong in sleeping with his grandmother (his father’s mother) because his father has been sleeping with his mother for years (Philog. 45); wishes that his father would be sentenced to death so that he might demonstrate to him his skills in forensic oratory (Philog. 54), etc. Juxtaposed with this selection of scholasticus jokes, the Pythias episode of the Golden Ass indeed reads as if it came directly from the Philogelos. Lucius and Pythias are not the only characters that behave like Philogelos figures. It has been observed that Lucius’ miserly host Milo evokes a stock character of new comedy.10 At the same time, the φιλάργυρος character looms large in the Philogelos too. In one joke (Philog. 104), for instance, the miser makes himself his own sole heir in his will; in another, he eats only olives because he can satisfy his hunger with what’s outside, use the pit as wood, and, to top it all off, doesn’t need to take a bath because he can simply wipe his

9 10

Apul. Met. 1.24 Pythias condiscipulus meus apud Athenas Atticas. See Sandy 1993. May 2006, 161-166.

13

hands in his hair after a meal.11 Quite significantly, Milo’s Greek prototype Hipparchus is explicitly called φιλάργυρος (Onos 1), whereas Milo’s own stinginess is characterized by an exaggerated absurdity reminiscent of the φιλάργυρος jokes from the Philogelos: despite being one of the richest men in town, Milo has only one servant and, for fear of thieves, owns no chairs and too few kitchen utensils;12 what is more, his dinner consists of an empty table, at which he urges Lucius to join him by saying en hospitium (Apul. Met. 1.22).13 This combination of mime gags with which Apuleius’ novel begins, seems to be consciously designed to conjure up the atmosphere of mime buffoonery. Despite the consistency of these generic references, however, it would be hard to deny that Philogelos-like passages are integrated into Apuleius’ narrative in a rather gratuitous manner. The introduction of the Pythias episode, for instance, proves to be so unmotivated as to garble the coherence of the original ass-tale’s plot almost beyond repair. At first, when Pythias asks Lucius about the goal of his journey and Lucius promises to give him an answer on the next day,14 it seems that Apuleius does go through the motions of fitting this new character into the cause-and-effect sequence of Lucius’ adventures. This, however, turns out not to be the case: Pythias forever disappears from the narrative after this short interlude, Lucius never gives the promised answer, and, as a consequence, we are given to understand that this scene has no other purpose than to provide a specimen of the typical scholasticus routine. Milo’s stinginess is treated in a similar manner too. Despite his previously described pathologic parsimony, Milo is quickly transformed into a generous host eager to satisfy any of his guest’s wishes (Apul. Met. 1.23). Lucius, nevertheless, continues to act like a typical scholasticus, clinging to the premise that Milo is stingy, despite all evidence to the contrary. This unswervingly counterintuitive behavior leaves him both moneyless and hungry for the rest of the day: not only does he fail to claim back the money that he has lost at the marketplace due to Pythias’ untimely intervention, but he refuses to partake of the food that Milo so insistently offers him at home (Apul. Met. 1.26). Consequently, the last scene of Book 1, at the end of which Lucius goes to bed 11

12

13

14

14

Philog. 105 Φιλάργυρος ἐρωτώµενος διὰ τὶ ἄλλο οὐθὲν ἢ µόνον ἐλαίας ἐσθίει, ἔφη· Ἵνα τὸ µὲν ἔξωθεν ἀντὶ ὄψου ἔχω, τὸ δὲ ὀστοῦν ἀντὶ ξύλου· φαγὼν δὲ εἰς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ κεφαλὴν σφογγισάµενος λουτροῦ οὐκ ἐπιδέοµαι. Apul. Met. 1.22 et cum dicto iubet uxorem decedere utque in eius locum adsidam iubet meque etiam nunc verecundia cunctantem adrepta lacinia detrahens: ‘adside’, inquit, ‘istic. nam prae metu latronum nulla sessibula ac ne sufficientem supellectilem parare nobis licet’. Apul. Met. 1.22 intuli me eumque accubantem exiguo admodum grabatulo et commodum cenare incipientem invenio. assidebat pedes uxor et mensa vacua posita, cuius monstratu ‘en’ inquit ‘hospitium’. Apul. Met. 1.24: ‘quae autem tibi causa peregrinationis huius?’ ‘crastino die scies.’

cenatus solis fabulis, reads like another Philogelos joke in which the scholasticus refuses to eat at a banquet because he is afraid that someone may think that he has come there only in order to eat (Philog. 32, 96). Thus the insertion of φιλάργυρος and σχολαστικός jokes into the narrative results in nothing but mindless jesting for its own sake. Milo is portrayed as a miser only for the narrator to make a single φιλάργυρος joke. This character trait, however, is immediately forgotten when it stands in the way of making Lucius look like a scholasticus. The result is not a coherently plotted narrative but a fragmented patchwork in which the spectacular comic effect of an individual scene plays an incomparably more important role than the internal unity of the whole.15 It is thus by inserting silly mime jokes that Apuleius dissolves the coherent cause-and-effect plot pattern of the original ass-tale’s beginning. This kind of burlesque of a classically plotted prototype is not unprecedented. As a matter of fact, it seems to be one of the hallmarks of the ancient mime genre in general. Athenaeus provides some information on this practice, which goes back to the 4th century BC Peripatetic Aristoxenus (Ath. Deipn. 621c). In his discussion of ancient songs in Book 14, Athenaeus mentions the genres of hilarodia and magodia, both of which were solo mimic performances accompanied by music. In contrast to the hilarodoi whose acting is characterized by a certain degree of solemnity (Ath. Deipn. 621b), the art of the magodoi is described in the following way (Ath. Deipn. 621c): ὁ δὲ µαγῳδὸς καλούµενος τύµπανα ἔχει καὶ κύµβαλα καὶ πάντα τὰ περὶ αὐτὸν ἐνδύµατα γυναικεῖα· σχινίζεταί τε καὶ πάντα ποιεῖ τὰ ἔξω κόσµου, ὑποκρινόµενος ποτὲ µὲν γυναῖκας καὶ µοιχοὺς καὶ µαστροπούς, ποτέ δὲ ἄνδρα µεθύοντα καὶ ἐπὶ κῶµον παραγινόµενον πρὸς τὴν ἐρωµένην. The so-called magodist has tambourines and cymbals, and all the garments that he wears are feminine. He makes indecent gestures and does all kinds of unseemly things, now playing women, adulterers, and pimps, now a drunken man meeting his girlfriend at a party.

15

There is one more episode at the beginning of the novel that finds a parallel in the Philogelos collection. It is the tale about the fraudulent astrologer Diophanes, who is revealed to be incapable of predicting even his own future (Apul. Met. 2.14). Fraudulent astrologers also belong to the characters of the Philogelos jokes. E.g. (Philog. 187a and b), Δύσκολος ἀστρολόγος παιδὸς νοσεροῦ γένεσιν λέγων, πολυχρόνιον αὐτὸν τῇ µητρὶ ὡς ἐπαγγειλάµενος ᾔτει τὸν µισθὸν. τῆς δὲ εἰπούσης Ἐλθόντι σοι αὔριον δώσω, ἔφη· Τί οὖν, ἐὰν τὴν νύκτα ἀποθάνῃ καὶ ἐγὼ τὸν µισθὸν ἀπόλλω; (A peevish astrologer made a horoscope for a sickly child, in which he promised him a long life. Then he asked for his fee. When the child’s mother said, “I’ll pay if you come tomorrow,” he replied: “But what if he dies tonight? Am I supposed to lose my money?”).

15

The characters played by the magodists generally agree with the most popular obscene themes treated in the mime throughout antiquity.16 Their performances, however, were not limited to plotless imitations of particular character types, but, as those of the hilarodoi, could be based on more respectable dramatic prototypes (Ath. Deipn. 621d): φησὶ δὲ ὁ Ἀριστόξενος τὴν µὲν ἱλαρῳδίαν σεµνὴν οὖσαν παρὰ τὴν τραγῳδίαν εἶναι, τὴν δὲ µαγῳδίαν παρὰ τὴν κωµῳδίαν. πολλάκις δὲ οἱ µαγῳδοὶ καὶ κωµικὰς ὑποθέσεις λαβόντες ὑπεκρίθησαν κατὰ τὴν ἰδίαν ἀγωγὴν καὶ διάθεσιν. Aristoxenus says that hilarodia, being serious, burlesques tragedy, whereas magodia burlesques comedy. For often the magodists also took over plots from comedy and acted them according to their own style and disposition.

This means that they adapted standard plots of tragedy and new comedy (and both are of course paragons of the classical plot paradigm)17 to their own improvisatory histrionics,18 spiced them up with obscene jokes and gestures, and, generally speaking, dissolved their coherent structures through the kind of Philogelos-like mimic buffoonery that Athenaeus attests elsewhere for the Italian mime.19 Although this evidence directly pertains only to performances of the fourth century BC, it is equally relevant for later periods as well. The existence of mimic plays based on New Comedy is attested for the third century BC by an Athenian terracotta group of three mimes bearing the inscription ΜΙΜΟΛΩΓΟΙ ΗΥΠΟΘΗΣΙΣ ΕΙΚΥΡΑ.20 Furthermore, it has been argued that, in his adaptations of new comedy plots, Plautus relied on the improvisatory techniques of the mime,21 whereas the so-called Charition mime, preserved on a

16 17 18 19

20 21

16

Nicoll 1931, 123-124; Beacham 1991, 129; Panayotakis 1995, x. Lowe 2001, 157-221. On the improvisatory aspect of mimic performances, see Wüst 1932, 1731; Wiemken 1972, 153-157 and 186-187. Cf. Immisch 1923, 9ff.; Benz 1999, 63-76. Due to its improvisatory character, the mime was always characterized by a general disregard for mimetic and/or structural coherence. As a result, disorganized and chaotic series of events, in which unpredictable (and, for that reason, often incredible) turns of fortune lead to a disconcertingly abrupt conclusion belonged to the most salient hallmarks of the genre. See Benz 1999, 56-63; Wüst 1932, 1745. Cf. Cic. Cael. 65 mimi ergo iam exitus, non fabulae; in quo cum clausula non invenitur, fugit aliquis e manibus, dein scabilla concrepant, aulaeum tollitur. Episodic structures, incongruous combinations of prose dialogue, song, and dance, as well as blatant self-contradictions of every conceivable kind were of course an inevitable consequence of the desire to heighten the spectacular effect of a every single scene. On structural characteristics of Greco-Roman mimic plays in general, see Wiemken 1972, 153-172, with an analysis of extant papyrus fragments. Reich 1903, 553ff.; Immisch 1923, 9-11; Nicoll 1931, 46-47. Benz 1999; Lefèvre 1999.

second-century AD papyrus (P.Oxy. iii. 413),22 subjects to a similar burlesquing treatment the plot of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris.23 The manner in which Apuleius transforms the plot of his Greek original obviously has a great deal in common with the manner in which, according to Aristoxenus, the hilarodoi and the magodoi burlesqued plots of tragedy and new comedy. From this perspective, the self-contradictory fragmentation that we have observed in the Golden Ass emerges as just another sign of the novel’s indebtedness to the mime genre. Not only is the classical plot pattern of the Onos dissolved in the Golden Ass into a concatenation of buffoonish routines, but its mimetically credible characters, too, give way to mercurial beings with no stable qualities. We have already seen that Milo is portrayed as now stingy, now generous, depending on the narrator’s whim. Lucius is likewise a personality in flux, whose shifting movements, as we shall see on more than one occasion, are not always easy to pinpoint. It is symptomatic in this connection that Cicero explicitly links unpredictable personality fluctuations with the mime, when he compares Antony, first shamelessly appropriating and then foolishly squandering Pompey’s riches, with a persona de mimo (Cic. Phil. 2.65 persona de mimo, modo egens, repente dives). In a sense, Apuleius’ astronomically rich Corinthian, who at the end of his adventures suddenly becomes a bitterly impoverished Madauran, is a perfect mirror image of Cicero’s persona de mimo: modo dives, repente egens. Thus the tenor of Apuleius’ narrative is determined by a series of fragmentations inspired by the mime. In this connection, the fact that Socrates, the protagonist of the novel’s first inserted tale, wears a centunculus – a patchwork cloak worn by mime actors24 – acquires a special significance: it virtually becomes a symbol of Apuleius’ patchwork narrative style.

22

23

24

A detailed study of all major papyrus fragments of Greek mimes is Wiemken 1972. Andreassi 2001 is the most recent commentary on the two longest papyrus mimes – the Charition and the Moicheutria (both are transmitted on the same papyrus, P.Oxy. iii. 413). Wiemken 1972, 153: “Im Charition-Mimus scheint der gesamte Szenenablauf so offensichtlich unter Mißachtung seines inneren Zusammenhalts auf die Betonung äußerlicher Regieeffekte hin angelegt, daß darin bereits ein Hinweis auf das besondere Wesen des Mimus gesucht werden darf.” On connections between the Charition mime and Euripides, see Santelia 1991, 12-26. E.g., Apul. Apol. 13; Sen. Ep. 80.8. See also Apul. Met. 7.9, where Charite’s bridegroom Tlepolemus, who plays the (essentially mimic) role of the bloodthirsty robber Haemus (cf. Ch. 2.1), is said to be wearing a centunculus. In addition, there may be a mimic touch about the fact that by lifting his centunculus he exposes his nakedness: Apul. Met. 1.6 sutili centunculo faciem suam ima dudum punicantem prae pudore obtexit ita, ut ab umbilico pube tenus cetera corporis renudaret. Cf. Keulen 2003, 112-113.

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1.2. Mime Plots Connections between the Golden Ass and the mime go beyond a few buffoonish jokes. It has been claimed that even the original Greek ass-tale displays notable connections with the world of popular theater.25 There is indeed certain reason to believe that the very image of the Eselmensch derives from a mime, and it cannot be excluded (although, of course, it cannot be proved either) that this mime was based on some prototypical version of the ass-tale.26 Even the very appearance of Lucius the ass clearly evokes that of a mime fool (stupidus), who was bald (mimus calvus), had big ears, and wore a leather phallus.27 Whereas Lucius’ baldness is stressed only in Apuleius (Apul. Met. 11.30), the ass’s oversized penis and ears play an extraordinarily large role in both versions of the ass-tale. The combination of these elements suggests that Lucius’ transformation into an ass is in a sense a transformation into a big-eared, phallophoric mimus stupidus. The proletarian social milieu in which Lucius the ass suddenly finds himself upon his metamorphosis is generally evocative of the mime too. The entire middle part of the narrative, in which Lucius constantly changes owners, is characterized by an emphasis on the fickleness of fortune and by crude slapstick humor (Lucius the ass is constantly beaten up), both of which can be regarded as typical hallmarks of the mime.28 Moreover, most of the low-life characters with whom he comes into contact, have counterparts in the mime. Slaves as mime characters appear as early as Sophron and Herodas and later, too, continue to play an important part in the mime (e.g., in the Moicheutria papyrus). The low-life professions of some of Lucius’ owners, such as a miller and a gardener, would not be fully out of place in a mime play either.29 The character of the soldier who takes possession of Lucius at the end of his asinine existence goes back not only to the miles gloriosus of comedy but also to the mime.30 Robbers, too, occupied a noteworthy position among the stock characters of the mime, as is attested by the evidence pertaining to the Laureolus mime by the Roman mimographer Catullus.31 Last but not least, the effeminate priests of Dea Syria stand in the long tradition of cinaedi and Syrians as characters of the mime.32 The obscenity of the scene in which Lucius copulates with the rich matron from Thessalonica is reminiscent of the obscenity that 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

18

Reich 1903, 258. Mason 1978, 11. On the mimic fool’s appearance, see Benz 1999, 34 and Nicoll 1931, 47-50 and 87-90 with illustrations. Wüst 1932, 1745-1747. Reich 1903, 26; Nicoll 1931, 27-30. May 2006, 295. Chor. Apol. mim. 109 ἔνι καὶ στρατιώτας ἰδεῖν. Reich 1903, 88-92; Wiemken 1972, 148-149; Herrmann 1985; Bartsch 1994, 50-62. Panayotakis 1995, 45ff., on cinaedi and Syrians as characters of the mime.

various sources describe as typical of the mime in general: women’s unrestrained salacity was a particularly cherished topic of mimes, as we can judge, for instance, from Herodas 5 and the Moicheutria (both of which I will discuss in more detail below), and there is even evidence of openly pornographic tendencies in later mimes, where sex acts were actually performed, instead of imitated.33 It is of course particularly symptomatic in this connection that in the Onos Lucius’ retransformation takes place in a theater and that it happens in a context replete with references to the mime. Not only is Lucius the ass expected to have intercourse with a convict woman onstage, but this act is meant to reenact the myth of Pasiphae’s love for a bull.34 This pornographic performance, interrupted only by Lucius’ sudden retransformation, clearly alludes to the so-called ‘Pasiphae mime’ performed at the Roman amphitheater.35 The final scene of the Greek narrative, in which Lucius is thrown out of the house because he fails to live up to the high sexual expectations of the rich matron, is reminiscent of numerous scenes of Latin literature that focus on the ridiculous aspects of impotence. It has been repeatedly claimed that these scenes are ultimately based on the mime, too, where comic aspects of sexual inadequacy seem to have played a significant part.36 Apuleius preserves most of the indirect references to popular theater that he has found in his original and adds to them a variety of new – less oblique – ones. As a matter of fact, a great number of episodes in Apuleius are based on narrative scenarios attested in mimes. 33 34

35 36

Hist. Aug. Heliog. 25.4 in mimicis adulteriis ea, quae solent simulato fieri, effici ad verum iussit. Cf. Zimmerman 2000, 164-165. Cf. Onos 51 ἐπεὶ δὲ ἀκριβῶς ἐπείσθην ἔτι µοι καὶ προσδεῖν πρὸς τὴν τῆς γυναικὸς ἡδονήν τε καὶ τέρψιν, ἀδεῶς λοιπὸν ὑπηρέτουν ἐννοούµενος ὡς οὐδὲν εἴην κακίων τοῦ τῆς Πασιφάης µοιχοῦ. Coleman 1990; Coleman 2006, 62-65; Bartsch 1994, 57. E.g., in Ovid (see McKeown 1979) and Petronius (Panayotakis 1995, 170-181). It is of course impossible to tell whether the narrative was directly inspired by the mime, drew upon traditions of popular storytelling, or both. This distinction is probably irrelevant and generally hard to maintain, since a great number of different genres – both narrative and theatrical - depended on more or less the same large pool of popular stock motifs. Cf. Benz 2001. It is highly significant, however, that, in addition to its undeniable thematic links with the mime, the narrative of the Onos is closely related to other kinds of Trivialliteratur too: for instance, Lucius’ explicit statement that he undertook his journey to Thessaly in order to see some παράδοξα betrays close connections between his account and the popular genre of the paradoxographical travel report (Winkler 1985, 257-273, on ‘quest-forwisdom’ literature), whereas the wrestling terminology, lavishly employed in the description of his sexual intercourse with Palaestra, owes a great deal to contemporary handbooks on lovemaking (De Martino 1996, 327-328). In other words, the Greek ass-tale is deeply rooted in the contemporary popular culture, with theater constituting only one among many possible inspirations for its narrative. On connections between the mime and other forms of popular culture, see Lada-Richards 2007, 29-32; Morales 2004, 71-77.

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The episode of Charite’s liberation in Book 4, for instance, directly echoes the plot of the Charition mime.37 As I mentioned above, the Charition mime (P.Oxy. iii. 413) is broadly based on the plot of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris. The protagonist of this mime, a young Greek girl named Charition, lives in captivity in India. She is taking refuge from cruel barbarians at the temple of the Moon goddess, when her brother and a stupidus (µωρός) figure come to rescue her. The Indians speak some funny barbarian gibberish and are generally portrayed as amusingly uncouth, whereas the stupidus figure farts all the time. At the end of the drama Charition’s brother saves her from imprisonment by getting her captors drunk with unmixed wine.38 Connections between Apuleius’ episode and the Charition mime begin with the fact that the unnamed captive girl of the Greek ass-tale is in the Latin version called Charite. Moreover, there are clear parallels between Charition’s and Charite’s adventures. Most importantly, Charite, like her counterpart in the mime, is captured and held hostage. Although her captors are not barbarians but a band of robbers, their description is perfectly consonant with that of the savages of the mime.39 Furthermore, like Charition, Charite is liberated by a heroic young man. Although he is not her brother but her bridegroom, he relies on exactly the same stratagem as the ‘Orestes’ of the Charition mime in that he makes the robbers drunk (Apul. Met. 7.11-13). Finally, to complete the picture, Lucius the ass consistently plays the role of the mimic stupidus in this episode: he completely fails to grasp the meaning of what he sees and constantly makes silly remarks, functionally analogous to the incessant prattling and farting of the µωρός from the Charition mime.40 There are many points of contact between Apuleius’ tales and other mime plots. Quite interestingly, in most other cases when such plots are used in the Golden Ass, they form thematic clusters based on similar scenarios. This tendency probably reflects an incredible degree of thematic homogeneity that marked the development of the mime in general – from Greece to Rome, from the sixth century BC to the sixth century AD. For instance, the type of a jealous woman madly in love with her slave, which we first encounter in Herodas’ literary adaptation of this popular motif in the third century BC, resurfaces in the Moicheutria papyrus of the second century AD. The theme of adultery, although it reaches the peak of popularity in Rome, seems to have always belonged to the 37 38 39

40

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Cf. Santelia 1989. Wiemken 1972, 48-80; Santelia 1991, 9-12; Andreassi 2001, 31-32. Apul. Met. 4.8 estur et potatur incondite, pulmentis acervatim, panibus aggeratim, poculis agminatim ingestis. clamore ludunt, strepitu cantilant, conviciis iocantur, ac iam cetera semiferis Lapithis cenantibus Centaurisque similia. E.g., Lucius fails to recognize Charite’s bridegroom Tlepolemus in the brigand Haemus and delivers (to himself) an impassioned tirade in which he condemns Charite’s display of affection for this ‘bloodthirsty stranger’ (hunc advenam cruentumque percussorem, Apul. Met. 7.11).

stock motifs of the mime.41 Magical rituals, for which Sophron provides the earliest evidence and on which Theocritus heavily relies in Idyll 2,42 continue to play an important part in mimic performances of later periods too, as is indirectly attested by such figures as Horace’s Canidia, the lena of Roman elegy, and Petronius’ Proselenus and Oenothea, all of whom have good chances of having been inspired by contemporary mimes.43 This evidence suggests that the mime was generally characterized by an easy reproducibility typical of popular culture of all times. It could best be compared to modern TV shows that fall into a limited number of sub-genres, each relying on a predictable set of thematic expectations and plot conventions. In what follows, I will show how Apuleius uses the pliability characteristic of these popular super-plots. The ‘Adultery Mime’ Series The theme of adultery was by far the most popular motif of the mime from the classical to the late antique period.44 Throughout its long history, the adultery mime exploited the comic potential of the triangle consisting of a young attractive adulteress, her clever paramour, and her cuckolded husband (normally played by the bald stupidus).45 Although no adultery mime scripts have come down to us, we can reconstruct a number of their basic plot patterns. Ovid not only confirms that the obscene (both aurally and visually) representation of adultery was the most cherished topic of mime spectacles but also provides some hints as to what constituted the essential content of such mimes (Ov. Tr. 2. 497-500, 503-506): quid si scripsissem mimos obscena iocantes, qui semper vetiti crimen amoris habent, in quibus assidue cultus procedit adulter, verbaque dat stulto callida nupta viro?

41 42

43 44

45

Nicoll 1931, 119-120. Sophron’s ταὶ γυναῖκες αἵ φαντι τὰν θεὰν ἐξελᾶν, Hordern 2004, fr. 3-9; Theocritus 2 (see Gow 1950, II, 33-35). Among the title of Laberius’ and Catullus’ mimes, there are Necyomantia and Phasma (Bonaria 1965, 56 and 80). On the mimic associations of Ovid’s lena, see McKeown 1979, 78-79; Horace’s Canidia, Watson 2003, 182; Petronius’ Oenothea, Panayotakis 1995, 171-172. The passage from Athenaeus, which I quoted above, provides evidence for the fourth century BC: Ath. 621c ὁ δὲ µαγῳδὸς καλούµενος ⟨...⟩ πάντα ποιεῖ τὰ ἔξω κόσµου, ὑποκρινόµενος ⟨...⟩ µοιχοὺς καὶ µαστροπούς ⟨...⟩. In the sixth century AD, Choricius (Apol. mim. 26) mentions mimic actors impersonating ἰατρὸν ἢ ῥήτορα … ἢ µοιχὸν ἢ δεσπότην ἢ δοῦλον. Reynolds 1946; McKeown 1979, 71-72.

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nec satis incestis temerari vocibus aures: adsuescunt oculi multa pudenda pati. cumque fefellit amans aliqua novitate maritum, plauditur et magno palma favore datur. What if I had written mimes full of obscene jokes, which always contain the crime of forbidden love [and] in which constantly a well-groomed adulterer appears and the shrewd wife bickers with her stupid husband? And it is not enough for the ears to be shocked by unseemly words: even the eyes become used to suffering many shameful things, and when the lover has deceived the husband with some new trick, he is greeted with applause and with great favor is given the palm.

From this passage, we can deduce that some adultery mimes ended in the triumph of the adulterous couple and the humiliation of the ridiculous stupid husband. A passing reference to the adultery mime in Juvenal (6.41-44) presents a somewhat different picture. Juvenal portrays an adulterer hiding in “Latinus’ chest” (Latinus being one of the most famous mimic actors of the age):46 quid fieri non posse putes, si iungitur ulla Ursidio? si moechorum notissimus olim stulta maritali iam porrigit ora capistro, quem totiens texit perituri cista Latini? What do you think is impossible if some woman marries Ursidius? If the man who used to be one of the most notorious lechers, who has so often hidden in Latinus’ chest, risking his life, is now putting a marital halter on his stupid head?

The following passage from Horace’s Satires (S. 2.7.58-61) also seems to allude to the unbearable constraint that typically characterized the closet in which a mimic adulterer would be hiding: quid refert, uri virgis ferroque necari auctoratus eas, an turpi clausus in arca, quo te demisit peccati conscia erilis, contractum genibus tangas caput? What’s the difference between hiring yourself as a gladiator so as to be burnt with rods and killed with a sword, and crouching, with your knees touching your head, in an ugly chest, in which a maid privy to her mistress’s sins has enclosed you?

Here the emphasis is not on the paramour’s triumph over the husband’s stupidity but on his suffering and near death (perituri) in the all too small chest in which his unfortunate girlfriend is trying to hide him. No matter what the ultimate 46

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Reynolds 1946, 81; Kehoe 1984, 73.

outcome of this scenario would be, it would clearly end in an unpleasant interruption of the rendezvous and, possibly, in the suffocating adulterer’s punishment. In other words, the stupid husband is certainly not the only butt of the joke here: the frustration of the cultus adulter’s clever machinations would have probably caused as much laughter as the husband’s awkwardness in uncovering them. Choricius in his Apology of the Mimes supplies two different versions of the conclusion of the plot envisaged by Juvenal and Horace. In some cases, he reveals, the adulterer was handed over to the cuckolded husband for punishment. Choricius even mentions the goddess of Justice (Dike) as the one responsible for the discovery (it remains unclear whether she is conceived of as an anthropomorphic figure acting in the play or as some kind of abstract entity).47 According to the other version, the husband discovers the adulterer himself and threatens to kill him with a knife; in the end, however, he cools down and decides to bring him to court instead.48 In addition to the three permanent characters belonging to the standard cast of the adultery mime, two more are occasionally mentioned as well. A slave is introduced as one of the characters of the adultery mime in the Historia Augusta: here, the stupid jealous husband suspects his wife of adultery, comes home earlier than expected in order to catch her red-handed, and asks his slave for the adulterer’s name (M. Ant. phil. 29.1-3, esp. cum stupidus nomen adulteri uxoris a servo quaereret). An old procuress must have occasionally played an important part in the adultery mime too. The only direct evidence for this character in the mime comes from Herodas’ Mimiamb 1. The scene involves a dialogue between a young woman (Metriche), whose boyfriend (or husband) has gone to Egypt, and a procuress (Gyllis) trying to convince her to commit adulte-

47

48

Chor. Apol. mim. 33-34 πλὴν ἐπειδὴ σχῆµα µοιχείας ὅλον δοκεῖ σοι τὸ θέατρον εἰς αἰσχρὰν ἕλκειν ἐπιθυµίαν, ἐκεῖνό σε παρατηρεῖν ἀξιῶ· οὐδεὶς ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν ἐν µίµων παιγνίοις µοιχεύσας διέλαθεν, ὥστε προτρέπουσι ταύτῃ τὸν θεατὴν εὐκοσµίας ἐπιµελεῖσθαι. ἀσκεῖ γὰρ τὸ σεµνόν, ἔνθα τὸ φαῦλον ἁλίσκεται. τῷ τοίνυν µηδένα λαθεῖν ἀλλοτρίαν εὐνὴν καταισχύνοντα ἄγρυπνον ὑποφαίνουσι φύλακα σωφροσύνης τὴν Δίκην, ὡς ἕκαστον ἐπιβουλεύοντα γάµῳ καταφωρᾶν τὴν θεὸν καὶ παραδιδόναι τῷ τῆς ὑβρισµένης ἀνδρί. Chor. Apol. mim. 54-55 καὶ οὐκ ἀνέγκλητον οὐδενὶ µίµου γυναῖκα µοιχεύειν, κἂν ἁλῷ τις τοῦτο πεποιηκώς, δώσει δίκην οὐκ ἐλάττω τῆς ἐπὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις µοιχοῖς ὡρισµένης οὐδὲ λέξει πρὸς τοὺς δικάζειν λαχόντας· ἄνδρες δικασταί, οὗτός µε ταῦτα πράττειν ἐδίδαξεν, οὗτος τὴν ἰδίαν ἐπαίδευσε σύνοικον µηδὲν οἴεσθαι χαλεπὸν εἶναι µοιχείαν. οὐκ οὕτως ἀπολογήσεται· λέγοντος γὰρ ἀκούσεται τοῦ κατηγόρου· ἄνθρωπε, οὐδὲ τὸν ἐπὶ σκηνῆς τὴν δοκοῦσαν µοιχεύοντά µου γυναῖκα περιορῶ, ἀγανακτῶ δὲ καὶ δεινά φηµι πεπονθέναι καὶ κάλει παῖδα καὶ µάχαιράν τις φερέτω. πρόσεισιν οἰκέτης ἔχων τὸ προσταχθέν. εἶτα βουλήν τινα δοὺς ἐµαυτῷ καὶ δεινὸν ἡγησάµενος αὐτοχειρίᾳ τὴν τιµωρίαν λαβεῖν ἀµφοτέρους εἰς δικαστήριον ἄγω.

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ry.49 Since Metriche refuses to accept Gyllis’ proposal, the sketch can, in a way, be regarded as an adultery mime aborted by the prospective adulteress’s unexpected fidelity. As a result, it is the bibulous old woman who becomes here the chief object of ridicule. The sudden frustration of her scheme might imply, however, that there were also mimes where it actually worked. This assumption is supported by the figure of the lena who in both new comedy and Roman elegy is regularly portrayed as playing a role similar to that of Gyllis in Herodas’ Mimiamb 1,50 with the only exception that the adultery that the lena instigates there is successfully consummated in the end.51 It is indeed quite striking that Apuleius’ four adultery tales in Book 9 contain all the variations of the basic adultery mime plot that I have just outlined. The result is a kind of comprehensive anthology, which virtually exhausts all conceivable forms of this plot.52 To begin with, the initial situation in all four tales is identical to that of the adultery mime: a married woman receives her lover during her husband’s absence; the husband returns earlier than expected and interrupts the rendezvous. From this point on, the individual tales display some differences, all of which, however, fall into patterns attested by the sources that I have just discussed. In three of the tales, the paramour, in accordance with the scenario alluded to by Horace and Juvenal, is hidden in a capacious household receptacle – a barrel (Apul. Met. 9.5-7), a wicker cage (9.24-25), or a tub (9.22-23, 26-27). In two of the tales, the adulterer escapes unscathed, while the husband makes a fool of himself. In the tale of the barrel, the young adulterous couple is so daring as to have sex in the unsuspecting husband’s presence, while the latter cleans the barrel in which the paramour was originally hiding. In the tale of the slippers (Apul. Met. 9.17-21), Philisitherus not only manages to get away before the husband shows up but also succeeds in getting another man punished instead: he accuses Myrmex, the cuckolded husband’s slave, of stealing the slippers, which he had himself forgotten in the woman’s bedroom. Both of these stories are obviously in perfect accord with the basic plot that we can deduce from Ovid’s intimation that the ultimate outcome of some adultery mimes consisted in the young lover’s duping the old husband in a variety of ways. In the other two tales (the tale of the wicker cage and the tale of the tub) the husband, as in the versions alluded to by Choricius, succeeds in catching the adulterer. Moreover, in one of them, the young lover, hiding in the wicker cage in which the adulteress’s husband (a fuller) keeps clothes soaked in sulfur, 49 50 51 52

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On connections between Herodas’ Gyllis and New Comedy, on the one hand, and Roman elegy, on the other, see Cunningham 1971, 57-58 and Di Gregorio 1997, 39-50. More on the literary pedigree of the procuress in Roman elegy, see Myers 1996. Cf. McKeown 1979, 79. On the similarity of plot patterns of the adultery tales, see Bechtle 1995, 108-109. On the theatricality of the adultery tales, see Papaïoannou 2002.

betrays himself by loud continuous sneezing and is about to perish (periturus, as in Juvenal) from the poisonous fumes. In the other, as in the passage from Horace’s Satire, the emphasis is on the confined space of the receptacle (the tub) in which the paramour is hiding: it is so small that his fingers protrude from under it.53 Furthermore, in the tale of the wicker cage, the husband threatens to kill the lover with a sword but is persuaded to let him go by the argument that the sulfur that he has inhaled would eventually do the job of meting out the punishment that he has deserved.54 This situation is reminiscent of Choricius’ passage where the husband, upon his discovery of the paramour, first demands a knife, but then cools down and seeks justice in court. In the tale of the tub, on the other hand, the adulterer is found out only through the timely intrusion by the indignant Lucius, who makes him scream by stepping on his hand and, by doing so, adopts the role of the goddess Justice handing the adulterer over to the husband for punishment in Choricius.55 The cast of Apuleius’ adultery tales is not limited to the indispensable love triangle but includes the two additional characters of slave and procuress. As we have seen, a slave plays an important part in the tale of the slippers (Apul. Met. 9.17-21). As in the Historia Augusta passage, here, too, the jealous husband entrusts his slave with the task of guarding his mistress’s chastity, intends to catch the adulteress red-handed, and interrogates his slave when he fails to do so. The tale of the tub, on the other hand, introduces the character of the bibulous procuress familiar to us from Herodas. What is more, as in Herodas’ Mimiamb 1, the procuress’ plan is thwarted in this tale too (quite significantly, this is the only instance of the adultery mime plot in Apuleius where the sexual act between the prospective adulteress and her paramour is not consummated). This time, however, the reason why the basic scenario of the adultery mime is aborted (or rather, inverted) is not the woman’s unexpected fidelity (the baker’s wife is more than willing to commit adultery with the handsome Philisitherus) but her husband’s resourcefulness with which he manages to turn this adulterer manqué into an object of his own sexual pleasure.56 53 54

55

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Apul. Met. 9.27 extremos adulteri digitos, qui per angustias cavi tegminis prominebant. Cf. 9.26 quo maturius stupratorem suum tegminis cruciatu liberaret. Apul. Met. 9. 25 gladium flagitans, iugulare moriturum gestiebat, ni respecto communi periculo vix eum ab impeto furiosos cohibuissem adseverans brevi absque noxa nostri suapte inimicum eius violentia sulpuris periturum. Apul. Met. 9.27. Cf. 9.26 sed mihi penita carpebantur praecordia et praecedens facinus et praesentem deterrimae feminae constantiam cogitanti mecumque sedulo deliberabam, si quo modo possem detectis ac revelatis fraudibus auxilium meo perhibere domino. Apul. Met. 9.28 et pudicissima illa uxore alterorsus disclusa solus ipse cum puero cubans gratissima corruptarum nuptiarum vindicta perfruebatur.

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What we have to do with here is an exhaustive catalogue of the adultery mime plots arranged in an extremely skillful way. The brilliant humor inherent in Apuleius’ ‘adultery mime’ series consists primarily in the fact that in the course of the adultery tales the adulterer and the husband effectively switch roles. In the first tale, the adulterer clearly has the upper hand and manages to dupe the stupid husband (stupidus) in a particularly shameless way by having sex with his wife in his presence. In the second one, the lover only narrowly escapes being caught by jumping out of the window. In the third, he actually is caught, and his ridiculous lack of dexterity in implementing his adulterous scheme is punished by the particularly demeaning way in which he dies. In the fourth, the adultery is not even consummated; instead, the young paramour pays the most fitting penalty that one could possibly think up for adultery, in that he satisfies the sexual appetite of the husband whom he originally planned to cuckold. The ‘Rejected Women’ Series Another character that repeatedly occurs in ancient mimes is the so-called zelotypos – a jealous woman in fits of uncontrollable rage against the man who has rejected her and/or his new girlfriend.57 The earliest example of a mime featuring this character is Herodas’ Mimiamb 5. A rich woman named Bittina, passionately in love with her unfaithful slave Gastron, orders another slave of hers to tie him down and bring him to the executioner’s for a particularly brutal punishment (Herod. Mim. 5. 10-34). Since she agrees to put off the punishment due to a religious celebration that prohibits violence (Herod., Mim. 5.80-85), there is not much that really happens in this scene. The emphasis throughout the sketch is not so much on the action as on the character of the jealous woman, whose love has driven her so mad that she is prepared to commit acts of utmost atrocity against her beloved. The only consistent element in Bittina’s behavior is the sadistic desire to inflict on her slave as much pain as possible. For this reason, she acts like a cruel monster, constantly thinking up new, increasingly harsh punishments for her offender, and remains absolutely insensitive to his pleas for mercy. Apart from her determined vengefulness, her character is portrayed as absolutely unstable – she constantly gives self-contradictory orders and madly yells at her slaves whenever she thinks they are too slow to obey them.58 A similar image reappears in the so-called Adulteress mime (Moicheutria, 57 58

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On this character from Herodas to the Roman mime, see Fantham 1986, 52-54. For instance, Herod. 5.10 τοῦτον δῆσον - ἀλλ᾿ ἔτ᾿ ἔστηκας; 23-24 Πυρρίη, κλαύσῃ· / ὀρῶ σε δήκου πάντα μᾶλλον ἢ δεῦντα. 40-41 ἔστηκας ἐµβλέπων σύ, κοὐκ ἄγεις αὐτόν / ὄκου λέγω σοι; 53-55 εὖ δ᾿ ἐπεµνήσθην - / κάλει, κάλει δραµεῦσα, πρὶν µακρήν, δούλη, / αὐτοὺς γενέσθαι.

P.Oxy. iii. 413).59 The text of this mime is highly fragmentary, and some elements of the plot remain rather obscure. Nevertheless, one can reconstruct, with a certain degree of certainty, the overall narrative pattern according to which the action of this mime unfolds.60 The Moicheutria mime represents a full-fledged play based on the ‘rejected woman’ theme. It portrays a rich woman (a literary descendant of Euripides’ Medea and Herodas’ Bittina) in love with her slave named Aesopus. Whereas Bittina’s jealousy is based only on an unconfirmed suspicion, there is no doubt that Aesopus in the Moicheutria does have a girlfriend named Apollonia, with whom he attempts to run away from their common owner. Like Bittina, the protagonist of the Moicheutria is entirely controlled by her unbridled jealousy and desire to avenge her hurt pride. For this reason, she orders her other slaves to tie the captured runaway couple to two different trees, so that they cannot see each other, and then kill them.61 The cunning slaves, however, let the couple escape (P.Oxy. iii. 413.10ff.; among them is Spinther, who will play an instrumental role in the mime’s denouement). The jealous woman, however, is certain that they will be captured again (12-13), which indeed they are (20ff.). The woman displays the same sadistic inclinations as Bittina of Herodas 5, when she orders her unfaithful slave to be killed and his girlfriend tortured (23-25). When Aesopus is brought to her, he seems to be already dead (27-29), and her revenge fulfilled. Instead of rejoicing, however, she effusively mourns him (30-36), showing the same schizophrenic inconsistency of character that we have already seen in Herodas. Moreover, the woman of the Moicheutria seems to be as impulsive and rude as her counterpart in Herodas, and like Bittina, she also constantly yells at her slaves. This fundamental inconsistency reaches its apogee when all of a sudden she decides to kill all her family members, sell her entire property, and move to some other place!62 She tells Malacus, who is apparently another slave of hers, that she has a potent poison that can do the job (42-43). The main target of her new murderous plan is this time her husband. In order to lure him into the trap, she tells the Parasite, who is not privy to her scheme, to bring him in as if for reconciliation (46-51). Malacus, on the other hand, seems to be the main 59 60 61

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On connections between Herodas 5 and the Moicheutria, see Cunningham 1971, 148; Andreassi 2001, 32-33. Wiemken 1972, 90-106. P.Oxy. iii. 413.3-5 ἀπάγοντες αὐτοὺς κατὰ ἀµφότερα τὰ ἀκρωτήρια καὶ τὰ παρακείµενα δένδρα προσδήσατε, µακρὰν διασπάσαντες ἄλλον ἀπ᾿ ἄλλου καὶ βλέπετε µή ποτε τῷ ἑτέρῳ δείξητε, µὴ τῆς ἀλλήλων ὄψεως πλησθέντες µεθ᾿ ἡδονῆς ἀποθάνωσι. σφαγιάσαντες δὲ αὐτοὺς πρός µε ἔσω ἀντᾶτε. P.Oxy. iii. 413.38-40 οὕτω δέδοκται, Μάλακε· πάντας ἀνελοῦσα καὶ πωλήσασα τὰ ὑπάρχοντά που ποτε χωρίσεσθαι.

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accomplice of her crime.63 In the meantime, someone, most likely Spinther, has instructed the Parasite about their mistress’s criminal machinations and replaced the poison with some innocuous substance, which they serve to the woman’s husband (59ff.). In order to make her think that everything is going according to her plan, Spinther and the Parasite pretend to mourn her apparently dead husband (65). All of a sudden, the master leaps up from his bier and asks who the other ‘corpses’ are (Aesopus and Apollonia); Spinther tells him that they are safe, i.e., only apparently dead too (66-68). Here the fragment abruptly ends, but the outcome of the plot seems to be clear enough anyway. We are dealing with a happy ending that involves three cases of Scheintod. The criminal woman and her accomplice who have attempted to poison at least three people are found out in the end. We can only speculate what could have happened afterwards, but it is a fairly secure guess that their machinations would have been punished in one way or another. There are four ‘tragedies’ of rejected women in the Golden Ass – the ‘Phaedra’ tale (Apul. Met. 10.2-12), the tale of the condemned woman (Apul. Met.10.23), and, on a smaller scale, the tale of a slave’s adultery (Apul. Met. 8.22) and the coda of the tale of the miller’s wife. The first episode based on the ‘rejected women’ scenario is the short tale of a slave’s adultery (Apul. Met. 8.22). Despite its unimpressive size, this tale fulfills an extremely important function in the novel. It is the first in the long series of erotic tales, and, what is more, it anticipates both of the main themes that are to play the central role in the narratives that come after it – adultery and jealousy. Curiously, this introductory tale presents both of the novel’s central erotic motifs in a somewhat inverted form. Whereas its starting point is adultery, it is, unlike in the other tales, an adultery committed not by a wife but by a husband. This inversion of the typical configuration allows the narrator to depart from the standard routine of the adultery mime and to adopt the zelotypos scenario instead. From the viewpoint of the jealousy mime, however, the tale contains a significant twist too: whereas both in Herodas and in the Moicheutria, a slave betrays his mistress with another slave, here we deal with a married slave who betrays his wife (who is of course a slave too) with a free woman. Her low social status does not preclude the wife from behaving like a typical zelotypos: she kills not only herself but also, like Medea and the convict woman of Apuleius’ Book 10, her child by the unfaithful husband. Her suicide leaves the man’s adultery unpunished at first. The role played by the vengeful murderess in the Moicheutria is taken over by the married couple’s master, who punishes the man by tying him to a tree (we have seen this motif in the Moicheutria) and smearing him with honey in order for him to be eaten alive by ants. 63

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P.Oxy. iii. 413.57-58 γέροντα ἀνέλωµεν.

Μάλακε, πάντα ἡµῖν κατὰ γνώµην προκεχώρηκε, ἐὰν ἔτι τὸν

The two major instances of the ‘rejected women’ scenario in the Golden Ass contain all of its typical plot elements: both of them, in the manner of Herodas 5 and the Moicheutria, portray female monsters who attempt to cure their hurt pride by murdering their offenders. The complexity of these tales has more to do with their intertextual affiliations: one of them grafts the character of the mime’s rejected woman onto a tragic plot, whereas the other one uses as a starting point a situation inspired by new comedy. We have already had some opportunities to observe the importance of Euripides’ tragedies as the ultimate source of inspiration for some of the most popular mime plots: the figure of the rejected woman goes back to the Medea, whereas the Charition mime presents a scurrilous adaptation of the plot of the Iphigenia in Tauris.64 That the basic plot of Euripides’ Hippolytus also served as a foundation for mimic plays is clearly demonstrated by a fragment of the Roman mimographer Laberius, which mentions a stepmother in love with her stepson.65 For this reason, it should hardly surprise us that among Apuleius’ ‘mimic’ fictions there is a tale based on the tragedy of Phaedra’s unrequited love. The beginning of Apuleius’ ‘Phaedra’ tale reproduces the essence of this famous tragic plot: a stepmother is passionately in love with her stepson and confesses her passion (Apul. Met. 10.2-3), which her stepson scornfully rejects out of loyalty to his father (Apul. Met. 10.4). From the moment Apuleius’ ‘Phaedra’ is rejected, she is transformed into a violent monster of the mime. Unlike her Euripidean prototype, she is not content with accusing her stepson of her own crime (although at a later point she does that too). Instead, in the manner of a typical mimic zelotypos, she decides to poison him (Apul. Met. 10.4). A tragic mistake happens, however, which hinders her murderous plan: instead of her stepson, it is her own young child who drinks the poison (Apul. Met. 10.5). At this point, she adopts a treacherous stratagem, worthy of Euripides’ Phaedra: she accuses her stepson of poisoning his half-brother, who supposedly refused to satisfy the older boy’s sexual desire. For some curious reason, this monstrous lie strikes every character in the tale as perfectly credible, and, following the boy’s prompt apprehension, there is a trial scene – a complex piece of detective fiction that uses numerous plot elements familiar to us from the Moicheutria mime (Apul. Met. 10.6-12). In the course of the trial, it becomes apparent that the criminal woman, like the jealous woman of the Moicheutria, had an accomplice, who is of course her slave too. Moreover, it turns out that, like Spinther in the Moicheutria, the doctor from whom the slave was supposed to buy poison had replaced it with a soporific. As a result, we have a happy ending in which justice thoroughly prevails, as it must 64 65

Andreassi 2002, 30-33. Laberius, Belonistria 24-25 (Bonaria 1965, 41) domina nostra privignum suum amat efflictim.

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have in the ending of the Moicheutria: the younger boy wakes up from the death-like sleep (like the three apparently dead characters of the Moicheutria), the older boy is acquitted, the stepmother is sentenced to exile and her accomplice to death.66 The basic scenario of the ‘rejected woman’ mime finds a somewhat different realization in the tale of the convict woman (Apul. Met. 10.23-28). Unlike the intertextually more complex image of Apuleius’ ‘Phaedra’, this woman is a typical zelotypos of the mime whose unbridled jealousy leads her to commit acts of unprecedented atrocity. Moreover, in this tour de force of ‘mimic’ fiction, Apuleius really seems to go out of his way to produce a quintessentially evil female character, whose senseless desire for murder by far surpasses anything we have seen in her literary predecessors. By creating such an exaggerated monster, Apuleius masterfully captures the spirit of the typical absurdity of the mime, which, as we have seen, eagerly sacrifices the classical coherence of plot and motivation to the needs of the paratactic portrayal of a single dominant character trait. Whereas the plot of the ‘Phaedra’ tale is founded on tragedy, the tale of the convict woman evokes new comedy. As I mentioned above, new comedy served as an important source for mimes. The tale of the convict woman once again shows how a classical comic plot could be adapted to the particular needs of the mime genre. The tale begins with a preface reminiscent of Menander’s prologues, which as a rule succinctly summarize the relevant events that lead up to the play’s main conflict.67 In this prologue, the narrator informs us that the convict woman’s husband had a sister whom their mother was forced to expose right after her birth (Apul. Met. 10.23). It has been pointed out that this plot element is reminiscent of Menander’s Perikeiromene, where two siblings are exposed and brought up by different people, with only the girl being aware of their true identity.68 The entire action of Menander’s play circles around a series of comic misapprehensions related to the fact that the brother unknowingly falls in love with his sister.69 In Apuleius’ tale, on the contrary, the possibility of incest is precluded from the very beginning: unable to bring herself to expose her daughter, the mother saves her by letting her be brought up by neighbors; in order to avoid any unwanted complications when the children grow up, the woman discloses her secret to her son and makes him swear that one day he will provide his sister with dowry (Apul. Met. 10.23). Thus the conflict of new comedy is resolved before the tale even begins. It is replaced instead with a typical mime conflict, in which the main part belongs to the jealous woman. 66 67 68 69

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Cf. Wiemken 1972, 100-101. May 2006, 292. Trenker 1958, 93. May 2006, 277-279.

The protagonist of the tale, who is not privy to her husband’s secret, is irritated by the fact that he spends so much time with another woman. As a result, she develops a treacherous plan to exterminate her alleged rival. Like the rejected women in Herodas, in the Moicheutria mime, and in the ‘Phaedra’ tale, she has a slave as an accomplice, who assists her in perpetrating her despicable crimes.70 After he lures her husband’s sister into her house, the woman murders her in a nauseatingly sadistic manner clearly reminiscent of the way the jealous woman of the Moicheutria tortures her lover’s girlfriend Apollonia (Apul. Met. 10.24). One might assume that the only course the plot of such a tale could conceivably pursue after the murderess’s husband finds out about his sister’s death is for the woman to be turned in to the authorities. This is, however, far from being the case: in order to heighten even further the monstrosity of her character, the tale allows her to continue her murderous spree. For this reason, the husband does not take any action against his wife but simply falls ill, unable to bear his sister’s death (Apul. Met. 10.25). Of course, there is little wonder that his wife procures poison instead of medicine from a perfidious physician. As if this were not enough, when that same doctor is about to serve the potion to her husband, she forces him to try it first, cynically feigning fear that it might be poison.71 Curiously enough, the doctor prefers to drink the deadly potion rather than to disclose his complicity in the crime. Nevertheless, he manages to get home just in time to tell the whole story to his wife and, as if it were the most important thing for a dying man to think of, to bid her to reclaim the price of the poison from his criminal client (Apul. Met. 10.26). When, a few days later, the doctor’s wife comes to get the money, the woman’s husband is of course already dead too. The woman agrees to pay her, but only with the proviso that she will be supplied with more of the stuff (Apul. Met. 10.27). When the doctor’s widow brings it, she is immediately poisoned too (what a surprise!), along with the criminal woman’s little daughter, who would otherwise have inherited her husband’s entire property. Whereas the little girl dies immediately, it takes somewhat longer for the poison to kill the adult woman – just enough for her to run to the magistrates and tell them what has happened. Thereupon the murderess is promptly condemned ad bestias (Apul. Met. 10.28). The protagonist of this tale is probably the most quintessential image of the zelotypos that we have in ancient literature. She possesses all the familiar features shared by her predecessors (like Bittina, she does not even care to make sure that the suspicion of her husband’s infidelity is justified; like Medea, she murders not only her rival but also her own child; and, like the Moicheutria 70 71

Apul. Met. 10.24 quendam servulum sibi quidem fidelem, sed de ipsa Fide pessime merentem. Apul. Met. 10.26 ‘non prius’, inquit, ‘medicorum optime, non prius carissimo mihi marito trades istam potionem quam de ea bonam partem hauseris ipse. unde enim scio, an noxium in ea lateat venenum?’

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woman, she suddenly decides to exterminate all of her family members in order to come into possession of their entire property), but in her these features reach such monumental proportions that her incredible monstrosity seems to be reduced to utterly laughable absurdity. Moreover, the degree of neglect for internal coherence of motivation and plot in this tale is highly reminiscent of, and probably even surpasses, that of the Moicheutria mime. The story as a whole is based on an absolutely incredible sequence of events. The only motivation that holds the narrative together is the criminal woman’s desire to kill, which for the most part remains completely unmotivated: from the point when her jealousy is revealed as ungrounded, her endless poisoning extravaganza serves no clear purpose at all. It is simply murder for its own sake, designed, in the manner typical of the mime, to enhance the increasingly spectacular effect of individual scenes in the sequence without, however, falling into a coherent plot. There is one more tale in the Golden Ass that clearly evokes the basic narrative scenario of the ‘rejected woman’ mime – the unexpected coda added to the tale of the tub (Apul. Met. 9.29-30). After the miller throws his adulterous wife out of his house, she is suddenly transformed into the typical rejected woman of the mime. All she wants now is to take revenge on her husband by killing him. There is an important twist in this story, however. Unlike in the other instances of this plot that we have considered so far, the woman does not poison the man who rejected her but hires a witch, who at first employs love potions in order to make him change his mind, but, when those fail to bring any success, exterminates him by sending to him a larva – the soul of a dead woman (Apul. Met. 9.29). There is nothing surprising about the fact that harm done by magic is substituted for poisoning in this version of the ‘rejected woman’ plot. Magic indeed loomed large in mimes based on erotic motifs.72 The most famous extant specimen of this kind of erotic mime is Theocritus’ Idyll 2, in which Simaetha uses magic in order to make her neglectful lover come back to her. Since the scholia to Theocritus claim that this idyll had a prototype in Sophron, we seem to be dealing with yet another important subcategory of the mime.73 It is therefore quite noteworthy that the beginning of Apuleius’ novel contains three narratives based on variations of this mime plot, which form another series similar to those that we have already considered.

72

73

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Cf. Ath. Deipn. 620e ἔσχεν δὲ τοὔνοµα ἡ µαγῳδία ἀπὸ τοῦ οἱονεὶ µαγικὰ προφέρεσθαι καὶ φαρµάκων ἐµφανίζειν δυνάµεις. For the possible connection of µαγῳδία with the musical instrument µαγαδίς, see Wüst 1932, 1733. Arg. Theoc. IIb, p. 270 Wendel τὴν δὲ τῶν φαρµάκων ὑπόθεσιν ἐκ τῶν Σώφρονος µίµων µεταφέρει. Gow 1950, II, 33-34; Hordern 2002.

The ‘Witches’ Series It has often been observed that the Thessalian adventures of Lucius, Socrates (the protagonist of Aristomenes’ tale), and Thelyphron in the first three books of the Golden Ass fall into similar narrative patterns: all three are young attractive foreigners visiting Thessaly, who, despite their awareness of the danger inherent in Thessalian magic, come into too close a contact with Thessalian witches and, as a consequence, suffer for their foolhardiness by losing respectively their life, appearance, or human identity.74 In other words, these three stories seem to be mere variations of essentially the same narrative scenario, which Apuleius ‘serializes’ in the same manner as he does with the basic plots of the adultery and the ‘rejected women’ mimes in the subsequent portions of the novel. In addition, the three tales of magic display notable connections with the mime. To begin with, the witches Pamphile and Meroe can be regarded as direct literary descendants of Simaetha from Theocritus’ Idyll 2 (or her lost prototype in Sophron), who resorts to magic in order to bring back her lover. Obviously, Pamphile’s failed attempt to use magic in order to make a handsome Boeotian youth come to her door quite neatly falls into this mime pattern (Apul. Met. 3.17-18). Furthermore, the fact that Meroe literally enslaves her lover75 is reminiscent of the way the jealous women of Herodas’ Mimiamb 5 and the Moicheutria treat their slaves; besides, this kind of erotic slavery clearly evokes the relationship between Circe and Polyaenus in Petronius’ Satyricon – an episode whose connections with the mime have been conclusively demonstrated by Panayotakis.76 Descriptions of magical rituals in Aristomenes’ tale and in the primary narrative find a close parallel in the mime. In Apuleius’ magic scenes, the witch needs an assistant in order to perform her magical ritual: Meroe relies on the help of her sister Panthia (Apul. Met. 1. 11-13), whereas Pamphile needs Photis’ assistance in order to perform her magic tricks (Apul. Met. 3. 17-21). It is precisely this kind of configuration that we repeatedly find in scenes of magic in the mime. In the papyrus fragment of Sophron’s The Women Who Say They Are Expelling the Goddess,77 the chief witch has unnamed assistants;78 in Theocritus 2, it is the servant girl Thestyllis who helps Simaetha; in Horace’s Epode 5 (probably the most harrowing portrayal of magic in ancient literature, which has recently been traced to the mime by Watson),79 Sagana attends to Canidia’s ritual; finally in Petronius, the witch Oenothea has Proselenus as a 74 75 76 77 78 79

E.g., Schlam 1992, 32-34. Apul. Met. 1.7 et statim miser, ut cum illa adquievi, ab unico congressu annosam ac pestilentem servitutem contraho. Panayotakis 1995, 161-169. Hordern 2002; Hordern 2004, fr.3. Ταὶ γυναῖκες αἳ τὰν θεόν φαντι ἐξελᾶν. Hordern 2004; fr. 3 is a dialogue. Watson 2003, 182ff.

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companion.80 The fact that a pair of witches recurs so often suggests that we might be dealing with a fixed combination of stock characters typical for the ‘magic subgenre’ of the mime. Furthermore, it has been argued that the manner in which Meroe and Panthia kill Socrates is reminiscent of a sacrificial ritual.81 In this connection, one may recall that graphically depicted scenes of sacrifice played an important role both in mimes and in related texts. The [Ps.-]Sophron papyrus (PSI 1214a; cf. Hordern 2002) presents a magical sacrifice of a dog, whereas Horace’s Epode 5 shows a sacrificial slaughter of a young boy, whose dead body is to serve as raw material for magical concoctions. Besides, the very fact that Socrates is punished by death because Meroe’s magical spells prove incapable of keeping him by her side points to another motif of the mime: Theocritus’ Idyll 2, too, ends with Simaetha’s pledge to punish her lover by death if her magic proves ineffectual,82 whereas in Horace’s Epode 17 Canidia threatens that the poet will not escape punishment for his disrespectful treatment of her.83 In a way, the death of Apuleius’ Socrates constitutes a fulfillment of the curse that Simaetha and Canidia hurl at their offenders. Finally, the connections of Thelyphron’s tale with the mime are quite obvious as well. Here, too, the theme of magic is superimposed on a tightly knit nexus of motifs familiar to us from both the ‘rejected woman’ and the adultery mimes. Most importantly, the wife of the dead man, whose corpse Thelyphron guards at night, turns out to be a scheming adulteress, who has poisoned her husband in order to come into possession of her inheritance as quickly as possible and to enjoy life with her new lover.84 In other words, the woman of Thelyphron’s tale combines features of a typical mimic adulteress with those of the protagonist of the Moicheutria mime, who also commits adultery and attempts to poison her husband. Finally, the fact that the truth about 80 81 82

83

84

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For connections between this scene and the mime, see Panayotakis 1995, 170-182. McCreight 1993. Theoc. 2.159-160 νῦν µὲν τοῖς φίλτροις καταδήσοµαι· αἰ δ᾿ ἔτι κά µε / λυπῇ, τὰν Ἀίδαο πύλαν, ναὶ Μοίρας, ἀραξεῖ. Hor. Epod. 17.56-59 inultus ut tu riseris Cotytia / volgata, sacrum liberi Cupidinis, / et Esquilini pontifex venefici / inpune ut urbem nomine inpleris meo? See Watson 2003, ad loc. For connections between Canidia and Apuleius’ witches, cf., e.g., Hor. Epod. 17.76-81 an quae movere cereas imagines, / ut ipse nosti curiosus, et polo / deripere lunam vocibus possim meis, possim crematos excitare mortuos / desiderique temperare pocula, / plorem artis in te nihil agentis exitus? vs. Apul. Met. 1.8 “saga,” inquit, “et divina, potens caelum deponere, terram suspendere, fonts durare, montes diluere, manes sublimare, deow infimare, sidera extinguere, Tartarum ipsum inluminare.” 1.12 “faxo eum sero, immo statim, immo vero iam nunc, ut et praecedentis dicacitatis et instantis curiositatis paeniteat.” Apul. Met. 2.27 haec enim nec ullus alius miserum adulescentem, sororis meae filium, in adulteri gratiam et ob praedam hereditariam extinxit veneno. 2.29 malis novae nuptae peremptus artibus et addictus noxio poculo torum tepentem adultero mancipavi.

Thelyphron’s mutilation is revealed in the course of a necromantic ritual (Apul. Met. 2.28-29) possibly constitutes a further connection with the mime, since Necyomantia and Phasma are attested as titles of Roman mimes by Laberius and Catullus.85 The Ending of the Novel It is the very last scene of the novel that provides probably the most powerful image connecting the Golden Ass with the mime. As J. J. Winkler has observed, Lucius’ boasting about his baldness in the novel’s last sentence immediately brings to mind the familiar figure of the mimus calvus.86 That is to say, Lucius, who throughout his adventures has behaved like a typical stupidus of the mime, in the end acquires the most conspicuous outward feature of this character. What is more, Lucius’ transformation into a bald mime actor is highly relevant for our understanding of his adventures as a whole in terms of a typical mime plot. The lexicographer Nonius Marcellus establishes an etymological connection between the archaic verb calvor meaning ‘to be deceived’ and the bald-headed actors of the mime (p. 10 Lindsay): CALVITUR dictum est frustratur: tractum a calvis mimicis, quod sint omnibus frustratui. CALVITUR means ‘he is deceived’: it is derived from the bald mimic actors 87 because they are deceived by all.

Lucius, too, is constantly duped by all: he gullibly believes in the fantastic tales that he hears from other characters of the novel, fails to notice that he becomes a butt of a practical joke at the Risus Festival, turns into an ass by mistake, is constantly exploited and beaten up by his various owners during his asinine existence, etc. In other words, what he suffers from other characters of the novel can best be described by the verb calvor. Last but not least, the fact that it is the Isiac priests who are ultimately responsible for Lucius’ literal calvitium at the very end of his story urges us to understand his experiences with the Isis cult in similar terms too. When we read about the importance of money for Lucius’ attainment of the eternal bliss (Apul. Met. 11.22, 27, and 29), we are implicitly encouraged to draw parallels with the 85 86

87

Laberius’ Nekyomantia (Bonaria 1965, 56), Catullus’ Phasma (Bonaria 1965, 80). Winkler 1985, 226. Apul. Met. 11.30 rursus denique quam raso capillo collegii vetustissimi et sub illis Syllae temporibus conditi munia, non obumbrato vel obtecto calvitio, sed quoqueversus obvio, gaudens obibam. Needless to say, this ancient etymology has nothing to do with the actual derivation of this verb, which is in fact related to calumnia (OLD, s.v.).

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novel’s other descriptions of fraudulent religious practitioners (such as, for instance, the Chaldean prophet Diophanes or the priests of Dea Syria) whose only goal is to extract as much money as possible from their adherents.88 From this perspective, it seems to be quite likely that the final image is nothing but a pun based on the alleged etymological connection between calvus and calvor. Lucius’ calvitium thus becomes an actualization of the most essential inner quality (i.e., gullibility) that has qualified him as a mime fool throughout all his adventures. As a result, Lucius’ baldness serves to solidify our awareness of the pervasive role that the mime has played from the very beginning to the very end of the novel. 1.3. Mimic Self-Referentiality: Risus mimicus and the Mimesis of the Mime In addition to resorting to mime buffoonery and using mime plots, Apuleius describes an entire variety of different popular shows and, by doing so, indirectly reflects on the ultimate origin of his narrative in the world of popular theatrical culture. The first mention of a public spectacle occurs in Lucius’ conversation with his traveling companions at 1.4, where he provides a detailed description of a pair of virtuoso street entertainers – a sword swallower and a contortionist performing a sophisticated acrobatic trick on the handle of the sword protruding from his stage partner’s mouth. A little later, Socrates, the protagonist of Aristomenes’ tale, falls prey to a band of robbers after attending a gladiatorial combat (Apul. Met. 1.7). We plunge into the world of popular show business again in one of the robber tales in Book 4, where a rich Thessalian man named Demochares (a name that emphasizes his role as a producer of public shows) organizes a sophisticated spectacle that involves venationes and gladiatorial combats (Apul. Met. 4.13-21). One of the most detailed descriptions of a theatrical show in Apuleius is the so-called Risus festival episode. I will argue in the next chapter that the scenario of the mock trial to which Lucius is subjected during this festival is based on the plot of another popular mime – the so-called Laureolus. It is, however, the very fact that the festival dedicated to the god of laughter takes place in a theater (Apul. Met. 3.2) that, in my opinion, connects this episode with the mime. A variety of ancient sources persistently stress that the main goal of the mime was to produce lighthearted entertainment unadulterated by any farreaching didactic concerns, to make spectators laugh in the most unrestrained manner possible.89 The locus classicus that describes this kind of laughter is a 88

89

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Furthermore, in juxtaposition with the judgment of Paris, where Venus wins Paris’ favor by bribing him, Isis’ act of salvation may appear simply to be a clever way of recruiting another soldier for her sacra militia. Cf. Murgatroyd 2004. Cf. Quint. 6.3.8 res levis et quae a scurris, mimis, insipientibus denique saepe moveatur. On the risus mimicus, see more below.

passage from Petronius’ Satyricon, where Quartilla and her companions are seized by a fit of risus mimicus (Petr. Sat. 18-19):90 complosis deinde manibus in tantum repente risum effusa est, ut timeremus; idem ex altera parte et ancilla fecit quae prior venerat, idem virguncula quae una intraverat. omnia mimico risu exsonuerunt, cum interim nos, quae tam repentina esset mutatio animorum facta, ignoraremus ac modo nosmet ipsos modo mulieres intueremur. After she clapped her hands, she suddenly dissolved into such a fit of laughter that we became terrified. For her part, the maid who had come in earlier did the same thing; so did the girl who had entered together with her. Everything resounded with a mimic laughter, while we had no idea what this kind of sudden change of mood was supposed to mean. So we just stared now at each other, now at the women.

This laughter is sudden, violently intensive, liberating and contagious to those who fall under its spell, and absolutely incomprehensible, or even frightening, to those who are not aware of its cause. This is precisely the kind of laughter that Apuleius describes as the outcome of the Risus Festival (Apul. Met. 3.10): tunc ille quorundam astu paulisper cohibitus risus libere iam exarsit in plebem. hi gaudii nimietate graculari, illi dolorem ventris manuum compressione sedare. et certe laetitia delibuti meque respectantes cuncti theatro facessunt. at ego ut primum illam laciniam prenderam fixus in lapidem steti gelidus nihil secus qua una de ceteris theatri statuis vel columnis. Then the laughter, which some had slyly controlled for a little while, exploded freely among the entire crowd. Some guffawed, overwhelmed with hilarity, while others tried to ease the pain by pressing their hands to their stomachs. They were surely still overflowing with glee as they looked at me while leaving the theater. And as to me, from the very moment when I removed the cloth I just stood there as if transfixed and frozen into stone, not unlike one of the statues or columns in the theater.

It is quite obvious that the irrepressible laughter that breaks out in this episode is described in the same terms as Petronius’ risus mimicus: to its agents, it is overpowering to the point of physical pain, whereas to those excluded from the ingroup, let alone those victimized by its tumultuous onslaught, it is terrifying almost to the point of petrification. But most importantly, it is laughter for its own sake, which does not pursue any far-reaching ideological or didactic purposes. Thus the theatrical celebration of the god Risus in Apuleius appears to be conceived as an uninhibited tribute to the riotous spirit of the mime and at the same time explicitly draws attention to the role of the mime element in the novel as a whole: the fact that Thessalian magistrates stress that the god Risus will 90

On laughter in Petronius in general, see Plaza 2000.

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accompany his auctor et actor during his entire life (Apul. Met. 3.11) turns the risus mimicus into the predominant force of the novel’s fictional world. As a consequence, this episode provides a paradigm for the reader’s reception of the Golden Ass as a narrative equivalent of a mime. In Book 10, we encounter such a large number of references to different kinds of popular shows that this book has been justly called the liber de spectaculis.91 The games organized by Lucius’ last owner Thiasus (Demochares’ narrative double, whose name possesses clearly Dionysiac and hence theatrical associations) in the theater in Corinth include an entire catalogue of genres of contemporary popular entertainment: a pantomime, a pyrrhicha, and a staged execution (Apul. Met. 10.29-35). The centerpiece of this episode is the detailed description of the pantomime of the Judgment of Paris (Apul. Met. 10.30-32), which provides singularly important evidence for ancient pantomime in general – a genre closely related to the mime.92 This sensually enticing show consists of a ballet-like reenactment of one of the central myths of Greek heroic saga. Not a single word is uttered during this ‘danced tragedy’.93 The meaning is conveyed exclusively through the medium of gesture and dance. Throughout this ekphrasis, the narrator dutifully provides a running commentary on the familiar narrative content of this complex multi-act dance show, but what he primarily concentrates on are the superb skills of the actors, the elaborateness of the stage decorations and of the illusionistic machinery that makes the performance possible, and the aesthetic (and almost physical) effect that its mimetically credible representation exercises on its viewers.94 In other words, it is not the content but, quite importantly, the theatricality of the show that occupies him in the first place. There is a similarly detailed description of a popular festival in Book 11. The so-called anteludia that immediately precede the Isiac procession at 11.8 present an array of actors impersonating ridiculous characters, most of which find parallels in comedy and the mime – a soldier, a hunter, a gladiator, a comic philosopher with a goat’s beard, as well as animals dressed up to resemble people or characters of traditional mythology.95 The Isiac celebration to which this procession belongs marks the beginning of spring, and Lucius puts

91 92

93 94 95

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Fick 1990, 223; May 2006, 269-306. Lada-Richards 2007, 39-40; Zimmerman 2000, 366 with further bibliography on the subject. On connections between the mime and the pantomime, see Lada-Richards 2007, 29-32. On the distinction between tragoedia cantata (tragedy) and tragoedia saltata (pantomime), see Lada-Richards 2007, 32-37. Zimmerman 1995, 143-152; May 2008. Harrison 2000, 260-261; May 2006, 324-327.

particular stress on the lavishness of its floral decoration.96 Moreover, the festival culminates in Lucius’ receiving flowers (roses) from a priest of Isis. This pervasive emphasis on flowers, combined with a parade of mime characters, indirectly evokes the Roman festival of Floralia, which not only celebrated the awakening of nature but also always included mime performances.97 Moreover, throughout his description of the anteludia, the narrator underscores the comic effect produced by the actors’ impersonations. The laughter that such incongruous images as a she-bear dressed as a stately matron and an ass with glued-on wings impersonating Pegasus (Apul. Met. 11.8 ut illum quidem Bellerophontem, hunc autem diceres Pegasum, tamen rideres utrumque) cause in the spectators is precisely the kind of unrestrained laughter for its own sake, untroubled by any intellectual or ethical considerations, which the ancients associated with the mime. But the connections between the novel’s conclusion and the mime are not limited only to generic references to theatricality and laughter. The very fact that at the end of Book 10 and at the beginning of Book 11 Lucius the narrator does little else than describe different public festivals can be regarded as an allusion to the mime too. There are two Hellenistic literary mimes whose characters are represented as participating in festivals. In Theocritus’ Idyll 15, two Syracusan women visit a festival of Adonis at the royal palace in Alexandria, whereas in Herodas’ Mimiamb 4 two women make a sacrifice at an unspecified temple of Asclepius.98 Both poems are momentary snapshots of everyday life scenes whose protagonists are portrayed as incessantly chattering, yelling at their dumb slaves, and, most importantly, marveling at the works of art and/or performances that they see during the respective festivities. The scholia to Theocritus claim that Idyll 15 is based on Sophron’s Θάµεναι τὰ Ἴσθµια (women watching the Isthmian games).99 If we add to these three texts Athenaeus’ reference to a comedy by Epicharmus, which featured visitors to Apollo’s sanctuary at Delphi describing everything they see there,100 we end up with an entire ‘subgenre’ of ancient drama. My contention is that Apuleius consciously inscribes the ekphrastic passages of Books 10 and 11 into this subgenre. 96

Apul. Met. 11.9 mulieres candido splendentes amicimine, vario laetantes gestamine, verno florentes coronamine, quae de gremio per viam, qua sacer incedebat comitatus, solum sternebant flosculis, etc. 97 Beacham 1991, 129; cf. Pliny Nat. 18.286; Val. Max. 2.20.8; Ov. Fast. 5.329ff. 98 On connections between the two poems, see Cunningham 1971, 128; Di Gregorio 1997, 257-258; Ypsilanti 2006, 411-418. On their centrality for the Hellenistic ‘culture of viewing’, see Dubois 2007, 47-53, Goldhill 1994, Männlein-Robert 2007, 261-300. 99 Arg. Theoc. 15, p. 305, 7W (Hordern 2004, fr. 10) παρέπλασε δὲ τὸ ποιηµάτιον ἐκ τῶν παρὰ Σώφρονι Ἴσθµια θαµένων (Gow 1950, II, 265). 100 Ath. Deipn. 362b οἱ θεωροὶ καθορῶντες τὰ ἐν Πυθοῖ ἀναθήµατα καὶ περὶ ἑκάστου λέγοντες.

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There are some notable similarities between Lucius’ description of the Corinthian ludi in Book 10 and Theocritus’ Idyll 15. To begin with, both texts portray festivals, whose goal primarily consists in public display of the wealth and influence of their respective sponsors – the Egyptian queen Arsinoe, on the one hand, and the provincial euergetes Thiasus, on the other. For this reason, both descriptions focus on the material splendor and elaborateness of the respective performances – the tapestry depicting Venus and Adonis in Theocritus and the stage decoration in Apuleius.101 There is furthermore a purely thematic link between the two scenes, as both Theocritus’ mime and Apuleius’ description culminate in stage performances celebrating the power of Venus: Theocritus’ hymn to Adonis stresses Venus’ ability to bring her beloved back to life, whereas Apuleius’ pantomime of the Judgment of Paris centers on Venus’ irresistible seductiveness that allows her to win the divine beauty contest.102 Moreover, neither Theocritus’ women nor Apuleius’ Lucius play any active part in the festivals that they attend (granted, Lucius is expected to participate in a staged execution, but he, quite significantly, chooses to run away instead), but are portrayed as passive viewers commenting on everything they see. Another possible point of contact between Apuleius’ scene, on the one hand, and Theocritus’ and Herodas’ mimes, on the other, is that the angry moralistic outburst with which Lucius, seemingly for no reason, interrupts his enchanting description (Apul. Met. 10.33) is comparable to the irritated, ranting tone that Theocritus’ Praxinoa and Herodas’ Cynno adopt each time they speak to their slaves.103 Finally, the fact that in this scene Lucius the narrator presents himself as still an ass at the moment of narration104 is barely comprehensible in terms of classical past-tense homodiegetic narrative,105 but it would make perfect sense as an eye-witness’s spontaneous running commentary of the kind delivered by Praxinoa, Cynno, and their companions in Theocritus and Herodas. The representation of the Isis festival at the beginning of Book 11 finds more parallels in Herodas than in Theocritus. First of all, in contrast to the preceding episode, the festival described in Book 11 is of a purely religious nature. As I will show in Chapter 3, Isis is portrayed in Apuleius as a healing deity that ‘cures’ Lucius of his asininity. In other words, Isis plays in the fictional world of the Golden Ass the same role as Asclepius – the healing god par excellence – does in Herodas. Besides, the protagonists of both scenes are not just viewers, as in Theocritus and Apuleius’ Book 10, but active participants in the celebrations: the women in Herodas sacrifice a rooster to Asclepius, 101

Theoc. Id. 15.80-86; Apul. Met. 10.30 and 34. Theoc. Id. 15.100-144; Apul. Met. 10.30-32. 103 Theoc. Id. 15.27-32; Herod. Mim. 4.41-56. 104 Apul. Met. 10.33 sed nequis indignationis meae reprehendat impetum secum sic reputans: ‘ecce nunc patiemur philosophantem nobis asinum’, rursus, unde decessi, revertar ad fabulam. 105 Zimmerman 2000, 401. 102

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whereas Lucius’ healing (sc. retransformation) constitutes the highest point of the Isis festival in Apuleius. Finally, there is a structural parallelism between Apuleius’ episode and Herodas’ poem: both begin with a formulaic prayer for health addressed to a healing deity,106 continue with detailed descriptions of the cultic ambience (the elaborate statuary exhibited at the Asclepius temple in Herodas and the religious paraphernalia of the Isis procession in Apuleius),107 and conclude with a priest’s announcement that the protagonists’ ritual actions have been successful (in Herodas, that the god has benevolently accepted the women’s sacrifice; in Apuleius, that Lucius’ metamorphosis back into a human has been a manifestation of Isis’ divine providence).108 There is another curious element connecting the ekphrastic passages of Books 10 and 11 with this subgenre of literary mime. The fact that both festivals described by Lucius take place in Corinth and Cenchreae, that is, on the Isthmus, turns him in a sense into a θάµενος τὰ Ἴσθµια – a direct literary descendant of Sophron’s Θάµεναι τὰ Ἴσθµια, the common prototype of Theocritus’ Idyll 15 and Herodas’ Mimiamb 4. This geographical detail transforms this section of the novel from a seemingly fortuitous series of literary echoes into a carefully orchestrated text characterized by a strong sense of both conceptual and generic unity. As a consequence, it emerges as a conscious experiment in adaptation of the ‘ekphrastic subgenre’ of literary mime to the novelistic discourse. Accidentally, this realization not only contributes to our understanding of the role of the mime in the novel as a whole but also serves as a possible explanation of why Apuleius changed the location of Lucius’ retransformation from Thessalonica of the Greek ass-tale to the Isthmus.109 But this is not all. The manner in which Apuleius fashions the transition from Book 10 to Book 11 can also be regarded as a typical structural element of the mime. At the end of Book 10, Apuleius’ Lucius suddenly runs away from the Corinthian arena in order to embark on the career of an Isiac devotee. It is precisely this unexpected flight that allows Apuleius to introduce into his narrative a description of the Isis festival. The function of this plot turn, however, consists not only in creating a bridge between two ekphrastic episodes inspired by Hellenistic literary mime. Lucius’ flight obviously postpones the seemingly inevitable denouement, which, as we know from the Onos, where the retransformation takes place directly in the theater, the narrative has at this point almost reached. Although Lucius takes considerable pains to provide some motivation for his unexpected escape (shyness to perform a sex act in public, aversion against the defiled criminal woman, and fear of animals that are 106

Herod. Mim. 4.1-11; Apul. Met. 11.2. On the traditional character of Herodas’ prayer, see Cunningham 1971, 128-130; Di Gregorio 1997, 258-263; on Apuleius’ prayer, Griffiths 1975, ad loc. 107 Herod. Mim. 4.20-38, 56-78; Apul. Met. 11.8-11. 108 Herod. Mim. 4.80-85; Apul. Met. 11.12-16. 109 For other attempts to explain this geographical change, see Graverini 2007, 187-232.

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supposed to dismember her upon the completion of the ‘Pasiphae mime’ (Apul. Met. 10.34)), all the reasons that he gives sound like awkward ad hoc explanations that sit very uncomfortably with the internal logic of the plot. In Pro Caelio Cicero points out that such unexpected, counterintuitive conclusions were characteristic of the mime rather than of any other theatrical genre (Cic. Cael. 65): mimi est iam exitus, non fabulae; in quo cum clausula non invenitur, fugit aliquis e manibus, deinde scabilla concrepant, aulaeum tollitur. This is the ending worthy not of a drama but of a mime, where, if no appropriate conclusion can be found, someone escapes from the hands of others, then the clappers sound, and the curtain is raised.

Thus, the perfectly logical conclusion of the classical plot of the Greek original is replaced here with a sudden escape from the stage – a typical ending of the mime. To top it all off, this ending turns out to be just a hoax: it functions as a false closure, which is there only in order to allow the narrator to make a transition to yet another episode with strong mimic overtones. This section of the novel is not only veritably saturated with allusions to the mime but also indirectly reflects on its own status, and thus by extension on the status of the novel as a whole, as in a certain sense a mime too. In order to appreciate this aspect of Apuleius’ allusive technique, we have to return for a moment to Theocritus 15 and Herodas 4. It is quite obvious that the ekphrastic passages that we find in both of these Hellenistic mimes are based on the aesthetics of visual mimesis, which emphasizes the object’s lifelikeness as the sole criterion of its aesthetic worth.110 Theocritus’ Praxinoa stresses that the figures of Adonis and Venus on the tapestries displayed in the theater look alive, not woven (Theoc. 15.80-84). Similarly, the women in Herodas’ Mimiamb 4 admire a statue of a girl who looks as if she were going to faint unless she gets the apple at which she is longingly staring (Her. Mim. 4.27-29); a statue of a boy so realistically carved that it no one would be surprised if he were to speak (Her. Mim. 4.30-34); a statue of Batale, a daughter of Myttes, which is so lifelike that contemplating it is virtually equivalent to seeing the woman herself (Her. Mim. 4.35-38); and a painting by Apelles depicting a bull whose representation is so true to life that one of the women can hardly control the impulse to cry out in fear (Her. Mim. 4.56-71). Of course, the emphasis on the artwork’s indistinguishable resemblance to the real thing is a virtually indispensable topos of ekphrasis – from Greek tragedy onwards.111 However, it cannot be coincidental that it is characters of literary mimes that engage here in art criticism based on the principles of visual mimesis. The mime’s connections with mimesis, inherent 110 111

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Cf. Geltzer 1985; Di Grigorio 1997, 257-258. Friedländer 1912, 56-57, 62-63, 88-89.

in the term itself, are clearly brought to the fore in the only definition of the genre that has reached us from antiquity (Diomedes. Gram. Lat. I 491, 15f. Keil): µῖµός ἐστιν µίµησις βίου τά τε συγκεχωρηµένα καὶ ἀσυγχώρητα περιέχων. The mime is an imitation of life comprising both allowed (decent) and forbidden (unseemly) elements.

It is a matter of debate whether this phrase quoted by the Latin grammarian Diomedes ultimately goes back to Theophrastus and the Peripatetic theory of literary mimesis.112 However that may be, it is of utmost importance that this definition testifies to the widespread perception of the mime as an imitation of reality in all of its widely diverse aspects. Given the fact that both in Theocritus and in Herodas the obtrusive emphasis on visual mimesis occurs in poems that really go out of their way to parade their representational realism (that is, their literary mimesis),113 it is almost impossible not to interpret it as a self-referential reflection on the nature of the mime as µίµησις βίου.114 In his ekphrastic passages, Apuleius relies on more or less the same aesthetic principles as the women of Theocritus’ and Herodas’ mimes. It is already in Book 2, in the ekphrasis of the Diana-and-Actaeon statue, that Lucius shows his predilection for the lifelike realism of visual mimesis: if one were to hear dogs barking in the vicinity one would think that the barking comes from the marble dogs; the grapes are so naturalistically carved that one is almost tempted to taste them; etc.115 In a context so replete with references to the mime, this ekphrastic commonplace clearly acquires a self-referential edge too. Its significance as a generic marker becomes even more tangible in Lucius’ ekphrasis of the pantomime of the Judgment of Paris. The main difference between this ekphrasis and the description of the sculptural group in Book 2 is that it focuses on the representation not of empirical reality but of a myth, as it is known from literature. The emphasis on immediate recognizability, however, is absolutely the same in both cases. The mountain constructed on the stage corresponds exactly to Homer’s description of Mount Ida (Apul. Met. 10.30), whereas various outward attributes serve to identify the participants of the pan112

Reich 1903, 263; Panayotakis 1995, xiii. Wüst (1932, 1739) doubts the Peripatetic connection. 113 On Theocritus’ and Herodas’ ‘realism’, see Zanker 1987, 9-18, 158-160. 114 On the women’s admiration of mimetic art in both poems as a model for their reception, see Hunter 1996, 116-123. 115 Apul. Met. 2.4 sicunde de proximo latratus ingruerit, eum putabis de faucibus lapidis exire; ars aemula naturae; putes ad cibum inde quaedam, cum mustulentus autumnus maturum colorem adflaverit, posse decerpi.

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tomime unequivocally as Mercury, Paris, Juno, Minerva, and Venus. Finally, the little Cupids hovering around Venus are virtually indistinguishable from their portrayal in art and literature and can, for that reason, be taken for real divine beings descended from the sky (Apul. Met. 10.32): illos teretes et lacteos puellos diceres tu Cupidines veros de caelo vel mari commodum involasse; nam et pinnulis et sagittulis et habitu cetero formae praeclare congruebant et velut nuptialis epulas obiturae dominae coruscis praelucebant facibus. You would have said that those tender little boys with their milk-white skin were real Cupids who had just flown in from the sky or the sea. For their tiny feathers and arrows, as well as the rest of their appearance, made them look just right, as they shone their dazzling torches before their mistress as if she were on her way to a wedding banquet.

This stress on visual mimesis obviously serves to solidify the presence of the mime substratum in Apuleius’ narrative even further. What is more, the fact that Lucius’ ekphrastic soliloquies are framed as indirect allusions to Hellenistic literary mimes points to the complexity of the novel’s mimic/mimetic associations – to its status as an imitation not only of life but also of literature.

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2. Contrary to the Story 2.1. Representational Paradoxes at the Roman Arena Among the shows planned by Thiasus for the theater in Corinth there is the socalled ‘Pasiphae mime’ – a staged execution (or a ‘fatal charade’, as Kathleen Coleman has fittingly dubbed such performances)1 of a criminal woman based on the myth of Pasiphae’s love for a bull. What strikes one as truly bizarre is not only that such gruesome performances took place in reality at all but also that they could stir up ironic musings about the nature of mimetic representation. Martial’s epigram on the ‘Pasiphae mime’ from the Liber spectaculorum, for instance, presents this performance not as a reenactment of the universally known myth but as a kind of scientific experiment corroborating the myth’s authenticity (Mart. Spect. 6): Iunctam Pasiphaen Dictaeo credite tauro: vidimus, accepit fabula prisca fidem. nec se miretur, Caesar, longaeva vetustas: quidquid fama canit, praestat harena tibi. Believe that Pasiphae mated with the Dictaen bull. We have seen it; the legend has won credibility. And let long-gone antiquity stop boasting: the arena gives you, Caesar, whatever fame sings.

Martial must be alluding here to a performance similar to the pyrricha mentioned by Suetonius in Life of Nero 12.2:2 inter pyrricharum argumenta Taurus Pasiphaam ligneo iuvencae simulacro abditam iniit, ut multi spectantium crediderunt. Among the plots of the pyrrichae there was a bull penetrating Pasiphae hidden inside a wooden cow, as many of the spectators believed.

Whereas Suetonius leaves it open whether or not the intercourse between a human actress and a bull was really consummated, Martial perceives this performance, whose reality he does not subject to doubt, as a proof of the veracity of the myth that it reproduces. That is to say, we are dealing not so much with a 1 2

Coleman 1990. On pyrrhic dances, see Coleman 2006, 63-64, with further bibliography.

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realistic representation as with a naturalistic replication of the myth, in which play and reality become virtually indistinguishable from each other. Reenactment of a myth as a means of proving that myth’s reality is indeed one of the central leitmotifs of Martial’s Liber spectaculorum. For instance, the fact that a lion is killed in the arena by a woman, who is by definition weaker than Heracles, is adduced as a proof of Heracles’ killing the Nemean lion (Mart. Spect. 8), or the fact that a dying sow gives birth during a venatio is used to verify that Semele bore Dionysus while being scorched by Jupiter’s celestial fire (Mart. Spect. 14). Apuleius, too, resorts to this line of reasoning on a number of occasions. For instance, at 1.4 Lucius describes an incredible trick performed by a pair of street performers – a sword swallower and a young acrobat - in the following manner: et ecce pone lanceae ferrum, qua bacillum inversi teli ad occipitium per ingluviem subit, puer in mollitiem decorus insurgit inque flexibus tortuosis enervam et exossam saltationem explicat cum omnium qui aderamus admiratione: diceres dei medici baculo, quod ramulis semiamputatis nodosum gerit, serpentem generosum lubricis amplexibus inhaerere. And then a boy, pretty to the point of effeminacy, climbed up beyond the metal part of the sword, where the handle of the upturned weapon went down through the man’s throat towards the back of his head, and, as if he had neither sinews nor bones, performed a ballet to the admiration of all of us present there. You would have said that the noble serpent coiled around the staff of the healing god – that gnarled staff with half pruned branches that he carries with him.

The convoluted figure represented by the two entertainers is so similar to familiar images of Asclepius’ snake coiling around a tree trunk that one could almost mistake it (diceres) for the mythological prototype of those images. In other words, the convergence between the reality of the performance and the myth turns out to be so perfect that the reenactment effectively appears to transform myth into reality. In the last chapter, I commented on Lucius’ penchant for the aesthetics of visual mimesis, which informs the novel’s ekphrastic passages. The ekphrasis of the Diana-and-Actaeon statue in Book 2 persistently focuses on the perfect convergence between the signifier (the marble statue) and the signified (the myth of Actaeon’s transformation into a stag). The text’s almost annoying emphasis on the fact that, despite deceptive appearances, all individual statues in the composition are indeed made of marble3 serves to attract the reader’s attention to the theme of successfully implemented representation of a fabula as 3

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Apul. Met. 2.4 lapis Parius in Dianam factus qui canes et ipsi lapis erant de faucibus lapidis arbusculis alibi de lapide florentibus splendet intus umbra signi de nitore lapidis inter medias frondes lapidis et in saxo simul et in fonte loturam Dianam opperiens. Cf. Elsner 2007, 291-293.

one of the central concerns of the novel as a whole. Again, it is a mimetically credible representation that makes it difficult to draw the line between imitation and imitated objects of empirical reality. A similar motif, as we have seen, reappears in the ekphrastic description of the pantomime of the Judgment of Paris. In the same manner, the narrator insistently draws the reader’s attention to the fundamental distinction between the fabula, this time not sculpted but reenacted onstage, and the process of reenactment: he constantly emphasizes that, despite the spell that they cast on the spectators, the represented characters are not real but played by actors.4 At the same time, he stresses (Apul. Met. 10.32) that the harmony between the fabula and the representation is so complete that the performance can be regarded as virtually indistinguishable from the original mythical image. There are a few passages in Apuleius where an unusual action performed by one of the characters does not simply make a myth come alive but in a sense corroborates its truth. For instance, when Charite attempts to flee from the robbers’ den on Lucius’ back, she notes that the similarity between her escape and a number of similar mythological occasions indubitably proves the veracity of the latter, and, what is more, ironically points to Lucius’ possible status as a metamorphosed human (Apul. Met. 6.29): nam memoriam praesentis fortunae meae divinaeque providentiae perpetua testatione signabo et depictam in tabula fugae praesentis imaginem meae domus atrio dedicabo. visetur et in fabulis audietur doctorumque stilis rudis perpetuabitur historia “asino vectore virgo regia fugiens captivitatem”. accedes antiquis et ipse miraculis, et iam credemus exemplo tuae veritatis et Frixum arieti supernatasse et Arionem delphinum gubernasse et Europam tauro supercubasse. quodsi et Iuppiter mugivit in bove, potest in asino meo latere aliqui vel vultus hominis vel facies deorum. For I shall celebrate with a lasting testimony the remembrance of the fortune that divine providence has now sent me. I shall consecrate a painting depicting the image of this escape of mine and put it in the atrium of my house. The crude story entitled “A Royal Maiden Fleeing Captivity on a Donkey’s Back” will thus become visible; besides, it will spread by word of the mouth, and learned men will immortalize it with their pens. You, too, will be included among the miracles of old, and the truth of what you have done will be used as an example to make us believe that Frixus swam on a ram, that Arion steered a dolphin, and that Europe lay on a bull. So if Jupiter mooed in the form of a bull, my donkey, too, may conceal the image of some human or even a divine appearance. 4

There is a persistent emphasis on imitation, role-playing, and illusionism throughout the ekphrasis. E.g., Apul. Met. 10.30 pulchre indusiatus adulescens, aurea tiara contecto capite, pecuarium simulabat ministerium; puer nudus quem caduceum et virgula Mercurium indicabant; is qui Paris videbatur; insequitur puella honesta in deae Iunonis speciem similis; alia, quam putares Minervam. 10.31 alia designans Venerem; iam singulas virgines, quae deae putabantur,sui sequebantur comites, Iunonem quidem Castor et Pollux, sed et isti Castores erant scaenici pueri.

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Charite, overwhelmed by the unusual nature of her deliverance from captivity, declares it to be worthy of an artistic representation – a work of art, a mythological poem, or a historical narrative. Carried away by her own imagination, which transforms her into a heroine of high literature, she even invents a stilted sounding title for the unwritten work that would celebrate this momentous occasion. What is more, like Martial in the ‘Pasiphae’ epigram, she uses the unquestionable reality of her own experience to authenticate the veracity of other similar fabulae. It hardly comes as a surprise that the logic on which Martial relies in his epigram on the ‘Pasiphae mime’ is directly reproduced in Apuleius’ depiction of the rendezvous between Lucius the ass and the Corinthian matron. A seemingly insignificant difference between the formulations used at this juncture in the Greek epitome and in the Golden Ass can serve as an illustration of Apuleius’ overall indebtedness to the representational aesthetics of the Roman arena. When Lucius in the Greek epitome notices that his fear lest the tender matron might suffer damage from his oversized male member was utterly unfounded, he expresses his relief in the following way (Onos 51): ἐπεὶ δὲ ἀκριβῶς ἐπείσθην ἔτι µοι καὶ προσδεῖν πρὸς τὴν τῆς γυναικὸς ἡδονήν τε καὶ τέρψιν, ἀδεῶς λοιπὸν ὑπηρέτουν ἐννοούµενος ὡς οὐδὲν εἴην κακίων τοῦ τῆς Πασιφάης µοιχοῦ. After I had firmly ascertained that the woman’s sexual appetite could have accommodated even more than I had to offer, I continued to render my service without any fear, and it became clear to me that I was just as good as the bull with which Pasiphae had committed adultery.

Here, the mention of the Pasiphae myth provides a frame of reference for the unbelievable action accomplished by Lucius; it is the myth that, as it were, serves to authenticate that action. Not so in Apuleius. Even though he preserves the basic structure of the original thought, a minor deviation at the end becomes all the more revealing (Apul. Met. 10.22): illa vero quotiens ei parcens nates recellebam, accedens totiens nisu rabido et spinam prehendens meam adplicitiore nexu inhaerebat, ut hercules etiam deesse mihi aliquid ad supplendam eius libidinem crederem nec Minotauri matrem frustra delectatam putarem adultero mugiente. Whenever I retracted my buttocks trying to spare her, she drew nearer with a passionate thrust holding on to my back and clinging to me in an even closer embrace, so that, by Hercules, I began to think I was even lacking something to satisfy her lust, and to believe that Minotaurus’ mother had really enjoyed intercourse with her bellowing paramour.

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Thus, instead of “I wasn’t worse than Pasiphae’s bovine lover” in Greek, we have “now I could believe it to be true that Pasiphae really had sex with a bull” in Latin. Or, in other words, instead of the authority of an old myth authenticating an actual event, we once again deal with a real event that inadvertently reenacts a mythological precedent and, by doing so, retrospectively proves its reality. Apuleius’ wording indeed sounds as if it came directly from Martial’s amphitheater. It remains unclear whether Martial’s ‘Pasiphae mime’ should be regarded as a prelude to a mythological execution, as in Apuleius, or, in keeping with Suetonius’ mention of it, as a pyrricha with no gory coda attached to it. However that may be in this particular case, Martial’s Liber spectaculorum does contain a few other epigrams that explicitly concentrate on the performance of fatal charades remarkably similar to the one depicted in Apuleius. One would naturally assume that mythological plots that end with the death of their protagonists should be particularly suitable for fatal charades. In this case, the performance would constitute an exact replica of the mythological event, seamlessly transforming the fictional death in the story into an actual death onstage. And indeed Martial’s Liber spectaculorum does provide an example of such a perfect convergence between myth (fabula) and reenactment (Spect. 9): Qualiter in Scythica religatus rupe Prometheus adsiduam nimio pectore pavit avem, nuda Caledonio sic viscera praebuit urso non falsa pendens in cruce Laureolus. vivebant laceri membris stillantibus artus inque omni nusquam corpore corpus erat. denique supplicium vel domini iugulum foderat ense nocens, templa vel arcano demens spoliaverat auro, subdiderat saevas vel tibi, Roma, faces. vicerat antiquae sceleratus crimina famae, in quo, quae fuerat fabula, poena fuit. Just as Prometheus bound on a Scythian rock fed the indefatigable bird with his too vast breast, so Laureolus, too, gave his naked innards to a Calydonian bear, as he hung on a real cross. His mutilated limbs still lived, although dripping with blood, and in all his body there was no body left anywhere. Finally he received the retribution he deserved: he is guilty of having cut his father’s or his master’s throat with his sword, or – a madman! – he stole a secret treasure from a temple, or set you, Rome, on fire with his torch. The criminal had surpassed the transgressions of ancient myths: what had been a play became in him an execution.

The main emphasis of this poem is on the perfect correspondences between the committed crime and the punishment on the one hand and between the fabula 49

and its reenactment (or, in this case, between fabula and poena) on the other.5 Quite interestingly, unlike in the ‘Pasiphae’ epigram, the criminal simultaneously reenacts two different scenarios here. On the one hand, the truly epic dimensions of the convict’s crimes lead to a staged execution, in which he suffers like Prometheus of the myth. On the other, he impersonates the figure of Laureolus, the eponymous protagonist of one of the most popular Roman mimes from the Late Republican period onwards.6 Although most ancient references to the Laureolus mime focus on the nauseatingly realistic manner of representation used in its performance (featuring a number of actors spitting blood onstage),7 a few tantalizing pieces of information pertaining to the basic outline of its plot have come down to us as well: Josephus mentions Laureolus as a chief of a robber band who was caught and convicted at the end of his criminal career,8 whereas Juvenal states that Laureolus was crucified for his transgressions.9 Thus, in the fatal charade described by Martial, Laureolus’ fictional punishment is replicated in the culprit’s real punishment onstage. Apuleius, too, repeatedly recycles the basic plot outline of the Laureolus mime, creating another mime series similar to the other three (magic, adultery, and rejected women) that I discussed in Chapter 1. To begin with, this scenario serves as the foundation of the robber tales in Book 4 (Apul. Met. 4.9-21). All three of them portray miserably inadequate attempts at robbery, which end in the capture and/or gory death of one of the robbers. In the first tale, the robbers lose their chief Lamachus: the miser Chryseros, whose house they attempt to burglarize, nails their chief’s right hand to the door that he tries to open up; in order to rescue him from sure apprehension, his comrades have to cut his hand off; unable to bear the loss of the main instrument of his trade, without which he can neither steal not kill, he commits suicide with the remaining hand (Apul. Met. 4.9-11). In the second story, Alcimus suffers a horrible death at the hands of another prospective victim – a poor old woman whose decrepitude does not prevent her from throwing him out of the window (Apul. Met. 4.12). And finally, in the third tale the robber Thrasyleon is killed in a particularly brutal manner, after, disguised as a bear, he lets his comrades into the house of the producer of public shows Demochares (Apul. Met. 4.13-21). Moreover, the episode of the primary narrative into which the robber tales are inserted is based 5 6 7

8 9

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Bartsch 1994, 52-55. On the Laureolus mime in general, see Herrmann 1985. See also Coleman 2006, 82-85, on connections between Martial’s Laureolus epigram and other sources. Wiemken 1972, 148-149; Herrmann 1985. Suet. Cal. 57 et quum in Laureolo mimo, in quo actor proripiens se ruina sanguinem vomit, plures secundarum certatim experimentum artis darent, cruore scena abundavit. J. A.J. 19.1 αἷµα τεχνικὸν πολὺ τὸ περὶ τὸν σταυρωθέντα ἐκκεχυµένον. J. A.J. 19.94 καὶ γὰρ µῖµος εἰσάγεται, καθ᾿ ὃν σταυροῦται ληφθεὶς λῃστῶν ἡγεµών. Juv. 8.186-188 Catulli / Laureolum velox etiam bene Lentulus egit, / iudice me dignus vera cruce.

on the same narrative pattern too. The robbers who attacked Milo’s household and abducted Lucius suffer essentially the same fate as their comrades in the embedded tales: they are tricked by Charite’s bridegroom Tlepolemus (who uses a self-evidently fictitious story of his own, based on exactly the same scenario, in order to deceive them (Apul. Met. 7.5-8)) and are eventually killed in a gruesome way (Apul. Met. 7.13).10 Finally, the Laureolus plot underlies the scenario that Lucius is forced to reenact in the course of the Risus Festival. Like Laureolus, Lucius, too, is accused, albeit falsely, of being the head of a robber band (Apul. Met. 3.3) and is threatened with torture and execution onstage (Apul. Met. 3.8-9). The moment when the torture implements are rolled onto the stage creates the expectation of a naturalistically gory scene comparable to the notorious blood-spitting episode of the Laureolus (Apul. Met. 3.9). What is more, like the performance depicted in Martial’s Laureolus epigram, two instances of Apuleius’ use of the Laureolus plot are explicitly framed as theatrical shows combining elements of a mime and a fatal charade. It is highly significant that the last of the robber-tales – the Thrasyleon tale (Apul. Met. 4.13-21) – takes place in a theatrical context. Among the shows organized by Demochares there are such as involve animals, particularly bears, which were the animals of choice in damnationes ad bestias. Moreover, it is explicitly said that Demochares does use his bears in such staged executions.11 The pivotal event of the Thrasyleon tale is that Demochares’ bears unexpectedly die of some pernicious disease, and the robbers seize this opportunity to gain access to Demochares’ house. What they do is effectively to reenact the myth of the Trojan horse:12 they disguise Thrasyleon as a bear and forge a letter from Demochares’ friend begging him to accept the bear as a present. At night Thrasyleon opens the door and lets the rest of the robbers into the house. The carefully planned scheme is thwarted, however, when one of Demochares’ slaves notices the bear running loose in the house and wakes up his fellow slaves, who promptly drive it out of the house and slay it. As a result, Thrasyleon’s death also becomes a fatal charade, which, like the execution in Martial’s Laureolus epigram, corresponds both to a mythical and to a mime plot. The additional irony of Thrasyleon’s performance consists in the fact that the standard pattern is playfully inverted, since he becomes a victim of a ‘fatal charade’ while impersonating the animal that was customarily used to kill criminals in such executions. There are a few more significant nuances that connect this tale with fatal charades. According to Suetonius, Nero participated in mimic reenactments of fatal charades in which he dressed as a wild animal, attacked convicts, and was

10 11 12

Frangoulidis 1994. Apul. Met. 4.13 alibi noxii perdita securitate suis epulis bestiarum saginas instruentes. Frangoulidis 1991.

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finally ‘finished off’ while still playing his role.13 What happens to Thrasyleon is quite similar: he dresses as a bear in a similar theatrical context and continues to play his role heroically until the very last moment of his life. The main difference between Suetonius’ Nero and Thrasyleon is that Thrasyleon’s death is real, which makes his story resemble a fatal charade even more closely. Furthermore, as in Apuleius’ ‘Pasiphae mime’, we are dealing here with a double impersonation: not only is the animal in both cases impersonated, albeit in slightly different senses, by a human, but the impersonated animal in turn plays the role of a different animal in the reenacted myth (Pasiphae’s bull is played by an ass, the Trojan horse by a bear). Moreover, what we see at work in the Thrasyleon tale is the same mechanism of confusing fiction and reality as in fatal charades. From the perspective of Demochares’ household, what happens is just a typical venatio performed in a perhaps somewhat unusual setting, which only incidentally, and unbeknownst to them, results in a fatal charade. For the victim, the whole thing is chillingly real – both his crime and his death. He lives and dies like Laureolus of the mime, and, as we know from Martial’s epigram, this kind of complete convergence between the fabula and the poena is perfectly in keeping with the tit-for-tat logic of staged executions. The additional element of role-playing that marks Thrasyleon’s performance serves further to strengthen the sense of absolute interchangeability between play and reality, as the robber heroically continues to play the role imposed on him by the stratagem and finally dies playing that role. The fact that the reader is expected to note that this clever ploy accidentally reenacts a universally known myth serves as another element inscribing Thrasyleon’s death into the fatal charade paradigm. The Risus Festival episode, too, comprises elements of a fatal charade.14 On the one hand, in the Laureolus-like plot of its theatrical performance Lucius is presented as a bloodthirsty foreign brigand who has senselessly slaughtered three well-meaning citizens and deserves to die for his crime (Apul. Met. 3.3). On the other, to Lucius, who earnestly expects to be executed onstage for a crime that he believes he has committed, the situation obviously looks more like a fatal charade than like a harmless farce. In other words, we are dealing once again with a fatal charade reenacting the plot of the Laureolus mime. At the same time, there is of course a notable difference between the Risus festival and the fatal charade presented by Martial, as Lucius’ failure to die onstage completely destroys the perfect nexus of fabula and poena which Martial so emphatically stresses in his Laureolus epigram. That is to say, in contrast to the virtual indistinguishability of the signifier and the signified in 13

14

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Suet. Nero 29 suam quidem pudicitiam usque adeo prostituit, ut contaminatis paene omnibus membris novissime quasi genus lusus excogitaret, quo ferae pelle contectus emitteretur e cavea virorumque ac feminarum ad stipitem deligatorum inguina invaderet et, cum affatim desaevisset, conficeretur a Doryphoro liberto. See Bartsch 1994, 57-58. Cf. Slater 2003.

Martial, we are confronted here with a conspicuous mismatch between the fabula and its reenactment. That this kind of rift could easily cause irritation, or even laughter, is demonstrated by an epigram of Martial’s contemporary Lucillius which, although it deals with a pantomime rather than a ‘fatal charade’, shows that an onstage death was generally considered to be a plus in a performance that aimed at flawless naturalism (AP 11.254): Πάντα καθ᾿ ἱστορίην ὀρχούµενος, ἓν τὸ µέγιστον τῶν ἔργων παριδὼν ἠνίασας µεγάλως. τὴν µὲν γὰρ Νιόβην ὀρχούµενος ὡς λίθος ἔστης, καὶ πάλιν ὢν Καπανεὺς ἐξαπίνης ἔπεσες. ἀλλ᾿ ἐπὶ τῆς Κανάκης ἀφυῶς, ὅτι καὶ ξίφος ἦν σοι καὶ ζῶν ἐξῆλθες· τοῦτο παρ᾿ ἱστορίην. In your dance you reenacted everything in accordance with the [original] story. Only once did you greatly upset us by neglecting an extremely important thing. When you played Niobe, you stood as still as a stone, whereas you suddenly fell when you were Capaneus. But in the role of Canace your performance lacked talent: you had a sword, and still you left the stage alive. This is contrary to the story!

Here, the pantomimic actor’s failure to die onstage, as is required by his tragic role, produces the sense of discrepancy between the story and its reenactment, which, perhaps only half-jokingly, is presented as a blemish disturbing the dramatic illusion of the performance. Apart from the fact that this epigram succinctly epitomizes the imperial audiences’ bloodthirsty desire to see a fictional death not just realistically imitated but actually transplanted into reality,15 its chief value consists in providing an authentic ancient terminology for the dialectic of convergence / divergence between fabula and reenactment: according to Lucillius, the ancient reader / viewer of pantomime rejoiced if the reenactment was καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν and was irritated if it was παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν. The actor’s failure to replicate, with the highest possible degree of exactitude, every action required by his role destroys the perfect identity between fabula and reenactment, which constitutes in this epigram a conditio sine qua non for the audience to take the performance seriously. The fact that, instead of dying, the actor stands up and walks away safe and sound effectively turns the tragedy that he has been performing into an inappropriately ridiculous farce. It has been demonstrated that the opposition between καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν and παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν ultimately derives from the technical language of literary scholarship.16 However, in Roman theater of the imperial period it also seems to have enjoyed a quasi-terminological status, as is clearly shown by another epigram from Martial’s Liber spectaculorum where one of these terms is explicitly used 15 16

Bartsch 1994, 58-59. Heraeus 1915, 37.

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and the other is presupposed. Unlike in Lucillius’ epigram, here the performance παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν is a source not so much of irritation as, perhaps somewhat irritatingly, of bizarre amusement (Mart. Spect. 24): Quidquid in Orpheo Rhodope spectasse theatro dicitur, exhibuit, Caesar, harena tibi. repserunt scopuli mirandaque silva cucurrit, quale fuisse nemus creditur Hesperidum. adfuit inmixtum pecori genus omne ferarum et supra vatem multa pependit avis, ipse sed ingrato iacuit laceratus ab urso. Haec tantum res est facta παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν.

5

Whatever Rhodope is said to have seen in Orpheus’ performance, the arena has presented to you, Caesar. Crags crept, and a wondrous forest ran; it was just what the grove of the Hesperides is believed to be like. Mixed with domestic animals there were all kinds of wild beasts there, and many birds were positioned above the bard. He, however, lay still, torn apart by an ungrateful bear. This thing alone happened contrary to the story.

As in Lucillius’ epigram, here, too, everything is clearly done καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν up to a certain point, even though the term is not explicitly used: the rocks, the woods, the birds, and the animals all act in accordance with the myth that they reenact and thus become dutifully spellbound by Orpheus’ singing. It is only when Orpheus, played in this case not by a professional actor but by a criminal sentenced ad bestias, is torn apart by a bear, which remains completely unaffected by the charms of his voice, that the story goes awry and the reenactment diverges from the preordained scenario (παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν).17 Unlike the pantomime in Lucillius’ epigram, which aims to create the sense of perfect merger between fabula and reenactment, the performance in Martial corresponds to two distinct patterns simultaneously: on the one hand, the pattern imposed by the myth, within which Orpheus’ death would be blatantly παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν; on the other, the pattern of the staged execution, in which the death of the convict is the only acceptable outcome and is thus, in a sense, perfectly καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν. The main point of this epigram (and thus, one would assume, of the original performance as well) consists in the non-coincidence between the meanings that one and the same event possesses within the two different frames in which it is inscribed. The confusion of frames is in this case a result of what one may call ‘multiple plotting’ – a complex plot structure whose individual overlapping scenarios unfold on different planes of reality: within the fictional world of the myth and in the empirical world of the arena respectively. 17

54

The same thought pattern underlies Mart. Spect. 10: Daedale, Lucano cum sic lacereris ab urso, / quam cuperes pinnas nunc habuisse tuas! See Coleman 1990, 62-63 and Coleman 2006, 174-175.

In contrast to the Laureolus epigram, the mythological scenario reenacted here does not end in the protagonist’s death and, for that reason, cannot be fully reproduced in a fatal charade. Since the main objective of the show, however, is the actor’s death, the logic of the execution clearly has the upper hand over the logic of the fabula that it purports to reenact. As a result, the unceremonious intrusion of reality into fiction, far from disappointing the viewer’s expectations as in Lucillius, produces a calculated effect: the shocking bathos of a hungry bear devouring the protagonist of a sublime spectacle is consciously exploited here to make a nauseating (at least to us) joke. Quite importantly, it is the unexpected ending that completely destroys the familiar cohesion of the original ‘story’ and simultaneously imposes on that story a different kind of coherence altogether. Apuleius’ Risus festival episode, too, is based on such an overlap of two distinct scenarios that only partly agree with each other. Like the spectacle of Martial’s Orpheus epigram, the Risus festival simultaneously unfolds on two different planes of reality, each of which coheres into a plot pattern of its own. One of these scenarios is the fiction of a fatal charade broadly based on the basic plot of the Laureolus mime, in which Lucius naively believes until the very last moment of the show. The other one belongs to the empirical reality of the Risus festival. This celebration consists in turning an unsuspecting stranger into a laughingstock of the community in a kind of a scapegoat ritual. The unwitting victim has to undergo a deep humiliation without suffering any physical damage, in order to give the audience a chance to enjoy a kind of legitimized (and even institutionalized) Schadenfreude. Of course, the combination of these two scenarios results here in a complete inversion of the pattern that we have observed so far. Whereas in fatal charades a reenacted fabula becomes reality (death), here, on the contrary, what at first seems to the protagonist to be all too real turns out to be just a fabula in the end. Nevertheless this performance is based on the same pattern of intrusion of reality into fiction as the Orpheus fatal charade. The last scene of the Risus festival provides the ultimate revelation of the performance’s hybrid nature. Lucius obediently plays the role of a culprit imposed on him by the scenario of the fatal charade until he is forced to unveil the ‘corpses’ (Apul. Met. 3.9). When he realizes that the vigorous men that he supposedly killed on the previous night are nothing but slashed wineskins, there is no need for the crowd to restrain its ecstatic laughter any longer. That is to say, as in the Orpheus epigram, the scenario unfolding in the empirical reality of the celebration ultimately wins the upper hand over the fictional plot that it reenacts. From this perspective, the Risus festival provides a specimen of multiple plotting as well. Moreover, as in Martial’s Orpheus epigram, here, too, it is the unexpected ending that is responsible for the tension between the two scenarios that form the multiple plotting pattern: the ending, which is blatantly παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν within one scenario, retrospectively turns the entire performance into a καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν reenactment of the other. 55

It is of utmost importance that the transformation of a fatal charade into a mimic farce in the Risus festival simultaneously entails Lucius’ transformation from a convict into a mime actor. The sense of unfathomable humiliation that he experiences at the moment of the final revelation (Apul. Met. 3.10) has to be viewed in the context of the extraordinarily low reputation enjoyed by mime actors in general. For instance, the 1st century BC mimographer Laberius is said to have lost his equestrian status as a consequence of performing as an actor in one of his own mimes.18 Stories of Nero forcing members of the aristocracy to perform in mimes are evidence of a similar kind of humiliation.19 Lucius, too, is an aristocrat degraded against his will to the level of a mime actor, who temporarily loses the privileges of his class as a consequence of his participation in a mimic farce. Furthermore, just as Caesar had to intervene to reinstate Laberius in his social class,20 so the magistrates of Hypata perform an official act of thanksgiving in recompense for Lucius’ humiliation, in which they explicitly recognize his high social status (Apul. Met. 3.11): neque tuae dignitatis vel etiam prosapiae tuorum ignari sumus, Luci domine; nam et provinciam totam inclitae vestrae familiae nobilitas conplectitur. ac ne istud, quod vehementer ingemescis, contumeliae causa perpessus es. omnem itaque de tuo pectore praesentem tristitudinem mitte et angorem animi depelle. nam lusus iste, quem publice gratissimo deo Risui per annua reverticula sollemniter celebramus, semper commenti novitate florescit. iste deus auctorem et actorem suum propitius ubique comitabitur amanter nec umquam patietur, ut ex animo doleas, sed frontem tuam serena venustate laetabit adsidue. at tibi civitas omnis pro ista gratia honores egregios obtulit; nam et patronum scribsit et ut in aere stet imago tua decrevit. Master Lucius, we are not unaware either of your high social status or of your ancestry, for the nobility of your illustrious family is known throughout the entire province. As to this thing that still makes you heavily groan, the reason why you have suffered it has nothing to do with offence. So banish all this sorrow from your heart and dispel the anguish of your soul. This festival that we solemnly celebrate in public every year in honor of the god of Laughter, who is most welcome to us, always derives its vitality from some novel device. This god will everywhere accompany the originator and executor of laughter with benevolence and affection, and he will never allow you to feel sad but will constantly cheer up your face with his unperturbed grace. And the entire city has repaid this pleasure with extraordinary honors: it has given you the title of protector and has decreed to set up your statue in bronze.

It is of key importance here that the magistrates call Lucius auctorem et actorem of the god of laughter, that is, both the ‘author’ and the main actor of this 18 19 20

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Cic. Fam. 12.18.2; Sen. Con. 7.3.9; Gel. 17.14.2; Macr. Sat. 2.3.10 and 2.7.2-11. See also Giancotti 1967, 167-216; Rieks 1978, 361-362. Suet. Nero 11. See Wüst 1932, 1750. Macr. Sat. 2.7.8; Giancotti 1967, 172-176.

peculiar performance. This phrase once again betrays this episode’s connections with the mime. Due to the mime’s improvisatory nature, each of its actors could obviously be regarded not only an actor but also as a (co)-author of the play that they stage, since mime performances unfolded as more or less free improvisations of a plot determined beforehand only in broad outline.21 There is one category of mime actors, however, whose acting manner would suit this description particularly well. It is well known that mime ensembles were organized according to a strictly hierarchical principle. The group was led by an archimimus (or an archimima) – the producer, director, and main actor in one person; the rest of the acting parts were divided in accordance with their importance for the functioning of the play as a whole – (actores) secundarum, tertiarum, and even quartarum (partium) are attested in our sources.22 Whereas nothing is known for sure of the roles played by the tertiarum and the quartarum, references to the actor secundarum partium clearly imply that he always played the role of the mimic fool (stupidus).23 One of his functions consisted in mimicking in a laughable manner whatever other actors had done or said before. For instance, the evidence provided by Suetonius clearly underscores this aspect of the fool’s acting (Suet. Cal. 57): et quum in Laureolo mimo, in quo actor proripiens se ruina sanguinem vomit, plures secundarum certatim experimentum artis darent, cruore scena abundavit. And when in the mimic play called Laureolus, in which the main actor collapses during his escape and vomits blood, many of the actors playing secondary parts attempted to outdo each other in mimicking this trick, the entire stage was soaked in blood.

What follows from this passage is that actores secundarum in the Laureolus mime engaged in a kind of blood-vomiting contest imitating the action of the protagonist (the archimimus). The imitative aspect of the second mime’s acting is also illustrated by the following passage from Horace’s Epistles, where the poet compares an obsequious client repeating every word of his powerful patron to a mimus secundarum partium (Hor. Ep. 1.18.10-14): alter in obsequium plus aequo pronus et imi derisor lecti sic nutum divitis horret, sic iterat voces et verba cadentia tollit, ut puerum saevo credas dictata magistro reddere vel partis mimum tractare secundas. 21 22 23

On the improvisatory aspect of mimic performances, see Wüst 1932, 1731; Wiemken 1972, 153-157 and 186-187; Benz 1999; Lefèvre 1999. Wüst 1932, 1748; Nicoll 1931, 85-90; Wiemken 1972, 173-183. Reich 1903, 65ff.; Wüst 1932, 1748; Nicoll 1931, 47-50.

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The one man, obsequious beyond measure, a clown of the lowest couch, fears the wealthy man’s nod so much and mimics his speeches, picking up his every single word, in such a way as to make you think that a boy is repeating his lesson to a stern teacher or a mime is playing a second part.

Of course, the second mime’s role in reality could not be reduced to mere mindless repetition of the words uttered and actions performed by the archimimus. In order to produce a comic effect, he had to infuse his own imitations with a new sense by parodying or creatively distorting what had gone before, in the manner of circus clowns.24 In other words, the activity of mimi secundarum largely consisted of ‘co-authoring’ their performances. It is quite noteworthy that the performance of the Risus festival perfectly agrees with this role-playing pattern. In Chapter 1, I noted that Lucius’ character evokes numerous associations with the stupidus of the mime. In the Risus Festival episode, Lucius literally turns into an actor secundarum. The spectacle at the theater in Hypata is thoroughly based on improvisation. The part of the archimimus of this bizarre show can certainly be ascribed to the night guard, who provides the basic narrative framework for Lucius’ subsequent improvisation by presenting him as the head of a robber band – a Laureolus of sorts. Like a good mimus secundarum, Lucius improvises in accordance with a preordained storyline: he inverts the basic pattern of the Laureolus mime imposed on him by the night guard’s story, without, however, completely breaking its set limitations. In his own apology (Apul. Met. 3.4-6), Lucius presents himself as a good citizen who risked his life for his host’s sake and eliminated a band of bloodthirsty robbers by killing them one by one. In other words, he produces a complete inversion of the robber mime pattern by presenting himself in the role of a rightful prosecutor of a heinous crime, who dutifully took upon himself the task of ‘executing’ an entire band of Laureoli. That is to say, Lucius does not simply mimic the words of the archimimus but uses them as a starting point for his own creative performance. Even though, like Laberius and Neronian aristocrats before him, Lucius is a mime malgré soi, he does not simply play his part in a passive way (actor) but, in a sense, creatively co-authors the entire performance (auctor) by adding to it a script that significantly diverges from the original scenario and, thus, inadvertently fulfills the main function of a mimus secundarum – to make the audience laugh at the ensuing comic incongruity.

24

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Nicoll 1931, 87.

2.2. The Primary Narrative and the Inserted Tales I noted in Chapter 1 that Apuleius’ Lucius is not a mimetically credible figure but a patchwork of mutually incompatible characteristics, which he, in accordance with the general conventions of the mimic role-playing, displays as he sees fit in order to enhance the spectacular effect of individual episodes at the expense of the coherence of the whole. As I would like to show now, this mercurial instability is based on the same role-playing pattern as the one we have established for the Risus festival. Moreover, not only can Lucius (as well as some other characters of the primary narrative) be regarded as a mimus secundarum at a number of different junctures, but also the interaction between different levels of fiction in Apuleius’ narrative as a whole is governed by the same mechanism of multiple plotting as the Risus festival’s παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν tension between mimic farce and reality. As we saw above, Apuleius’ narrative includes a few clusters of tales based on similar plot paradigms. It is quite noteworthy that these clusters always comprise not only inserted tales but also episodes of the frame narrative. My contention is that in each of these cases the scenes of the primary narrative can be perceived as παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν reenactments of the scenarios rehearsed in the inserted tales, fictional from the viewpoint of the primary narrative: Lucius’ adventures follow the general narrative course adumbrated in particular tales up to a certain point, thus, as it were, reenacting them καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν; in the end, however, they invariably diverge from them in such a way as to reproduce recognizable elements of a different scenario (παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν) and, by doing so, to inscribe the narrative as a whole into a different plot pattern. Aristomenes, Thelyphron, and Lucius It is already in the Greek version of the ass-tale that Lucius’ adventures are presented as a reenactment of a fabula. The main reason why Lucius undertakes his journey to Thessaly in the Onos is to witness in person bodily transformations that he knows from popular legends (Onos 4): ἐπεθύµουν δὲ σφόδρα µείνας ἐνταῦθα ἐξευρεῖν τινα τῶν µαγεύειν ἐπισταµένων γυναικῶν καὶ θεάσασθαί τι παράδοξον, ἢ πετόµενον ἄνθρωπον ἢ λιθούµενον. My great desire was to stay there in order to find one of those women skilled in magic and to see something paradoxical, such as, for instance, a human being flying or turning to stone.

Unlike the Onos, which simply refers to some unspecified legends of Thessalian witches, the Golden Ass uses a specific tale embedded in the primary narrative 59

as a frame of reference for Lucius’ exposure to the supernatural. It is Aristomenes’ tale that ultimately urges Lucius to develop an active interest in magic, which ends up implicating him in a magical plot of his own (Apul. Met. 2.1): ut primum nocte discussa sol novus diem fecit et somno emersus et lectulo, anxius alioquin et nimis cupidus congonscendi quae rara miraque sunt, reputansque me media Thessaliae loca tenere, qua artis magicae nativa cantamina totius orbis consono ore celebrarentur, fabulamque illam optimi comitis Aristomenis de situ civitatis huius exortam, suspensus alioquin et voto simul et studio, curiose singula considerabam. As soon as the night was driven away and the new sun turned it into a day, I rose from sleep, as I immediately did from my bed too, because I was generally excited and extremely eager to discover things that were rare and wondrous. For I recalled that I was in the very middle of Thessaly, from where by the unanimous agreement of the entire world the famous incantations of the magic art have originated. Besides, I remembered that the tale told by my dearest companion Aristomenes had its origin at the site of this city. For this reason, anxious with enthusiastic anticipation, I carefully paid attention to every single thing.

I noted in Chapter 1 that both Lucius’ and Aristomenes’ Thessalian adventures are based on the basic plot pattern of the ‘magic subgenre’ of the mime. There are, however, more specific correspondences between the two narratives. Even the dramatic situations of both episodes are virtually identical: the primary narrator tells his readers about his business trip to Thessaly, where he met Aristomenes who told him a story about his experience with magic, whereas Aristomenes tells his traveling companions about his business trip to Thessaly, where he met with Socrates who told him stories about his experience with magic. Besides, individual events of the two narratives unfold in accordance with more or less the same scenario. Aristomenes’ adventures in Thessaly begin with his unsuccessful attempt to buy cheese at the marketplace, where he accidentally runs into Socrates, a close friend from his hometown. Similarly, Lucius begins his first day in Hypata by going to the marketplace; he also fails to buy what he wants, but runs into a close friend (Pythias) instead. Milo’s wife, the witch Pamphile, is portrayed as a narrative double of the witch Meroe from Aristomenes’ tale. Even though, unlike the unsuspecting Socrates in Aristomenes’ tale, who presents himself as a victim of Meroe’s machinations, Lucius walks into the trap of magic of his own accord by starting a relationship with Photis, this affair is depicted in the same terms suggestive of erotic slavery (Apul. Met. 2.18, 3.19) as the relationship between Socrates and Meroe (Apul. Met. 1.7). Furthermore, immediately before his direct confrontation with magic, Lucius is tried for murder, which he himself believes he has committed (Apul. Met. 3.1-9). Even though the charges against him turn out to be a hoax and his mock trial a part of the Risus festival (Apul. Met. 3.10-11), the combination of 60

individual details unequivocally reminds one of Aristomenes’ overwhelming fear of being falsely accused of murdering his friend Socrates.25 There are similar correspondences between Lucius’ adventures and Thelyphron’s tale. Upon their arrival in Thessaly, both Thelyphron and Lucius are confronted with a bizarre local custom in which they are encouraged to participate. Thelyphron is offered a fee for protecting a corpse from the onslaught of Thessalian witches, who are known to cut off noses and ears from unattended dead bodies (Apul. Met. 2.21), and pledges to replace any missing facial features with his own (Apul. Met. 2.22), whereas Lucius is urged to contribute something witty to the Risus Festival – a custom at least as baffling and unique to Thessaly as Thelyphron’s corpse-guarding vigil (Apul. Met. 2.31). Of course, both Thelyphron and Lucius willingly accept the offer without considering the danger that their participation might entail. Moreover, for a long time both remain unable to perceive the true nature of the events that they have been enticed to participate in: Lucius is convinced that he has committed a triple murder until his victims are revealed to be slashed wineskins, whereas Thelyphron thinks that he has come out of his bizarre experience unscathed until it turns out that the witches have snatched his own nose and ears replacing them with wax copies. Quite significantly, in both cases the final revelation takes place in front of huge crowds and causes unrestrained hilarity in the spectators and profound humiliation in the protagonist. Thus, in Books 1-3 Lucius behaves like a mimus secundarum reenacting the narrative scenarios previously rehearsed in the two inserted tales. Moreover, his successive impersonations of two different characters result in a somewhat incongruous patchwork image typical of the mime role-playing. In Book 1 Lucius is portrayed as a businessman who, like Aristomenes, is traveling to Thessaly for commercial reasons (Apul. Met. 1.2 ex negotio). In contrast to the Onos, however, where the narrator explicitly says that his supposed business trip was from the very start just a false pretense for seeing Thessalian magic (Onos 4), in Apuleius Lucius’ active interest in magic does not fully develop until the beginning of Book 2 (Apul. Met. 2.1). In consequence, Lucius’ business trip is not presented as a plausible cover-up story but is simply forgotten: the only thing his mind is focused on is a search for magic, which perfectly mirrors Thelyphron’s sightseeing expedition to Larissa. Thus, from an imitator of the entrepreneurial Aristomenes Lucius inadvertently becomes an imitator of the vacationer Thelyphron. This unexpected switch from business to leisure in Lucius’ characterization is further accentuated by Byrrhena’s effusive praise of Hypata’s tourist attractions that Lucius is expected to enjoy.26 25 26

Cf. Frangoulidis 2001, 54. Apul. Met. 2. 19 quod sciam, templis et lavacris et ceteris operibus longe cunctas civitates antecellimus, utensilium praeterea pollemus adfatim. omni denique provinciae voluptarii secessus sumus.

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Moreover, since Lucius not only reenacts embedded tales but also pursues the narrative logic of his own adventures, as we know them from the Greek asstale, the reality of the frame narrative at some point inevitably intrudes upon the fiction of the tales, forcing Lucius’ reenactment to go παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν. For instance, the main reason why Apuleius introduces the character of Pythias into the primary narrative seems to be his desire to create a narrative double for Aristomenes’ Socrates. This move certainly contributes to enhancing the parallelism between Lucius’ adventures and the plot of the inserted tale. Pythias, however, fails to fulfill his promise of developing into a full-fledged character comparable to his counterpart. Since in the plot of the ass-tale there is no room for Pythias, the narrative eventually has no choice but to discard him and, by doing so, to proceed παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν. As a result, what at first seemed to be just a replica of a familiar tale turns out to be a completely different story. The same mechanism of παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν reenactment connects Thelyphron’s tale and the Risus Festival episode. A strange thing about the Risus Festival episode is that it blatantly contradicts the integral story data firmly established in the rest of the primary narrative. After the Risus festival is over, there remains one important question to which the narrative has hitherto supplied no satisfactory answer: how could the inflated wineskins that drunken Lucius mistook for robbers get to Milo’s house in the first place? The solution of this mystery finally comes from Photis (Apul. Met. 3.13). She reveals that her mistress, the witch Pamphile, is at the moment infatuated with a handsome young Boeotian. On the previous day, Pamphile saw him sitting at the barber’s and ordered Photis to collect his hair. Since the barber prevented Photis from performing this task (Apul. Met. 3.16), she picked hair from three freshly shorn inflated goatskins instead and presented it to Pamphile as if it belonged to her beloved (Apul. Met. 3.17). At night, when Lucius was attending the party at Byrrhena’s, Pamphile performed a magical ritual in which she burnt the hair. As a result, the wineskins were filled with a living spirit and came to Pamphile’s door (Apul. Met. 3.18). This story indeed does provide a perfect explanation for how the wineskins got to Milo’s house and why Lucius mistook them for brigands. At the same time, it completely neglects the implications of what happened at the Risus festival. Up to this point, it has seemed that the entire community of Hypata conspired to guarantee the success of the Risus festival: the main reason why Photis warns Lucius of a band of bloodthirsty brigands seems to be to make sure that he does not forget the dagger with which he is later on to ‘kill’ the alleged bandits (Apul. Met. 2.18); at the party, Byrrhena mentions that the celebration of the Risus festival is to take place on the next day and elicits a promise from Lucius that he will make a witty contribution to it (Apul. Met. 2.31), which retrospectively suggests that Lucius’ role has been determined long in advance; finally, the night guard, who accuses Lucius of murder during his mock trial, curiously happens to be near Milo’s house at just the right moment to witness 62

Lucius’ ‘crime’. Now it becomes obvious all of a sudden that the conditions necessary for a successful execution of Lucius’ mock trial, which has so far appeared to be meticulously planned well in advance, did not come about until the previous day and that Photis is the only person who could have possibly known about them. This clearly makes no sense at all: the events, as they are presented here, would be absolutely impossible in a mimetically credible fictional world, and the text provides no satisfactory explanation that would reconcile these mutually exclusive data. Thus Apuleius continues to construct this part of his narrative παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν, too, joining two narrative scenarios that do not go well together. The episode with the walking wineskins has a truly essential plot-advancing function within the primary narrative: Lucius’ consternation at what has happened to him serves as the main motive for Photis to disclose to him the fact that her mistress is a witch and, by doing so, to unleash a concatenation of events that ultimately lead to Lucius’ transformation. In other words, this episode is an integral part of the cause-and-effect chain that constitutes the backbone of the ass-tale, and its absence from the Onos is most certainly a result of the epitomator’s abridgment.27 The events of the Risus festival episode, on the contrary, serve only as another instance of reenactment of the scenario provided by an inserted tale and contribute virtually nothing to the progression of the main plot: as a matter of fact, if we remove all mention of the Risus festival, the remaining portion of the episode will present a logically coherent whole fully integrated into the plot structure of the primary narrative. Once again, Apuleius grafts onto the original narrative plot a conflicting scenario that follows the pattern provided by an inserted fabula. And once again, the suture between the two logically incompatible scenarios is left as visible as possible. The result of this procedure is a powerful illusion-breaking effect that draws the reader’s attention to the fundamental non-coincidence between the meanings that the same events possess within different plot patterns in which they participate. The Robbers and Charite As we saw above, the robber-tales in Book 4 are all based on the same narrative scenario similar to the Laureolus mime. Moreover, the robbers episode of the primary narrative is based on the same pattern too: the robbers abduct Charite but eventually are outwitted and killed by her bridegroom Tlepolemus. The theatricality of Tlepolemus’ performance is further underscored by the fact that he literally plays a robber of the robber-tales: he presents himself as the bloodthirsty brigand Haemus and describes his deeds in the same mock-heroic tone in which the narrator of the robber-tales portrays Lamachus, Alcimus, and 27

Cf. Van der Paardt 1971, 4.

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Thrasyleon.28 Furthermore, Tlepolemus explicitly mimics the plot structure of the robber tales: the invincible Haemus, whose deeds are presented as reaching truly epic proportions, loses all his men to the vigilance of a single woman, who alerts her own household and the entire neighborhood to the robbers’ attack. Finally, the stratagem on which Tlepolemus relies is based on an inverted – and much more successfully implemented – version of the Trojan horse scenario, which clearly echoes the Thrasyleon tale: he, too, infiltrates the robbers’ camp, ingratiates himself with them to such an extent that they elect him their leader, and then uses his position in order to trick them (Apul. Met. 7.5-12). The irony of Tlepolemus’ performance is that its persuasive force does not derive from its protagonist’s display of prowess (on the contrary, not only is he defeated, but he flees dressed as a woman (Apul. Met. 7.8)) but from its being based on the plot pattern of the robber tales with which Tlepolemus’ audience is so familiar! As a result, the robbers, who fail to discern the obvious parallelism between the robber tales and Tlepolemus’ parodic retelling of them, end up reenacting the same basic scenario too in the same manner as Lucius reenacts Aristomenes’ and Thelyphron’s tales in Book 1-3. Quite curiously, this episode provides parallels to two pieces of information about the Laureolus mime that I discussed above: on the one hand, the robbers behave like the actores secundarum in the Laureolus performance mentioned by Suetonius (Cal. 57); on the other, as in Martial’s Laureolus epigram, the fabulae that they hear are eventually transformed into their own poena. Just as the robbers relive the basic storyline of the robber tales, so Charite’s liberation and reunion with her bridegroom can be conceived as a καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν reenactment of the tale of Cupid and Psyche. There is an immediate practical reason why the robbers’ old female servant tells this tale to Charite: she has to make the captive girl stop crying by reassuring her that in the end everything will turn out for the best.29 To this end, she tells a story about a newly married girl separated from her husband against her will, who goes through a seemingly endless series of trials and calamities but is eventually reunited with him. What happens to Charite afterwards does correspond to this general pattern, as her divine bridegroom liberates her and thus puts an end to their separation.30 The robbers’ defeat and Charite’s liberation by Tlepolemus obviously represent two different perspectives on the same situation, both of which unfold as καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν reenactments of the respective inserted tales. The narrative

28 29 30

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Frangoulidis 1994. Apul. Met. 4.27 bono animo esto, mi erilis, etc. sed ego te narrationibus lepidis anilibusque fabulis avocabo. Cf. Zimmerman et al. 2004, 10-11. On parallels between Charite’s and Psyche’s narratives, see Papaïoannou 1998.

proceeds, however, in such a way as to destabilize this perfect parallelism between the reality of the primary narrative and the fiction of inserted tales. Unlike the author of the Greek original, Apuleius does not simply let his Charite die from a natural cause,31 but turns her death into an elaborate drama, thus introducing a highly convoluted new plot into the narrative, which has already reached a perfectly satisfactory resolution (Apul. Met. 8.1-14). Now that Charite and Tlepolemus, according to the expectations created in the tale of Cupid and Psyche, should finally be enjoying their marital harmony, a new character is suddenly introduced. It is Charite’s treacherous suitor Thrasyllus, who turns out to have been scheming against this harmony all the time. He kills Charite’s husband (Apul. Met. 8.5-6) and attempts to seduce Charite (Apul. Met. 8.7-8), but is eventually outwitted by her (Apul. Met. 8.9ff.). In the end, Charite blinds him (Apul. Met. 8.13) and commits suicide (Apul. Met. 8.14). Thus the comedy of Charite’s liberation is suddenly transformed into the tragedy of Charite’s death.32 This transformation introduces into the narrative an absolutely alien element, which destroys its previous coherence. From this perspective, the addition of the elaborately plotted tragic ending turns the Charite section of the novel into another reenactment παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν. Moreover, numerous elements of the tragic plot of Charite’s death find parallels in other parts of the novel: Thrasyllus’ assault on Charite and Tlepolemus clearly echoes the robbers’ attacks and anticipates the senseless cruelty of the evil neighbor from the tale of three brothers in Book 9 (Apul. Met. 9.3538); Charite’s rightful wrath and manlike courage (Apul. Met. 8.11) with which she takes revenge on Thrasyllus, are anticipated in the narrative of the heroic Plotina (Apul. Met. 7.5-8), who is also said to transcend the boundaries of her sex in defeating the robbers;33 Thrasyllus’ attempt to seduce the incorruptible Charite serves as a foil to the series of adultery tales that follow; and finally, the cold-blooded brutality with which Charite murders her assailant makes her in a way resemble ‘Phaedra’ and the convict woman of the ‘family tragedies’. In other words, the deviant (παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν) conclusion of Charite’s life story, which notably shatters the overall coherence of its plot pattern, either imitates or adumbrates elements of other plots scattered throughout the novel and thus agrees with them καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν.

31 32 33

In Onos 34 her husband and she are both snatched away by a wave as they take a stroll on the seashore. May 2006, 260-267. Hijmans et al. 1985, 116.

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The Adultery Tales The same basic principle is at work in Apuleius’ adultery tales as well. As we saw above, all of them are variations on the standard plot of the adultery mime. The way these tales are arranged in the context, however, employs the technique of producing a tension between a καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν and a παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν reenactment of this narrative scenario. Most of the adultery tales in Apuleius are reported by Lucius as something he heard from some secondary narrators.34 One of them, however, belongs to the primary narrative: the miller’s wife is a character of the ass-tale (she owns the ass), whereas Lucius acts as an eyewitness of the story’s events who directly contributes to its denouement by uncovering the woman’s adultery (Apul. Met. 9.27). Since the episode of the miller’s wife’s adultery, as we have seen, constitutes a version of the basic scenario of the adultery mime repeatedly rehearsed in the inserted tales, it can be considered to reenact καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν the tales that immediately precede it. The ending of this episode, however, markedly diverges from the plot imposed on it by the inserted tales: the amusing story of the miller’s wife evolves into a gruesome narrative of the miller’s death. As we saw above, the story of the miller’s death contains plot elements of both the ‘magic’ and the ‘rejected women’ mimic series. As a result, the unexpected coda of this adultery tale, which constitutes a clear case of παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν deviation from the standard scenario, agrees in turn with other plots narrated elsewhere in the novel. Once again, we are dealing with a ‘multiply plotted’ narrative, whose unexpected conclusion shatters the coherence of the original scenario only in order to realign the story data with elements of other easily recognizable plots. The ‘Family Tragedies’ Finally, the ‘family tragedies’ of Book 10 follow the same pattern too. We saw above that both the ‘Phaedra’ tale and the tale of the convict woman reproduce the plot pattern of the ‘rejected women’ mimes (the Μοιχεύτρια mime in particular). Although the story of the convict woman’s crimes is related in an inserted tale, the woman herself is obviously a character of the primary narrative (Lucius, after all, is supposed to copulate with her onstage). The ‘Phaedra’ tale, on the contrary, is introduced as a fabula that Lucius heard from an unspecified internal narrator and that has no direct connection to the narrative frame.35 Thus

34 35

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Bechtle 1995, 108. Apul. Met. 10.2 post dies plusculos ibidem dissignatum scelestum ac nefarium facinus memini.

we are once again dealing with an episode of the primary narrative following καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν the plot pattern already rehearsed in an inserted tale. And once again, the conclusion of the primary narrative’s episode deviates from the scenario dictated by the inserted tale. As we have seen, both female protagonists are caught red-handed and convicted. The fatal charade in which the convict woman is expected to impersonate Pasiphae should serve as a worthy punishment for her unspeakable deeds, which structurally corresponds to the perpetrator’s exile in the ‘Phaedra’ tale. The performance of the fatal charade is, however, interrupted when Lucius suddenly runs away from the arena. Moreover, this unexpected turn not only aborts the narrative scenario of the convict woman’s tale at the moment when it has reached its seemingly inevitable denouement but it also introduces elements of a radically new plot into the narrative texture of the novel, when Lucius all of a sudden embarks on a career as an Isiac priest. In other words, Apuleius once again concludes an episode of the primary narrative, which up to a certain point has seemed to offer a version of the basic plot narrated in one of the inserted tales, by grafting onto it a completely different plot pattern. The Conclusion of Lucius’ Adventures The abrupt conclusion of the ‘rejected women’ series in Book 10 simultaneously serves as a transition to the conclusion of the entire novel. We saw above that the ending of the original Greek ass-tale is harmoniously integrated into the overall plot structure of the narrative whereas the Isiac ending of the Golden Ass produces a notable disruption of the primary narrative’s plot pattern. In other words, Apuleius’ version of Lucius’ adventures as a whole, too, follows a predetermined scenario (this time, the scenario of the Greek ass-tale) almost to the point where it reaches its denouement, only in order to diverge from it in the end by introducing elements of a different plot. The disruptive effect produced by Apuleius’ ending is surely predicated upon the reader’s familiarity with the basic parameters of the original narrative. Only then can the reader note that not only individual episodes but also the narrative as a whole is constructed in accordance with the same dialectics of reenactment: it reenacts a particular scenario καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν, when all of a sudden the logic of a completely different plot shatters the established coherence and urges the reader to look for ways of putting together the resulting fragments according to some other narrative logic. As in all other instances of tension between the καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν and the παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν reenactment, different elements of the basic plot that underlies the deviant conclusion of Lucius’ adventures find parallels in the multiple tales told in the course of the novel. That is to say, the structure of the novel as a whole is controlled by the same mechanism of multiple plotting as the one we have observed on the level of individual episodes. 67

The main difference between the novel’s entirety and its constituent parts is of course in the degree of complexity of the ensuing narrative structure. In the case of the primary narrative as a whole, the possibilities according to which the reader can reassemble the disrupted plot pattern are much more numerous than in single episodes. In the next five chapters, I will present five possible plots all of which partly account for the story data of Lucius’ life. Some of them are complementary; others are clearly incompatible with each other. I am perfectly aware that Apuleius’ text, polyphonous as it is, could be read in accordance with even more narrative scenarios. My goal, however, is not to exhaust all conceivable ways of reading the Golden Ass but rather to demonstrate the futility of any attempts to see in Lucius’ adventures a single classical plot. As I would like to show, not only does Lucius’ ‘life’ reproduce innumerable motifs of the Roman popular theater, but the essential principles on which it is constructed capture the very spirit of theatricality typical of the Roman arena, where, as we have seen, the irreducible non-coincidence among multiple meanings possessed by the same event serves as the primary source of excitement.

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Part II Multiple Plotting

3. Crime, Punishment, and Redemption: Lucius’ Life as a Narrative of Miraculous Healing In his Life of Octavian, Suetonius mentions the princeps’ particular weakness for aretalogi, who provided entertainment at his banquets along with actors, acrobats, and circus artists.1 Aretalogi are generally known as professional storytellers who told stories of miracles (mostly healing miracles) performed by the gods.2 From Suetonius’ passage, however, we can glean that aretalogy could be perceived not only a category of subliterary sacred lore, but also as a genre of popular entertainment on a par with the mime. For this reason, it is hardly surprising that Apuleius’ account, which, as we have seen, is greatly indebted to the mime, generally agrees with the standard plot pattern of a narrative of miraculous healing. The religious conclusion of Lucius’ adventures is certainly bound to be a rather disappointing surprise to every reader accustomed in the course of the novel to a seemingly never-ending sequence of magic, sex, and violence. Throughout the novel, Apuleius gradually incites the reader’s curiosity by providing him with increasingly more scandalous stuff. Book 10, with its detailed description of the passionate tryst between the rich Corinthian matron and Lucius the ass (Apul. Met. 10.19-22) and with its two long inserted tales about hideous female murderers (Apul. Met. 10.2-12 and 10.23-28), serves as the ultimate culmination of this tendency. Almost at the very end of the book, when Lucius describes the pantomime of the judgment of Paris, the entire atmosphere becomes so charged with sensuality that even the wind becomes voyeuristic and begins to look under Venus’ skirt.3 All these outrageous things are, of course, ideally suited to pave the way for the potentially most sensational scene of the narrative, announced earlier in the book, in which Lucius the ass is supposed to copulate on stage with the convict women (Apul. Met. 10.23, 29, 34). What happens then, however, produces a strikingly anticlimactic effect. For the first time in his narrative, Lucius completely frustrates the reader’s expectations: instead of proceeding with the promised pornographic performance, he runs away to Cenchreae, where, standing on the deserted seashore, he begins to pray to the 1

2 3

Suet. Aug. 74 nam aut acroamata et histriones aut etiam triviales ex circo ludios interponebat, ac frequentius aretalogos. For ancient evidence on aretalogoi, see Crusius 1895. Longo 1969, 11-56. Apul. Met. 10.31 quam quidem laciniam curiosulus ventus satis amanter nunc lasciviens reflabat, ut dimota pateret flos aetatulae, nunc luxurians aspirabat, ut adhearens pressule membrorum voluptatem grafice liciniaret.

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Moon goddess lacrimoso vultu (Apul. Met. 11.1). The rest of Book 11 takes place as if in a different world, full of religious fervor, prophetic dreams, initiations, etc.4 There is no denial that this striking contrast produces a rather disturbing effect. At the same time, if we consider Book 11 in isolation it will be hard indeed not to take its account of Lucius’ salvation by Isis, at least in some sense, seriously. Lucius’ uncompromising determination to dedicate the rest of his life to Isis reads like a credible fictional representation of a personal religious experience,5 whereas the accuracy of Apuleius’ descriptions of various cult paraphernalia is largely supported by the literary, epigraphic, and archeological record.6 What is particularly striking is that in his portrayal of his protagonist’s turn to religion Apuleius reproduces a number of commonplaces regularly employed in authentic religious texts that circulated in the context of the Egyptian cults. Moreover, it turns out on closer look that the unexpected religious denouement is not mechanically added on to the preceding frivolous episodes of Lucius’ life but in fact accords quite well with the plot structure of the novel as a whole. In other words, Lucius’ turn to Isis, despite being blatantly παρ᾿ ἱστορίαν, in a certain sense does constitute a perfectly legitimate καθ᾿ ἱστορίαν closure. Hellenized Egyptian religion produced a vast variety of texts that accompanied its rituals and administration.7 Much of the preserved written record is devoted to praising – directly or indirectly – the glory of the worshipped deities. These encomiastic texts can be divided into three major categories according to the grammatical person in which the praised deity is mentioned. The most widespread type of religious texts, without which one can imagine no ancient cult, comprises hymns and encomia in the conventional sense of the term, in which the laudandus / laudanda is addressed in the second person (e.g., Totti 1985, no.19-25). The second category consists of the so-called self-revelations of Isis in which the goddess praises her achievements herself – of course in the first person (Totti 1985, no.1-4). And finally, there are wonder stories, or aretalogies, that is to say, narratives about personal experiences with the divine in which, as a rule, a devotee tells of his or her own miraculous healing through the agency of one of the Egyptian gods (e.g., Totti 1985, no.11-18).8 The gods’ deeds were in this case described in the third person. Lucius’ prayer to the Moon goddess at 11.2 is not only based on a number of structures and motifs typical of ritual invocations in general,9 but also displays numerous similarities with specific hymns and encomia addressed directly 4 5 6 7 8 9

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On the importance of the reader’s curiosity in the narrative dynamics of Apuleius’ novel, see Kirichenko 2008b, 360-367. Shumate 1995, esp. 285-328. Griffiths 1975, 14-47; Egelhaaf-Gaiser 2000. Many of these texts are conveniently collected in Totti 1985. On similar texts in the Asclepius cult, see Weinreich 1909, 110-116. Griffiths 1975, 119-122.

to Isis. Lucius begins his prayer by emphasizing the fact that the goddess to whom he prays is a universal deity worshipped by different ethnic groups under different names, who subsumes all other known goddesses.10 This all-inclusive polyonymy of Isis is of course one of the most stable elements of her worship in the Greco-Roman world in general11 reflected, for instance, in such cultic texts as the Oxyrhynchus encomium12 and the Isis hymns of Isidorus.13 Furthermore, Lucius points to a vast variety of realms subject to Isis’ command – from natural processes (childbirth) to civilization (agriculture) – and intimates that her power extends from the underworld to heaven.14 This general pantheistic tendency, combined with Isis’ role as protector of women and as first inventor of virtually every single element of culture, is widely attested as well.15 When Isis heeds Lucius’ prayer and appears before him, her address to the petitioner is largely couched in terms that would be familiar to every worshipper from the so-called self-revelations of Isis that were exhibited in every Isis temple throughout the Greco-Roman world.16 Various versions of this text have been transmitted as inscriptions from different locations, and its pivotal importance for the Isis cult is further confirmed by the fact that Diodorus Siculus quotes it in an abridged form in his account of the earliest history of Egypt (Diod. Sic. 1.27). These texts can be perceived as hymns reformulated in the first person: this time it is Isis herself who introduces to the worshipper her own universal might elucidated through a long list of her achievements. Although in 10 11 12

13

14

15

16

Griffiths 1975, 114-119. On the many names of Isis, see Merkelbach 1995, 94-101. Totti 1985, no.20 (P.Oxy. xi.1381). E.g., 21-23 ἐν Νιθίνῃ τοῦ Γυναικοπολείτου Ἀφροδείτην· ἐν Πεφρήµι Ἶσιν, ἄνασσαν, Ἑστίαν, κυρίαν πάσης χώρας; 27-28 ἐν τῷ Σαίτῃ νικήτριαν, Ἀθήνην, νύµφην, etc. On the Oxyrhynchos encomium, see Solmsen 1979, 5457. Totti 1985, no.21-24. E.g. Isid. Hymn 1.14-19 ὅσσοι δὲ ζώουσι βρότοι ἐπ᾿ ἀπείρονι γαίῃ, / Θρᾷκες καὶ Ἕλληνες, καὶ ὅσσοι βάρβαροι εἰσι, / οὔνοµά σου τὸ καλὸν, πολυτίµητον παρὰ πᾶσι, / φωναῖσι φράζουσ᾿ ἰδίας, ἰδίᾳ ἐνὶ πάτρῃ· Ἀστάρτην Ἄρτεµίν σε Σύροι κλῄζουσι Ναναίαν, etc. See also Vanderlip 1972, with a detailed commentary on all four hymns. Apul. Met. 11.2 regina caeli – sive tu Ceres alma frugum parens originalis, quae vetustae glandis ferino remoto pabulo, miti commonstrato cibo nunc Eleusiniam glebam percolis, seu tu caelestis Venus, quae primis rerum exordiis sexuum diversitatem generato Amore sociasti et aeterna subole humano genere propagato nunc circumfluo Paphi sacrario coleris, seu nocturnis ululatibus horrenda Proserpina triformi facie larvales impetus comprimens terraeque claustra cohibens lucos diversos inerrans vario cultu propitiaris, etc. Cf. Apul. Met. 11.5-6 and the Isis self-revelation from Cymae (Totti 1985, no.1) Ἶσις ἐγώ εἰµι ἡ τύραννος πάσης χώρας (3), ἐγώ εἰµι ἡ καρπὸν ἀνθρώποις εὑροῦσα (7), ἐγὼ ἐχώρισα γῆν ἀπὸ οὐρανοῦ (12), ἐγὼ ἀστρῶν ὁδοὺς ἔδειξα (13), ἐγὼ γυναῖκα καὶ ἄνδρα συνήγαγον (17), ἐγὼ γυναικὶ δεκαµηνιαῖον βρέφος εἰς φῶς ἐξενεγκεῖν ἔταξα (18), ἐγὼ τὸ εἱµαρµένον νικῶ (55). On the self-revelations of Isis, see Bergmann 1968; Henrichs 1984; Versnel 1990, 39-95; Merkelbach 1995, 113-120.

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Apuleius Isis concentrates almost exclusively on her polyonymy, which has already been anticipated at length in Lucius’ prayer, and omits most of the articles of faith contained in other similar texts, the very fact that the basic meaning of her address to her new devotee is limited to the Ἶσις ἐγώ εἰµι (I am Isis) formula of the epigraphic self-revelations clearly puts this passage in the same category of texts.17 Thus at the beginning of Book 11 Apuleius succeeds in conjuring up the tone characteristic of the two most widespread genres of Isiac literature. Even more importantly, however, the events of the Isis book as a whole closely correspond to the narrative pattern of another important kind of Isiac texts, namely narratives of miraculous healing.18 Since most known aretalogies unfold according to more or less the same scenario, it is possible to construct a basic grammar of this type of narrative. In most cases, the reason why a distressed petitioner addresses a deity is specified as his or her failure to obtain help by natural means. For instance, Diodorus Siculus says that Isis can always provide a cure when traditional medicine fails to restore the original condition,19 and the unknown author of a papyrus aretalogy of Asclepius (P.Oxy. xi.1381, Totti 1985, no.15) states the same thing about Imuthes, Asclepius’ Egyptian incarnation.20 This motif reappears again and again in a great variety of other literary sources and can thus be regarded as a fixed topos of aretalogical narratives in general.21 From this perspective, it is highly significant that in his first prayer to Isis Lucius presents his asininity as a bodily deformity, an ailment, as it were, that is so immense (and in a sense comparable to the loss of sight or to other disabilities that normally appear in narratives of miraculous healings) that Isis’ desired intervention constitutes the only conceivable means of eliminating it and restoring him to his ‘healthy’ condition (Apul. Met. 11.2): tu meis iam nunc extremis aerumnis subsiste, tu fortunam conlapsam adfirma, tu saevis exanclatis casibus pausam pacemque tribue; sit satis laborum, sit satis periculorum. depelle quadripedis diram faciem, redde me conspectui meorum, redde me meo Lucio. 17 18 19

20

21

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Griffths 1975, 137. On Isis as a healing deity, see Merkelbach 1995, 199-209. On the aretalogoi in the cult of Isis, see Merkelbach 1995, 210-224. Diod. Sic. 1.25 καὶ πολλοὺς µὲν ὑπὸ τῶν ἰατρῶν διὰ τὴν δυσκολίαν τοῦ νοσήµατος ἀπελπισθέντας ὑπὸ ταύτης σώζεσθαι, συχνοὺς παντελῶς πηρωθέντας τὰς ὁράσεις ἤ τινα τῶν ἄλλων µερῶν τοῦ σώµατος, ὅταν πρὸς ταύτην καταφύγωσιν, εἰς τὴν προυπάρξασαν τάξιν. P.Oxy. xi.1381.51-57 ἑτοιµότερος ὁ θεὸς πρὸς εὐεργεσίαν εἴ γε καὶ τοὺς αὐτίκα µόνον εὐσεβεῖς τῇ προθυµίᾳ πολλάκις ἀπηυδηκυίης τῆς ἰατρικῆς πρὸς τὰς κατεχούσας αὐτοὺς νόσους ἔσωσεν. Weinreich 1909, 195-197. This is one of the central motifs of Aelius Aristides’ Sacred Discourses, e.g. 2.5ff.; 2.69ff., etc.

Relieve me now from my extreme distress, lend firmness to my crumbling fortune, give respite and peace to the severe troubles that I have endured! Let this be the end of my sufferings, the end of my dangers! Free me of this dreadful quadruped appearance, bring me back to the sight of my family, bring back the Lucius that I once was!

Another standard leitmotif of aretalogical narratives is that the addressed deity answers the prayer in a dream (or a dream-like waking vision), in which he or she explicitly prescribes the cure to alleviate the petitioner’s distress (the technical term used in oneirocritic literature for such instructions is συνταγαί).22 In Apuleius, too, Lucius prays to Isis, falls asleep, and in his dream hears detailed orders from the goddess about how he is to receive the ‘healing’ rose garland from one of her priests (Apul. Met. 11.1-6). In aretalogical accounts, visions displayed by the gods in a dream of course always come true later on, and the success of the cure normally depends on how closely one adheres to the divine commands.23 The punctilious fulfillment of the orders usually results in a cure that is instantaneous and so paradoxical that to eyewitnesses it can only make sense as a manifestation of divine power.24 What is also typical for aretalogical narratives is that the miraculous status of a vision is often established by its simultaneous appearance to different people: for instance, in P.Oxy. xi.1381 the god gives the same command to the writer in a dream and to his mother in a waking vision.25 There are a great number of such double visions in Aelius Aristides’ Sacred Discourses as well (e.g., 1.66; 2.30, etc.). Moreover, the undeniable reality of the miracle normally gives occasion to praise the deity’s beneficial powers, as for example in the encomium from Maroneia, which was composed in gratitude for Isis’ curing the dedicator of blindness (ed. Grandjean 1975, vv. 6-11), or in P.Oxy. xi.1382 – a narrative about the water-miracle performed by Sarapis (Totti 1985, no.13. 2021), which urges the readers to say εἷς Ζεὺς Σάραπις. All of these elements are present in Apuleius’ account as well: Isis reveals herself simultaneously to Lucius and her priest who is supposed to administer

22

23

24

25

Weinreich 1909, 119-122, esp. 120 n.2, on the use of this technical term in Artemidorus. Again, Aelius Aristides provides the best comparandum: his Sacred Discourses consist almost entirely of such συνταγαί. Weinreich 1909, 110-116. See also Aelius Aristides, Sacred Discourses 2.72f.: the fact that Aelius Aristides follows the doctors’ wrong interpretation of his dream aggravates his condition; he recovers only when he resumes fulfilling the god’s command. Diod. Sic. 1.25 (on Isis) τοὺς ὑπακούσαντας αὐτῇ παραδόξως ὑγιάζεσθαι. The numerous occasions on which Aelius Aristides is urged by Asclepius to bathe in ice-cold water are also presented as paradoxical healings (cf. Sacred Discourses 2.45ff.). P.Oxy. xi.1381, 138-140 ὅσα γὰρ διὰ τῆς ὄψεως εἶδεν, ταῦτα ἐγὼ δι᾿ ὀνειράτων ἐφαντασιώθην. See also Hanson 1980, 1414-1421.

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the cure,26 and Lucius’ conscientious compliance with her command leads to the immediate restoration of his human appearance,27 which causes wonder in the bystanders and makes the adherents of the cult praise the omnipotence of their goddess (Apul. Met. 11.13).28 This kind of simultaneous self-revelation of both Isis and her divine consort Osiris happens on two more occasions in Book 11 (22 and 27). As a rule, the act of divine intervention is conceived in aretalogical accounts as a manifestation of the deity’s caring providence (πρόνοια).29 In Apuleius, too, providentia becomes the main leitmotif at the very beginning of Book 11, when Lucius wakes up on the beach at Cenchreae, contemplates the Moon goddess, and asserts that her providence governs every aspect of the universe (Apul. Met. 11.1). From this moment on, every action that Lucius performs is thoroughly determined by Isis’ providentia.30 One of the typical properties of divine apparitions in aretalogical narratives is that they are seldom limited to a single visitation: once they have begun, they tend to continue, potentially becoming a permanent factor that determines the entire subsequent course of one’s life. The best example of this peculiar tendency is Aelias Aristides’ Sacred Discourses, which consist of a never-ending series of visions of Asclepius, doubts as to what course of action these visions recommend, and the ultimate elimination of doubts by later real events or by further visions.31 Sometimes, as in the narrative of P.Oxy. xi.1381, a deity appears in recurrent ambiguous dreams and insistently reminds the dreamer of the need to fulfill a promised task that he or she has postponed because of its supposed arduousness, until a miracle finally removes all doubts as to the deity’s

26 27 28

29

30 31

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Apul. Met. 11.6 nam hoc eodem momento, quo tibi venio, simul et ibi praesens, quae sunt sequentia, sacerdoti meo per quietem facienda praecipio. Apul. Met. 11.13 nec me fefellit caeleste promissum: protinus mihi delabitur deformis et ferina facies. Apul. Met. 11.13 populi mirantur, religiosi venerantur tam evidentem maximi numinis potentiam et consimilem nocturnes imaginibus magnificentiam et facilitatem reformationis claraque et consona voce, caelo manus adtendentes, testantur tam inlustre deae beneficium. Weinreich 1909, 124-136. Cf. P.Oxy. xi.1381, 160ff. ἐπεὶ δ᾿ ἐπεγνώκεις µε ἀµελεῖν, δέσποτα, τῆς θείας βίβλου, τὴν σὴν ἐπικαλεσάµενος πρόνοιαν καὶ πληρωθεὶς τῆς σῆς θειότητος ἐπὶ τὸν τῆς ἱστορίας ὥρµησα θεήλατον ἆθλον. Apul. Met. 11.5 iam tibi providentia mea inlucescit dies salutaris. 11.15 en ecce pristinis aerumnis absolutus Isidis magnae providentia gaudens Lucius de sua Fortuna triumphat. Weinreich 1909, 112. Cf., e.g., Aelius Aristides, Sacred Discourses 2.25. The fact that connections between Apuleius’ Book 11 and Aelius Aristides are indeed quite obvious has led Stephen Harrison (2000, 250-251) to the idea of the Isis book as a parody of the Sacred Discourses.

true intent and thus stresses the imminent necessity of following the divine will.32 For Lucius, too, after the first apparition, visions of Isis quickly become a daily routine (Apul. Met. 11.19 nec fuit nox una vel quies aliqua visu deae monituque ieiunia). It is these visions that urge him to undergo the initiation for which he had been destined for a long time (crebris imperiis suis me, iam dudum destinatum, nunc saltem censebat initiari). Lucius, however, constantly puts it off, daunted by the difficulties of the ascetic life after the initiation.33 It is only after a real-life occurrence makes one of his dreams seem to have come true (while he dreamt that a slave of his named Candidus returned from Thessaly, it was his white (candidus) horse that was found and brought back to him) that his doubts give way to an adamant determination to receive the rites (Apul. Met. 1.21): quo facto idem sollicitius sedulum colendi frequentabam ministerium, spe futura beneficiis praesentibus pignerata. nec minus in dies mihi magis magisque accipiendorum sacrorum cupido gliescebat summisque precibus primarium sacerdotem saepissime conveneram petens, ut me noctis sacratae tandem arcanis initiaret. After this event, I pursued the diligent service of worship with even more zeal, for these current favors gave me hope for the future. My desire to go through the initiation rites grew stronger each day, and I constantly approached the highest priest with the request to initiate me at last into the mysteries of the sacred night.

This pattern is reproduced on two more occasions. At 11.26, Lucius is summoned to undergo another initiation, which plunges him into a state of utter perplexity: mirabar, quid rei temptaret, quid pronuntiaret futurum; quidni, plenissime iam dudum videbar initiatus. I wondered what kind of thing she [Isis] was requiring of me, what kind of future event she was prophesying. Of course I did, for I already considered myself to be fully initiated.

His confusion is dispelled by another vision, which explains to him that now he has to be initiated into different rites (the rites of Osiris). As a result, Lucius yields to the feeling of joyful certainty (Apul. Met. 11.27 sublata est ergo post 32

33

P.Oxy. xi.1381.155-160 ὡς δ᾿ οὐ τούτοις πολλάκις εἶπεν ἥδεσθαι, ἀλλὰ τῷ προκαθωλογηµένῳ, διηπόρουν καὶ µόλις ταπεινοῦντί µοι τοῦτο τὸ θεῖον τῆς γραφῆς ὑπῄει χρέος. Apul. Met. 11.19 at ego quanquam cupienti voluntate praeditus tamen religiosa formidine retardabar, quod enim sedulo percontaveram difficile religionis obsequium et castimoniarum abstinentiam satis arduam cautoque circumspectu vitam, quae multis casibus subiacet, esse muniendam. haec identidem mecum reputans nescio quo modo, quamquam festinans, differebam.

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tam manifestam deum voluntatem ambiguitatis tota caligo). The injunction to be initiated for the third time meets with the same lack of comprehension on Lucius’ part and even makes him question the reliability of the priests who have administered the previous rites (Apul. Met. 11.29). Once again, however, it is followed by another vision, which sets everything straight by explaining to Lucius the logic behind the seemingly senseless multiplication of rites and, as before, plunges him into a fit of unhesitating religious fervor (Apul. Met. 1.30). As far as we can glean from Aelius Aristides, these three identically structured acts of communication with the divine might be offering just a mild foretaste of what Lucius’ future life as an Isiac priest has in store for him. Finally, the staggering magnitude of the deity’s ἀρεταί traditionally inspires recipients of divine grace with the sense of their own rhetorical inadequacy. P.Oxy. xi.1381, for instance, states directly that no humans but only gods are capable of praising divine powers properly.34 The standard topos that writers of aretalogical accounts often employ in such contexts is some variation on the Homeric phrase that one could not do justice to the topic even if one had ten tongues and ten mouths (Il. 2.489f. οὐδ᾿ εἴ µοι δέκα γλῶσσαι, δέκα δὲ στόµατ᾿ εἶεν), with the number sometimes increased to a hundred or a thousand.35 Needless to say, Apuleius’ Lucius in his prayer to Isis uses this topos too (Apul. Met. 11.25): nec mihi vocis ubertas ad dicenda, quae de tua maiestate sentio, sufficit nec ora mille linguaeque totidem vel indefessi sermonis aeterna series. The strength of my voice is too meager to say what I feel about your majesty, nor do I have a thousand mouths and as many tongues nor an endless stream of indefatigable speech.

Thus, to sum up, the entire narrative of Book 11 is composed in the easily recognizable manner of a pious wonder-story and employs most of the standard clichés characteristic of this kind of literature. Furthermore, this lofty narrative of miraculous salvation is not simply appended to the mimic exuberance of the original ass-tale but retrospectively imposes its own narrative logic on the preceding ten books. This realignment of the previous narrative information does not occur at random but falls into two distinct patterns well known from other literary sources.

34 35

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P.Oxy. xi.1381, 40-42 θεοῖς γὰρ µόνοις, ἀλλ᾿ οὐ θνητοῖς ἐφικτὸν τὰς θεῶν διηγεῖσθαι δυνάµεις. Aelius Aristides, Sacred Discourses 1.1 καὶ οὐκέτι ἐνταῦθα τὸ τοῦ Ὁµήρου προσθήσω “οὐδ᾿ εἴ µοι δέκα µὲν γλῶσσαι, δέκα δὲ στόµατ᾿ εἶεν”. (cf. Hom. Il. 2.489f.); Cf. 2.8; 2.49, etc. P.Oxy. xi.1381, 40-42 θεοῖς γὰρ µόνοις, ἀλλ᾿ οὐ θνητοῖς ἐφικτὸν τὰς θεῶν διηγεῖσθαι δυνάµεις. See Weinreich 1909, 200-201.

It has been claimed that the two diverging Isiac interpretations of Lucius’ life offered in Book 11 – the one by the Isiac priest Mithras, the other by the unwitting eyewitnesses – destabilize each other and thus cast doubt on the validity of the Isiac perspective in general.36 In my opinion, however, it is possible to see them as complementary perspectives on Lucius’ adventures based on firmly established topoi of religious literature. In his very first prayer to Isis, Lucius himself seems to be aware of the fact that his distress was caused by an offended deity (Apul. Met. 11.2): ac si quod offensum numen inexorabili me saevitia permit, mori saltem liceat, si non licet vivere. But if some offended deity is torturing me with inexorable cruelty, then at least allow me to die, if life cannot be granted to me.

This notion reflects a typical Isiac commonplace. In Ex Ponto, Ovid mentions people sitting outside temples of Isis and claiming that they suffer a physical affliction for having offended her; the underlying idea here is that these public acts of humiliating penitence should ultimately bring a cure (Ov. Pont. 1.1.5158): vidi ego linigerae numen violasse fatentem Isidis Isiacos ante sedere focos; alter ob huic similem privatus lumine culpam clamabat media se meruisse via: talia caelestes fieri praeconia gaudent, ut, sua quid valeant numina, teste probent; saepe levant poenas eruptaque lumina reddunt, cum bene peccati paenituisse vident.

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I have seen one who was sitting in front of an Isis temple and confessing to having offended the divine power of the linen-wearing Isis. Another one, deprived of sight for a similar transgression, was crying in the middle of the street that he had deserved it. The immortals enjoy such announcements, because then they have a witness to prove how much their power is worth. Often do they ease the penalty and give back the sight that they have taken away, when they see real repentance for the crime.

Mithras’ speech at 11.15 is entirely based on this pattern too. He presents Lucius’ ‘disease’ (his asininity) as a punishment for his misplaced curiosity (curiositatis improsperae sininstrum praemium). As a result, Lucius became a plaything of blind Fortune, which caused him innumerable troubles (latrones, ferae, servitium, asperrimorum itinerum ambages reciprocae, metus mortis cotidianae). Now, however, he has paid his penalty completely (multis et variis 36

Winkler 1985, 209-215.

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exanclatis laboribus), is forgiven, and can be admitted under Isis’ salvific tutelage (in tutelam iam receptus es Fortunae, sed videntis). On the whole, this understanding of Lucius’ life quite faithfully corresponds to what has gone on in the preceding narrative, where Lucius’ transformation into an ass is a result of his misplaced curiosity about magic, and the blind Fortune tormenting him is presented as the chief factor determining his entire asinine existence.37 Moreover, the list of misfortunes that Lucius has suffered at the hands of Fortune, according to Mithras, largely agrees the actual events of the middle section of the novel.38 The bystanders, who see that Lucius’ retransformation into a human is immediately followed by an invitation to join the ranks of the Isiac devotees, are of course not privy to the knowledge about Lucius’ previous life, which Isis had shared only with her priest Mithras. For this reason, the interpretation that they offer does not quite square with the facts of Lucius’ biography as they were presented in the preceding ten books: they hypothesize that Isis’ benevolence may be a reward for Lucius’ faith and innocence – an idea for which one indeed would have great difficulty finding any support in the narrative of Lucius’ earlier life (Apul. Met. 11.16): hunc omnipotentis hodie deae numen augustum reformavit ad homines. felix hercules et ter beatus, qui vitae scilicet praecedentis innocentia fideque meruerit tam praeclaram de caelo patrocinium, ut renatus quodam modo statim sacrorum obsequio desponderetur. Today the august might of the omnipotent goddess has brought him back to humanity. Happy and thrice blessed is the one who doubtless through the innocence and faith of his former life has deserved such a magnificent protection from heaven, so as, directly upon being in some way reborn, to devote himself to the celebration of her rites.

In addition to the fact that this understanding of the miracle corresponds to the established notion that divine benevolence has to be earned by pious deeds,39 it captures the spirit of some popular narratives about Isis.40 For instance, in the Life of Aesop Isis grants mute Aesop the gift of speech in return for his helping one of her itinerant priestesses.41 Once he is able to speak, he immediately formulates the obvious moral of the story (Vita Aesopi 8, ed. Perry): 37 38

39 40 41

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On the role of Fortuna in Apuleius, see Schlam 1992, 58-62. E.g., Apul. Met. 3.28 – 7.12 (latrones); 3.28 – 10.35 (servitium, asperrimorum itinerum ambages reciprocae); 4.5, 6.26, 6.31-32, 7.17-22, 7.28, 8.30, 8.31, 10.34 (metus mortis cotidianae); 7.16, 10.34 (ferae). Burkert 1987, 12-29. Cf. the story of the Cretan girl Iphis, metamorphosed by Isis into a youth in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 9.666-797. On the ‘Isis aretalogy’ in the Life of Aesop, see Merkelbach 1995, 222.

λαλῶ, ἔφη, µὰ τὰς Μούσας. πόθεν ἔλαβον τὸ λαλεῖν; πόθεν· νενόηκα· πάντως ἀνθ᾿ ὧν εὐσέβησα εἰς τὴν ἱεροφόρον τῆς Ἴσιδος. ὥστε καλόν ἐστιν εὐσεβεῖν. By the Muses, he said, I can speak! From where did I get the ability to speak? From where? Oh, I know it now. It is of course because of my kind deed towards the priestess of Isis! So it means that it is good to do pious things.

In other words, the function of this alternative interpretation is not so much to cast doubt on the authority of Mithras’ sermon, as has been suggested,42 but rather to introduce a reference to yet another topos of religious literature. Moreover, this understanding of Lucius’ life further underscores the notion of the goddess graciously forgiving the penitent sinner, which plays such a prominent role in Mithras’ speech too. The only crucial question that Mithras’ sermon does not address directly is in what sense Lucius’ curiosity, which indeed serves as one of the central leitmotifs of the entire novel,43 can be regarded as an offence against Isis. This, however, becomes clearer as we read on. Lucius’ uncontrollable impetus to know and experience everything, which has largely defined his previous worldly existence, remains undiminished even after he mends his ways and turns to the path of Isiac righteousness. When he finally makes the decision to become a full member of the cult, his accipiendorum sacrorum cupido is so unbearably strong that he incessantly bombards the priest with entreaties to initiate him immediately (Apul. Met. 11.21). The priest, however, has to hold back Lucius’ impetuosity by appealing to the primacy of Isis’ express command, without which no neophyte can be admitted into the rites. Moreover, he stresses that those who violate the goddess’ prohibition run the risk of being punished by death (Apul. Met. 11.21): nec tamen esse quemquam de suo numero tam perditae mentis vel immo destinatae mortis, qui non sibi quoque seorsum iubente domina, temerarium atque sacrilegum audeat ministerium subire noxamque letalem contrahere. There is indeed no one among his fellow Isiacs who is so depraved in mind or so keen upon suffering sure death as to dare to perform the ritual, which, without the specific command given to him personally by the goddess, would be recklessly sacrilegious and cause lethal harm.

A little later, when Lucius is about to describe his initiation ritual, he warns the reader against displaying any illicit curiosity towards the details that only the

42 43

Winkler 1985, 212ff. On the motif of curiosity in the Golden Ass, see Wlosok 1969; De Filippo 1990; Kirichenko 2008b.

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initiated are allowed to know. Their disclosure, he stresses, would have fatal consequences for both the speaker and the listener (Apul. Met. 11.23): quaeris forsitan satis anxie, studiose lector, quid deinde dictum, quid factum; dicerem, si dicere liceret, cognosceres, si liceret audire. sed parem noxam contraherent et aures et linguae illae temerariae curiositatis. You would probably like to know, diligent reader, what was said and done afterwards. I would tell you, if it were allowed to tell; you would learn it, if it were allowed to hear. But both your ears and my tongue would incur equal guilt for indulging in the act of reckless curiosity.

In other words, any curiosity for Isis’ divine secrets that is not explicitly approved by the goddess herself can be regarded as a crime against piety. This kind of secrecy is of course an integral part of any mystery cult.44 It is, however, particularly important that this motif is recorded in Pausanias’ report about two different temples of Isis (Paus. 10.32.17):45 καί φασί ποτε ἄνθρωπον οὐ τῶν καταβαινόντων ἐς τὸ ἄδυτον, βέβηλον δὲ, ἡνίκα ἤρχετο ἡ πυρὰ καίεσθαι, τηνικαῦτα ἐσελθεῖν ἐς τὸ ἄδυτον ὑπὸ πολυπραγµοσύνης τε καὶ τόλµης· καὶ οἱ πάντα ἀνάπλεα εἰδώλων φαίνεσθαι, καὶ ἀναστρέψαι µὲν αὐτὸν ἐς Τιθορέαν, διηγησάµενον δὲ ἃ ἐθεάσατο ἀφεῖναι τὴν ψυχήν. ἐοικότα δὲ ἀνδρὸς ἤκουσα Φοίνικος, ἄγειν τῇ Ἴσιδι Αἰγυπτίους τὴν ἑορτήν, ὅτε αὐτὴν τὸν Ὄσιριν πενθεῖν λέγουσι . τότε οὖν τὸν Ῥωµαῖον, ὃς ἐπετέτραπτο Αἴγυπτον, ἄνδρα ἔφη χρήµασιν ἀναπείσαντα ἐς τὸ ἄδυτον καταπέµψαι τῆς Ἴσιδος τὸ ἐν Κόπτῳ· καὶ ὁ ἐσπεµφθεὶς ἀνέστρεψε µὲν ἐκ τοῦ ἀδύτου, διηγησάµενον δὲ ὁπόσα ἐθεάσατο καὶ τοῦτον αὐτίκα ἐπυνθανόµην τελευτῆσαι. τὸ ἔπος οὖν ἀληθεύειν ἔοικε τὸ Ὁµήρου, σὺν οὐδενὶ αἰσίῳ τοὺς θεοὺς τῷ γένει τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐναργῶς ὁρᾶσθαι (cf. Il. 20.131). They say that once an uninitiated man, one of those who were not allowed to go down to the innermost sanctuary, entered the shrine because of his foolhardy inquisitiveness, when the pyre began to burn; the entire room seemed to him to be full of ghosts, and, when he returned to Tithorea and told what he had seen, he passed away. I have heard a similar thing from a Phoenician man. The Egyptians celebrate the festival of Isis at the time when they say that she is mourning for Osiris . So it was at that time that, according to my informer, the Roman governor of Egypt bribed a man and sent him down into the secret sanctuary of Isis in Coptus. Although this envoy came back from the shrine, he, too, as I found out, died immediately upon telling what he had seen. So the Homeric phrase to the effect that “beholding gods directly is inauspicious to mortals” seems to be true. 44 45

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Burkert 1987, passim. Cf. Paus. 10.32.13 οὔτε γὰρ περιοικεῖν ἐνταῦθα οἱ Τιθορεεῖς νοµίζουσιν οὔτε ἔσοδος ἐς τὸ ἄδυτον ἄλλοις γε ἢ ἐκείνοις ἐστὶν οὓς ἂν αὐτὴ προτιµήσασα ἡ Ἶσις κελέσῃ σφᾶς δι᾿ ἐνυπνίων. τὸ δὲ αὐτὸ καὶ ἐν ταῖς ὑπὲρ Μαιάνδρου πολέσι θεοὶ προιοῦσιν οἱ καταχθόνιοι.

What Mithras’ understanding of Lucius’ life now seems to imply is not, as has often been claimed, that he was punished for having displayed curiosity for a vulgar, debased form of religion (i.e., magic) instead of turning to the lofty mysteries of Isis right away,46 but that his first prying into divine secrets was unbidden, and therefore punishable, whereas his imminent initiation into the Isiac rites, which has to be instigated by the goddess herself, will constitute the greatest imaginable blessing. It is extremely important to bear in mind in this connection that in reality there was no perceptible conflict between the Isiac religion and magic, nor does Apuleius’ novel conceive of the two in antagonistic terms.47 On the contrary, Isis was generally regarded as one of the principal patronesses of magic, and Egypt, along with Thessaly, was a country of magic par excellence.48 The only difference between Thessalian and Egyptian magic in popular imagination may have been that the former was the domain of rather folksy witches largely assimilated to the image of a comic bibulous vetula, whereas the latter was supposed to be practiced by awe-inspiring priests of the world’s most ancient religion. The boundary, however, must have been rather fluid: for instance, one of Apuleius’ tales of Thessalian magic features the Egyptian prophet and magician Zatchlas, who acts and looks very much like the Isiacs in Book 11.49 As we have seen, Isis is presented both in cult texts and in Apuleius as a pantheistic deity who subsumes all other manifestations of the divine and all other forms of worship. For this reason, far from representing a succession of incarnations of the ‘Anti-Isis’50 – a bizarre hypothetical being many scholars have conjured up in order to underscore the note of the Manichean (or JudeoChristian) dualism that they for some reason discern in the novel’s religious conflict, – the Thessalian witches of the first three books might as well be retrospectively conceived as minor servants of the universal goddess, who are nevertheless privileged enough to partake in some of her glory.51 From this perspective, the fact that Lucius chose to succumb to his vain curiosity and to enter upon a magic ritual by the back door, instead of patiently praying for a divine command to lead him to a proper ‘initiation’, would constitute in Isis’ eyes as grave a crime against piety as an unbidden contemplation of her own secret rites by a non-initiate. In other words, the novel does not seem to make any qualita46 47 48 49

50 51

Schlam 1992, 68. Cf. Graverini 2007, 83-90. Winkler 1985, 214; Graverini 2007, 83-90. Cf. Apul. Met. 2.28 iuvenem quempiam linteis amiculis iniectum pedesque palmeis baxeis inductum et adusque deraso capite; 11.10 viri feminaeque omnis dignitatis et omnis aetati, linteae vestis candore puro luminosi, illae limpido tegmine crines madidos obvolutae, hi capillum derasi funditus verticem praenitentes. Cf. Van Mal-Maeder 2001, 370-371. See discussion in Van Mal-Maeder 2001, 409-411. Graverini 2007, 83ff. quite aptly talks about Iside e le sue sorelle.

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tive distinction between different kinds of secret religious knowledge. The only distinction that it does make is between different kinds of access to this knowledge: if sponsored by divinity, it constitutes the greatest boon; if not, the greatest offence. Thus it seems after all that Mithras’ understanding of Lucius’ life is not at all as far-fetched as some scholars have made it appear.52 Moreover, there are numerous signposts scattered throughout the novel that prepare the readers to accept this understanding when they reach Mithras’ sermon. The motif is first introduced in Aristomenes’ tale (Apul. Met. 1.5-19). Aristomenes relates that he involuntarily witnessed the gruesome murder of his friend Socrates performed by the Thessalian witch Meroe. Since Meroe is aware of the fact that Aristomenes is spying on her, she promises to punish him for his insistent curiosity.53 The curiosity of which she accuses Aristomenes is also applied to a supernatural action that no mortal is supposed to witness without permission from its practitioner. Meroe’s threat is fulfilled at the end of the tale: Aristomenes is so afraid that he will be accused of having murdered his friend that he decides not to return to his hometown, where no one would find his true story credible anyway, but goes into a self-inflicted exile to Aetolia (Apul. Met. 1.19). This motif is taken up again in the Diana-and-Actaeon ekphrasis in Book 2 (Apul. Met. 2.4). The statue that Lucius sees upon entering his aunt Byrrhena’s house represents the famous myth of Actaeon transformed into a stag as a result of his seeing the goddess Diana naked. In his description of the sculptural group, the narrator puts particular emphasis on Actaeon’s curiosity as the immediate cause of his transformation.54 Thus, like Aristomenes, Actaeon is punished for his unholy curiosity about things divine that no non-initiate is allowed to see. Finally, the motif of sacrilegious curiosity plays the central role in the tale of Cupid and Psyche. The reason why Psyche is abandoned by her divine husband (Apul. Met. 5.24) is that she violates his express prohibition against showing curiosity about his identity (Apul. Met. 5.5 and 5.11-12). At the end of the tale, Psyche opens the box containing a portion of Proserpina’s beauty and is again punished for her curiosity by a death-like sleep (Apul. Met. 6.21). It is only Cupid’s intervention at the end of the tale that brings her back to life. The treatment of the curiosity motif in the tale of Cupid and Psyche most thoroughly anticipates the pattern of moral fall and redemption that Mithras imposes on

52 53 54

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E.g., Winkler 1985, 8-10, 209-215; Harrison 2000, 244ff. Apul. Met. 1.12 faxo eum sero, immo statim, immo vero iam nunc, ut et praecedentis dicacitatis et instantis curiositatis paeniteat. Apul. Met. 2.4 inter medias frondes lapidis Actaeon simulacrum curioso optutu in deam proiectus, iam in cervum ferinus et in saxo simul et in fonte loturam Dianam opperiens visitur.

Lucius’ life in Book 11:55 Psyche is punished for her sacrilegious desire to see what is strictly prohibited by a god; by going through an endless series of excruciating sufferings, she performs an act of humiliating penitence necessary for ultimate salvation; in the end, after she has paid her penalty in full, she is forgiven and rescued by the offended god himself. The repeated use of the motif of punishment for impious curiosity turns it, as it were, into one of the fundamental laws of the novel’s fictional world and thus urges one to agree with Mithras’ application of it to Lucius’ life-story. As a result, Lucius’ life turns out to be structured around two contrastive poles: his first contact with the divine (confrontation with magic) is unbidden and, therefore, sacrilegious, whereas the second one (initiation into the mysteries of Isis) is sanctioned by the goddess herself and, therefore, presents a manifestation of true piety. Thus, Lucius’ life story easily falls into the pattern provided by narratives of miraculous healing. At the same time, if we apply this pattern to Apuleius’ narrative too rigorously, we will inevitably fail to account for one of the most significant aspects of Lucius’ experience, namely the radical change of mind that he undergoes prior to his turn to Isis. The inscriptions, papyri, and literary texts that we have briefly examined are based on the pattern of crime and redemption, promise and fulfillment, in short, on the do ut des logic characteristic of pagan piety in general,56 which no doubt plays an important part in Lucius’ interactions with his new divine patroness. None of these texts, however, picture a personal transformation from a senseless life of unbridled sensuality to an ascetic existence governed by a set of restrictive precepts. It is the origin of this component of Lucius’ conversion to Isis that I will try to track down in the next chapter.

55 56

On parallels between Psyche’s and Lucius’ curiosity, see Kenney 1990, 15; Hijmans et al. 1995, 368-375. Burkert 1987, 12ff.

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4. Conversion to Philosophy: Lucius’ Life as a Philosophical Biography It has been stressed that the phenomenon of conversion to a religious cult is generally uncharacteristic of ancient paganism: religious practices were something into which one was born or whose number one could freely augment by adding new exotic ones to the body of hereditary customs.1 As a rule, however, such practices did not lay any exclusive claims on their adherents, so that a personal preference for a particular cult implied neither a renunciation of other forms of pagan religion nor a personal ‘transformation’ conjoined with a reevaluation of one’s previous ‘worldly’ existence.2 For this reason, the elated fervor of Lucius’ sudden turn to the Isiac cult, which goes hand in hand with a radical change of his way of life, has always struck scholars as truly extraordinary and difficult to explain in terms of traditional pagan piety.3 Lucius’ conversion begins to make significantly more sense, however, if analyzed within a frame of reference that has less to do with popular cult practices than with a widespread motif of high literary culture. From A.D. Nock’s fundamental study of the phenomenon of conversion in the ancient world, we know that it was not pagan religion but philosophy that served as a more likely locus for pre-Christian conversion-like experiences.4 Moreover, as we shall see, the paradigm of conversion to philosophy is a fixed doxographical topos that belongs to the lives of a great number of ancient philosophers. Given the fact of the ubiquity of this topos in the philosophical tradition, it will be hardly surprising to find palpable traces of it in Lucius’ life as well. The half-legendary life of Socrates, as we know it from Plato, Xenophon, and later biographical tradition, serves as the ultimate prototype of all subsequent conversion narratives.5 For the story of Socrates’ conversion to philosophy we possess no canonical master-narrative that would simultaneously include all the details that contributed to the formation of the topos. Nevertheless, indi1 2

3 4 5

MacMullen 1980, 1-7. MacMullen 1980, 98: “But such activity [sc. advertising for a cult] represented no system of beliefs; it sought to change no one’s life; and it quite took for granted, and assumed that listeners likewise took for granted, the true divinity of the god advertised. Of any organized or conscious evangelizing in paganism there are very few signs indeed, though it is often alleged; of any god whose cult required or had anything ordinarily to say about evangelizing there is indeed no sign at all.” Solmsen 1979, 87-113. Nock 1933, 164-186. Cf. Shumate 1995, 30-34. Gigon 1946, 3-7.

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cations scattered through a variety of sources coalesce into a relatively coherent account. From the Phaedo we know that in his youth Socrates actively pursued the study of natural philosophy, driven by the consuming desire to know the cause of every single thing.6 It is not the initial emergence of an interest in the causes of natural phenomena that can be perceived as the pivotal moment in the story of Socrates’ conversion but his turning away from scientific pursuits. Socrates’ insatiable search for knowledge in natural philosophy, as is well known, resulted in utter disappointment. It turns out that instead of enlightenment it brought blindness to his soul, as he now seems to know less about the simplest things of life than he did before.7 Even Anaxagoras’ works, which at first he found very promising, prove to enhance his sense of disappointment (Pl. Phd. 97b-99d). As a result, he breaks with the ‘Pre-Socratic’ investigation of the nature of things and bases his own search for the truth on absolutely new premises.8 The account of Socrates’ gradual intellectual development told in the Phaedo is overlaid with another narrative that anticipates a number of characteristic features of the conversion pattern. The focal point of this account is a consultation of the Delphic oracle. According to Plato’s Apology, Socrates’ friend Chaerephon asked Apollo whether there was anyone wiser than Socrates and received a decidedly negative answer (Pl. Ap. 19e-20a). Thereupon Socrates, urgently compelled, and yet finding it exceedingly hard, to believe in the oracle’s flattering reply, set out to verify its truthfulness by interviewing those who were conventionally regarded as wise. As a result, he came to the conclusion that his own superior wisdom amounted only to knowing that he knew nothing, whereas all the alleged wise men only claimed to possess wisdom without even suspecting that they lacked it (Pl. Ap. 21d). Socrates’ fruitless search for someone wiser than himself thus develops into a way of life, which consists in laying bare the groundlessness of the pretensions of all those who self-assuredly claim for themselves the right to exercise any kind of authority (Pl. Ap. 21e-22e). Another version of this account is preserved in a fragment of Aristotle. According to this version, Socrates traveled to Delphi himself and went through a conversion-like experience after reading at the temple of Apollo Pythia’s fa6

7

8

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Pl. Phd. 96b ἐγὼ γὰρ, ἔφη, ὦ Κέβης, νέος ὢν θαυµαστῶς ὡς ἐπεθύµησα ταύτης τῆς σοφίας ἣν δὴ καλοῦσι περὶ φύσεως ἱστορίαν· ὑπερήφανος γάρ µοι ἐδόκει εἶναι, εἰδέναι τὰς αἰτίας ἑκάστου, διὰ τί γίγνεται ἕκαστον καὶ διὰ τί ἀπόλλυται καὶ διὰ τί ἔστι. Pl. Phd. 96c τελευτῶν οὕτως ἐµαυτῷ ἔδοξα πρὸς ταύτην τὴν σκέψιν ἀφυὴς εἶναι ὡς οὐδὲν χρῆµα. τεκµήριον δέ σοι ἐρῶ ἱκανόν· ἐγὼ γὰρ ἃ καὶ πρότερον σαφῶς ἠπιστάµην, ὥς γε ἐµαυτῷ καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἐδόκουν, τότε ὑπὸ ταύτης τῆς σκέψεως οὕτω σφόδρα ἐτυφλώθην, ὥστε ἀπέµαθον καὶ ταῦτα ἃ πρὸ τοῦ ᾤµην εἰδέναι. Pl. Phd. 99e ἔδοξε δή µοι χρῆναι εἰς τοὺς λόγους καταφυγόντα ἐν ἐκείνοις σκοπεῖν τῶν ὄντων τὴν ἀλήθειαν.

mous motto γνῶθι σεαυτόν.9 Aristotle uses this account to underline the essential kernel of Socratic philosophy that consists in concentrating only on the things that concern one directly, in opposition to natural philosophy, which aims to uncover the ultimate causes of external things that have nothing to do with oneself, of τὰ ὑπὸ γῆς καὶ τὰ οὐράνια.10 This narrative effectively epitomizes the essential contrast between the Socratic ἀπραγµοσύνη, i.e., refusal to meddle with things that do not concern one personally, and the characteristic πολυπραγµοσύνη, or περιεργία, of natural philosophy, interested only in such things.11 From the position of Socratic ethics, the charge put against him by the Athenian people (Pl. Ap. 19b Σωκράτης ἀδικεῖ καὶ περιεργάζεται ζητῶν τά τε ὑπὸ γῆς καὶ τὰ οὐράνια) is factually false but is based on fairly sound premises. Socrates is accused here of displaying the περιεργία characteristic of natural philosophers, and it is quite symptomatic that he is primarily concerned with demonstrating that his own philosophical interests are infinitely remote from those of natural philosophy (Pl. Ap. 19c-d; cf. Xen. Mem. 1.1.11-16), rather than with disproving that this kind of scientific περιεργία could be legitimately perceived as ἀδικία. Given the fact that in the Phaedo Plato makes Socrates reduce natural philosophy to a meaningless waste of intellectual energy and in the Republic describes justice (δικαιοσύνη) as avoidance of doing things that do not concern one directly (πολυπραγµοσύνη) (Pl. Rep. 433a8-b1 and 443c9-d3), this marked lack of apology for scientific curiosity (περιεργία) is hardly surprising. Here we have in a nutshell the essence of the narrative pattern that was to serve as a foundation for innumerable philosophical lives, both as they were experienced and as they were told by later generations: previous occupations (in Socrates’ case, natural philosophy), which promise enlightenment but bring only blindness, are abandoned due to a deep disappointment, and the consultation of an oracle sends one on a quest for wisdom, which results in adopting a truly enlightened philosophical way of life. Among early ‘post-Socratic’ generations, we see this pattern most clearly at work, for instance, in the lives of Diogenes and Zeno: both of them first lead unphilosophical lives, then turn to the Delphic oracle, interpret its reply as an injunction to practice philosophy, and obediently follow the divine command.12 Biographies of a number of other contemporary

9

10 11 12

Arist. De philosophia (ed. R. Walzer), fr. 1 (= Plu. Adv. Col. 20) ἐν οἷς δὲ κοµιδῇ διαγελᾷ καὶ φλυαρίζει τὸν Σωκράτην ζητοῦντα τί ἄνθρωπός ἐστιν... ὁ δὲ Ἡράκλειτος ὡς µέγα τι καὶ σεµνὸν διαπεπραγµένος “ἐδιζησάµην” φησιν “ἐµεωυτόν”· καὶ τῶν ἐν Δελφοῖς γραµµάτων θειότατον ἐδόκει τὸ “γνῶθι σαυτόν”· ὃ δὴ καὶ Σωκράτει ἀπορίας καὶ ζητήσεως ταύτης ἀρχὴν ἐνέδωκεν, ὡς Ἀριστοτέλης ἐν τοῖς Πλατονικοῖς εἴρηκε. Gigon 1946, 6. DeFilippo 1990, 480-482. Gigon 1946, 7-8.

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and earlier philosophers were also molded in accordance with this narrative pattern.13 That this pattern over time reached the status of a biographical commonplace can best be gleaned from a number of philosophical (auto)-biographies that we have from the second century AD. Both Lucian in the Bis accusatus and Marcus Aurelius in his correspondence with Fronto present their rejection of rhetoric and turn to philosophy in terms that are clearly reminiscent of conversion narratives. Perfectly in keeping with the Socratic pattern, both ‘converts’ are struck by the sense of futility of the intellectual occupation that they have pursued so far (in this case, it is not natural philosophy but rhetoric) and turn to philosophy for help against life’s senselessness.14 A number of other contemporary lives are based on essentially the same topos.15 But it is Dio Chrysostom’s self-aggrandizing portrayal of his own life that most thoroughly reproduces the narrative structure of the consciously imitated original.16 As is the case with his other contemporaries, it is of course rhetoric with which Dio parts ways in order to embark on the life of a philosopher.17 Otherwise he closely models his own autobiography on the account of Socrates’ conversion: what puts an end to his unphilosophical existence is a consultation of the Delphic oracle (D.Chr. Or. 13.9; cf. Pl. Ap. 20e); both Socrates and Dio are struck by the strangeness of the oracle’s response (D.Chr. Or. 13.9-10; cf. Pl. Ap. 20e); just as Socrates was indirectly impelled by the oracle to walk around hopelessly looking for a truly wise person, so is Dio urged by the god to continue his wandering (D.Chr. Or. 13.10-12; cf. Pl. Ap. 21c-22b); as a result, Dio, too, becomes a philosophical teacher who openly converses with anyone who is at leisure to partake of his wisdom.18 As I noted above, the prototype of all subsequent conversion narratives – the life of Socrates – puts strong emphasis on its protagonist’s unbridled curiosity for natural phenomena (that is, things that do not concern one directly) prior to his ultimate conversion. In this connection, it is of course highly symptomatic that at the very outset of both versions of the ass-tale Lucius is portrayed as an intellectual possessed by an insatiable thirst for knowledge.19 Moreover, it is his περιεργία / curiositas that is repeatedly named as his most conspicuous

13 14 15 16 17 18 19

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Gigon 1946, 8. Kasulke 2005, 123-132 and 229-271. Kasulke 2005, 133-142. On the literary character of the narrative of Dio’s conversion, as well as on his use of personae, esp. in Or. 13, De exilio, see Moles 1978; Kasulke 2005, 80-106. Moles 1978, 81-87, with further references. On the importance of the Socratic pattern in Dio’s account of his conversion, see Moles 1978, 99. Onos 2 γράµµατα ἥκω κοµίζων αὐτῶ [sc. Ἱππάρχῳ] παρὰ Δεκριανοῦ τοῦ Πατρέως σοφιστοῦ.

character trait.20 Unlike his Greek counterpart, who limits his curiosity to the unspecified παράδοξα, Apuleius’ Lucius explicitly states that he literally wants to know everything, or at least most things. The very fact that he describes his intellectual curiosity as absolutely boundless makes his self-perception all the more reminiscent of the young Socrates in his desire to know the causes of all things. Besides, Apuleius’ Lucius, unlike his Greek counterpart, is not a pupil of some obscure provincial sophist but a descendent of Plutarch, one of the most prominent philosophical figures of the era, and of his nephew Sextus, who is primarily known as one of Marcus Aurelius’ philosophy teachers.21 This conspicuous connection between the novel’s protagonist and two of the most notable ethical philosophers of the age has far-reaching reverberations for our understanding of Lucius’ life-story, some of which I will discuss below in more detail. What I would like to point out at this juncture is only that for a fictional character, whose dominant character trait is his consuming curiositas, to be related to the author of the treatise Περὶ πολυπραγµοσύνης cannot help but be highly significant. In a sense, Apuleius’ emphasis on Lucius’ family ties to Plutarch explicitly turns the innocently curious protagonist of the Greek original into a marked embodiment of the vice of πολυπραγµοσύνη as Plutarch presents it in his treatise.22 Thus the beginning of Lucius’ life-story falls into the essentially ‘Socratic’ pattern in which intellectual curiosity is discredited. To draw even more attention to its ultimate origin in the Socratic legend, Apuleius in the first inserted tale of the novel introduces a character named Socrates, who, as we have seen, serves as one of Lucius’ narrative doubles. It has been pointed out that the Socrates of Aristomenes’ tale displays a certain resemblance with his namesake from Aristophanes’ Clouds,23 which incidentally comprises the most famous literary portrayal of Socrates as a natural philosopher. Lucius’ subsequent adventures quite faithfully follow the conversion-tophilosophy pattern too. As in the Socratic legend, Lucius’ futile intellectual pur20

21

22 23

Onos 4 καὶ τῷ ἔρωτι τῆς θέας ταύτης δοὺς ἐµαυτὸν περιῄειν τὴν πόλιν; 15 Ὢ τῆς ἀκαίρου ταύτης περιεργίας; 45 πάντα περίεργος ἐγώ; 56 ἐξ ὄνου περιεργίας ⟨...⟩ ἀνασωθείς. Apul. Met. 1.2 nam et illic (sc. from Thessaly) originis maternae nostrae fundamenta a Plutarcho illo inclito ac mox Sexto philosopho nepote eius prodita gloriam nobis faciunt. On Sextus, see Marcus Aurelius, Med. 1.9. Both RE and OCD refer to Sextus as a Platonist, apparently based on the fact that he was Plutarch’s nephew. Most of the sources, however, which point to his philosophical affiliation at all, describe him rather as a Stoic. See A.S.L. Farquharson, The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus. Edited with Translation and Commentary, Oxford 1968, ad loc. On the importance of Plutarch’s De curiositate for the interpretation of Lucius’ curiosity, see Kirichenko 2008b, 355-356. Keulen 2003, 111-113.

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suits result in a meaningless life that resembles torture.24 This hopeless state continues unabated until Lucius all of a sudden – and this suddenness, as we have seen, is also a typical commonplace of the conversion narrative pattern – displays unmistakable signs of µετάνοια in that, at the very end of Book 10, he delivers a characteristic specimen of the Stoic-Cynic moral diatribe.25 It is of utmost importance that the context in which he delivers this highly unexpected expostulation is by no means arbitrary but evokes quite specific associations with the literary tradition of philosophical diatribe. The fact that Lucius bursts into his moralistic ire in the context of a public festival taking place in Corinth is clearly supposed to remind one of the tradition of Diogenes preaching at the Isthmian Games – a tradition of which Dio Chrysostom preserves two typical examples (Or. 8 and 9).26 Just as Diogenes in his diatribes lashes out against the futility of popular entertainment (Or. 8.4ff., Or. 9.1-4), so Lucius, too, passionately points to the immoral character of the Judgment of Paris myth, whose pantomimic representation forms the immediate context of his own speech.27 Moreover, like Diogenes, Lucius is aware that he addresses the audience that would much rather be entertained than listen to bitter philosophical truths.28 What is also quite significant is that Lucius’ diatribe is supposed to be followed by a public sex act (Apul. Met. 10.34), which can be regarded as a Cynic topos par excellence: in Dio (Or. 8.36), Diogenes masturbates in public after he is done with his angry moralizing, and, according to an anecdote preserved in Apuleius’ Florida, Crates attempted to copulate in public with Hipparchia (Apul. Fl. 14). Thus, in his own incipient conversion Lucius clearly adopts the persona of Diogenes, who, as we have seen, was one of the central figures of the conversion-to-philosophy narrative topos. But this is not all. In his speech Lucius includes an impassioned eulogy of Socrates, the ultimate prototype of all conversion narratives. Moreover, in his praise he explicitly points not only to Socrates’ trial, but also to his conversion at the instigation of the Delphic god, and ultimately to the happiness attained by those who follow Socrates’ example (Apul. Met. 10.33): 24 25 26

27

28

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Cf. Shumate 1995, 43-134. Zimmerman 2000, 393-394. By the way, a possibility of making an indirect reference to Diogenes’ Isthmian orations might indeed be another reason (in addition to the allusion to Sophron, which I discussed in Chapter 1) why Apuleius moved Lucius’ retransformation from Thessalonica, where it took place in the Greek original, to Corinth. For other attempts to explain this change, see Graverini 2007, 187-232. Apul. Met. 10.33 quid ergo miramini si toti nunc iudices snetentias suas pretio nundinantur, cum rerum exordio inter deos et homines agitatum iudicium corruperit gratia, etc.? E.g., D.Chr. Or. 9.4 ὡς δὲ ἐφάνη ἐν τῇ πανηγύρει, Κορινθίων µὲν οὐδεὶς αὐτῷ προσεῖχε τὸν νοῦν. Apul. Met. 10.33 sed nequis indignationis meae reprehendat impetum secum sic reputans: ‘ecce nunc patiemur philosophantem nobis asinum’, rursus, unde decessi, revertar ad fabulam.

nonne divinae prudentiae senex, quem sapientia praetulit cunctis mortalibus deus Delphicus, fraude et invidia nequissimae factionis circumventus velut corruptor adulescentiae, quam frenis cohercebat, herbae pestilentis suco noxio peremptus est reliquens civibus ignominiae perpetuae maculam, cum nunc etiam egregii philosophi sectam eius sanctissimam praeoptent et summo beatitudinis studio iurent in ipsius nomen! As to that old man, distinguished by divine foresight, whom the Delphic god had pronounced superior to all mortals in wisdom, he fell prey to the deceit and hatred of a most despicable clique and was destroyed by the pernicious juice of that poisonous plant as a corruptor of youth, which he was in fact trying to restrain and bridle. To his fellow-citizens he bequeathed a stain of eternal disgrace, whereas pre-eminent philosophers give preference to his most sacred school up to this day and swear by his name in their most elated pursuit of happiness!

In other words, both mentions of Socrates in Apuleius’ novel serve to draw the reader’s attention to the ultimately ‘Socratic’ narrative pattern of conversion to philosophy at work in Lucius’ biography: whereas the first mention of Socrates in Book 1 indirectly drew a parallel between Lucius’ interest in magic and Socrates’ fascination for natural philosophy in their respective pre-conversion lives, the second one in Book 10 marks Lucius’ incipient turn to philosophy by explicitly evoking Socrates’ conversion. Lucius continues to follow the pattern of a typical philosophical biography in Book 11, when, like Socrates, Diogenes, Zeno, and Dio Chrysotom before him, he consults an oracle. Although it is not Apollo but Isis to whom he turns for instructions, the implications of this action are quite similar: having reached the threshold of µετάνοια, the truth-seeker is at a loss as to what to do, seeks help from a deity, and receives guidance that ultimately brings him to the path of righteousness. What I find particularly significant in this context is that Lucius even directly refers to Isis’ response as an oracle (Apul. Met. 11.7 sic oraculi venerabilis fine prolato numen invictum in se recessit). Finally, the fact that Apuleius puts particular emphasis on the paucity of Lucius’ financial resources, first when he devotes himself to the service of Isis (Apul. Met. 11.25 adhibendis sacrificiis tenuis patrimonio) and then when he is impelled to undergo an initiation into the mysteries of Osiris (Apul. Met. 11.27 Madaurensem, sed admodum pauperem), is reminiscent of another motif of philosophical biographies, according to which a poor prospective student has nothing but himself to offer to his philosophy teacher. The tradition of philosophical biography does not constitute the only intertextual substratum of the narrative of Lucius’ conversion. The paradigmatic status of the conversion-to-philosophy narrative pattern is further corroborated by a number of texts that do not purport to describe personal experiences but combine various individual commonplaces of the popular Stoic-Cynic literature

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in order to present a more generalized picture.29 Ps.-Cebes’ Tabula and Lucian’s Nigrinus, for instance, have conversion to philosophy as their main theme. Although the former focuses on the interpretation of an imaginary allegorical painting,30 whereas the latter is a fictional first-person account of conversion,31 both are based on essentially the same set of motifs. For this reason, it would be convenient to use these two texts as a starting point of my discussion of the conversion topos in protreptic literature. To begin with, despite the fact that Ps.-Cebes’ Tabula can be plausibly traced to the first century popular Stoic milieu32 and that the eponymous hero of Lucian’s dialogue is explicitly referred to as a Platonic philosopher (Luc. Nigr. 2), affiliations with particular philosophical schools seem to play no significant role in either text. Quite typically for their age, philosophy is presented in both not as a combination of doctrines distinguishable from tenets propounded by other philosophers but, first and foremost, as a way of life radically opposed to that of a layman.33 It is highly symptomatic that the house of Lucian’s Nigrinus is decorated with portraits of ancient philosophers,34 whose doctrines, however, contribute nothing of substance to his own teaching, which for the most part consists of trite commonplaces of the Stoic-Cynic philosophical koine,35 and that the stranger who donated the mysterious painting to the temple of Cronus in the Tabula (2) is described as ἀνὴρ ἔµφρων καὶ δεινὸς περὶ σοφίαν, λόγῳ τε καὶ ἔργῳ Πυθαγόρειόν τινα καὶ Παρµενίδειον ἐζηλωκὼς βίον (“a sensible man experienced in philosophy, who has zealously pursued some kind of Pythagorean and Parmenidean life”). In other words, names of individual ancient philosophers seem here to have no resonance whatsoever with their original doctrines. They are nothing but emblematic labels designed simply to conjure up the awe-inspiring notion of philosophy as something enticingly remote from everyday banality. Both texts describe pre-conversion existence as slavery to various pernicious affects, in particular, as slavery to pleasure, and oppose it to the absolute freedom from these affects that an enlightened philosophical convert is

29 30 31 32 33 34

35

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On the pattern of conversion to philosophy and on its role in protreptic literature in general, see Nock 1933, 164-192. On Ps.-Cebes’ Tabula, see Hirsch-Luipold et al. 2005, 11-37. On Lucian’s Nigrinus, Clay 1992, 3420-3425. Fitzgerald – White 1983, 20-27. Nock 1933, 173. Luc. Nigr. 2 καὶ παρελθὼν εἴσω καταλαµβάνω τὸν µὲν ἐν χερσὶ βιβλίον ἔχοντα, πολλὰς δὲ εἰκόνας παλαιῶν φιλοσόφων ἐν κύκλῳ κειµένας. Clay 1992, 3423: “His [sc. Nigrinus’] philosophy is the stale, flat, and unprofitable fare of Roman satire and the Greek diatribe.”

bound to attain.36 This motif recurs time and again in other similar philosophical texts, where unphilosophical life is regularly equated with slavery to pleasure whereas true freedom is claimed to be attainable only through enslavement to philosophy.37 According to a related topos, those who are enslaved to nonphilosophical affects are similar to Odysseus’ companions transformed into animals by Circe’s magic, with conversion likened there to the regaining of human appearance.38 Another contrast that both texts establish between the pre- and the postconversion modes of life is based on the notion of Τύχη: those who have not yet partaken of the blessings of philosophy are mere playthings of blind chance, which incessantly subjects them to a whimsical succession of senseless ups and downs, whereas those who have been illuminated by the light of philosophical reason are immune to its onslaughts.39 The most dreadful mistake that most people make is that they unwisely put too much trust in Fortuna, whereas those who have experienced philosophical Μετάνοια know better than to succumb to her deceitful charms (Ps.-Cebes, Tab. 35-41). Furthermore, those who are not yet converted are considered to be blind themselves, whereas their turn to philosophy is compared to regaining the power of sight (cf. Pl. Phd. 96c). This is most conspicuously emphasized in the Nigrinus whose main speaker comes to the city in order to see an ophthalmologist but ends up being cured of his figurative blindness through a

36

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Luc. Nigr. 1 ἀντὶ µὲν δούλου µε ἐλεύθερον, κτλ. 4. προήχθη γὰρ αὐτήν τε φιλοσοφίαν ἐπαινέσαι καὶ τὴν ἀπὸ ταύτης ἐλευθερίαν. Ps.-Cebes Tab. 6.2 αὗται τοίνυν Δόξαι καὶ Ἐπιθυµίαι καὶ Ἡδοναὶ καλοῦνται. ὅταν οὖν εἰσπορεύεται ὁ ὄχλος, ἀναπηδῶσιν αὗται καὶ πλέκονται πρὸς ἕκαστον, εἶτα ἀπάγουσι. 22.1-2 καὶ ποίους ἀγῶνας νενίκηκεν αὐτός; ἔφην ἐγώ. – Τοὺς µεγίστους, ἔφη, καὶ τά µέγιστα θηρία, ἃ πρότερον αὐτὸν κατήσθιε καὶ ἐκόλαζε καὶ ἐποίει δοῦλον. E.g., Sen. De Vita Beata 4 quo die infra voluptatem fuerit, et infra dolorem erit; vides autem quam malam et noxiosam servitutem serviturus sit quem voluptates doloresque, incertissima dominia inpotentissimaque, alternis possidebunt: ergo exeundum ad libertatem est. Sen. Ep. 8.7 philosophiae servias oportet, ut tibi contingat vera libertas. Cf. Luc. Bis acc. 20. E.g., D.Chr. Or. 8.20f. (Diogenes speaking) ἑτέρα δὲ δεινότερα µάχη καὶ ἀγών ἐστιν οὐ µικρός ⟨...⟩ ὁ πρὸς ἡδονήν ⟨...⟩. οὐδὲ γὰρ ἄντικρυς βιάζεσθαι τὴν ἡδονήν, ἀλλ᾿ ἐξαπατᾶν καὶ γοητεύειν δεινοῖς φαρµακοῖς, ὥσπερ Ὅµηρός φησι τὴν Κίρκην τοὺς τοῦ Ὀδυσσέως ἑταίρους καταφαρµάξαι, κἄπειτα τοὺς µὲν σῦς αὐτῶν, τοὺς δὲ λύκους γενέσθαι, τοὺς δὲ ἄλλ᾿ ἄττα θηρία. Luc. Nigr. 20 τοῦτο γάρ τοι καὶ τὸ δεινότατόν ἐστιν, ὅτι καίτοι µαρτυροµένης τῆς Τύχης παίζειν τά τῶν ἀνθρώπων πράγµατα καὶ ὁµολογούσης µηδὲν αὐτῶν εἶναι βέβαιον, ὅµως ταῦθ᾿ ὁσηµέραι βλέποντες ὁρέγονται καὶ πλούτου καὶ δυναστείας, κτλ. Cf. Ps.-Cebes, Tab. 7.1 καλεῖται µέν, ἔφη, Τύχη· ἔστι δὲ οὐ µόνον τυφλὴ καὶ µαινοµένη, ἀλλὰ καὶ κωφή.

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conversation with a philosopher.40 Needless to say, the image of a philosopher as a physician and of conversion to philosophy as a healing is one of the central commonplaces of Stoic and Cynic diatribes in general.41 To various extents, both texts put emphasis on the relativity of what is conventionally considered to be good and desirable. Lengthy diatribes against luxury occupy the place of honor in both dialogues.42 The bottom-line of these expostulations is that wealth and social status are of no relevance for a truly good philosophical life. Moreover, in accordance with another established motif of conversion narratives, conversion tends to happen to those who are rather underprivileged.43 An anecdote about Aeschines’ turn to Socratic philosophy preserved by Diogenes Laertius is ideally suited to epitomize the essence of this commonplace: when Aeschines explained to Socrates that he was poor and had nothing but himself to offer to his prospective teacher, Socrates replied: “Can’t you see that it is the greatest thing that you could give me?”44 But it is the relativity of the value of traditional intellectual pursuits that plays a particularly important role in these and other cognate conversion narratives. Just as Socrates rejected natural philosophy and just as Dio and his contemporaries assumed a contemptuous pose with regard to rhetoric, so Lucian’s Nigrinus ridicules all forms of conventional intellectual culture (esp. Luc. Nigr. 24-26), whereas the Tabula opposes the ψευδοπαιδεία of the standard educational curriculum, which contributes nothing to the student’s moral progress, to the ἀληθινὴ παιδεία of philosophy (Ps.-Cebes Tab. 11-13). The same motif plays the central role in Seneca’s Epistle 88, in which the disquieting effect produced by the pursuit of intellectual curiosity in the artes liberales is contrasted with the inner poise that can only be attained through the study of philosophy. As to the presentation of the act of conversion itself, the two texts markedly diverge from each other, relying on two distinct topoi, both of which, however, are widely attested elsewhere. The Nigrinus exploits the motif of a sudden transformation (µεταβολή, a close synonym of µεταµόρφωσις, is the term used by Lucian) as a result of a single encounter with a philosophical teacher – an extremely widespread motif of philosophical biographies.45 The 40

41 42

43 44

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Luc. Nigr. 4 ὥστε δή, τὸ κοινότατον, τοῦ ὀφθαλµοῦ µὲν καὶ τῆς περὶ αὐτὸν ἀσθενείας ἐπελαθανόµην, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν ὀξυδερκέστερος κατὰ µικρὸν ἐγιγνόµην· ἐλελήθειν γὰρ τέως αὐτὴν τυφλώττουσαν περιφέρων. Long 2002, 52-64. Luc. Nigr. 4 καὶ τῶν δηµοσίᾳ νοµιζοµένων ἀγαθῶν καταγελάσαι, πλούτου καὶ δόξης καὶ βασιλείας καὶ τιµῆς, κτλ. Gigon 1946, 10. D. L. 2.34 Αἰσχίνου δὲ εἰπόντος· “πένης εἰµὶ καὶ ἄλλο µὲν οὐδὲν ἔχω, δίδωµι δέ σοι ἐµαυτόν,” “Ἆρ᾿ οὖν,” εἶπεν, “οὐκ αἰσθάνῃ τὰ µέγιστά µοι διδούς;” Luc. Nigr. 1 ἄφνω µεταβέβλησαι. 35 φθέγξασθαι βουλόµενος ἐξέπιπτόν τε καὶ ἀνεκοπτόµην, καὶ ἥ τε φωνὴ ἐξέλιπε καὶ ἡ γλῶττα διηµάρτανε, καὶ τέλος ἐδάκρυον ἀπορούµενος. Cf. Clay 1992, 3421.

Tabula, on the other hand, relies on a different commonplace that also repeatedly occurs in moralistic literature: it presents conversion to philosophy (µεταµέλεια) as a victory (over vices, pleasure, and blind chance), that is, as an outcome of a teleological process (Ps.-Cebes Tab. 15-16). As befits a winner in an arduous contest, the convert who has attained the state of philosophical blessedness is often represented as being awarded the victor’s crown. In the allegorical imagery of the Tabula, the winner literally receives the crown directly from the personalized Εὐδαιµονία (Ps.-Cebes Tab. 22-23). In Seneca, Epictetus, Philo, and Plutarch, the image of the crown plays as prominent a role as in Ps.-Cebes.46 Finally, both the Nigrinus and the Tabula introduce the motif of the convert’s retrospective look at his pre-conversion experience. Lucian’s Nigrinus presents to his listener the everyday routine of unphilosophical life as a series of ridiculous theatrical sketches, in which everything is reduced to absurdity.47 In the Tabula, those who have experienced Μετάνοια, or Μεταµέλεια, and have reached Εὐδαιµονία are allowed a glimpse at the meaningless life that they have left behind in order that they may fully realize the amount of happiness that they have attained (Ps.-Cebes Tab. 24). Thus we can see that typical commonplaces of Stoic and Cynic diatribes form a highly coherent pattern that ultimately corresponds to the narrative logic of conversion accounts known from the doxographical tradition. It seems therefore to be of utmost significance that Apuleius in his account of Lucius’ conversion employs most of the recurrent motifs that belong to this pattern. The very fact that Lucius is metamorphosed by magic now begins to appear as a reification of moral diatribes’ standard metaphor of γοήτεια as the force that turns non-philosophers into animals enslaved to pleasure. In addition and perfectly in keeping with the standard topos of protreptic literature, Lucius’ metamorphosis turns him into a plaything of blind Fortune, which functions as one of the main leitmotifs of his asinine existence.48 Furthermore, the conspicuous eclecticism of Lucius’ philosophical affiliations is reminiscent of both the Tabula and the Nigrinus, where philosophy implies a way of life distinguishable from that of a layman rather than a circumscribed set of dogmatic tenets. Two pages after delivering his Cynic diatribe, which culminated in a praise of 46

47

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Sen. Ep. 78.16, Epict. Ench. 2.17.29, 3.24.52, Ph. Leg. All. 2.108, Plu. De fac. lun. 943d; D.Chr. Or. 9.13. On the image of the victory crown as a topos of the Stoic-Cynic diatribe, see Hirsch-Luipold et al. 2005, 134-135. Luc. Nigr. 18 καθίσας ἐµαυτὸν ὥσπερ ἐν θεάτρῳ µυριάνδρῳ σφόδρα που µετέωρος ἐπισκοπῶ τὰ γιγνόµενα, τοῦτο µὲν πολλὴν ψυχαγωγίαν καὶ γέλωτα παρέχειν δυνάµενα, τοῦτο δὲ καὶ πεῖραν ἀνδρὸς ὡς ἀληθῶς βεβαίου λαβεῖν. 20 ἔνεστι δὲ καὶ φιλοσοφίαν θαυµάσαι παραθεωροῦντα τὴν τοσαύτην ἄνοιαν, καὶ τῶν τῆς τύχης ἀγαθῶν καταφρονεῖν ὁρῶντα ὥσπερ ἐν σκηνῇ καὶ πολυπροσώπῳ δράµατι τὸν µὲν ἐξ οἰκέτου δεσπότην προιόντα, κτλ. On the motif of the blind Fortuna in Apuleius, see Schlam 1992, 58-66.

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Socrates, at the very beginning of Book 11, Lucius wakes up on the shore at Cenchreae, prays to the Moon goddess, and all of a sudden performs ritual ablutions in accordance with a Pythagorean precept.49 In other words, like the mysterious old man of Ps.-Cebes’ Tabula, Lucius, too, can now be considered to live ‘Πυθαγόρειόν τινα καὶ Παρµενίδειον’ (or, in his case, rather ‘Διογένειον’ or ‘Σωκρατικόν’) ‘βίον’. From the point when Lucius begins to feel elation at the prospect of joining the ranks of Isis’ sacra militia, his conversion is virtually complete. The only thing that remains to be accomplished is his retransformation from an animal back into a human, which, as we saw above, serves as one of the essential metaphors for conversion to philosophy in the protreptic tradition. Moreover, just as the successful convert in Ps.-Cebes’ Tabula and elsewhere is metaphorically awarded a winner’s crown, which symbolizes his victory over chance, so Lucius, too, receives a rose garland from the priest of Isis, which he compares with a crown that he has earned for having defeated Fortuna (Apul. Met. 11.12): et hercules coronam consequenter, quod tot ac tantis exanclatis laboribus, tot emensis periculis deae maximae providentia adluctantem mihi saevissime Fortunam superarem. And, by Hercules, I had deservedly won this crown, for after enduring so many harsh troubles and withstanding so many threats, I was now by the providence of the greatest goddess overcoming Fortune who had struggled against me so brutally.

Thus Lucius’ life once again effectively literalizes what in philosophical texts is used as a figurative image. The events that happen immediately before and after his re-metamorphosis further contribute to the parallelism between Lucius’ life and the conversionto-philosophy pattern. The individual scenes of the anteludia that precede the Isiac procession proper correspond quite closely to the motif of the successful convert taking a retrospective look at his previous life in the Tabula and to Nigrinus’ presentation of the everyday life routine as a series of ridiculous mime sketches. In the anteludia, too, actors impersonate a variety of characters, who either send us directly back to Lucius’ previous asinine existence or simply epitomize various aspects of the vain ‘worldly’ life, which appear to be merely laughable from the heights of philosophical enlightenment: among them are a soldier, a hunter, a comic pseudo-philosopher (the object of particular ridicule for Lucian’s Nigrinus),50 and, most importantly, an ass with glued-on wings impersonating Pegasus – the comic image that Lucius sometimes applies to his 49 50

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Apul. Met. 11.1 septiesque summerso fluctibus capite, quod eum numerum praecipue religionibus aptissimum divinus ille Pythagoras prodidit . Luc. Nigr. 24-26.

own asinine persona.51 Now that Lucius has mended his ways and is able to look back at his past from a rather detached viewpoint, his only reaction to these images, like that of Lucian’s Nigrinus, is simply laughter (Apul. Met. 11.8 rideres utrumque). The centrality of the paradigm of conversion to philosophy for Lucius’ life story is once again brought to the fore in the speech that the Isiac priest Mithras delivers upon Lucius’ retransformation. In fact, this speech is so replete with numerous philosophical commonplaces that its general tone becomes largely indistinguishable from a popular Stoic diatribe written in spirit of Epictetus or Dio Chrysostom. Mithras explicitly interprets the outcome of Lucius’ story as a victory of providence over chance – the standard dichotomy that numerous moral philosophers, as we have seen, use to point to the difference between philosophical enlightenment and un-philosophical unreason.52 He explicitly names curiosity as the main cause of Lucius’ misfortunes.53 His curiosity led him to succumb to serviles voluptates, which, in accordance with one of the most widespread commonplaces of Greek moral philosophy, should point not so much to the pleasures unworthy of a free man, as has often been suggested,54 as to slavery to pleasure.55 His fatal slip could be prevented neither by his high birth nor by his superb education, both of which belong to the Stoic ἀδιάφορα which, as we saw above, are generally considered to contribute nothing to one’s moral advancement.56 The paradoxical statement that only enslavement to Isis can guarantee Lucius true freedom is reminiscent of the Stoic musings on the relativity of freedom and slavery, and particularly, of the assertion that true freedom is attainable only through enslavement to philosophy.57 The act of conversion is regularly presented as contagious to those who witness it or hear about it.58 One of the express goals of Mithras’ sermon is, too, to inspire the listeners with the desire to convert.59 Finally, by calling Isis Fortuna 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

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On the comic aspects of the anteludia, see Harrison 2000, 240-242. Apul. Met. 11.15 multis et variis exanclatis laboribus magnisque Fortunae tempestatibus et maximis actus procellis ad portum Quietis et aram Misericordiae tendem, Luci, venisti. Apul. Met. 11.15 curiositatis improsperae sinistrum praemium reportasti. E.g. Griffiths 1975, ad loc.: “The reference must be to the erotic pleasures, especially with Photis, before Lucius becomes an ass.” E.g., Sen. De Vita Beata 4. Griffiths 1975, ad loc. Cf. Apul. Met. 11.15 nam cum coeperis deae servire, tunc magis senties fructum tuae libertatis vs. Sen. Ep. 8.7 philosophiae servias oportet, ut tibi contingat vera libertas. Luc. Nigr. 38 ὥστε καὶ µεταξὺ σοῦ λέγοντος ἔπασχόν τι ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ, καὶ παυσαµένου ἄχθοµαι ⟨...⟩. καὶ µὴ θαυµάσῃς· οἶσθα γάρ ὅτι καὶ πρὸς τῶν κυνῶν τῶν λυσσώντων δηχθέντες οὐκ αὐτοὶ µόνοι λυσσῶσιν, ἀλλὰ κἄν τινας ἑτέρους ἐν τῇ µανίᾳ τὸ αὐτὸ τοῦτο διαθῶσιν, καὶ οὗτοι ἔκφρονες γίγνονται. Apul. Met. 11.15 videant irreligiosi, videant et errorem suum recognoscant: en ecce pristinis aerumnis absolutus Isidis magnae providentia gaudens Lucius de sua Fortuna triumphat.

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videns and thus by opposing her to the blind Fortune that governed Lucius’ preconversion life, Mithras directly alludes to the motif of conversion to philosophy as an act of regaining the power of sight, which, as we have seen, plays an important role in numerous conversion accounts. Thus, to sum up, this speech as a whole provides an explicit general summary of the conversion-to-philosophy motif that holds Lucius’ entire life story together. It has thus become clear that Lucius’ conversion to the Isiac religion is presented as a conversion to philosophy. The question that inevitably arises in this connection is, if the conversion-to-philosophy pattern indeed does play such an essential role in the plot of Lucius’ adventures, why did Apuleius make his protagonists turn to a religious cult instead of a philosophical school? Lucius’ conversion to the Isis cult has a twofold significance. On the one hand, a series of initiations into a mystery cult is a standard metaphor for philosophical progress in protreptic literature in general. Seneca, for instance, describes the attainment of philosophical truth as ἐποπτεία – a term borrowed from mystery religion that is highly relevant to Lucius’ experiences as an adept of the Isiac cult.60 From this position, Apuleius’ description of the Isis mystery cult can be perceived merely as a reification of the standard metaphor for conversion to philosophy. On the other hand, in his portrayal of the Isis cult in Book 11 Apuleius evokes the old tradition of presenting Egyptian religion as a philosophical school. The idea that various Greek philosophical concepts ultimately derive from Egyptian priests is at least as old as Herodotus.61 A lengthy sojourn in Egypt and an in-depth study of the traditional Egyptian lore under the careful supervision of the priests (which virtually amounts to a conversion to philosophy taking place in Egypt) becomes over time an integral part of the narrative pattern of philosophical biography in general, attested for a wide range of philosophers including Pythagoras, Thales, and Plato, to name just a few.62 At some point, however, the trend seems to have changed from deriving Greek philosophy from Egypt to portraying Egyptian religion as a protophilosophy of sorts.63 For instance, the first-century AD Stoic philosopher Chaeremon in his Aegyptiaca portrayed Egyptian priests as a community of prototypical philosophers who devote their lives to the contemplation of nature and divinity,64 whereas an important leitmotif of Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride is the compatibility between the traditional Egyptian mythology and ritual on the 60

Nock 1933, 182 with a reference to Seneca, Ep. 90.28. E.g., Her. 2.81 and 123. On the tradition of Greek philosophers educated in Egypt, see Lloyd 1975 i. 49-60. On the interpretatio Aegyptiaca of Greek culture in general, see Merkelbach 1995, 231-241. 62 Vasunia 2001, 229. 63 On philosophical interpretations of Egyptian religion in general, see Merkelbach 1995, 242-251. 64 Van der Horst 1984; Frede 1989. 61

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one hand and various tenets of Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy on the other.65 Given the prominent role that Plutarch plays both in the construction of the novel’s fictional world and in the intricacies of its conceptual fabric, it surely comes as no surprise that his treatise on Egyptian religion has left a particularly conspicuous imprint on Apuleius’ portrayal of the Isis cult too. Plutarch in De Iside completely rejects the literal sense of Egyptian mythology and ascribes to its legends allegorical (moral or physical) meanings. Taking literally such crude stories as Osiris’ dismemberment and Isis’ search for his body parts all over Egypt would be utterly incompatible with the true philosophical notion of divinity and would thus amount either to superstition or to atheism – the worst vices one can possibly imagine (Plu. Is. 355c-d).66 He considers Egyptian myths to be fictions that contain a deeper conceptual truth. This truth can be extracted from them by means of allegorical interpretation, which reduces their complex narrative content to a combination of clear-cut philosophical postulates. Moreover, according to Plutarch, devotees of the Isiac religion are far from blindly performing traditional rituals. On the contrary, he sees their activity as consciously searching for the philosophical truth (hence his etymological connection between Iseion and οἶδα)67 in a way that is infinitely remote from δεισιδαιµονία and περιεργία (Plu. Is. 342b). In other words, not only myths but also rituals of Egyptian religion are, from Plutarch’s allegorical perspective, symbolic expressions of deeper philosophical truths. Apuleius’ presentation of the Isis cult has very much in common with the way Plutarch interprets it. In perfect agreement with Plutarch’s abhorrence of the most offensive elements of the Isiac myth, Apuleius’ account contains no mention of what in reality constituted the most conspicuous conceptual core of the Isis cult – namely, the story of Isis’ search for the remains of the dismembered Osiris and his subsequent revivification.68 In fact, in Apuleius there are almost no references to Egyptian myth at all, and the only exception that there exists agrees, as we shall see, with the allegorical interpretation ascribed to it by Plutarch. Instead, every single element of the Isiac cult that we encounter in Book 11 is suggestive of a deeper symbolic meaning. For most ritual actions, a rational explanation is either directly provided or, in the case of things that only initiates are allowed to know, hinted at. The festival of Isis depicted by Apuleius is not based on any mythological foundation but instead celebrates the beginning of a new navigation season and is closely intertwined with the public cult of the

65 66 67

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Griffiths 1970, 18-33. Cf. Griffiths 1970, 21-26. Plu. Is. 352a τοῦ δ᾿ ἱεροῦ τοὔνομα καὶ σαφῶς ἐπαγγέλλεται καὶ γνῶσιν καὶ εἴδησιν τοῦ ὄντος· ὀνομάζεται γὰρ τὸ Ἰσεῖον ὡς εἰσομένων τὸ ὄν, ἂν μετὰ λόγου καὶ ὁσίως εἰς τὰ ἱερὰ τῆς θεοῦ παρέλθωμεν. Plu. Is. 355d-358d.

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emperor.69 Individual details of the procession that immediately precedes Lucius’ retransformation are similarly detached from the intricacies of Egyptian mythology and possess instead a universally understandable symbolic significance. The torches, candles, and other similar sources of artificial light carried by the initiates during the procession are meant to symbolize and to propitiate the very source of the celestial light.70 The shaven heads of the devotees are also meant to be symbolic representations of the stars.71 The altars (altaria) that one of the adepts carefully holds in his hands are emblematic of the help provided by Isis’ divine providence.72 The image of the left hand carried by another Isiac is explicitly said to be a symbol of justice.73 The vessel formed like a female breast from which yet another devotee pours libations of milk is most probably a symbolic representation of Isis as the universal principle of fruitfulness and procreation – a point on which Plutarch has a lot to say.74 The mysterious urn-like effigy of the highest deity is also suggestive of some ineffable (and therefore unnamed) secret of the Isiac religion.75 All in all, the atmosphere of Apuleius’ religious procession is clearly reminiscent of the refined image drawn by Plutarch, in which the main objective of the devotees of the Egyptian mystery cult is to look for eternal truths in its symbols and, what is more, to do so without falling into the vice of περιεργία.76 For that reason, the emphasis on curiositas as a cause of Lucius’ misfortunes comes as no surprise in this context.

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Apul. Met. 11.17 fausta vota praefatus principi magno senatuique et equiti totoque Romano populo, nauticis navibusque, quae sub imperio mundi nostratis reguntur, renuntiat sermone rituque Graeciensi πλοιαφεσια. See Griffiths 1975, ad loc. Apul. Met. 11.9 magnus praeterea sexus untriusque numerus lucernis, taedis, cereis et alio genere facticii luminis siderum caelestium stirpem propitiantes. Cf. Lucius’ Stoic theory of universal sympathy in Apul. Met. 2.12 nec mirum, licet modicum istum igniculum et minibus humanis laboratum, memorem tamen illius maioris et caelestis ignis velut sui parentis, quid is sit editurus in aetheris vertice, divino praesagio et ipsum scire et nobis enuntiare. See van Mal-Maeder 2001, ad loc. Apul. Met. 11.10 hi capillum derasi funditus verticem praenitentes, magnae religionis terrena sidera Apul. Met. 11.10 secundus vestitum quidem similis, sed manibus ambabus gerebat altaria, id est auxilia, quibus nomen dedit proprium deae summatis auxiliaris providentia. Apul. Met. 11.10 quartus aequitatis ostendebat indicium deformatam manum sinistram porrecta palmula, quae genuina pigritia, nulla calliditate praedita, videbatur aequitati magis aptior quam dextera. Apul. Met. 11.10 idem gerebat et aureum vasculum in modum papillae rutundatum, de quo lacte libabat. Cf. Plut. Is. 372e ἡ γὰρ Ἶσίς ἐστι μὲν τὸ τῆς φύσεως θῆλυ καὶ δεκτικὸν ἁπάσης γενέσεως, καθὸ τιθήνη καὶ πανδεχὴς ὑπὸ τοῦ Πλάτωνος ⟨...⟩ κέκληται, κτλ. Apul. Met. 11.11 gerebat alius felici suo gremio summi numinis venerandam effigiem, non pecoris, non avis, non ferae ac ne hominis quidem ipsius consimilem, sed sollerti repertu etiam ipsa novitate reverendam, altioris utcumque et magno silentio tegendae religionis argumentum ineffabile, etc. Plut. Is. 352b οὗτοι [sc. ἱεραφόροι καὶ ἱεροστόλοι] δ᾿ εἰσὶν οἱ τὸν ἱερὸν λόγον περὶ θεῶν πά-

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The description of Lucius’ first initiation ritual also largely agrees with Plutarch’s general aversion against the literal meaning of myth and ritual. Of course, Lucius is forbidden to divulge any details of his initiation because no one who is not initiated is allowed to know them.77 It is quite symptomatic, however, that this prohibition does not prevent him from revealing the symbolic significance of the rite, which combines elements of moral and physical allegory: it represents a voluntary death and a subsequent rebirth to a new life, with its general scenario symbolizing a journey through all the elements of the universe from the underworld to heaven.78 Furthermore, Apuleius’ only explicit reference to an Egyptian mythological motif is perfectly in keeping with Plutarch’s allegorical interpretation of it, so that we could quite safely assume that its mention in the Golden Ass constitutes a direct reference to De Iside. When Isis appears to Lucius in a vision and gives him detailed instructions as to how to regain his human appearance, she explicitly urges him to shed the hide of ‘the beast that has long been abominable to me’ (Apul. Met. 11.6 pessimae mihique detestabilis iam dudum beluae istius corio te exue). This is of course an allusion to Isis’ archenemy Seth, whom the Greek tradition identified with Typhon and one of whose avatars in Egyptian mythology was an ass.79 Quite remarkably, Plutarch dedicates numerous passages both to the connection between Typhon and the ass and to the central role that his enmity with Isis plays in Egyptian myth and ritual.80 In a sense, it is the antagonism between Isis and Typhon that Plutarch elevates to the status of the most essential mythological kernel of Egyptian religion. In other words, it begins to transpire that, by choosing to refer only to this single mythological episode, Apuleius aims to evoke the tradition effusively elaborated by Plutarch. Arguably, Apuleius could have derived his knowledge from other sources, so that his identification of the ass with Typhon does not necessarily have to be considered to allude directly to Plutarch. There is, however, another significant element in Apuleius’ portrayal of the Isis cult, which bears unmistakably Plutarchan overtones. σης καθαρεύοντα δεισιδαιμονίας καὶ περιεργίας ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ φέροντες ὥσπερ ἐν κίστῃ, 77 78

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κτλ. Quite significantly, the members of Apuleius’ Isiac procession, too, could best be described as ἱεραφόροι καὶ ἱεροστόλοι. Apul. Met. 11.23 dicerem, si dicere liceret, cognosceres, si liceret audire. Apul. Met. 11.23 accessi confinium mortis et calcato Proserpinae limine per omnia elementa remeavi, nocte media vidi solem candidum coruscantem lumine, deos inferos et deos superos accessi coram et adoravi de proxumo. Griffiths 1975, ad loc. Plu. Is. 362e ὁ µὲν γὰρ Ὄσιρις καὶ Ἴσις ἐκ δαιµόνων ἀγαθῶν εἰς θεοὺς µετήλλαξαν· τὴν δὲ τοῦ Τυφῶνος ἠµαυρωµένην καὶ συντετριµµένην δύναµιν ⟨…⟩ ἔστιν ὅτε πάλιν ἐκταπεινοῦσι καὶ καθυβρίζουσιν ἔν τισι ἑορταῖς, τῶν µὲν ἀνθρώπων τοὺς πυρροὺς προπηλακίζοντες, ὄνον δὲ κατακρηµνίζοντες, ὡς Κοπτῖται, διὰ τὸ πυρρὸν τὸν Τυφῶνα καὶ ὀνώδη τὴν χρόαν.

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Plutarch’s identification of Isis, along with Osiris, with good and of Typhon with evil gives him an opportunity to provide a lengthy excursus into the basics of the Persian dualistic worldview (Plu. Is. 369d-370c). Persian religion, too, he explains, postulates the existence of absolute good and absolute evil that constantly fight against each other in the same manner as Isis is compelled to fight against Typhon’s spiteful machinations; between these two opposing forces there is a mediator – the role that, according to Plutarch, Persian mythology ascribes to Mithras – who, within the framework of Egyptian mythology, one would assume, could be considered to seal the inevitable victory of Isis over Typhon.81 Moreover, Plutarch even draws an etymological parallel between the name Mithras and the Greek word for mediator (Plu. Is. 369e διὸ καὶ Μίθρην Πέρσαι τὸν Μεσίτην ὀνοµάζουσιν). From this perspective, the name of the Isiac priest Mithras begins to acquire a clear significance, which it would completely lack otherwise. The role that Mithras plays in Apuleius perfectly corresponds to his function in the Persian myth that Plutarch uses to explain the essential conflict between good and evil in Egyptian mythology: all he does is mediate between Lucius, who is identified with Typhon and thus, by extension, with absolute evil, and Isis, who stands for absolute good, and his mediation is meant to secure her victory. Thus, far from simply boosting the satirical momentum of Apuleius’ portrayal of the Isis cult, Mithras, whose incongruous name Winkler compared to a pope named Martin Luther,82 seems to provide the most tangible connection between Apuleius’ novel and Plutarch’s treatise on Egyptian religion. As a result, Lucius’ story becomes not only a reenactment of the Isiac myth to which Plutarch attributes the greatest significance, but also a symbolic realization of the allegorical interpretation to which Plutarch subjects that myth. Apuleius’ identification of Lucius with Typhon has another far-reaching significance, which serves to solidify the novel’s philosophical substratum. The image of Typhon is used by Plato in the Phaedrus as an embodiment of everything hostile to the ideal of a true philosopher.83 From this viewpoint, Lucius’ retransformation from an ass into a human, which literally implies getting rid of Typhonic elements, seems to serve as an ideal parable of conversion to philosophy.84 The parallelism between Lucius’ life story and Plutarch’s interpretation of Egyptian myth and ritual has important consequences for our understanding of the novel as a whole. First of all, it becomes clear that, even though Lucius is presented as undergoing a conversion not to philosophy but to a religious cult, 81

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Plu. Is. 369e καὶ προσαπεφαίνετο [Ζωροάστρης] τὸν µὲν [Ὡροµάζην] ἐοικέναι φωτὶ µάλιστα τῶν αἰσθητῶν, τὸν δ᾿ [Ἀρειµάνιον] ἔµπαλιν σκοτῷ καὶ ἀγνοίᾳ, µέσον δ᾿ ἀµφοῖν τὸν Μίθρην εἶναι. Winkler 1985, 245-247. Pl. Phdr. 230a. De Filippo 1990, 482-483. De Filippo 1990, 489-491.

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Apuleius’ description of this cult perfectly agrees with its representation by Plutarch as a kind of a philosophical school. As a consequence, the pattern of conversion to philosophy that we have clearly seen at work throughout Apuleius’ version of the ass-story is by no means undermined but, on the contrary, solidified by the introduction of Isis in Book 11. From the viewpoint of this paradigm, the religion to which this descendent of Plutarch’s turns at the end of his adventures is not a popular, debased, and deeply superstitious cult, which, as we shall see in Chapter 6, provided plenty of opportunity for scorn and ridicule to both Greek and Roman men of letters, but a philosophical religion of which Plutarch would have definitely approved. Moreover, the lofty Isiac conclusion does not seem anymore to be forcibly appended to Lucius’ bawdy adventures but can instead be considered to highlight the essential meaning of Lucius’ moral progress. The parallelism between the two plots – the Isiac myth and Apuleius’ version of the ass-tale – serves to reduce both of them to their conceptual core – in a sense, to their basic philosophical meaning: just as Isis’ victory over Typhon turns out, in Plutarch’s interpretation, to signify the victory of good over evil, so Lucius’ life is firmly inscribed into the paradigm of conversion to philosophy. As a result, Lucius’ story turns into a philosophical myth of sorts that can be read simultaneously along the lines of the conversion topos and – somewhat more abstractly – as an account of the human soul’s purification from Typhonic evil.

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5. De audiendis fabulis: Lucius’ Life as a Philosophical Myth One of the most conspicuous qualities of the tale of Cupid and Psyche is that, like the novel as a whole, it simultaneously falls into a number of distinct narrative patterns and, as a result, forms a combination of multiple plot paradigms, each having a different function within the construction of the whole. As we saw above, the most obvious function that the tale fulfills in its immediate narrative context is to serve as a solace to the captive maiden Charite. At the same time, the tale functions as a foil not only to Charite’s but also to Lucius’ life, whose denouement is closely modeled on the tale’s deus ex machina conclusion.1 Furthermore, as we have seen, the emphasis on Psyche’s sacrilegious curiosity underscores the importance of this motif for Lucius’ life and thus indirectly anticipates the distinctly aretalogical quality that the primary narrative acquires at the end. Finally, the story of the Soul’s elevation to the realm of the gods through the agency of Love provides an additional conceptual background for Lucius’ philosophical union with Isis and thus corroborates the status of Lucius’ life story as a philosophical myth too. The tale of Cupid and Psyche unfolds simultaneously on two distinct levels: on the one hand, its protagonists are anthropomorphic fictional beings whose interactions cohere into a beautiful love story, which echoes various motifs from iconography, folklore, and literature;2 but on the other, they are abstractions with a respectable philosophical pedigree, which ultimately goes back to Plato’s Phaedrus. In his second speech of the Phaedrus (243e-257b), which aims to refute the thesis that a non-lover should be preferred to a lover, Socrates creates a mythical framework in order to explain the origin of love and the effect that it produces on the human soul. Unlike the gods, who can ride on their winged chariots all the way up to the highest point of the sky, from which they can then see being as it is, human souls, although they originally have wings too, contain an unruly element that prevents them from reaching and contemplating the truth (Pl. Phdr. 246d-247e). Only those souls that are most similar to the gods and that follow them most closely succeed in getting a brief glimpse of the rarefied areas above the sky. The rest, although they by nature share the same aspirations, break their wings, fall down, and lead a miserable life devoid of true knowledge (Pl. Phdr. 248a-e). Among the souls that have seen the truth, it is those of true philosophers and philosophical lovers (Pl. Phdr. 249a) that have a chance of acquiring wings again more quickly. Love causes the soul to grow wings because when it sees the beloved’s earthly beauty the soul is reminded of 1 2

Cf. Kenney 1990, 6-17. Kenney 1990, 17-22; Schlam 1992, 82-97.

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the heavenly beauty that it contemplated in its previous disembodied existence (Pl. Phdr. 251a-b). Once it has fallen in love, the soul wants to stay permanently by the beloved’s side, since every separation causes it pain (Pl. Phdr. 251d-e). For this reason, the lover is ready to undergo any kind of privation and even slavery in order to be closer to his beloved (Pl. Phdr. 252a). In the beloved’s presence, however, the soul feels true joy (Pl. Phdr. 251e ἡδονήν). In other words, love is, besides philosophy, the only thing that can elevate the soul to the god-like state of being able to see things truly as they are. Of course, the tale of Cupid and Psyche cannot be reduced to a narrative kernel that would correspond to the philosophical concept of the Phaedrus myth in every single detail.3 Nevertheless it is possible to single out this narrative voice and to analyze how it functions within the complex construction of the whole. What will happen if we regard Psyche not only as a mimetically credible fictional character but also as a Platonically inspired abstraction? To begin with, like the best of Plato’s human souls that are said to be closest to the gods, Psyche is endowed with god-like characteristics that cause her to be mistaken for a goddess.4 This alone, one could argue, would suffice to predestine her to become a contemplator of the divine. One of the greatest ironies of the tale is that Psyche succeeds in seeing the divine beauty of her mysterious husband only because of her impious curiosity. Paradoxically, this negatively connoted motif, which, as we saw above, ultimately originates in an absolutely different narrative pattern, becomes, from the viewpoint of this Platonic framework, almost synonymous with the soul’s yearning for the divine. The moment when Psyche breaks the taboo and steals a look at the ineffable divine beauty of her husband corresponds to the soul’s taking a brief glimpse at being as it is in the Platonic myth (Apul. Met. 5.22-23; cf. Pl. Phdr. 248a). As in the Phaedrus, all that Psyche desires from the moment she falls in love is to stay by the side of her beloved: when, incensed by her mindless disobedience, he flies away, she attempts to hold on to him, but, being too heavy, she falls down to the ground (Apul. Met. 5.24) – the passage that is universally recognized by commentators as a direct allusion to the Phaedrus (Pl. Phdr. 248c).5 That is to say, the brevity of Psyche’s beholding of the divine is predicated upon the same grounds as the human soul’s inability in Plato to prolong its contemplation of the truth: in both cases, the heavy bodily element prevails and causes the beholder to fall. Psyche’s subsequent actions consistently cohere into the Platonic pattern as well: just as Plato’s soul is ready to undergo any kind of hardship, including slavery, in order to be reunited with its beloved, so Psyche, too, deeply distressed by the separation from her husband, voluntarily becomes a slave in order 3 4 5

Cf. Schlam 1992, 95-96. Apul. Met. 4.28 eam [sc. Psychen] ut ipsam deam Venerem religiosis venerabantur adorationibus. Kenney 1990, 172; Schlam 1992, 95; Zimmerman et al. 2004, 294.

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to make him forgive her.6 The moment of reunification is couched in terms distinctly reminiscent of the Phaedrus myth too: just as, according to Socrates, love is capable of making one god-like and is a source of true pleasure, so Psyche’s marriage to Cupid is preceded by her deification and the daughter born from their union is named Voluptas (Apul. Met. 6.24; cf. Pl. Phdr. 251e).7 Thus, on a certain level, the tale of Cupid and Psyche can be quite coherently read as a Platonically inspired account of the soul’s ascent to the realm of the divine. Moreover, seen this way, the tale expresses essentially the same thematic concerns as the primary narrative but brings it to a higher level of abstraction: whereas Lucius’ story deals with man’s conversion to philosophical religion, the tale of Cupid and Psyche epitomizes the process of the human soul’s union with the divine. In other words, not only does the inserted tale underscore the essential plot dynamics and deeper layers of meaning of Lucius’ adventures, but its unmistakable associations with the Phaedrus serve to emphasize the fact that the primary narrative, too, can in a sense be regarded as a philosophical myth. Of course, the realization that Cupid and Psyche contains an unmistakable affinity with the Platonic myth would by no means exhaust its significance in the context of the primary narrative. As I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, the tale serves not only to enhance the philosophical underpinnings of the primary narrative as a whole, but also, more immediately, to entertain Charite, who, like Psyche, is separated from her husband, and to give her hope that her present predicament will eventually lead to a happy ending. It is highly significant that, in its capacity as a diverting narrative of consolation, the tale is explicitly characterized by its internal narrator as an anilis fabula (Apul. Met. 4.27 sed ego te narrationibus lepidis anilibusque fabulis protinus avocabo). In other words, the tale is presented as in some sense both an old wives’ tale and a philosophical myth. It is perfectly obvious that a narrative that directly alludes to the Phaedrus and at the same time calls itself an anilis fabula demonstrates unmistakable signs of an awareness of the Platonic polemics about the use and harm of fictional narratives and mimetic arts in general.8 Since the narrator happens to be an old woman and since her narrative fulfills the typical function of a fairytale to pacify a recalcitrant child, Cupid and Psyche indeed can be quite properly characterized as an old wives’ tale in the literal sense of the word.9 At the same time, in philosophical texts, anilis fabula is regularly used as a negatively connoted technical term designating any story that serves only to entertain without pursu6 7 8 9

Apul. Met. 5.31 Psychen illam fugitivam; 6.8 Veneris ancillam; 6.12-21 (Psyche’s slavery). Cf. Graverini 2007, 127-131. For other Platonic readings of the tale of Cupid and Psyche, see Schlam 1970; Edwards 1992. Graverini 2007, 122-127. Apul. Met. 4.27 bono animo esto, mi erilis, nec vanis somniorum figmentis terreare. sed ego te narrationibus lepidis anilibusque fabulis avocabo.

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ing any far-reaching didactic purpose.10 In his fervent attack against mimetic arts in the Republic, Plato relegates all fictions of traditional poetry to the status of γραῶν µῦθοι, which the guardians have to subject to careful censorship before allowing them to be heard by the young.11 From Plato’s point of view, mimetic fictions are simply lies, deeply suspect for both intellectual and moral reasons, and therefore they are of no use for a philosopher interested in the way things really are. Moreover, mimesis is not only useless but also harmful for the human soul: by encouraging its recipients to identify themselves with fictional characters and with their self-destructive affects, mimetic literature has a disturbing influence on their mental equilibrium and could impair their ability to control their thoughts and emotions in real life.12 The only function of poetic mimesis is to give pleasure, whereas the existence of poetry in the Platonic ideal state could be only justified on the grounds of its usefulness and ability to express the truth.13 For this reason, in order for poetry to be a suitable vehicle for conveying the truth, the mimetic element in it has to be reduced to a bare minimum or eliminated altogether.14 What does Plato propose instead? Even though he equates all fictions with lies, he distinguishes one kind of fiction that would be acceptable even in his ideal state. The rulers, whom Plato endows with full possession of the truth, are allowed to lie for the sake of the common good of the citizens (Pl. Rep. 389b). He even supplies an example of such a noble lie (the so-called ‘Phoenician Tale’) that takes the form of a mythological creation narrative that is supposed to motivate the citizens to accept the peculiar social organization of the state and to sacrifice their lives for it.15 Plato even directly formulates theoretical principles on which such acceptable myths about the past should be based (382d1-3): διὰ τὸ µὴ εἰδέναι ὅπῃ τἀληθὲς ἔχει περὶ τῶν παλαιῶν, ἀφοµοιοῦντες τῷ ἀληθεῖ τὸ ψεῦδος ὅτι µάλιστα, οὕτω χρήσιµον ποιοῦµεν. Due to our lack of knowledge about the way things truly were in the distant past, we could only make [stories about] it useful by making our lie as similar as possible to the truth.

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Graverini 2007, 106-111. Gill 1993. Cf. Pl. Rep. 377c τοὺς δ᾿ ἐγκριθέντας [sc. µύθους] πείσοµεν τὰς τροφοὺς καὶ µητέρας λέγειν τοῖς παισίν. On the consensus among philosophers in general about the worthelessness of aniles fabulae, see Graverini 2007, 106-111. Pl. Rep. 395d1-3 ἢ οὐκ ᾔσθηαι ὅτι αἱ µιµήσεις, ἐὰν ἐκ νέων πόρρω διατελέσωσιν, εἰς ἔθη τε καὶ φύσιν καθίστανται καὶ κατὰ σῶµα καὶ κατὰ διάνοιαν. See Gill 1993, 44-45. Gill 1993, 47-51; Murray 1996, 14-19. Pl. Rep. 607a. See also Ferrari 1989, 108-119. Pl. Rep. 414b7-415c7. See Ferrari 1989, 111-112.

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The truth that Socrates is talking about here is the truth arrived at in the course of a philosophical argument, which, from his point of view, automatically guarantees its unassailable veracity. Although a fictional narrative that contains such truth would be patently untrue, it can nevertheless represent the most effective method of conveying the truth.16 Thus the only kind of fiction that Plato finds acceptable is a fiction that serves to propagate a useful idea, a fiction whose minimal mimetic component is completely dominated by its thematic function. It goes without saying that the Phaedrus myth of love and soul that functions as the conceptual core of the tale of Cupid and Psyche is precisely this kind of purely thematic fiction and that, by extension, Apuleius’ tale, too, inevitably partakes of this quality. The fact that this tale is at the same time characterized as an anilis fabula produces a dichotomy that at first glance seems to be absolutely irreconcilable – all the more so as the later Platonic tradition effectively canonized the opposition between the two kinds of fabulae. For instance, Macrobius, in his commentary on the Somnium Scipionis – a typical Platonic myth that concludes Cicero’s De Re Publica in the same way as the myth of Er concludes Plato’s Republic –, distinguishes between two different kinds of ‘false’ narratives, or fabulae: the first kind aims exclusively at pleasure, the second at moral or intellectual improvement.17 From the position of this conceptual background, being both at the same time would be a blatant contradiction in terms. The sense of self-contradiction is further enhanced by the fact that, on closer scrutiny, the primary narrative, too, turns out to be characterized in terms of this dichotomy. It has been repeatedly pointed out that the old woman’s brief prologue to the tale of Cupid and Psyche, which I cited above (Apul. Met. 4.27), directly echoes the beginning of the prologue to novel as a whole (Apul. Met. 1.1):18 At ego tibi sermone isto Milesio varias fabulas conseram auresque tuas benivolas lepido susurro permulceam – modo si papyrum Aegyptiam argutia Nilotici calami inscriptam non spreveris inspicere –, figuras fortunasque hominum in alias imagines conversas et in se rursum mutuo nexu refectas ut mireris. exordior. quis ille? Let me weave together different tales in that Milesian mode of storytelling and let me stroke your kind ears with an elegant whisper – as long as you don’t scorn to look at the Egyptian papyrus written with the sharpness of a reed-pen from the Nile – so that you may wonder at the transformations of men’s shapes and for-

16 17

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Gill 1993, 55. Macr. Somn. 1.2.7 fabulae, quarum nomen indicat falsi professionem, aut tantum conciliandae auribus voluptatis, aut adhortationis quoque in bonam frugem gratia repertae sunt. E.g., Graverini 2007, 34, with further references.

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tunes into alien forms and their reversions, one in connection with the other, to their own. Let me begin. – Who is this?

The connections between the old woman’s sed ego te, narrationibus lepidis, and avocabo, on the one hand, and the prologue speaker’s at ego tibi, lepido susurro, and aures permulceam, on the other, are too obvious to need any detailed comment. As a consequence of this undeniable parallelism, the prologue to the novel emerges as describing the subsequent narrative as a kind of anilis fabula too. At the same time, the prologue contains a reference to the passage of the Platonic Phaedrus in which Socrates discusses the use of fictional narratives for illustrating a philosophical argument.19 This reference, as I would like to argue now, serves to present the subsequent narrative as a purely thematic fiction that is closely akin to the philosophical noble lie that Plato describes in the Republic. In contrast to unquestionably desirable oral communication, writing and reading are presented in Apuleius’ prologue as something that its fictional addressee is likely to treat with suspicion: from the first sentence of the prologue it becomes clear that the narrator assumes that the addressee will be more inclined to listening than to reading and that he may even look at a written text with contempt (si modo non spreveris). This passage has been compared with the Egyptian myth placed at the end of Plato’s Phaedrus (274c5-275b2), which similarly combines the preference for oral over written communication with the idea of the Egyptian origin of writing.20 In Socrates’ story, the god Theuth (Thoth) demonstrates his various inventions to the highest Egyptian god Ammon. He particularly prides himself on the invention of writing, which he calls ‘the elixir of memory and wisdom’ (274e6-7 µνήµης τε γὰρ καὶ σοφίας φάρµακον). Ammon, however, objects that this invention will enhance forgetfulness rather than memory, since the confident reliance on the external support of writing will lead to a neglect of one’s own natural ability to remember. For this reason, writing should be regarded as an instrument not of memory but of reminding, which does not produce true wisdom but only a deceptive semblance of wisdom (Pl. Phdr. 275a5-7 οὔκουν µνήµης ἀλλὰ ὑποµνήσεως φάρµακον· σοφίας δὲ τοῖς µαθηταῖς δόξαν, οὐκ ἀλήθειαν πορίζεις). Apuleius’ contrast between ‘Egyptian’ writing, which the addressee is likely to reject, and the irresistibly attractive spoken word can be interpreted as an allusion to this myth that functions on a few different levels. On the one hand, the mention of the reader’s possible contempt for an Egyptian papyrus and, thus, for writing in general can be viewed as characterizing the reader almost as a convinced Platonist, who has internalized Socrates’ outright rejection of writing as a useless activity. At the same time, the reader is, more specifi19 20

The following discussion of the connections between Apuleius’ prologue and Plato’s Phaedrus is largely based on Kirichenko 2008a, 98-101. Trapp 2001.

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cally, represented as playing a role analogous to that of Socrates’ interlocutor Phaedrus. When Socrates finishes his Egyptian story, Phaedrus cannot conceal his amazement at how easily his older friend can make up tales that take place in Egypt or in any other country (Pl. Phdr. 275b3-4): ὦ Σώκρατες, ῥᾳδίως σὺ Αἰγυπτίους καὶ ὁποδαποὺς ἂν ἐθέλῃς λόγους ποιεῖς. ‘Socrates, you easily invent stories of Egypt or any other country of your choice.’

Socrates answers that his recourse to storytelling is a forced concession to the sophisticated taste of young people like Phaedrus: unlike their crude ancestors who were content with hearing truthful oracles even ‘from the oak and the rock’, the younger generation wants to know not only whether a saying is true but also who the speaker is and where he comes from (Pl. Phdr. 275b7-c2): οἱ δέ γ᾿, ὦ φίλε, ἐν τῷ τοῦ Διὸς τοῦ Δωδωναίου ἱερῷ δρυὸς λόγους ἔφησαν µαντικοὺς πρώτους γενέσθαι. τοῖς µὲν οὖν τότε, ἅτε οὐ σοφοῖς ὥσπερ ὑµεῖς οἱ νέοι, ἀπέχρη δρυὸς καὶ πέτρας ἀκούειν ὑπ᾿ εὐηθείας, εἰ µόνον ἀληθῆ λέγοιεν· σοὶ δ᾿ ἴσως διαφέρει τίς ὁ λέγων καὶ ποδαπός. οὐ γὰρ ἐκεῖνο µόνον σκοπεῖς, εἴτε οὕτως εἴτε ἄλλως ἔχει. ‘They used to say that the words from the oak at the sanctuary of Dodonian Zeus were the first prophecies. Those who lived at that time, not being so wise as you young people, were content in their naiveté to listen to an oak and a rock, provided that they spoke the truth. But it seems that to you it makes a difference who the speaker is and where he comes from, for you do not consider only whether or not what he says is true.’

In other words, Socrates claims that, in order to be able to teach the truth to the younger generation, one has to present it in the shape of a narrative that involves persuasive characters with respectable credentials. In perfect harmony with the Socratic assumption that ‘young people’ care less for the truth itself than for its provenience, Apuleius’ narrator, having completed the first part of the prologue that contains perfectly sufficient information about the narrative that follows, attributes to his fictional addressee the question about the speaker’s identity (quis ille? = τίς ὁ λέγων;) and in his answer concentrates almost exclusively on where he comes from (ποδαπός) and how he got to where he is at the moment (Apul. Met. 1.1): quis ille? paucis accipe. Hymettos Attica et Isthmos Ephyrea et Taenaros Spartiaca, glebae felices aeternum libris felicioribus conditae, mea vetus prosapia est; ibi linguam Attidem primis pueritiae stipendiis merui. mox in urbe Latia advena studiorum Queritium indigenam sermonem aerumnabili labore nullo magistro praeeunte aggressus excolui.

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‘Who is this? Let me tell you briefly. My ancestors of old come from Attic Hymettus, the Ephyrean Isthmus, and Spartan Taenarus, fertile lands forever enshrined in even more fertile books. It is there that I won the knowledge of the Attic tongue in the first campaigns of boyhood. Later in the Latin city, a stranger to the literary pursuits of the Roman citizens, I attacked and cultivated their native language with excruciating difficulty and with no teacher to guide me.’

The fact that quis ille? can be plausibly regarded as part of the prologue’s allusion to Plato’s Phaedrus and that, from this point of view, the fictional reader is represented as sharing opinions that Socrates with an implicit ironic disapproval ascribes to Phaedrus contributes to the mildly mocking tone with which Apuleius treats the addressee of his prologue: the addressee turns out to be portrayed as dissatisfied with the fictional ‘truth’ of the first part of the prologue that theoretically he should be now in a position to verify (i.e., to see εἴτε οὕτως εἴτε ἄλλως ἔχει) by simply reading the book. At the same time, the narrator himself adopts the Socratic pose, according to which storytelling constitutes a compromise with the taste of the younger generation that refuses to deal with philosophical truth presented in its pure unprocessed form. From this viewpoint, the kind of storytelling that the narrator promises in his prologue becomes rather similar to the one practiced by Socrates both in the Phaedrus and in other Platonic dialogues.21 Just as the Egyptian myth about the invention of writing at the end of the Phaedrus is a typical Platonic myth designed to render a philosophical truth more vivid, so the narrative of the Golden Ass, too, seems to be introduced in the prologue as a purely thematic narrative that will serve to illustrate a philosophical point. This interpretation of the prologue would allow us to inscribe the Golden Ass into the tradition of the philosophical myth that was thriving in first and second century CE sophistic literature: specimens of philosophical myths, most of which were directly inspired by Platonic antecedents, can be found among the writings of such authors as Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, and Maximus of Tyre, to name just a few.22 What makes the situation in Apuleius’ novel significantly more complex is that, as I pointed out above, both the tale of Cupid and Psyche and the primary narrative are explicitly presented by the text not only as edifying philosophical myths but also as enchanting aniles fabulae at the same time. How are we to accommodate these – from the Platonic viewpoint – mutually exclusive categories within a single paradigm of reading? My contention is that Apuleius explicitly demonstrates in his text what kind of reading process would be ideally suited to account for both of the oppo21 22

For a different interpretation of the connections between the Golden Ass and Plato’s portrayal of Socrates, see Graverini 2007, 151-158. On philosophical myths in Plutarch and in his contemporaries, see Vernière 1977. On the allegorical use of myth in the second century and the relevance of this tendency for Apuleius’ Cupid and Psyche, see Edwards 1992.

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site qualities of his narrative. This reading method is practiced by the novel’s protagonist/narrator himself – as a listener of numerous tales that he inserts into his account – and serves simultaneously as a blueprint of a possible readerly behavior that the empirical reader is invited to adopt. Listening to a variety of patently fictional tales is one of the primary activities in which Lucius engages throughout his adventures. Moreover, his often rather misplaced comments on the tales that he hears along the way constitute one of the novel’s most persistent sources of humor.23 The recurrent motif of listening to tales is, however, more than just a structural device that allows the author to integrate as many secondary narratives as possible into the fabric of the original ass-tale. In my opinion, Lucius’ interpretive activity acquires a particular significance in light of the fact that his ancestor Plutarch, whose different writings, as we have observed time and again, greatly inform the novel’s conceptual universe, was the author of a treatise entitled Πῶς δεῖ τὸν νέον ποιηµάτων ἀκούειν (De audiendis poetis), which is entirely dedicated to the question of what approach to fictional literature can make it acceptable for a future philosopher.24 De audiendis poetis is an attempt to salvage mimetic fiction from the total ban imposed on it by Plato in the Republic. Plutarch does not contest Plato’s view that reading fiction entails a great danger for the young reader. However, since he is writing not for the ideal state but for real life, where various forms of narrative poetry were an integral part of the standard school curriculum, he does not pursue the unrealistic goal of prohibiting students from reading all fiction altogether. At the same time, unlike Plato, he does not seek to abolish the myths of traditional poetry but searches for ways to put this inevitable evil to some proper use that would be compatible with the study of philosophy. Since Plutarch’s main concern is with education in accordance with philosophical ethics, he has to develop a program of how to make poetry innocuous to the young people who prepare to study philosophy. Plutarch admits that the chief purpose of poetry is pleasure, not edification. Moreover, he admits that poetry is full of falsehoods that blatantly contradict philosophical doctrines (Plu. Poet. 17a). However, he is also aware of the fact that readers’ attitudes to poetry can vary significantly and that one is able not only to reduce the damage of poetry but also to derive profit from reading it, provided that one follows the right approach. Plutarch distinguishes among three approaches to literature: there are readers who are fascinated by the story (φιλόµυθοι), those who admire the style (φιλόλογοι) – in other words, those who are receptive to different kinds of pleasure offered by narrative fiction - and, finally, philosophically minded 23 24

Cf. Winkler 1985, 25-56. My discussion of Plutarch’s De audiendis poetis is largely based on Kirichenko 2007b, 261-266.

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readers, those who read not for the sake of entertainment but in order to acquire a correct understanding of morals (µὴ παιγνίας ἀλλὰ παιδείας ἕνεκα – the φιλότιµοι, or the φιλόκαλοι).25 Of course, the aim of his treatise is to provide instructions to those who, as future philosophers, would like to learn how to read like φιλόκαλοι. Due to its mimetic nature, poetry imitates both good and bad people and deeds. However, it is of utmost importance for the reader to bear in mind that poets do not necessarily commend the immorality they portray (Plu. Poet. 25b). More importantly, instead of being bewitched by fictions, the reader should always be ready not only to approve of the deeds of the great heroes of the past but also to protest vociferously whenever he encounters a morally suspect statement or episode (Plu. Poet. 26b ἐπιφωνεῖν µηδὲν ἧττον τοῦ “ὀρθῶς” καὶ “πρεπόντως” τὸ “οὐκ ὀρθῶς” καὶ “οὐ προσηκόντως”). Although it is not concerned with wisdom, poetry contains kernels of truth hidden under the veil of the fictitious actions it represents (Plu. Poet. 28d-e). It is the teacher’s task to purify the truth from the fictional or theatrical element and to make it conspicuous to the student by paying close attention to the nuances of wording that convey the poet’s attitude (Plu. Poet. 22a-25b). If this method does not succeed in reducing the fictional representation to an acceptable moral statement, one should not hesitate to reject the poet’s pronouncements by citing counter-examples from his own works or from other sources (Plu. Poet. 21d). By acquiring such reading skills, the student is expected to sharpen his moral sense and to turn the potentially harmful experience into an exercise in applied ethics. As a result, for a φιλόκαλος, fictional literature as such loses its significance and becomes a preliminary stage to the study of philosophy. The knowledge of moral values acquired through literature gently inures the student to numerous counter-intuitive philosophical statements he is to confront later, such as, for instance, that death is a good thing or that poverty is better than wealth, which otherwise would scare him away from the noble pursuit of truth (Plu. Poet. 36d-e). The dependence of Plutarch’s views on Plato’s is quite apparent: the idea of fiction as mimesis, the association of mimetic poetry with pleasure and enchantment, and the fear of the negative influence of fiction on the human soul all are influenced by Plato. At the same time, whereas Plato distinguishes be25

Plu. Poet. 30c-d ἐπεὶ δ᾿ ὥσπερ ἐν ταῖς νομαῖς ἡ μὲν μέλιττα διώκει τὸ ἄνθος, ἡ δ᾿ αἴξ τὸν θάλλον, ἡ δ᾿ ὗς τὴν ῥίζαν, ἄλλα δὲ ζῷα τὸ σπέρμα καὶ τὸν καρπόν, οὕτως ἐν ταῖς ἀναγνώσεσι τῶν ποιημάτων ὁ μὲν ἀπανθίζεται τὴν ἱστορίαν, ὁ δ᾿ ἐμφύεται τῷ κάλλει καὶ τῇ κατασκευῇ τῶν ὀνομάτων , οἱ δὲ τῶν πρὸς τὸ ἦθος εἰρημένων ὠφελίμως ἔχονται, πρὸς οὓς δὴ νῦν ἡμῖν ὁ λόγος ἐστίν, ὑπομιμνήσκωμεν αὐτοὺς ὅτι δεινόν ἐστι τὸν μὲν φιλόμυθον μὴ λανθάνειν τὰ καινῶς ἱστορούμενα καὶ περιττῶς, μηδὲ τὸν φιλόλογον ἐκφεύγειν τὰ καθαρῶς πεφρασμένα καὶ ῥητορικῶς, τὸν δὲ φιλότιμον καὶ φιλόκαλον καὶ μὴ παιγνιᾶς ἀλλὰ παιδείας ἕνεκα ποιημάτων ἁπτόμενον ἀργῶς καὶ ἀμελῶς ἀκούειν τῶν πρὸς ἀνδρείαν ἢ σωφροσύνην ἢ δικαιοσύνην ἀναπεφωνημένων.

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tween mimetic fictions that he rejects wholesale and non-mimetic functional fables that he himself gladly resorts to in order to illustrate different philosophical points, Plutarch’s achievement can be presented as a set of instructions explaining how to reconcile the two. On the one hand, it is hardly surprising that among the fictional narratives that he finds most suitable for an incipient student of philosophy he singles out τὰ περὶ τῶν ψυχῶν δόγµατα µεµιγµένα µυθολογίᾳ (Plu. Poet. 14e), which would comprise not only Plato’s and Plutarch’s own philosophical myths but also, quite significantly, Apuleius’ tale of Cupid and Psyche. On the other hand, Plutarch insists that all mimetic fictions can be made compatible with the study of philosophy, if one despoils them completely of their mimetic component and, by doing so, transforms aniles fabulae, as far as possible, into edifying Platonic myths. This method of reading against the grain, characterized by concentrated resistance to the mimetic enchantment of fictions teaches one how to reduce a fictional narrative to a series of thematic functions that can be used to illustrate various extratextual philosophical truths. Thus Plutarch’s higher degree of tolerance towards mimetic fiction does not imply that his attitude to it is any different from Plato’s. The difference lies only in Plutarch’s shifting the focus from production to reception. Whereas Plato emphasizes the role of the author of poetry as a liar deliberately leading his readers astray, Plutarch focuses on the reader’s ability to choose between different ways of reading. What appears to me to be one of the most important points that Plutarch makes in this treatise (and it seems to be shared by some other practitioners of moralistic literary criticism in antiquity)26 is that the ultimate outcome of the reading experience – the two opposite poles being pleasure and instruction – is dependent upon the initial predisposition of the reader: the reader can be either prone to seeking pleasure (φιλόµυθος) and information (φιλόλογος) or keen on obtaining moral instruction (φιλότιµος, φιλόκαλος) prior to the act of reading. Fiction, whose primary aim is always to entertain, can be morally instructive only insofar as it is read by a reader willing to be instructed, that is to say, by a φιλόκαλος. With this conceptual background in mind, we can now read the story of Lucius’ ‘conversion to philosophy’ as a kind of transformation of a φιλόµυθος into a φιλόκαλος. The centrality of the conflict between different approaches to entertaining fictional literature for the interpretation of the novel is brought to the fore in its very first scene, whose programmatic significance I have repeatedly stressed before. The episode that immediately precedes Aristomenes’ tale presents a discussion between Lucius and his skeptical traveling companion about the worth of fantastic tales. The skeptic declares that, because of its 26

Seneca expresses a similar idea in his Moral Epistles: compare Plu. Poet. 30c-d with Sen. Ep. 108.29-30: non est quod mireris ex eadem materia suis quemque studiis apta colligere: in eodem prato bos herbam quaerit, canis leporem, ciconia lacertam. cum Ciceronis librum de re publica prendit hinc philologus, hinc grammaticus, hinc philosophiae deditus, alius alio curam suam mittit.

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obvious untruthfulness, listening to Aristomenes’ account is a complete waste of time and begs the narrator to stop spreading his lies (Apul. Met. 1.2 ‘parce’, inquit, ‘in verba ista haec tam absurda tamque immania mentiendo). Lucius, on the contrary, is prepared to take the truth of the story at face value, even before he hears what the story is about, and concentrates instead on the entertainment it provides. When the tale is over, both parties retain their original, mutually exclusive opinions: the skeptic continues to reject the fictitious tale as a worthless falsehood (Apul. Met. 1.20 nihil hac fabula fabulosius, nihil isto mendacio absurdius), whereas Lucius once again perfunctorily accepts the tale’s veracity (ego vero nihil impossibile arbitror) and stresses the fact that listening to it has made the journey less arduous.27 Both of these extreme positions can be conceived in the terminology of Plutarch’s De audiendis poetis. Lucius is presented here as a typical curious φιλόµυθος who cares only about the entertainment provided by the plot and, for that reason, is ready uncritically to accept any story he has heard as true. The skeptic on the other hand embodies an extreme – Platonic – version of a φιλόκαλος, who, unable to discover any kernel of factual truth in the fictional account, discards it wholesale as utterly inane. From Plutarch’s view, however, both antagonists would seem to miss a very important point about the nature of fiction: the one is incensed by the fact that the tale is a lie without realizing that all mimetic fictions are of necessity lies, whereas the other only seeks to be amused by the story without realizing that it contains a moral lesson highly relevant to his own life. It is quite symptomatic that Apuleius really seems to go out of his way to point to the status of Aristomenes’ tale as a self-evident fiction, that is, in the traditional Platonic terminology, a lie. The explicit doubts in the truth of the tale voiced by the skeptic are further underscored by numerous subtle incongruities between Aristomenes’ claims within the tale and the reality of the setting in which it is told in the primary narrative. Before Aristomenes begins his tale, he avers that his companions will have no further doubts about its veracity when they reach Thessaly, where the story took place and is now told everywhere.28 As later becomes clear from the tale itself, the events it describes could be known to no one but the narrator himself; therefore, the fact that the narrator emphasizes the story’s popularity in Thessaly – the country proverbially known for its fantastic stories about magic – once again points to its fictitious nature, whereas the phrase quae palam gesta sunt acquires the quality of a hackneyed credibility formula that, far from commanding belief, attracts attention to the tale’s patent untruthfulness.29 Further, when one finishes reading the tale, it 27 28 29

Apul. 1.20 sed ego huic et credo hercules et gratas gratias memini, quod lepidae fabulae festivitate nos avocavit, asperam denique ac prolixam viam sine labore ac taedio evasi. Apul. Met. 1.5 quod ibidem passim per ora populi sermo iactetur, quae palam gesta sunt. Keulen 2007, ad loc.

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strikes one as rather odd that Aristomenes’ harrowing experience has not prevented him either from continuing to trade in Thessaly, where, as he claims, everybody knows what happened to him, or from telling his story in the immediate vicinity of Hypata, from where he once fled to distant Aetolia as if he had been a murderer himself.30 It is virtually impossible to accommodate these mutually exclusive pieces of information into a logically sound whole. This tale, when presented as an eyewitness account, entails such obvious contradictions with the frame narrative, which the narrator does not care to reconcile, that the attentive reader has no other choice than to regard it as an entertaining lie. Thus the text seems both to support the skeptic’s claim that the tale does not contain a single trace of factual truth and to undermine Lucius’ indiscriminate credulity. At the same time, the general context of the primary narrative suggests that factual truth is not at all what really matters here. As we have seen, Aristomenes’ tale anticipates the basic outline of Lucius’ misfortunes and, by doing so, implicitly warns him against getting too closely involved with Thessalian witches. In other words, even if factually false, the tale clearly communicates a message which the subsequent development of the primary narrative proves to be of great relevance for its protagonist’s life and which, for that reason, possesses a high degree of conceptual truth. This realization makes the reactions of both antagonists appear to be equally blatant misreadings: the one looks for factual truth, the other for thoughtless entertainment in a tale that at first sight sounds like an anilis fabula but on closer scrutiny insists on being read as an instructive moral fable (that is to say, as a Platonic myth of sorts), suggestive of a more generally applicable meaning. The skeptic does not seem to be aware of the fact, so emphatically stressed by Plutarch, that succumbing to the lies of fiction might be much more beneficial than resisting the temptation.31 Lucius’ misplaced ‘philomythia’, on the other hand, turns him into a typical Plutarchan youngster who has not yet enjoyed the advantages of the recommended philosophical approach to all fiction as edifying moral fables and who, for that reason, misses the embarrassingly obvious message of the tale, which seems to be specially designed to keep him from making fatal mistakes of his own. By explicitly discrediting the positions both of an insensitive φιλόκαλος and of a mindless φιλόµυθος, both of whom lack the understanding of the nature of mimetic fiction and of the benefits 30

31

Apul. Met. 1.19 ipse trepidus et eximie metuens mihi per diversas et avias solitudines aufugi et quasi conscius mihi caedis humanae relicta patria et lare ultroneum exilium amplexus nunc Aetoliam novo contracto matrimonio colo. Plu. Poet. 15c-d οὐ γὰρ ἅπτεται τὸ ἀπατηλὸν αὐτῆς ἀβελτέρων κοµιδῇ καὶ ἀνοήτων. διὸ καὶ Σιµωνίδης µὲν ἀπεκρίνετο πρὸς τὸν εἰπόντα “τί δὴ µόνους οὐκ ἐξαπατᾷς Θετταλούς;” “ἀµαθέστεροι γάρ εἰσιν ἢ ὡς ὑπ᾿ ἐµοῦ ἐξαπατᾶσθαι.” Γοργίας δὲ τὴν τραγῳδίαν εἶπεν ἀπάτην ἣν ὅ τ᾿ ἀπατήσας δικαιότερος τοῦ µὴ ἀπατήσαντος καὶ ὁ ἀπατηθεὶς σοφώτερος τοῦ µὴ ἀπατηθέντος.

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that one can derive from it, the text seems to suggest to the reader the middle way recommended by Plutarch. Lucius remains oblivious to the de te fabula narratur maxim throughout a great part of his adventures. In the same manner, he misses the χρήσιµον of the Diana-and-Actaeon myth (Apul. Met. 2.4), the Diophanes, and the Thelyphron tales (Apul. Met. 2.13-14 and 21-30). Moreover, he is not the only character of the primary narrative who is prone to this kind of fatal misreading: as we have seen, the robber-tales, too, can be conceived as a warning that foreshadows the tragic demise of the robbers in the primary narrative – the point of which they of course also remain absolutely unaware until it is too late. The most blatant case of Lucius’ untimely ‘philomythia’ is of course his reaction to the tale of Cupid and Psyche, which obviously constitutes the closest thematic parallel to the inmost philosophical concerns of his own narrative. Lucius, however, shows no signs of being conscious of the tale’s evident applicability to his own life and instead takes it for the straightforward anilis fabula that it pretends to be, and sophomorically complains about his inability to write down such “a pretty little story”.32 In the second half of the novel, however, the protagonist all of a sudden begins to display a distinct penchant for moralizing reactions both to events that he witnesses and to tales that he hears. Lucius’ rather silly but obviously wellmeaning vituperation of Charite’s flirting with her bridegroom Tlepolemus disguised as the bandit Haemus (Apul. Met. 7.10) constitutes the first, however clumsy, signal of his incipient transformation into a Plutarchan φιλόκαλος.33 Soon thereafter Lucius proves to be capable of exercising a moral critique that is significantly less out of place, when he lashes out against the infuriating depravity of the priests of Dea Syria (Apul. Met. 8.28, 9.8). This unexpectedly acquired ability to pass sound moral judgment fills Lucius with righteous indignation at the tale of the miller’s wife (Apul. Met. 9.14) and even makes him intrude directly on its events in order to cause both her and her adolescent lover to be punished for their adultery (Apul. Met. 9.26-27). At the end of Book 10, when we are confronted with Lucius’ sudden moralistic outburst in the Corinthian theater, we realize that his nascent moral consciousness has inadvertently become a full-fledged ‘philokalia’. As we saw above, the tone of Lucius’ speech is virtually indistinguishable from that of a typical Stoic-Cynic diatribe. Moreover, the attitude to myth, and that means, to mimetic fiction in general, which Lucius expresses in his diatribe, is on the 32 33

Apul. Met. 6.25 sed adstams ego non procul dolebam quod pugillares et stilum non habebam, qui tam bellam fabellam praenotarem. Apul. Met. 7.11 hem oblita es nuptiarum tuique mutui cupitoris, puella virgo, et ille nescio cui recenti marito, quem tibi parentes iunxerunt, hunc advenam cruentumque percussorem praeponis ? nec te conscientia stimulat, sed adfectatione calcata inter lanceas et gladios istos scortari tibi libet? quid, si quo modo latrones ceteri praesenserint? non rursum recurres ad asinum et rursum exitium mihi parabis? re vera ludis de alieno corio.’

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whole perfectly compatible with Plutarch’s. The morally suspect quality of the myth in which Venus wins the beauty contest by shamelessly bribing Paris makes Lucius interrupt his description of the pantomime with an outburst of anger against the venality of judges in general (Apul. Met. 10.33): Why wonder, he asks, that modern judges are corrupt if corruption is inherent in the primordial judgment initiated by Jupiter? He then cites further classic cases of unjust judgment from Greek mythology – Palamedes and Ajax – and finishes his speech with a lengthy expostulation on judicial corruption as the main cause of Socrates’ death. The narrator here seems, on the whole, to follow Plutarch’s precepts in his approach to fiction: instead of succumbing to its charms or combating its self-evident factual untruthfulness, he exclaims “wrong!” and “shameless!” in response to what is morally suspect and draws from it a positive moral lesson applicable to a variety of different situations. The transformation of the protagonist from a thoughtless φιλόµυθος into a stern φιλόκαλος, who knows how to listen to tales so as to draw from them a moral benefit, serves to provide further support to the paradigm of conversion to philosophy, into which, as we have seen, Lucius’ life quite neatly falls. At the same time, this transformation perfectly agrees with the reinterpretation of the entire narrative as an edifying philosophical myth, which ultimately takes place in Mithras’ speech in Book 11. Furthermore, the fact that Lucius as a listener of tales turns from an uncompromising hedonist into a convinced truth-seeker clearly provides a model of reading that the novel’s reader is indirectly urged to adopt as well. Just as the protagonist in the course of his adventures gradually learns the ‘correct’ approach to fiction, so the reader, as s/he moves along through the novel, is invited to notice that what at first seemed to be an unassuming anilis fabula in fact contains graspable elements of a philosophical myth. This realization, one could imagine, would encourage the reader, too, to follow in Lucius’ footsteps in turning from a φιλόµυθος into a φιλόκαλος. There is no doubt that this paradigm of reading is inscribed in the text as one of possible approaches to its narrative. The protagonist’s moral progress, however, which enables the transformation of the novel from an anilis fabula into a philosophical myth, constitutes only one of the multiple plots intertwined in his incredible ‘life story’. If we take Plutarch’s approach to fiction to heart too seriously, we will inevitably miss the fact that Lucius’ narrative contains a pronounced satiric flipside. We should not forget after all that our ardent convert and philosophical reader is nothing but a stupid ass. Moreover, Lucius himself directly points to his own comic incongruity when he calls himself an ‘ass talking about philosophy’ (Apul. Met. 10.33). In the next chapter, I will show that regarding Lucius not as a model convert to philosophical religion but as a ridiculous asinus philosophans allows us to integrate his adventures into a highly coherent plot too.

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6. The Ass from Cymae: Lucius’ Life as a Lucianic Satire One of the commonplaces of Greco-Roman culture is a sharp contrast between founders of religious cults or philosophical schools on the one hand and their followers in contemporary reality on the other. This tendency can be traced all the way back to the Classical period, when poems ascribed to Orpheus were generally held in high esteem, whereas contemporary Orpheotelestai, who relied on these books for their ritual and oracular practices, were despised and ridiculed by most literary authorities as shameless charlatans who derive profit from the credulity of the superstitious and deceive not only individual people but also entire cities.1 The same division applies to the most prevalent attitude to Pythagoras and later Pythagoreans: despite occasional ridicule of the doctrine propagated by the master himself, he unquestionably enjoyed the status of an archetypal philosopher par excellence, while modern Pythagoristai belonged at the same time to the most often ridiculed stock characters of the comic stage.2 As far as the Pythogoreans were concerned, the situation did not change much in the Roman period, when Ovid derived the inimitable ambiguity of the final book of his Metamorphoses from portraying his Pythagoras both as an awe-inspiring originator of philosophy and a ridiculous ranting vegetarian of comedy.3 Other proponents of philosophical or religious doctrines and lifestyles did not fare much better either: although Diogenes, as well as ancient Egyptian priests and Chaldean astrologists were reverently admired as prototypical sages who firmly belonged to the established cultural repertoire of Greek paideia, contemporary Cynics, oracle mongers, Isiacs, and practitioners of other Oriental cults were, more often than not, ridiculed as uncouth country bumpkins, calculating swindlers, or both.4 This dichotomy seems to have been so deeply ingrained in Apuleius’ contemporary culture that the same people could easily praise ancient proponents and ridicule modern followers of a certain way of life more or less in the same breath. What is more, they could obviously do it without incurring the charge of self-contradiction: both Apuleius and Dio Chrysostom, for instance, repeatedly portray Diogenes as the ideal embodiment of a truly philosophical lifestyle,

1 2 3 4

Pl. Rep. 364e-365a. See West 1983, 20-24; Graf – Jonhston 2007, 144-148. Weiher 1913. See Dillon 1977, 117-121, on the Pythagorean revival in Rome, and Segal 1969, 281 and Kirichenko 2007b, 272-276, on the ridicule of Pythagoreans and Pythagorean philosophy. On Oriental cults in general, see Turcan 1967; on Egyptian cults in particular, Malaise 1972, 274ff.; Smelik – Hemelrejk 1984, 1922ff. On the Cynics, see the next note.

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while at the same time delivering venomously sarcastic attacks against contemporary uncultured and filthy Cynics.5 The motif of a beard as the only thing that makes contemporary pseudophilosophers similar to the true philosophers of old is one of the most widespread commonplaces in the ancient critique of charlatans.6 Quite interestingly, the motif of the contrast between outward appearance and inner self could be similarly applied to practitioners of oriental cults as well. Plutarch, for instance, who not only praised ancient Isiac wisdom in De Iside but also wrote a polemical treatise against all manifestations of religious superstition (De superstitione), must have been well aware of the fact that, from this critical viewpoint, most contemporary Isiacs would certainly fall under the category of manipulative charlatans who incite superstition in those who fall in with their tricks. It is therefore hardly surprising that Plutarch’s enthusiastic encomium of the Isis cult contains an emphatic proviso that a true Isiac (as opposed, one would assume, to most of those whom his readers were used to seeing in their everyday life) worships his goddess without superstition (Plu. Is. 352b). Moreover, just as it takes more than a beard for one to be regarded as a philosopher, so the mark of a true Isiac, according to Plutarch, is not so much a shaven head as the right kind of inner disposition.7 This contrast clearly implies that even in Plutarch’s eyes there were a great number of Isiacs for whom baldness was the only thing that connected them with the religious ideal. One of the clearest expressions of the contrast between the original founders and the modern adherents of philosophical schools can be found in Lucian’s Piscator. In the grotesquely fantastic fictional framework of this dialogue, ancient philosophers, infuriated with Lucian’s portrayal of their teachings in the Vitarum Auctio as market goods that anyone can buy for a penny, come back from Hades in order to punish the impudent offender. He, however, fends off their accusations by declaring himself to be a true admirer of philosophy and by stressing that his goal was to attack only modern pseudo-philosophers, whom he describes as shameless impostors laying ungrounded claims to revered teachings of old. He describes them as effeminate actors playing great mythological heroes, who use their stereotypical beards (what else?) as masks to hide

5

6 7

E.g., Apul. Fl. 14 and Dio’s Orations 8 and 9, for positive portrayals of the school’s founding fathers; Apul. Fl. 7, Apol. 39, and D.Chr. Or. 32.8-9, for dismissive ridicule of contemporary Cynics. Cf. Paroemiogr. 2.390.93e ἐκ πώγωνος σοφοί; D.Chr. Or. 72.2; Luc. Pisc. 11; etc. See Griffiths 1970, 268. Plut. Is. 352c οὔτε γὰρ φιλοσόφους πωγωνοτροφίαι, ὦ Κλέα, καὶ τριβωνοφορίαι ποιοῦσιν οὔτ᾿ Ἰσιακοὺς αἱ λινοστολίαι καὶ πᾶσα ξύρησις· ἀλλ᾿ Ἰσιακός ἐστιν ὡς ἀληθῶς ὁ τὰ δεικνύµενα καὶ δρώµενα περὶ τοὺς θεοὺς τούτους, ὅταν νόµῳ παραλάβῃ, λόγῳ ζητῶν καὶ φιλοσοφῶν περὶ τῆς ἐν αὐτοῖς ἀληθείας.

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their real ridiculous selves.8 In short, they are γόητες, or charlatans, – the word otherwise firmly associated with fraudulent wonder workers of any denomination – who rely on their inadequate role-playing in order to fool those who take their philosophical pretensions at face value.9 In the Philopseudeis, Lucian further develops the motif of the virtual impossibility to tell apart contemporary philosophers from sham prophets of oriental cults. The butt of Lucian’s satire in this dialogue is not only the unquestioning credulity with which seemingly respectable philosophers treat what, from their enlightened viewpoint, should undoubtedly be regarded as old wives’ tales (Luc. Philops. 9 γραῶν µῦθοι), but also the enthusiasm with which they claim to have first-hand experience of miracles performed by religious charlatans. Four bearded philosophers (a Peripatetic, a Stoic, a Platonic, and a Pythagorean) try to convince the dialogue’s skeptical protagonist Tychiades of the reality of magical healings, love charms, incantations that inspire inanimate objects with life, etc., by maintaining that they have seen such things accomplished by a Libyan sage, unspecified old women (γρᾶες), a Chaldean from Babylon, a Hyperborean, an Arab, a Syrian wise man, and an Egyptian priest who had learnt magic from Isis herself.10 Moreover, some of the philosophers even claim to be able themselves to perform wonders that they have learnt from such revered oriental authorities. The Pythagorean Arignotus, for instance, drives a ghost out of a haunted house by reading something, αἰγυπτιάζων τῇ φωνῇ, from one of the numerous Egyptian books that he owns (Luc. Philops. 31), and gets a broomstick to fetch water by reciting an incantation that he has overheard from his Egyptian mentor (Luc. Philops. 34-36). Obviously, Lucian succeeds in making Greek philosophers and oriental miracle workers look equally ridiculous. His scathing sarcasm, however, is directed neither against professional magicians nor against philosophers as such but rather against the fact that the latter have become virtually indistinguishable from the former. Lucian derives his humor primarily from mixing categories that in his protagonist’s rational worldview are kept strictly separate. According to this worldview, religious miracle workers of any kind are self-evidently fraudulent, whereas philosophers, as truth seekers and upholders of the tradition of Hellenic logos, should be best equipped to recognize the swindlers for what 8

E.g., Luc. Pisc. 37 ἢ διότι πώγωνας ἔχουσι καὶ φιλοσοφεῖν φάσκουσι καὶ σκυθρωποί εἰσι, διὰ τοῦτο χρὴ ὑµῖν εἰκάζειν αὐτού; ἀλλὰ ἤνεγκα ἄν, εἰ πιθανοὶ γοῦν ἦσαν καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς ὑποκρίσεως αὐτῆς· νῦν δὲ θᾶττον ἂν γὺψ ἀηδόνα µιµήσαιτο ἢ οὗτοι φιλοσόφους. 9 Pilhofer et al. 2005, 155-168. 10 Luc. Philops. 7 (Λίβυς ἀνὴρ σοφός), 9 (γρᾶες), 11 (ἄνδρα Βαβυλώνιον τῶν Χαλδαίων), 13 (εἶδον πετόµενον ξένον τὸν βάρβαρον - ἐξ ῾Υπερβορέων δὲ ἦν, ὡς ἔφασκεν), 16 (τὸν Σύρον τὸν ἐκ Παλαιστίνης, τὸν ἐπὶ τούτῳ σοφιστήν), 17 (ὁ Ἄραψ), 34 (κατὰ δὲ τὸν ἀνάπλουν ἔτυχεν ἡµῖν συµπλέων Μεµφίτης ἀνὴρ τῶν ἱερογραµµατέων, θαυµάσιος τῂν σοφίαν καὶ τὴν παιδείαν πᾶσαν εἰδὼς τὴν Αὐγύπτιον· ἐλέγετο δὲ τρία καὶ εἴκοσιν ἔτη ἐν τοῖς ἀδύτοις ὑπόγειος ᾠκηκέναι µαγεύειν παιδευόµενος ὑπὸ τῆς Ἴσιδος).

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they are worth. The reality, however, turns out to be somewhat less straightforward: in the dialogue, representatives of the contemporary intellectual elite in fact so willingly sink into the unfathomable depths of popular unreason that they turn into despicable quacks themselves. Thus one of the most important points illustrated in Lucian’s Philopseudeis is that unquestioning belief in wonders performed by charlatans may be only the first step on one’s way from an unwitting victim to a convinced practitioner. One of the leitmotifs almost obsessively recurring both in Lucian’s expostulations against sham philosophers in the Piscator and in the fantastic stories told in the Philopseudeis is the high price that charlatans, philosophical and religious alike, require for their worthless services.11 The same motif constitutes the main focus of Lucian’s Alexander, another work that lays bare charlatans’ false pretensions. According to Lucian, Alexander of Abonouteichos was not content with the standard practices of itinerant priests and magicians and went so far as to invent an entirely new god (Glycon, a new incarnation of Asclepius) and to found an oracle, in which the god, in the shape of a gigantic tame snake, answered petitioners’ questions. The enterprise was so successful that news of it eventually reached Rome and attracted pilgrims from the whole of the empire. Lucian so emphatically stresses Alexander’s interest in attracting donations from the well-to-do that he indeed turns material gain into the cult’s main raison d’être.12 Furthermore, Lucian discloses the workings of the complex illusionistic stage machinery that Alexander uses to dupe the naïve adherents of his cult – the birth of the serpentine god from a goose egg (Luc. Alex. 13-14), a human mask attached to his head during his epiphanies before the shuddering crowd (Luc. Alex. 15-16), a sophisticated system of hollow tubes through which a person hidden off-stage delivered prophecies that seemed to issue forth directly from the god’s mouth (Luc. Alex. 26), etc. Moreover, perfectly in keeping with a typical commonplace of the ancient oracle critique, Lucian describes Alexander’s predictions as sometimes deliberately ambiguous, that is, capable of predicting both a positive and a negative outcome depending on the point of view, sometimes based on his secret knowledge of the petitioner’s circumstances of which he publicly claimed to be unaware (Luc. Alex. 22), sometimes forged post factum to make them fit the past events they were originally supposed to predict, and, almost always, completely off the mark (Luc. Alex. 27-28, 33, 44, etc.).13 Alexander, however, is not only a calculating liar who shamelessly derives profit from abusing human hopes and fears. He also leads a morally 11

12 13

Luc. Pisc. 34 οἱ δὲ καὶ αὐτὰ ταῦτα ἐπὶ µισθῷ διδάσκουσιν καὶ τοὺς πλούσιους τεθήπασιν καὶ πρὸς τὸ ἀργύριον κεχήνασιν. Cf. Luc. Philops. 14-15. On Lucian’s Alexander, see Clay 1992, 3438-3445. Cf. Hammerstaedt 1990, 2853-2862.

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depraved life. The blatant inability or refusal to practice what one preaches is a typical motif of the critique of philosophical and religious impostors, which Lucian shares, for instance, with Roman satire. Like Juvenal’s seemingly ascetic philosophers (Juv. 2), Alexander completely fails to live up to the high moral standards that he sets for others: whereas he decisively forbids his adherents to have sex with boys, declaring it to be unholy, he constantly indulges in the pleasures of Knabenliebe himself and even introduces a law that explicitly bans anyone over eighteen from kissing him on the mouth (Luc. Alex. 41). Another motif that Lucian’s Alexander shares with other satirized charlatans is that he uses reputable philosophical clichés to mask his flagrant imposture. Like the pseudo-philosophers from the Philopseudeis, Alexander eagerly combines oriental obscurantism with Greek paideia. On the one hand, he murmurs meaningless mumbo-jumbo during his rituals, only occasionally admixing to it such generally understandable words as Apollo and Asclepius; this gibberish is of course supposed to sound like a mysterious oriental tongue (Hebrew or Phoenician), which none of the cult participants is able to understand but which all find extremely impressive and intimidating.14 On the other hand, he styles himself as a kind of Pythagoras redivivus and even issues an oracle in which he insinuates that Pythagoras’ soul now dwells in his body (Luc. Alex. 40). Moreover, he entertains close contacts not only with contemporary Pythagoreans but also with Stoic and Platonic philosophers (Luc. Alex. 25), all of whom, as we have seen, are among the charlatans ridiculed by Lucian in the Philopseudeis. At the same time, he deeply hates Epicureans, who regard his cult as a silly superstition, which does nothing but disturb the peace of mind. For that reason, his abhorrence of them becomes so violent that he begins to wage a veritable war against them by ordering his adherents to throw stones at them and by publicly burning Epicurus’ books (Luc. Alex. 44-47). All of this can certainly be interpreted as a sign of Alexander’s deep involvement in the intellectual debates of the age. But simultaneously, it is a further clear indication of the continuous merger between religious charlatanry and philosophical enlightenment, which we have observed in the Philopseudeis. Unlike in the Philopseudeis, however, we can clearly see both sides of the process here: on the one hand, we deal with a venturesome oracle monger who simply tries to achieve a superficial veneer of intellectual respectability by appealing to catchphrases of high culture; on the other, the almost universal acceptance of Alexander’s cult among the educated upper classes (not only is he friends with philosophers, but he also marries a daughter of the Roman high official Rutilianus) shows how disturbingly deep, in Lucian’s eyes, the influence of religious obscurantism was on the contemporary culture of the intellectual 14

Luc. Alex. 13 ὁ δὲ φωνάς τινας ἀσήµους φθεγγόµενος, οἷαι γένοιντο ἂν Ἑβραίων ἢ Φοινίκων, ἐξέπληττε τοὺς ἀνθρώπους οὐκ εἰδότας ὅ τι λέγοι, πλὴν τοῦτο µόνον, ὅτι πᾶσι ἐγκατεµίγνυ τὸν Ἀπόλλω καὶ τὸν Ἀσκληπιόν.

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elite. As a result, Lucian’s Alexander provides another illustration of how uncritical belief inevitably turns into enthusiastic collaboration: Rutilianus begins by simply taking Alexander’s tricks at face value; in the end, however, he becomes a willing accomplice in the latter’s deceit, that is, from a believer in the charlatan’s lies he effectively becomes a charlatan himself (Luc. Alex. 30ff.). The interpenetration between religious and philosophical charlatanry is similarly one of the central themes of De morte Peregrini. Peregrinus, or Proteus, as he preferred to be called, is another example of a typically Lucianic pseudo-philosopher who acts like a religious fraud. Lucian’s portrayal of Peregrinus has very much in common with that of Alexander. Like Alexander, Peregrinus is criminal and morally depraved, despite the lofty ethical principles that he preaches,15 and like Alexander, he is a charismatic figure who abuses ideological systems – both religious and philosophical – in order to manipulate his followers. Peregrinus, however, is much more versatile than Alexander (protean, that is; Lucian of course derives a great deal of sarcasm from this pun),16 since he does not stick to a single system but changes and combines allegiances as he sees fit. After a few years as a Christian, which end in his incarceration (Luc. Peregr. 11-13), he adopts the lifestyle of an itinerant Cynic philosopher (Luc. Peregr. 15). One of his journeys takes Peregrinus to Egypt, where he begins to practice a life that combines typically Cynic elements with those characteristic of wandering Isiacs or practitioners of other oriental wonder cults: on the one hand, in keeping with the example set by Diogenes himself, he masturbates in public, but on the other, he shaves his head like an Isiac and performs ecstatic self-flagellations reminiscent of adepts of Cybele or the Syrian goddess.17 Thus we can see that, at least superficially, the life of a Cynic philosopher was not only easily reconcilable with the life of an Isiac priest but that the two could merge to such an extent as to become to a satirical-minded observer virtually indistinguishable from each other. What all Lucianic charlatans have in common is that their lives entirely consist of inept role-playing. As we have seen, this motif is most clearly formulated in the Piscator, where all contemporary pseudo-philosophers are explicitly compared to bad actors. But the specific figures of charlatans that Lucian portrays in his dialogues are constantly presented in theatrical terms too. The philosophers in the Philopseudeis seriously strive to imitate the 15 16

17

Clay 1992, 3430-3438. Luc. Peregr. 1 ὁ κακοδαίµων Περεγρῖνος, ἢ ὡς αὐτὸς ἔχαιρεν ὀνοµάζων ἑαυτόν, Πρωτεύς, αὐτὸ δὴ ἐκεῖνο τὸ τοῦ Ὁµηρικοῦ Πρωτέως ἔπαθεν· ἅπαντα γὰρ δόξης ἕνεκα γενόµενος καὶ µυρίας τροπὰς τραπόµενος, τὰ τελευταῖα ταῦτα καὶ πῦρ ἐγένετο. Luc. Peregr. 17 τρίτη ἐπὶ τούτοις ἀποδηµία εἰς Αἴγυπτον παρὰ τὸν Ἀγαθόβουλον, ἵναπερ τὴν θαυµαστὴν ἄσκησιν διησκεῖτο, ξυρόµενος µὲν τῆς κεφαλῆς τὸ ἥµισυ, χριόµενος δὲ πηλῷ τὸ πρόσωπον, ἐν πολλῷ δὲ τῶν παρεστώτων δήµῳ ἀναφλῶν τὸ αἰδοῖον καὶ τὸ ἀδιάφορον δὴ τοῦτο καλούµενον ἐπιδεικνύµενος, εἶτα παίων καὶ παιόµενος νάρθηκι εἰς τὰς πυγὰς καὶ ἄλλα πολλὰ νεανικώτερα θαυµατοποιῶν.

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philosophical role models that they have chosen, but they fail to achieve any visible success. As a result, the blatant gap between the imitators and the imitated makes the pseudo-philosophers’ serious postures appear absolutely ridiculous. The same thing happens to Alexander and Peregrinus. Both of them cast themselves in roles of renowned philosophers of old (Pythagoras, Socrates, Diogenes) and stage their lives as reenactments of various episodes of their role models’ biographies. Moreover, Alexander’s life is described as a tragedy, whereas Peregrinus is said to have consciously staged his life as a tragic play.18 It is their inept ‘tragic’ role-playing that becomes the main object of Lucian’s comedy. It is of utmost significance that Apuleius’ Golden Ass contains most of the motifs of Lucian’s satire that I have just outlined. Moreover, the underlying logic of the satire on charlatans provides a coherent plot, according to which the events of Apuleius’ novel can be quite plausibly integrated. As with some of the other multiple plots that Apuleius intertwines in his novel, the paradigm of the satire on charlatans to a certain extent informs the events of the Pseudo-Lucianic Onos too. There, however, it plays a rather marginal role, appearing in its purest form only in the portrayal of the priests of Dea Syria. These characters clearly belong to the same category of enterprising religious practitioners as Lucian’s charlatans. Ostensibly they are ascetic itinerant priests who perform gory self-flagellations in front of astonished villagers. However, when they are caught red-handed with a precious vessel that they have stolen from a local temple, it becomes perfectly clear to everyone that the only goal of their ostentatious penitence acts is material gain (Onos 35-41). Moreover, on closer inspection they are revealed to be much less ascetic than they want their admirers to believe: it is Lucius, astute ass that he is, who by his indignant braying betrays their clandestine rendezvous with a vigorous country lad whom they have hired to satisfy their insatiable sexual appetite (Onos 38). All of this perfectly corresponds to Lucian’s portrayal of the hypocritical charlatan Alexander, except that, in terms of ancient sexual morality, the priests of Dea Syria, as cinaedi, reach truly abysmal depths of depravity, which make the double standard set by the boy-loving Alexander appear perfectly harmless. In this sense, they seem to be more closely modeled on Juvenal’s ‘pathic’ philosophers in Satire 2. But be that as it may, the most important thing is that the portrayal of the priests of Dea Syria in the Onos neatly falls into the general pattern of the satire on charlatans, as we know it from a great number of other literary texts. The priests’ greed and sexual depravity are the only elements of the satirical paradigm explicitly mentioned in the text of the Greek epitome, and it is 18

Luc. Alex. 60 τοιοῦτο τέλος τῆς Ἀλεξάνδρου τραγῳδίας. Luc. Peregr. 3 τὸν µὲν ποιητὴν οἶσθα οἷός τε ἦν καὶ ἡλίκα ἐτραγῴδει παρ᾿ ὅλον τὸν βίον, ὑπὲρ τὸν Σοφοκλέα καὶ τὸν Αἰσχύλον.

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hard to tell whether further details describing their activities that we find only in the Golden Ass were omitted by the Greek epitomator or added by the Latin author. In either case, the additional information ideally fits into the picture drawn in Lucian’s satiric dialogues. One of the religious services that the Syrian priests offer in Apuleius is prophecy. Needless to say, their oracles are a sham. But they in fact go even further than Lucian’s Alexander in that they limit themselves to concocting only one oracular response, which fits every conceivable situation about which people usually consult an oracle: marriage, childbirth, purchase of property, journey, etc.19 Moreover, the image of ‘shearing off’ profits (Apul. Met. 9.8 ad istum modum divinationis astu captioso conraserant non parvas pecunias) that Apuleius uses here to describe the priests’ fraudulent oracle-mongering is clearly reminiscent of what Lucian has to say about the early days of Alexander’s career (Luc. Alex. 6 περίῃσαν γοητεύοντες καὶ µαγγανεύοντες καὶ τοὺς παχεῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων ⟨...⟩ ἀποκείροντες). Thus the motif of the satire on charlatans in the Onos is most conspicuously present only in the characterization of the priests of Dea Syria. For the characterization of Lucius, this motif has a more limited (or at least, a different) significance. As we have seen, the Onos is first and foremost a highly coherent comedy of misguided curiosity, with all other motifs cogently subordinated to this overarching theme. It is Lucius’ credulity, however, that is clearly reminiscent of those Lucianic characters who do not bother to question the truth-value of miracles performed by magicians and itinerant priests. In the Onos, the main reason why Lucius undertakes his journey to Thessaly is to witness in person bodily transformations with which he is familiar from popular legends (Onos 4): ἐπεθύµουν δὲ σφόδρα µείνας ἐνταῦθα ἐξευρεῖν τινα τῶν µαγεύειν ἐπισταµένων γυναικῶν καὶ θεάσασθαί τι παράδοξον, ἢ πετόµενον ἄνθρωπον ἢ λιθούµενον. My great desire was to stay there in order to find one of those women skilled in magic and to see something paradoxical, such as, for instance, a human being flying or turning to stone.

This list generally corresponds to the kind of miracles that Lucian’s philopseudeis claim to have seen with their own eyes: flying men, walking statues (the opposite of men turning to stone), magic, and all manner of paradoxical things.20 In other words, the starting point of the Greek ass-tale clearly evokes the Lucianic philosophers who indiscriminately believe any kind of monstrous nonsense.

19 20

Apul. Met. 9.8 sorte unica semper cartulis pluribus enotata consulentes de rebus variis plurimos ad hunc modum cavillantur. Luc. Philops. 13-14, 18-20, etc.

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The rest of the story, however, proceeds along different lines. Of course, Lucius’ transformation into a proverbially stupid ass is presented by the text as an outward manifestation of his innate naïve credulity.21 The main point of the ass-tale’s satirical humor, however, seems to be that, if one proves to be so dumb as to believe literally the childish fantasies about Thessalian magic, then one inevitably runs the risk of literally becoming an ass.22 In other words, even though Lucius of the Greek epitome comes into close contact with charlatans and displays the gullibility to which Lucian’s pseudo-philosophers and aristocrats are so prone, he never takes the final step of becoming a charlatan himself In his adaptation of the ass-tale, Apuleius fully inscribes Lucius’ life into the satirical paradigm that we have seen in Lucian’s Philopseudeis and Alexander by making his career as a charlatan, as it were, come a full circle: perfectly in keeping with the Lucianic pattern, Apuleius’ Lucius begins by lending an uncritical ear to tellers of fantastic tales and ends up becoming a fullfledged charlatan himself. As a result, the Golden Ass as a whole can be quite plausibly made to cohere along the lines of Lucian’s satirical plot, which points its sarcasm against no religious or philosophical movement in particular but only against contemporary credulous intellectuals who easily fall prey to any kind of religious swindlers and in the end become, unbeknownst to themselves, absolutely indistinguishable from them. The basic parameters of this familiar satirical paradigm take shape in the very first scene of the novel – in the programmatic dialogue between Lucius, Aristomenes, and the skeptic (Apul. Met. 1.2-4). As a matter of fact, this dialogue almost perfectly reproduces, with a slight but highly significant distortion, the dramatic setting of Lucian’s Philopseudeis. On the one hand, in both texts we deal with a group of interlocutors who form an implicit (as in Lucian) or an explicit (as in Apuleius) agreement to believe whatever fantastic fabrications one of them is going to tell,23 whereas an outsider, who is not privy to this agreement, becomes infuriated by his opponents’ flagrant untruthfulness cum credulity.24 At the same time, Apuleius’ dialogic configuration effectively reverses the situation of Lucian’s dialogue. In Lucian, the role of the skeptic is played by the first-person speaker, whose opinions are presented as unquestionably reliable and who, to his utter dismay, sees himself confronted with a bunch of credulous idiots. In Apuleius, on the contrary, it is the narrator Lucius who, at least within Lucian’s intellectual universe, would no doubt be regarded as a credulous idiot ready to believe anything that the liar Aristomenes is going to tell him, whereas the skeptic’s arguments are only cursorily mentioned in order 21 22 23 24

Cf. Perry 1967, 221-222. On connections between asininity and stupidity, see Winkler 1985, 150. Apul. Met. 1.4 ego tibi solus haec pro isto credam. Apul. Met. 1.20 ‘nihil’, inquit, ‘hac fabula fabulosius, nihil isto mendacio absurdius’.

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to be immediately stifled by Lucius’ indiscriminate eagerness to hear a good story (Apul. Met. 1.3). In other words, Apuleius, as it were, presents the situation depicted in Lucian’s Philopseudeis from a different perspective – from the viewpoint not of Tychiades but of one of the pseudo-philosophers. The fact that the narrator’s position is explicitly undermined in the text contributes a great deal to establishing the status of Lucius as a fundamentally unreliable narrator, which he then retains throughout the entire novel. Apuleius’ change of perspective does not urge us to identify with the satirist’s ridicule, as was the case with Lucian’s dialogues, but allows us instead to perceive the familiar satiric paradigm from the position of ironic detachment. In every other respect, however, both the content and the overall tone of the conversation evoke the polemics of Lucian’s Philopseudeis and Alexander. Lucian’s charlatans constantly upbraid Tychiades’ skepticism with regard to magical healings and other incredible things that they take for granted (e.g., Luc. Philops. 8). Likewise, Lucius accuses the skeptic of lacking common sense (and sensitivity) when he hears that the latter denies the reality of Thessalian magic.25 One of Lucian’s falsehood-lovers attempts to convince Thychiades by stressing that he used to be even more skeptical himself until he saw with his own eyes a flying Hyperborean (Luc. Philops. 13). Similarly, Aristomenes portrays himself as a convinced disbeliever at the beginning of his story, where he, in Lucian’s manner, compares Socrates’ account of his encounter with a Thessalian witch to a tragedy;26 later on, however, after he sees Thessalian witches in action, not a trace is left of his initial incredulity. The condescending, or at times openly aggressive, attitude that Lucian’s Alexander assumes towards those who doubt his fraudulent fabrications is also reminiscent of the selfcongratulatory sarcasm with which Lucius reacts to the skeptic’s reasonable objections.27 The basic characteristics of the novel’s introductory intellectual discussion are reproduced in Book 2 (Apul. Met. 2.11-12) in Lucius’ conversation with his host Milo about divination. The discussion is triggered by the fact that Milo’s wife Pamphile accidentally predicts the weather by looking at the flame of an oil lamp. Just as the skeptic in the first episode of the novel ridiculed Aristomenes’ monstrous lies, so Milo’s reaction to his wife’s prophecy is laughter mixed with condescending irony.28 This sarcastic rejection is contrasted 25 26 27 28

Apul. Met. 1.3 tu vero crassis auribus et obstinato corde respuis quae forsitan vere perhibeanur. Apul. Met. 1.8 ‘oro te’, inquam, auleum tragicum dimoveto et siparium scaenicum complicato et cedo verbis communibus. Cf. Luc. Alex. 44-47 and Apul. Met. 1.3. Apul. Met. 1.3 ‘ne’ inquit, ‘istud mendacium tam verum est quam siquis velit dicere magico susurramine amnes agiles reverti’; 2.11 ‘grandem’, inquit, ‘istam lucernam Sibyllam pascimus, quae cuncta caeli negotia et solem ipsum de specula candelabri contuetur’.

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with Lucius’ uncompromising belief in this pyromantic weather forecast, which is of course perfectly consonant with the character of a credulous intellectual created in the first book. What is more, Lucius buttresses his opinion by appealing to a particular scientific school of thought. He argues that the tiny flame of an oil lamp may in fact be cognizant of its origin from the great heavenly fire, and for that reason it should not surprise one at all that its divine provenience enables it both to know the providentially determined course of future events and to communicate it to us (Apul. Met. 2.12). There is no doubt that this train of thought is inspired by the doctrine of universal sympathy, used by the Stoics to explain the mechanics of divination.29 The story that Milo tells to counter Lucius’ credulity so faithfully captures the essential features of the paradigm of the anti-charlatanic satire that it would certainly not have been out of place in one of Lucian’s dialogues (Apul. Met. 2.13-14). The Chaldean prophet Diophanes, in whose predictions Lucius of course unreservedly believes, is revealed in this tale to be a typical covetous and fraudulent oracle monger. As in Lucian’s Philopseudeis and Alexander, the emphasis is put here primarily on the absurdly high costs of Diophanes’ prophecies and on his inability to predict anything, even his own future: while he is in the process of determining the most suitable traveling date for a certain merchant, it is suddenly revealed that in the past he failed to foresee his own shipwreck, which causes the merchant to claim his money back and the crowd of curious bystanders to burst out laughing.30 Here we have a charlatan caught red-handed in public – something Lucian clearly hoped – alas, in vain – would eventually happen to Alexander of Abonouteichos. As I noted above, the portrayal of the priests of Dea Syria is also perfectly consonant with the standard satirical pattern used by Lucian. That Lucius now, instead of being a naïve dupe, acts like a critical observer of the charlatans’ mischief has to do only with the fact that, as I argued above, Apuleius styles his protagonist as a mimic buffoon, who, in the improvisational manner of the popular theater, continually dons masks, adopts viewpoints, and reenacts scenarios that in context are particularly advantageous for reaching an immediate spectacular effect. However, despite the narrator’s incessantly oscillating stance, the overall picture of oriental religious practitioners as avaricious and depraved frauds that emerges both from the Diophanes and from the Dea Syria episodes is absolutely self-consistent. We encounter a similar picture in Apuleius’ characterization of the miller’s wife, whose worship of the single (that is, Jewish or Christian) god is closely related to her horrifyingly amoral behavior (Apul. Met. 9.14):31 29 30 31

Van Mal-Maeder 2001, 207. Apul. Met. 2.14 ac dehinc tunc demum Diofanes expergitus sensit imprudentiae suae labem, cum etiam nos omnis circumsecus adstantes in clarum cachinnum videret effusos. Hijmans et al. 1995, 140.

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tunc spretis atque calcatis divinis numinibus in vicem certae religionis mentita sacrilega praesumptione dei, quem praedicaret unicum, confictis observationibus vacuis fallens omnis homines et miserum maritum decipiens matutino mero et continuo stupro corpus manciparat. Besides, she spurned and trampled upon the power of the gods and instead of practicing a sure religion she fabricated a sacrilegious adherence to a deity the she called the only god. She misled all people by concocting hollow rites and duped her unfortunate husband by drinking unmixed wine in the morning and surrendering her body to nonstop fornication.

The moment when Lucius’ confrontations with charlatans finally result in his adopting a recognizably charlatanic posture happens at the end of Book 10. As I mentioned above, Lucius’ moralistic outburst after the pantomime of the Judgment of Paris is styled as a typical Cynic-Stoic diatribe. All of a sudden, Lucius interrupts this passionate tirade as abruptly as he launched it (Apul. Met. 10.33): sed nequis indignationis meae reprehendat impetum secum sic reputans: “ecce nunc patiemur philosophantem nobis asinum’, rursus, unde decessi, revertar ad fabulam. ‘But lest someone be irritated with the fervor of my indignant outburst, thinking to himself: “Are we really going to put up with an ass teaching us about philosophy?”, I will return to the point in the tale, from which I digressed.’

The very image of a ‘philosophizing ass’ is of course quite ridiculous per se. What is more, there is good reason to perceive it as a catchy emblem of a charlatanic philosopher in general, which Apuleius’ contemporary readers would have easily recognized as such. In two of his satirical dialogues, Lucian compares modern pseudo-philosophers to the Cymean ass from Aesop’s fable who successfully convinced some people that he was a lion by wearing a lion’s hide (Luc. Pisc. 32; cf. Fug. 13): τοιαῦτα καὶ αὐτὸς ὑµᾶς πάσχοντας ὑπ᾿ ἐκείνων ὁρῶν οὐκ ἤνεγκα τὴν αἰσχύνην τῆς ὑποκρίσεως, εἰ πίθηκοι ὄντες ἐτόλµησαν ἡρώων προσωπεῖα περιθέσθαι ἢ τὸν ἐν Κύµῃ ὄνον µιµήσασθαι, ὃς λεοντῆν περιβαλόµενος ἠξίου λέων αὐτὸς εἶναι, πρὸς ἀγνοοῦντας τοὺς Κυµαίους ὀγκώµενος µάλα τραχὺ καὶ καταπληκτικόν, ἄχρι δή τις αὐτὸν ξένος καὶ λέοντα ἰδὼν καὶ ὄνον πολλάκις ἤλεγξε καὶ ἀπεδίωξε παίων τοῖς ξύλοις. When I saw that you [philosophers of old] were suffering such things from them [modern impostors], I could not bare the shamelessness of the impersonation. It was as if, being in fact nothing but apes, they dared to don masks of heroes or as if they imitated that ass of Cymae, who thought that by wearing a lion’s skin he had become a lion himself, braying at the unwitting Cymeans in a fierce and terri-

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fying manner, until some foreigner, who had often seen both lions and asses, unmasked him and chased him away with sticks.

Lucian uses an ass pretending to be a lion as a symbol for modern charlatans pretending to be philosophers. The fact that in Lucian this comparison virtually becomes a recurrent motif shows that it might have been a fairly familiar commonplace. It is highly probable, therefore, that contemporary readers would have immediately understood Apuleius’ asinus philosophans as a direct reference to this motif. What Apuleius does here is simply reify Lucian’s complex analogy (the relation of a modern pseudo-philosopher to a real philosopher of old is the same as the relation of an ass to a lion) by compressing it into the image of an ass literally purporting to act like a philosopher. The humor of Apuleius’ scene, however, remains the same as that of Lucian’s abstract comparison: no matter how hard one tries to conceal one’s own laughable self by putting on a respectable appearance, somebody will sooner or later be able to recognize one for what one is worth – an ass or a charlatan. Thus, like numerous charlatans of Lucian’s dialogue, Lucius is presented here as making an inept attempt at playing a role to which he has no hope to live up. That it is the posture of a Cynic philosopher that Lucius adopts here is of course highly significant too, since, as we have seen, contemporary Cynics were generally presented as quintessential philosophical impostors par excellence.32 From the viewpoint of the paradigm of the satire on charlatans, it hardly comes as a surprise that only two Teubner pages later, at the very beginning of Book 11 (Apul. Met. 11.1), we see Lucius performing ritual ablutions in accordance with a Pythagorean precept: as we have seen, from the Classical period onwards, Pythagoreans always loomed large among the variegated crowd of ancient charlatans, and the most inveterately fraudulent among Lucian’s lovers of lies is of course a Pythagorean too.33 Thus we can see here a perfect convergence between two of the most often ridiculed philosophical allegiances, which further underscores Lucius’ rapid transformation from a grateful recipient of charlatanic lies into a practicing philosophical impostor. The completion of this process is indirectly underscored by the appearance among the comic figures of the Isiac anteludia of a stereotypical mimic philosopher, whose sole distinguishing hallmark is his ridiculously looking hircinum barbitium – a characteristic sign of a philosophical charlatan, as we saw above.34 Needless to say, the fact that Lucius becomes an adherent of the Isis cult at the end of his life story perfectly agrees with the typical pattern of the Lucianic satire on charlatans too. As we repeatedly saw above, the object of Lucian’s sarcasm is the perfect fusion between representatives of the Greek 32 33 34

Cf. Zimmerman 2000, 393. Arignotus in Luc. Philops. 31ff. Apul. Met. 11.8 nec ille deerat, qui magistratum facibus purpuraque luderet, nec qui pallio baculoque et baxeis et hircinio barbitio philosophum fingeret.

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philosophical elite and practitioners of various oriental wonder cults. What happens to Lucius indeed makes perfect sense from this point of view. As an asinus philosophans he truly epitomizes the essential qualities of Lucian’s pseudo-philosophers, who are virtually indistinguishable from greedy oriental miracle workers. Thus, in terms of this paradigm, Lucius seems to be effectively predestined to become an adherent of some oriental cult. In other words, his turn to Isis can be perceived as a logical completion of the pattern into which his previous actions so comfortably fall: he starts off as a credulous intellectual believing in every piece of nonsense that he happens to hear; then he begins to behave like a typical philosophical impostor; and finally, like similar philosophical impostors in Lucian, he turns into a religious charlatan himself. The mixture of the Cynic, the Pythagorean, and the Isiac that we observe at the end of Lucius’ adventures is of course perfectly in keeping with the picture drawn by Lucian too: Lucius is portrayed here as very much akin to the Pythagorean Arignotus praising the skills of an Egyptian sage, who claims to have learnt magic from Isis herself (Luc. Philops. 34), and to Peregrinus, who mixes the Cynic and the Egyptian lifestyles (Luc. Peregr. 17). Moreover, the way Apuleius presents Lucius’ progress through the Isis cult clearly evokes the basic machinery of religious deception that Lucian describes in his dialogues. As we saw above, Alexander of Abonouteichos often used in his rituals meaningless gibberish which none of his followers could understand, but which all reverentially took to be an awe-inspiring oriental tongue. The mixture of complete incomprehension and unreserved adoration that Lucius shows with regard to the Egyptian language is quite similar (Apul. Met. 11.22): de opertis adyti profert [sc. senex] quosdam libros litteris ignorabilibus praenotatos, partim figuris cuiusce modi animalium concepti sermonis compendiosa verba suggerentes, partim nodosis et in modum rotae tortuosis capreolatimque condensis apicibus a curiositate profanorum lectione munita. From the most secret recesses of the sanctuary the old priest brought some books inscribed with unknowable characters. Some of them had shapes of different animals, which seemed to indicate succinct words of solemn utterances. Others were knotted and sinuously wheel-shaped with crests intertwined in the manner of tendrils in order to make their reading impenetrable to the inquisitiveness of the non-initiates.

What is highly interesting here is that Lucius says this on the very verge of his own initiation, which means that at this point he can hardly be described as fully profanus anymore. Nevertheless he still has no idea as to what the Egyptian books mean, nor, as far as we can tell, is he ever going to find it out. Throughout his multiple initiations, he remains as clueless as he is here and simultaneously retains the unctuous tone of one dumbstruck with the cult’s veneer of oriental

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profundity. In this respect, he is hardly any different from the worshippers of Alexander’s sham god Glycon. Another feature that the religiously enlightened Lucius has in common with naively superstitious adherents of Alexander’s fraudulent cult is that he begins to ascribe a divine dimension to every normal event. When his white (candidus) horse is brought back to him from Thessaly, he does not hesitate to interpret this unexpected, but nevertheless perfectly natural, event as a fulfillment of his dream about the return of his slave named Candidus (Apul. Met. 11.20). This kind of readiness to regard every inconspicuous event of everyday life as a manifestation of divine will is of course a typical sign of a superstitious man from Theophrastus to Plutarch.35 The fact that this motif appears here in a context that contains so many other elements of anticharlatanic satire is of course anything but coincidental. Furthermore, we have seen the versatility with which Alexander constantly modifies his own oracular responses, after they have been proven wrong by the actual events, and reinterprets his own precepts on the spur of the moment in order to adapt them to his immediate demands. What particularly strikes Lucian about these constant monumental self-contradictions is that Alexander’s followers were invariably content to swallow his ad hoc explanations instead of beginning to entertain doubts in their reliability.36 Lucius’ multiple initiations can be seen in a similar vein. After each of them, he thinks himself to be fully in possession of Isiac wisdom, and one would assume that he derives this sense of certainty from the information that the priests have communicated to him. For that reason, every subsequent initiation seems to constitute a palpable breach of the rules established before. Lucius is genuinely surprised when he is urged to undergo an initiation into the cult of Osiris, because nobody had told him before that a single initiation into the Isis cult would not be enough.37 However, he is even more surprised when it turns out that, now that he has moved to Rome, the Isis initiation has to be repeated. Granted, the astonishing pliability of the seemingly inviolable religious rules causes Lucius to doubt the veracity of the priests’ words for a while.38 Nevertheless the ad hoc explanations that he receives do succeed in putting his mind at rest (Apul. Met. 11.27-30). The ease with which this happens once again emphasizes Lucius’ clueless gullibility.

35 36 37 38

MacMullen 1981, 64-70. E.g., Luc. Alex. 33ff. Apul. Met. 11.26 mirabar, quid rei temptaret, quid pronuntiaret futurum; quidni, plenissime iam dudum videbar initiatus. Apul. Met. 11.29 nec levi cura sollicitus, sed oppido suspensus animi mecum ipse cogitationes exercitius agitabam, quorsus nova haec et inaudita se caelestium porrigeret intentio, quid subsicivum, quamvis iteratae iam, traditioni remansisset: ‘nimirum perperam vel minus plene consulerunt in me sacerdos uterque’.

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Winkler was of course right when he asked whether it was at all possible for anyone to know Isis without knowing Osiris.39 Quite curiously, Lucius not only managed somehow to remain blissfully unaware of the existence of his revered patroness’s divine consort the first time around, but he is also able to express genuinely grateful joy at the chance to get to know him (of course at an extra cost), when he is summoned to be initiated for the second time.40 The reason given for the necessity of the third initiation sounds even more ridiculous: since the ceremonial robe, in which Lucius was initiated in Cenchreae, was deposited in the temple there, he now needs a new one in order to be allowed to participate in rituals, and the only way to obtain one is of course to get initiated again (Apul. Met. 11.29). Once again, it clearly transpires that, for no comprehensible reason, new uncalled-for rules and conditions are introduced into a situation that heretofore seemed to have reached a perfect completion. The arbitrariness with which the cult manipulates its own rules and the readiness with which Lucius, despite his reasonable doubts, always ends up accepting these unpredictable modifications are clearly reminiscent of what happens to Lucian’s Rutilianus, whose firm faith in the divine origin of Alexander’s prophecies could not be shattered by any devastating revelations to the contrary (e.g., Luc. Alex. 33). Last but not least, the pervasive emphasis on the horrendous costs that Lucius has to scrounge up for his multiple initiations is of course one of the central elements of the satire on charlatans as we know it both from Lucian and from other sections of Apuleius’ novel. There is no doubt that everyone in the ancient world was aware that initiations into mystery cults cost a lot of money.41 For this reason, the fact that Lucius has to come up with a sizeable sum to cover his ritual expenses does not necessarily have to be understood in the satiric vein per se.42 However, in a context so consistently informed with the paradigm of the ridicule of charlatans, such an emphatic stress on fees for religious services inevitably urges the reader to juxtapose it with other similar occasions that take place in the novel. As we saw above, material greed functions as the starting point for Lucian’s critique of charlatans, both philosophical and religious. Similarly, money paid for obvious religious fraud constitutes the main focus of both the Diophanes and the Dea Syria episodes. Therefore, when we are confronted with the Egyptian priests’ (and gods’) unceasing demands for more initiations, which by extension implies for more money, we cannot help but see it in the light of the familiar satirical pattern.43 39 40 41 42 43

Winkler 1985, 218ff. Apul. Met. 11.27 novum mirumque plane comperior: deae quidem me tantum sacris imbutum, at magni dei deumque summi parentis invicti Osiris necdum sacris inlustratum. MacMullen 1981, 112. Graverini 2007, 76-83. Harrison 2000, 248-249.

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Moreover, Apuleius implicitly draws attention to the exploitative nature of the cult by reducing to utter absurdity the measure of impoverishment that Lucius suffers as a consequence of his religious duties. In the Onos Lucius was a sophist’s student from Patrae, whose family had good connections with the provincial administration. In other words, although the Lucius of the Greek ass-tale belonged to the local upper class, there was nothing particularly spectacular about his status. Apuleius not only promotes his Lucius quite a few notches up the social ladder, but also goes out of his way to attract the reader’s attention to his superior social position. He makes Lucius not simply rich but fantastically rich: he relocates his origin from Patrae to Corinth, a proverbially wealthy city,44 and makes his relative Byrrhena’s high social status45 pale by comparison with that of his own family.46 At the end of the novel, however, right after his first initiation into the cult of Isis, it suddenly becomes apparent that his wealth is completely gone: the money that he accepts from some unspecified relatives and friends, albeit sufficient to cover his initiation fees,47 runs out very soon, leaving him absolutely poor (Apul. Met. 11.27 Madaurensem, sed admodum pauperem). As a matter of fact, he becomes so poor that, by the gods’ command, he has to sell his clothes in order to obtain money for one of his subsequent initiations.48 From the viewpoint of the anti-charlatanic paradigm, Lucius’ unexpected impoverishment can only mean one thing: that the costs of the first initiation were so high that he spent all his astronomic riches on it. This of course lends further support to Apuleius’ implicit portrayal of the Egyptian priests and gods as rapacious vultures who against all odds continue to rip off the poor unsuspecting dupe even after they have appropriated his entire fortune. The novel’s notorious final image of Lucius proudly walking around Rome with his head freshly shorn also acquires a special significance within our satiric paradigm. As I noted above, Plutarch in De Iside effectively paralleled the baldness of an Isiac with the beard of a philosopher, presenting both as merely outward signs of membership in a group. From what we have seen so far, Lucius as an adept of the Isis cult does not really resemble Plutarch’s ideal Isiac, who worships his goddess without any superstition or meddlesomeness. He is rather a combination of a typical δεισιδαίµων and a kind of Margites who 44 45

46 47 48

Graverini 2002, 58-61. Note her description at Apul. Met. 2.2 aurum in gemmis et in tunicis, ibi inflexum, hic intextum, matronam profecto confitebatur. The statue that stands in the atrium of her house is made of Parian marble (Apul. Met. 2.4). See van Mal-Maeder 2001, ad loc. on the significance of that. Apul. Met. 2.3 nec aluid no quam dignitas discernit, quod illa [sc. Lucius’ mother Salvia] clarissimas, ego privatas nuptias fecerimus. Apul. Met. 11.18 quippe cum mihi familiares, quo ad cultum sumptumque largiter succederet, deferre prospicue curassent. Apul. Met. 11.28 veste ipsa mea quamvis parvula distracta, sufficientem conrasi summulam.

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“knew many things but knew them badly.” What he seems to value most about the cult is its outward glitter: he is fascinated beyond measure by the weird looking Egyptian hieroglyphs (Apul. Met. 11.22), and his description of the richly decorated Olympiaca stola, which he wears during his initiation, is truly enraptured (Apul. Met. 11.24). Moreover, he is inordinately proud of his – arguably rather slow – upward progress within the cult’s hierarchy: he perceives his admission into the collegium pastophorum, one of the lower ranks of the cult structure,49 as a deserved reward, which permits him now to perform his religious duties without mixing with the rest of the praying crowd (Apul. Met. 11.30 ne sacris suis gregi cetero permixtus deservirem). The condescending tone that this parvenu convert adopts with regard to his fellow worshippers serves as the final indication that he has taken to heart none of the philosophical profundity that, according to Plutarch, should constitute the core of the true Isiac religion. Instead, he naïvely brags about the ancient origin of his priestly grade – under Sulla!50 It may of course be true that in Italy pastophori, along with the remaining Isiac paraphernalia, first appeared around the second century BC.51 But should not a true Isiac as envisaged by Plutarch trace the doctrine and the hierarchical organization of his cult to some indefinite times immemorial, ideally to Isis herself, instead of to Sulla?52 This remark once again shows that Lucius does not really live up to the high standards that Plutarch sets for his ideal philosophical-minded followers of Isis, but belongs to the vast group of those modern Isiacs whose only claim to distinction consists in their shaved skulls. Thus it has become sufficiently apparent that, among the plot paradigms with which Lucius’ adventures can be quite comfortably made to agree, the characteristic pattern of Lucian’s satire on charlatans plays a highly prominent role. It should hardly come as a surprise, however, that, like the other plot paradigms that I discussed above, this one, too, only partially accounts for Lucius’ multi-faceted fictional life. We have seen that, from the satirical viewpoint that I have adopted in this chapter, Lucius can be perceived as a superstitious fool duped by a group of ruthless religious swindlers. On closer 49

50 51 52

Griffiths 1975, 265: “Although Apuleius speaks with great respect of the pastophori , they belonged to a lower priestly grade, on the border-line between priests and temple servants.” On the priestly hierarchy of the Isis cult in general, see Vidman 1970, 48-65. Apul. Met. 11.30 collegii vetustissimi et sub illis Syllae temporibus conditi. Griffiths 1975, 343-345. Cf. Plut. Is. 361d-e ἡ δὲ τιμωρὸς Ὀσίριδος ἀδελφὴ καὶ γυνὴ τὴν Τυφῶνος σβέσασα καὶ καταπαύσασα μανίαν καὶ λύσσαν οὐ περιεῖδε τοὺς ἄθλους καὶ τοὺς ἀγῶνας, οὓς ἀνέτλη, καὶ πλάνας αὑτῆς καὶ πολλὰ μὲν ἔργα σοφίας πολλὰ δ᾿ ἀνδρείας ἀμνηστίαν ὑπολαβοῦσαν καὶ σιωπήν, ἀλλὰ ταῖς ἁγιωτάταις ἀναμίξασα τελεταῖς εἰκόνας καὶ ὑπονοίας καὶ μιμήματα τῶν τότε παθημάτων εὐσεβείας ὁμοῦ δίδαγμα καὶ παραμύθιον ἀνδράσι καὶ γυναιξὶν ὑπὸ συμφορῶν ἐχομένοις ὁμοίων καθωσίωσεν. See also the Isis self-revelation from Cymae (Totti 1985, no.1), 22-24 ἐγὼ μυήσεις ἀνθρώποις ἐπέδειξα. ἐγὼ ἀγάλματα θεῶν τιμᾶν ἐδίδαξα. ἐγὼ τεμένη θεῶν ἱδρυσάμην.

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scrutiny, however, he does not look like a naive victim of a manipulative rip-off at all. On the contrary, his selfless devotion to the cult is in fact richly remunerated when, obviously not without divine help, he becomes a successful orator receiving quite generous fees for his law practice at the Roman forum (Apul. Met. 11.30). How are we to integrate this curious turn of events into the overall context of the novel? This is the question that I will address in the next chapter.

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7. The Magic of Rhetoric: Lucius’ Life as an Aristophanic Comedy The image of Socrates, the protagonist of Aristomenes’ tale, has often been discussed in scholarly literature in connection with the image of Socrates, as it is known from the literature of the Classical period.1 The fact that Apuleius uses for one of his fictional characters the name of the prototypical philosopher explicitly mentioned again later on in the novel (Apul. Met. 10.33) of course cannot be coincidental, and there are indeed a few clear indications in Apuleius’ portrayal of Socrates that point in the direction of the protagonist of both Plato’s dialogues and Aristophanes’ Clouds. Unsurprisingly, it is once again the Phaedrus that plays a special role here. The fact that the last scene of the tale takes place under a plane tree growing by a river,2 that is, in the classical locus amoenus, whose literary origin in Plato’s Phaedrus (229a-b) was a matter of common knowledge,3 clearly shows that Apuleius intends the reader to establish a connection between his unfortunate comic character and the Platonic Socrates. This connection is further strengthened by another minor detail in Aristomenes’ tale that also evokes the Phaedrus. In Plato, Socrates is prevented from crossing the river by the voice of his δαιµόνιον that urges him to stay and deliver a παλινῳδία of his first - blasphemous - speech about love (Pl. Phdr. 242b-c). In Apuleius, too, Socrates is expressly forbidden to cross a river.4 Moreover, the fact that here this prohibition is part of the magic formula recited by a Thessalian witch makes its ultimate origin as supernatural as it was in Plato. Finally, since the river that the Apuleian Socrates proves to be unable to cross is part of the Platonic landscape with plane tree, the mirroring effect that we can observe here seems to be virtually complete.5 1 2

3 4 5

Keulen 2003, 110-113; Graverini 2007, 152-154. Apul. Met. 1.18 “iuxta platanum istam residamus” aio; 2.19 adsurgit ille et oppertus paululm planiorem ripae marginem complicitus in genua adpronatse avidus adfectans poculum. Trapp 1990, 141-148; Sandy 1997, 253. Apul. Met. 1.13 ‘heus tu’, inquit, ‘spongia, cave in mari nata per fluvium transeas’. Besides, the fact that Apuleius summarizes this Platonic passage in De genio Socratis corroborates the idea that he indeed may have intended his Socrates’ river-crossing handicap as a part of his allusion to Plato: Apul. Socr. 164 quippe etiam semotis arbitris uno cum Phaedro extra pomerium sub quodam arboris opaco umbraculo signum illud adnuntium sensit, ne prius transcenderet Ilissi amnis modicum fluentum, quam increpitu indignatum Amorem recinendo placasset. See also Kirichenko 2007b, 93-95. For further connections between Aristomenes’ tale and Plato’s Phaedrus, see Graverini 2007, 153158.

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Connections that have been proposed between the figures of Apuleius’ and Aristophanes’ Socrates are perhaps somewhat more tenuous: the deadly pallor and the emaciation of Apuleius’ Socrates are reminiscent of similar symptoms displayed both by Socrates and other denizens of the phrontisterion in Aristophanes, whereas the gesture with which the protagonist of Aristomenes’ tale covers his head can be compared to Aristophanes’ parody of a typically Socratic gesture.6 I would generally agree with Regine May, however, that these connections are too vague to establish a straightforward pattern of filiation between Aristophanes and Apuleius.7 At the same time, there is no denying that the very fact that Apuleius gives the name of the great Athenian philosopher to an obviously comic character is quite sufficient to place this image in the tradition of the comic portrayal of Socrates originated by Aristophanes. It would probably be too far-fetched to claim that the protagonist of Aristomenes’ tale is directly inspired by Aristophanes’ character. Apuleius is of course infinitely far from simply copying the Socrates of the Clouds. What he does instead, however, perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the Aristophanic comedy, is to create a comic effect by locating his recognizably Platonic Socrates in an extraordinarily un-Socratic context – both geographically and conceptually: he sends him to Thessaly, where the historical Socrates refused to flee to avoid execution,8 and endows him with the most unSocratic traits imaginable: licentiousness, fondness for popular entertainment, superstition, etc. Thus, there is only a generic, albeit quite palpable, connection between Apuleius’ Socrates and his Aristophanic counterpart. Nevertheless, despite the fact that there are no significant parallels between the story told by Aristomenes and the plot of Aristophanes’ comedy, I would like to argue that the role played by Aristophanes’ Clouds within the intertextual fabric of the Golden Ass is much more substantial than has hitherto been assumed: my contention is that the Clouds serves as the ultimate inspiration, whether direct or indirect is fairly irrelevant for my purposes, not so much of Aristomenes’ tale as of one of the multiple plots that curiously overlap in Apuleius’ novel to create the multilayered unimaginable ‘life’ of its protagonist Lucius. There is a high degree of conceptual similarity between the plots of the original ass-tale and Aristophanes’ Clouds. As I have shown elsewhere, Lucius is portrayed in the Onos as a naïve amateur intellectual who gets into trouble because of his flagrant misconception of the nature of his ‘scientific pursuit’.9 This basic storyline clearly makes him resemble both the hard-core inept ‘intellectuals’ of Aristophanes’ phrontisterion and the unsuspecting dupe 6 7 8 9

Apul. Met. 1.7 velato capite. Cf. Pl. Phdr. 237a and Ar. Nu. 728. Keulen 2003, 112-113. May (2006, 198) is perhaps right when she calls Keulen’s assessment of the degree to which Aristomenes’ tale is based on the Clouds, “rather too optimistic.” Pl. Cri. 53d. See Keulen 2003, 110 n. 5. Kirichenko 2008b, 345-350.

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Strepsiades who comes there as a hopelessly incompetent prospective student. It has been observed that the Aristophanic µεριµνοσοφισταί are closely modeled on the prototypical figure of a distracted intellectual exemplified by Plato’s anecdote about Thales, who fell down a well while watching the stars:10 they, too, are so engrossed in studying things in heaven and beneath the earth that they fail to notice that their own house is literally on fire (Ar. Nu. 1476-1511).11 Likewise, Lucius’ ‘scientific’ curiosity is so consuming that he completely disregards the obvious danger that it entails. On the other hand, his metamorphic catastrophe can be conceived along the lines of Strepsiades receiving a just retribution for his desire to learn the morally suspect theories and skills taught at the phrontisterion: just as Strepsiades’ interest in rhetoric eventually turns against him when his own son not only beats him up, but also delivers unassailable proof of the justice inherent in his action, so Lucius, too, ultimately falls victim to his own interest in magic when he is transformed into a ridiculous ass and finds himself unable to obtain the antidote that would help him regain his appearance. Now, what happens when Apuleius introduces a comic figure named Socrates into this vaguely Aristophanic context? We have seen that Lucius’ adventures in the first three books of the novel can quite plausibly be regarded as a variation on Socrates’ adventures in Aristomenes’ tale: both come to Thessaly on a business trip, get sexually involved with Thessalian women, and lose either life or human identity because of magic. The effect produced by the fact that the first character whom Lucius the actor ‘mimics’ in his own performance has such an unequivocally suggestive name is quite complex. In a way, it urges us to split our perception of the relationship between Lucius and the protagonist of the inserted tale. On the one hand, the things that Lucius does in his narrative remain a creative reenactment of what Aristomenes’ hero does in his. On the other, the unmistakably Aristophanic associations of the comic Socrates turn the parallels between the plot of the ass-tale and that of Aristophanes’ Clouds from a matter of purely accidental generic resemblance into something deliberate, meaningful, and informative. In other words, Socrates’ name clearly encourages us to understand Lucius’ story as a reenactment not only of Aristomenes’ tale but also of Aristophanes’ comedy. From this viewpoint, the fact that the Greek names of the two ‘authors’ differ only by two letters does not look all that coincidental anymore. There are two sections of the novel that, once we activate our knowledge of this comic background, become particularly fraught with Aristophanic echoes 10

11

Pl. Tht. 174a ὥσπερ καὶ Θαλῆν ἀστρονοµοῦντα, ὦ Θεόδωρε, καὶ ἄνω βλέποντα, πεσόντα εἰς φρέαρ, Θρᾷττά τις ἐµµελὴς καὶ χαρίεσσα θεραπαινὶς ἀποσκῶψαι λέγεται ὡς τὰ µὲν ἐν οὐρανῷ προθυµοῖτο εἰδέναι, τὰ δ᾿ ἔµπροσθεν αὐτοῦ καὶ παρὰ πόδας λανθάνοι αὐτόν. Cf. Ar. Nu. 180 τί δῆτ᾿ ἐκεῖνον τὸν Θαλῆν θαυµάζοµεν; Dover 1968, xxxvi.

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– Lucius’ arrival in Thessaly and his initiation into the Isis cult. Needless to say, not only are these the two most pivotal events in the entire plot of Lucius’ adventures in general, but they also display a high degree of conceptual commonality: in both, the protagonist enters a mysterious, forbidden and, for that reason, especially enticing, territory (the fantastic Thessaly of witches and the world of the Isis cult) in order to obtain secret knowledge (magical recipes and initiation lore, respectively). If we perceive these two mysterious locales as successive stages in Lucius’ quest, then his adventures will easily fall into a highly transparent pattern in which two attempts to obtain secret knowledge have different outcomes – the one is a ridiculous failure, the other a glorious success. As we shall see, it is precisely the plot of Aristophanes’ comedy that lends coherence to this pattern. In addition to their thematic similarities, the two episodes also constitute the two most sensitive elements of the narrative’s structure – its beginning and its end. In other words, these two ‘Aristophanic’ sections form a narrative frame that encloses the remaining events of the novel. The Aristophanic subtext will become particularly apparent if we allow the novel’s beginning and end to coalesce, as it were, into a single continuous plot and regard the entire middle section of Lucius’ adventures as a kind of disproportionately oversized digression. From this perspective, as we shall see, Lucius can be considered to reenact the basic scenario of the Clouds, intermittently impersonating its three main heroes – he is now a Strepsiades, now a Pheidippides, now a Socrates – forming a composite chameleonic image that intricately combines elements of all three but remains easily recognizable nonetheless as a realization of the general storyline of Aristophanes’ comedy. It is extremely conspicuous that Lucius begins his narrative with a long convoluted sentence that contributes virtually nothing to the progression of the plot but dwells instead on intricate details of horse-grooming (Apul. Met. 1.2): postquam ardua montium et lubrica vallium et roscida cespitum et glebosa camporum emersimus, equo indigena peralbo vehens, iam eo quoque admodum fesso, ut ipse etiam fatigationem sedentariam incessus vegetatione discuterem, in pedes disilio, equi sudorem fronte curiose exfrico, auris remulceo, frenos detraho, in gradum lenem sensim proveho, quoad lassitudinis incommodum alvi solitum ac naturale praesidium eliquaret. After I had traversed precipitous mountains, slippery valleys, dewy pastures, and lumpy plough-lands, I dismounted from the snow-white native-bred horse that I was riding. He was already tired too, and I had to shake off my saddle-weariness by an invigorating stroll. I carefully wiped off the sweat from his brow, stroked his ears, loosened his bridle, and cautiously led him forward at a gentle pace until the nature of his bowels provided a usual remedy against the discomfort of his fatigue.

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Thus the first thing with which the reader of the novel is confronted is, rather oddly, the emphatic stress on the protagonist’s affectionate fixation on his horse. Lucius returns to this motif in his comment on the captivating quality of Aristomenes’ tale (Apul. Met. 1.20): quod beneficium etiam illum vectorem meum credo laetari, sine fatigatione sui me usque ad istam civitatis portam non dorso illius, sed meis auribus pervecto. I believe that this transporter of mine, too, is happy about this favor, since without tiring him I have ridden to the very city gate not on his back but on my ears.

In other words, throughout the entire first episode of the novel, the loving care for the well-being of his horse is presented as one of Lucius’ dominant obsessions. Since Lucius’ love for horses plays no role whatsoever in determining the subsequent course of the novel’s events (the return of his horse in Book 11, as we saw above, serves only as a proof of the prophetic nature of Lucius’ dream, and his joy, for that reason, has nothing to do with the horse per se), such a strong emphasis on it at the beginning must certainly strike one as perfectly gratuitous. In retrospect, however, once we securely establish the presence of the Aristophanic pattern behind Lucius’ narrative and recall that the very first scene of the Clouds begins with a detailed portrayal of Pheidippides’ compulsive weakness for horses (they seem to be the only object of his dreams), the protagonist’s strange obsession with his horse is bound to appear somewhat less arbitrary.12 Moreover, just as in Apuleius the description of Lucius’ affectionate interaction with his horse immediately precedes his entry into the uncharted territory of magic secrets, so the complaint about Pheidippides’ ‘horse malady’ in Aristophanes precedes Strepsiades’ decision to undertake a search for the secrets of oratory at the phrontisterion. Unlike in Aristophanes, there is no cause-and-effect link in Apuleius between horses and the thirst for mysterious knowledge. Nevertheless, the puzzling equine bias displayed by Apuleius’ protagonist at the beginning of the novel can, from this perspective, be regarded as the first signal pointing to the role of the Aristophanic narrative pattern in the plot structure of the Golden Ass. With Lucius’ arrival in Thessaly the narrative begins more conspicuously to adapt itself to the general pattern provided by the Clouds. Not only do Strepsiades and Lucius visit strange places in order to learn secrets generally hidden from the outside world, but both the knowledge that they wish to acquire and the respective environments in which it is offered are described in similar terms. Moreover, there is one motif that establishes a particularly firm connection between the kind of magic that Lucius would like to learn in 12

Ar. Nu. 26-27 τοῦτ᾿ ἐστὶ τουτὶ τὸ κακὸν ὅ µ᾿ ἀπολώλεκεν· / ὀνειροπολεῖ γὰρ καὶ καθεύδων ἱππικήν.

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Thessaly and the kind of science that Socrates teaches at his school. One of the standard commonplaces regarding Thessalian witches is that they can drag down the Moon.13 It is of utmost significance that the first mention of this bizarre belief in literature is attested in Aristophanes’ Clouds (749ff.) and that in Apuleius it is emphatically mentioned among the awe-inspiring things that Thessalian witches are able to do (Apul. Met. 1.3).14 It is also quite interesting that Socrates reacts with approval to Strepsiades’ absurd idea that he could avoid paying interest on the appointed day by hiring a witch to remove the Moon from the sky.15 As a result, Socrates’ ‘philosophy’ in Aristophanes begins to look rather similar to the notoriously charlatanic Thessalian magic, whereas Apuleius’ mention of the Moon trick indirectly equates the knowledge that his protagonist seeks to obtain in Thessaly to the knowledge offered by Socrates at the phrontisterion. Furthermore, the general circumstances that precede Lucius’ decision to gain personal experience in magic are so similar to those that surround Strepsiades’ decision to become Socrates’ student that Milo’s house retrospectively assumes recognizable characteristics of Aristophanes’ phrontisterion. Although his son Pheidippides warns him against messing around with Socrates and his gang,16 Strepsiades does so nonetheless. Moreover, he is so obsessed with the idea of learning τὸν ἥττονα λόγον taught by Socrates that he is ready to pay as much as he can afford in order to obtain it (Ar. Nu. 245f. µισθὸν δ᾿ ὅντιν᾿ ἂν / πράττῃ µ᾿, ὀµοῦµαί σοι καταθήσειν τοὺς θεούς). In a similar way, although Lucius’ aunt Byrrhena warns him not to get too close to his host’s wife Pamphile because she is a powerful Thessalian witch, he of course does not heed the warning. Instead, he declares himself willing to pay any amount of money in order to enlist as her student (Apul. Met. 2.6 tantum a cautela Pamphiles afui, ut etiam ultro gestirem tali magisterio me volens ampla cum mercede tradere). In addition to the overall resemblance between Lucius’ stay at Milo’s house and Strepsiades’ excursion to the phronisterion, the two episodes unfold in accordance with similar structural patterns and share a large number of common motifs. First of all, Lucius’ arrival in Hypata is clearly reminiscent of Strepsiades’ first visit at Socrates’ school. When Strepsiades first knocks on the door of the ‘Reflectory’, he is received by one of Socrates’ students, who greets him in an a way that is highly inhospitable, to say the least (Ar. Nu. 133 βαλλ᾿ ἐς 13 14 15

16

Philips 2002. Apul. Met. 1.3 lunam despumari. Cf. Hill 1973. Ar. Nu. 749-754 Στ. γυναῖκα φαρµακίδ᾿ εἰ πριάµενος Θετταλὴν / καθέλοιµι νύκτωρ τὴν σελήνην, εἶτα δὴ / αὐτὴν καθείρξαιµ᾿ εἰς λοφεῖον στρογγύλον / ὥσπερ κάτοπτρον, κᾆτα τηροίην ἔχων. / Σω. τί δῆτα τοῦτ᾿ ἂν ὠφελήσειέν σ᾿; Στ. ὅτι / εἰ µηκέτ᾿ ἀνατέλλοι σελήνη µηδαµοῦ, / οὐκ ἂν ἀποδοίην τοὺς τόκους. Ar. Nu. 102-104 αἰβοῖ, πονηροί γ᾿. οἶδα· τοὺς ἀλαζόνας, / τοὺς ὠχριῶντας, τοὺς ἀνυποδήτους λέγεις, / ὧν ὁ κακοδαίµων Σωκράτης καὶ Χαιρεφῶν.

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κόρακας. τίς ἐσθ᾿ ὁ κόψας τὴν θύραν;) and who immediately assumes that he is absolutely ignorant because of his loud uncultured knocking (Ar. Nu. 135-136 ἀµαθής γε νὴ Δι᾿, ὅστις οὑτωσὶ σφόδρα / ἀπεριµερίµνως τὴν θύραν λελάκτικας). The student talks to Strepsiades outside first, with the house doors firmly closed behind him, and accepts him inside only after he makes sure that the visitor does not mean any harm. Similarly, when Lucius knocks on the door of Milo’s house, he is greeted by Photis, Milo’s and Pamphile’s maid (Apul. Met. 1.22). On the whole, the structure of the triangle – Lucius, Photis, Pamphile – is virtually identical to that of Aristophanes’ triangle - Strepsiades, the student, Socrates: just as Strepsiades comes to the phrontisterion in order to learn Socrates’ forbidden wisdom, so the ultimate goal of Lucius’ visit with Milo is to gain first-hand experience in his wife’s magic secrets. Photis’ position in Pamphile’s household is comparable to that of Socrates’ student, since, by virtue of her being familiar with some of her mistress’s magic recipes, Photis can in a sense be considered a student of Pamphile’s (Apul. Met. 3.15). Moreover, the way Photis treats Lucius when she is confronted with him at the door is similar to the reception accorded to Strepsiades by Socrates’ student (Apul. Met. 1.22): she is extremely rude to him (heus tu), comments on his unnecessarily vigorous knocking (qui tam fortiter fores verberasti), and suspects him of ignorance (an tu solus ignoras...?). She also makes Lucius wait outside for a while and lets him in only after her master has given his approval. What Lucius sees inside the house and what he generally experiences on his first day in Hypata also finds parallels in Strepsiades’ first impression of the phrontisterion. Inside Socrates’ ‘think-tank’, Strepsiades is confronted with a veritable mundus inversus, where nothing seems to obey generally accepted laws: men look pale because they are forbidden to spend any time outside; they are occupied with looking for solutions to absurd pseudo-problems; some of them even walk upside down, with their heads turned to the ground in order to be able to study the darkness below Tartarus, and their buttocks upwards to allow them to do research in astronomy of their own accord.17 There is one element in Socrates’ and his students’ bizarre behavior that is particularly relevant as a model for Lucius’ experiences in Hypata. Among the weird things that the talkative student tells Strepsiades is the anecdote that when they once had nothing to eat for dinner, Socrates came up with the clever idea to provide

17

Ar. Nu. 192-194 Στ. τί γὰρ οἵδε δρῶσιν οἱ σφόδρ᾿ ἐγκεκυφότες; Μα. οὗτοι δ᾿ ἐρεβοδιφῶσιν ὑπὸ τὸν Τάρταρον. Στ. τί δῆθ᾿ ὁ πρωκτὸς εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν βλέπει; Μα. αὐτὸς καθ᾿ αὑτὸν ἀστρονοµεῖν διδάσκεται.

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for his students’ satisfaction by making them solve geometrical problems – an idea that meets with Strepsiades’ enthusiastic approval.18 The world that Lucius enters upon his arrival at Hypata is a mundus inversus too: his host Milo is one of the wealthiest men in town but he lives like a pauper, who keeps only one servant (Apul. Met. 1.21) and, for fear of robbers, has only one chair (Apul. Met. 1.23). Most of the absurd inconcinnities that characterize this world, however, revolve around food. When Lucius is finally accepted into Milo’s chambers, he finds his host dining together with his wife at an empty table. While the Aristophanic Socrates at least tried to draw his hungry students’ minds away from food by transforming his empty table into a geometrical board, Milo does not even bother to cover up the absurdity of the situation when, pointing at his empty table, he says to his guest: en hospitium (Apul. Met. 1.22). Curiously enough, Lucius fails to satisfy his hunger throughout the entire first day of his stay in Thessaly. His frustration culminates in an unexpected encounter with his former fellow student Pythias who is now in charge of the food supply in Hypata (Apul. Met. 1.24). It is quite symptomatic that Pythias’ name possesses vaguely Socratic connotations19 and that the place where Lucius and Pythias studied together is Athens. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that they behave in the utterly counterintuitive manner characteristic of Aristophanes’ Socrates and other µεριµνοσοφισταί: instead of helping his friend to get food at a fair price, Pythias sees to it that the food, for which Lucius has already paid, be destroyed; Lucius, instead of protesting against this obvious absurdity, meekly returns to Milo’s house, where, out of consideration for his alleged stinginess, he refuses the dinner that his host offers him and retires to bed cenatus solis fabulis (Apul. Met. 1.26). Thus, at the beginning of the novel Lucius enters a world that in many ways resembles the phrontisterion of Aristophanes’ Clouds. As we have seen, this episode generally corresponds to the scene in the Clouds in which Strepsiades is confronted with Socrates’ student. The next scene of the Aristophanic comedy, in which Strepsiades meets the master himself, is taken up in Book 11, where Lucius is initiated into the cult of Isis. Lucius’ initiation into the Isis cult is indeed quite similar to his confrontation with Thessalian witches: his encounter with Isis results not only in his retransformation into a human but also in learning numerous articles of the Isiac religious lore forbidden to the non-initiates. Moreover, there is an indirect indication that could literally turn the Isis temple of Book 11 into a phrontisterion of sorts. I mentioned above that Plutarch etymologically derives 18

19

Ar. Nu. 175-178 Μα. ἐχθὲς δέ γ᾿ ἡµῖν δεῖπνον οὐκ ἦν ἑσπέρας. Στ. εἶἑν. τί οὖν πρὸς τἄλφιτ᾿ ἐπαλαµήσατο; Μα. κατὰ τῆς τραπέζης κατασπάσας λεπτὴν τέφραν, / κάµψας ὀβελίσκον, εἶτα διαβήτην λαβών, κτλ. In fact, the joke in Aristophanes is much more complex; see Dover 1968, ad loc. Keulen 2007, ad loc.

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the word Ἰσεῖον from οἶδα, which for him makes an Isis temple a place of knowledge par excellence.20 In other words, the connection between οἶδα and Ἰσεῖον, according to Plutarch, would be more or less the same as the one between the semantically related φροντίζω and φροντιστήριον. From this perspective, an Isis temple could be quite plausibly regarded as a kind of Aristophanic ‘Reflectory’ too. Apuleius does not draw this parallel directly, nor does he explicitly refer to Plutarch’s etymology. The connection remains nevertheless so striking that, given the fact that both Plutarch’s De Iside and Aristophanes’ Clouds distinctly lurk behind Book 11, it would not be too implausible to assume that Apuleius was aware of it. It is quite striking that the process of Lucius’ initiation into the Isis cult follows the same basic pattern as Strepsiades’ encounter with Clouds in Aristophanes. The fact that Socrates’ philosophical school is continually described in the Clouds as a mystery cult (Ar. Nu. 143), into which a neophyte has to be initiated, endows the parallelism between these two episodes with a high degree of significance. The two scenes, however, have more in common than just the fact that their respective protagonists go through an initiation process. There are tangible similarities between the portrayals of the deities, whose devotees they become, between the basic scenarios of the respective rituals, and between the ultimate outcomes of their initiations. To begin with, there is a certain resemblance between Aristophanes’ Clouds and Apuleius’ Isis. Like her Aristophanic predecessors, Isis, when she is first invoked in the Golden Ass, is presented as a celestial body too, in this case, the Moon: when Lucius wakes up in the middle of the night on the seashore in Canchreae and begins to pray, it is the Moon to which he addresses his prayer without as yet knowing what deity is concealed behind its appearance (Apul. Met. 11.2 regina caeli, etc.). It is also quite significant that Aristophanes’ Clouds mention in passing their acquaintance with the Moon (Ar. Nu. 670ff.), which effectively turns the Moon within the fictional universe of the comedy into a kind of charlatanic pseudo-divinity on a par with Clouds themselves. Moreover, the appearances that both Clouds and Isis assume for their respective self-revelations are quite similar, since both show themselves as anthropomorphic female figures.21 Finally, both are described as subsuming powers traditionally ascribed to other gods and both put forward exclusive claims to worship: Clouds effectively oust Zeus from his traditional place of honor in the Greek pantheon, whereas Isis claims that almost every single

20

21

Plu. Is. 352a τοῦ δ᾿ ἱεροῦ τοὔνοµα καὶ σαφῶς ἐπαγγέλλεται καὶ γνῶσιν καὶ εἴδησιν τοῦ ὄντος· ὀνοµάζεται γὰρ τὸ Ἰσεῖον ὡς εἰσοµένων τὸ ὄν, ἂν µετὰ λόγου καὶ ὁσίως εἰς τὰ ἱερὰ τῆς θεοῦ παρέλθωµεν. Apul. Met. 11.3 iam primum crines uberrimi prolixique, etc. Cf. Ar. Nu. 340-341 λέξον δή µοι, τί παθοῦσαι, / εἴπερ νεφέλαι γ᾿ εἰσὶν ἀληθῶς, θνηταῖς εἴξασι γυναιξίν;

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female deity known in the ancient world is nothing but an aspect of her own true Egyptian self.22 Both Socrates’ prayer to Clouds and Lucius’ prayer to Isis are based on the traditional εἴτε–εἴτε / sive–sive formula familiar to us from innumerable other ritual invocations.23 Cf. Ar. Nu. 269-271 and Apul. Met. 11.2: ἔλθετε δῆτ᾿, ὦ πολυτιµήτατοι Νεφέλαι, τῷδ᾿ εἰς ἐπίδειξιν· εἴτ᾿ ἐπ᾿ Ὀλύµπου κορυφαῖς ἱεραῖς χιονοβλήτοισι κάθησθε, εἴτ᾿ Ὠκεανοῦ πατρὸς ἐν κήποις ἱερὸν χορὸν ἵστατε Νύµφαις, κτλ. Come, come, most revered Clouds, to manifest yourselves to this man: whether you sit on the holy snow-clad pinnacles of Olympus, or invite the Nymphs to a holy dance at the gardens of father Ocean, etc. Regina caeli – sive tu Ceres alma frugum parens originalis, quae repertu laetata filiae, vetustae glandis ferino remoto pabulo, miti commonstrato cibo nunc Eleusiniam glebam percolis, seu tu caelestis Venus, quae primis rerum exordiis sexuum diversitatem generato Amore sociasti et aeterna subole humano genere propagato nunc circumfluo Paphi sacrario coleris, etc. Queen of heaven – whether you are life-giving Ceres, primeval mother of fruits, who from joy at the retrieval of her daughter abolished the bestial diet of ancient acorn, introduced gentle fare, and now dwells on the Eleusinian soil, or whether you are heavenly Venus, who at the very beginning of the world gave birth to Love, joined together opposing sexes, ensured that mankind will eternally multiply by producing offspring, and is now worshipped at the shrine encircled by waves on Paphos.

Furthermore, the immediate outcome of the prayer is the same in both cases: just as Clouds appear before Socrates and Strepsiades, so does Isis, too, reveal herself to Lucius (Ar. Nu. 275-517; Apul. Met. 11.3-6). What they declare to their new devotees is quite similar too. Clouds promise to Strepsiades that if he becomes their obedient follower he will lead the most enviable life imaginable (Ar. Nu. 464-465 τὸν πάντα χρόνον µετ᾿ ἐµοῦ / ζηλωτότατον βίον ἀν- / θρώπων 22

23

Ar. Nu. 250-253 Σω. βούλει τὰ θεῖα πράγµατ᾿ εἰδέναι σαφῶς / ἅττ᾿ ἐστὶν ὀρθῶς; Στ. νὴ Δί᾿ εἴπερ ἐστί γε. / Σω. καὶ συγγενέσθαι ταῖς Νεφέλαισιν εἰς λόγους, / ταῖς ἡµετέρασι δαίµοσιν; Cf. 827-828 Στ. οὐκ ἔστιν, ὦ Φειδιππίδη, Ζεύς. Φε. ἀλλὰ τίς; / Στ. Δῖνος βασιλεύει τὸν Δι᾿ ἐξεληλακώς. Apul. Met. 11.5 inde primigeni Phryges Pessinuntiam deum matrem, hinc autochthones Attici Cecropeiam Minervam, illinc fluctuantes Cyprii Paphiam Venerem, Cretes sagittiferi Dictynnam Dianam, Siculi trilingues Stygiam Proserpinam, Eleusinii vetustam deam Cererem, Iunonem alii, Bellonam alii, Hecatam isti, Rhamnusiam illi, et qui nascentis dei Solis inchoantibus inlustrantur radiis Aethiopes Ariique priscaque doctrina pollentes Aegyptii caerimoniis me propriis percolentes appellant vero nomine Isidem. Dover 1968, 134; Griffiths 1975, 114-123.

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διάξεις). Isis, too, promises Lucius a blessed life, which she claims to be able to extend all the way into his afterlife existence (Apul. Met. 11.6): vives autem beatus, vives in mea tutela gloriosus, et cum spatium saeculi tui permensus ad inferos demearis, ibi quoque in ipso subterraneo semirutundo me, quam vides, Acherontis tenebris interlucentem Stygiisque penetralibus regnantem, campos Elysios incolens ipse, tibi propitiam frequens adorabis. Your life will be blessed, it will be glorious under my protection, and when you have concluded your life’s span and depart for the netherworld, even there, in that subterranean hemisphere where you will live in the Elysian fields, you will constantly adore me, just as you behold me now, – the goddess propitious to you, for I shine through the darkness of Acheron and rule over the secret Stygean depths.

In order to achieve this blissful state, however, both protagonists have to undergo a series of humiliations and privations. Strepsiades voluntarily declares himself to be ready to transfer his entire person to the jurisdiction of Clouds (Ar. Nu. 439-442): νῦν οὖν ἀτεχνῶς ὅτι βούλονται τουτὶ τό γ᾿ ἐµὸν σῶµ᾿ αὐτοῖσιν παρέχω τύπτειν, πεινῆν, διψῆν, αὐχµεῖν, ῥιγῶν, ἀσκὸν δείρειν κτλ. So now I completely give them this body of mine so that they can do with it whatever they please – beat it, starve it, deprive it of water, soil it, freeze it, flay it into a wineskin, etc.

Isis, too, in return for her help in Lucius’ retransformation, demands from him a similar uncompromising submission (Apul. Met. 11.6): plane memineris et penita mente conditum semper tenebis mihi reliqua vitae tuae curricula adusque terminos ultimi spiritus vadata. You should remember and always keep in the deepest recesses of your heart that the rest of your life, until you breathe your last breath, is pledged to me.

Another similarity between the two initiations is that not only are both unfortunate converts expected to pay as much as they can in order to receive access to the wisdom that they desire, but they also literally have to part with their last shirt in order to cover the expenses. Since Strepsiades has nothing else to give in return for his course of study, Socrates forces him to take off his himation and shoes before entering the phrontisterion, clearly with the intention of keeping them afterwards. Later on, in a conversation with his still skeptical

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son, Strepsiades explicitly calls the loss of his clothes and shoes a useful investment (Ar. Nu. 856-859): Φε. διὰ ταῦτα δὴ καὶ θοἰµάτιον ἀπώλεσας; Στ. ἀλλ᾿ οὐκ ἀπολώλεκ᾿, ἀλλὰ καταπεφρόντικα. Φε. τὰς δ᾿ ἐµβάδας ποῖ τέτροφας, ὦ ᾿νόητε σύ; Στ. ὥσπερ Περικλέης, εἰς τὸ δέον ἀπώλεσα. Ph. Is this really the reason why you’ve lost your cloak? St. But I haven’t lost it, I have paid with it for my education. Ph. And what about your shoes, you idiot? 24 St. I lost them for a necessary purpose, like Pericles.

Similarly, Lucius has to sell his shirt in order to be able to pay for one of his numerous initiations. Moreover, the explicit encouragement that he receives from the gods stresses the usefulness of this investment in contrast to money senselessly spent on pleasure (Apul. Met. 11.28): iamque saepicule non sine magna turbatione stimulatus, postremo iussus, veste ipsa mea quamvis parvula distracta, sufficientem conrasi summulam. et ad ipsum praeceptum fuerat specialiter: ‘an tu’, inquit, ‘si quam rem voluptati struendae moliris, laciniis tuis nequaquam parceres: nunc tantas caerimonias aditurus impaenitendae te pauperiei cunctaris committere?’ To my great perplexity, I constantly received encouragements, which later gave way to orders. So I finally parted even with my worthless clothes, which allowed me to scrape up the sufficient amount of money. And there had been an explicit command to this effect: “You would certainly not spare your shabby rags if you were planning some amusement; now that you are about to receive such magnificent rites, do you really hesitate to reduce yourself to a poverty that you will never regret?”

Finally, the ultimate outcomes of both Aristophanes’ Clouds and Apuleius’ Golden Ass are very similar. In Aristophanes, Strepsiades’ son Pheidippides succeeds in mastering the wisdom that for his father, due to his senile forgetfulness, was too much of a challenge (Ar. Nu. 866-1150). That is to say, the cloak that Strepsiades used as tuition has not been lost in vain after all. The enthusiasm that the proud father first feels at his son’s success does not last long, however, and soon gives way to bitter disappointment. The wisdom that Pheidippides has acquired at Socrates’ school consists in ἥττων λόγος, that is, practical rhetorical skills, which help one to win any case irrespective of its justice. After completing the course of study at the phrontisterion, Pheidippides becomes so morally depraved and versatile in his use of manipulative rhetoric that he not only beats up his father, but also manages to provide logical proof for 24

On Pericles’ clever expenditure, see Dover 1968, ad loc.

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the thesis that beating up one’s own parents is generally the right thing to do (Ar. Nu. 1321-1446). The reaction of the outside world (that is, of the chorus) to this morally suspect schooling is of course universal rejection and abhorrence (Ar. Nu. 1345-1350, 1391-1398). In the context of Apuleius’ Aristophanic plot, it is hardly coincidental that Lucius’ initiation into the wisdom of Isis and Osiris results in his becoming a successful orator. As promised by the gods, Lucius’ investment of his last shirt in the initiation into the Osiris cult eventually does pay off, as he compensates for his expenses by practicing law in court (Apul. Met. 11.28): plena iam fiducia germanae religionis obsequium divinum frequentabam. quae res summum peregrinationi meae tribuebat solacium nec minus etiam victum uberiorem subministrabat, quidni, spiritu faventis Eventus quaesticulo forensi nutrito per patrocinia sermonis Romani. With confidence I now regularly participated in divine services of this related religion. This circumstance provided the greatest solace during my stay abroad. In addition, it contributed to heightening my living standard. No wonder! Carried by the wind of favoring Success, I began to earn some money by pleading in court in the Latin language.

As Lucius continues to climb the seemingly never-ending initiatory ladder, his income as a public orator goes up steadily too, because, one would assume, he succeeds in winning increasingly more and more cases (doesn’t it bring to mind a distant echo of Aristophanes’ ἥττων λόγος?). It almost seems that the more he invests in his initiations, the more he receives in return (Apul. Met. 11.30): instructum teletae comparo largitus ex studio pietatis magis quam mensura rerum collatis. nec hercules laborum me sumptuumque quidquam tamen paenituit, quidni, liberali deum providentia iam stipendiis forensibus bellule fotum. I procured all the equipment necessary for the initiation with extravagancy caused by religious zeal rather than by exactly measuring my actual means. Nor did I ever regret a bit my efforts and expenses. Why would I? By the generous provision of the gods, my court fees provided a fairly comfortable income.

As in Pheidippides’ case, however, Lucius’ rhetorical success causes hatred in many of those who hear him speak – something that Osiris insistently urges Lucius to ignore (Apul. Met. 11.30): quae nunc, incunctanter gloriosa in foro redderem patrocinia nec extimescerem malevolorum disseminationes, quas studiorum meorum laboriosa doctrina ibidem sustinebat.

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[He told me] to go on with my current illustrious legal practice without hesitation and without fearing the libel spread by my enviers, which was caused by that very erudition that I had painstakingly acquired in the course of my studies.

Thus, the last episode of the novel seems to follow quite faithfully the pattern established by the outcome of Pheidippides’ training in rhetoric in the Clouds. As a result, everything falls into place in the end, as Lucius’ life turns into a fairly coherent realization of the plot paradigm provided by Aristophanes’ Clouds. Lucius’ inept dabbling in magic generally corresponds to Strepsiades’ failed attempt to appropriate the wisdom taught at the phrontisterion, whereas Lucius’ rhetorical career after his initiation into the cults of Isis and Osiris emerges as an echo of Pheidippides’ successful mastering of the ἥττων λόγος. In his portrayal of the ἥττων λόγος, Aristophanes implicitly relies on another highly widespread motif, whose application to Lucius’ life will help to endow his progress from Thessalian magic through the Isis cult to his rhetorical career with a higher degree of coherence and linearity. From the fifth century BC to the Second Sophistic, the effect that rhetoric had on the human soul was regularly compared to that of magic.25 Gorgias was the first to point to the enormous power that skillfully used language has in affecting the audience, when in Helen he explicitly compared the power of word with witchcraft.26 Whereas Gorgias regards the magical power of the word as one of the greatest achievements of the newly discovered art of rhetoric, Plato takes a much more critical stance with regard to this simile. In his polemics against the sophists, Plato also regularly applies to rhetoric various terms that are firmly associated with magic.27 For him, however, the deceptive magic of rhetoric is the quality most radically opposed to the philosophical quest for truth, since, instead of seeking to establish the way things truly are, the Sophists revel in their ability to make things look different from what they are: to make small things look big, old things new, etc.28 To illustrate this point, Socrates compares his Sophistic adversaries to the archetypal magician Proteus: just as Proteus constantly changes forms, so they beguile the audience by cleverly shifting from one topic to another and metamorphosing the subject matter as they see fit.29

25 26

27 28 29

De Romilly 1981. Gorgias, Helen 8-14, esp. 10 αἱ γὰρ ἔνθεοι διὰ λόγων ἐπῳδαὶ ἐπαγωγοὶ ἡδονῆς, ἀπαγωγοὶ λύπης γίγνονται· συγγιγνοµένη γὰρ τῇ δόξῃ τῆς ψυχῆς ἡ δύναµις τῆς ἐπῳδῆς ἔθελξε καὶ ἔπεισε καὶ µετέστησεν αὐτὴν γοητείᾳ. γοητείας δὲ καὶ µαγείας δισσαὶ τέχναι εὕρηνται, αἵ εἰσι ψυχῆς ἁµαρτήµατα καὶ δόξης ἀπατήµατα. Cf. De Romilly 1981, 1-22. De Romilly 1981, 25-43. On sophistic relativism in general, see Kerferd 1981, 83-110. Pl. Euthd. 288b ἀλλ᾿ οὐκ ἐθέλετον ἡµῖν ἐπιδείξασθαι σπουδάζοντε, ἀλλὰ τὸν Πρωτέα µιµεῖσθαι τὸν Αἰγύπτιον σοφιστὴν γοητεύοντε ἡµᾶς. Cf. Pl. Prt. 315a, Sph. 234b-235c, Plt. 291c, etc. De Romilly 1981, 28-32.

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The ‘rhetoric-as-magic’ topos plays the central role in Aristophanes’ conception of the wisdom taught at Socrates’ phrontisterion. I mentioned above that, in Strepsiades’ perception, the ἥττων λόγος which he desires to learn from the Sophists is endowed with truly magical powers. Among other things, the use of this logos is supposed to be capable of freeing one from the obligation to repay one’s debts – something that one can otherwise achieve only by hiring a Thessalian witch, who would remove the Moon from the sky to postpone the deadline (Ar. Nu. 749-754). Moreover, in its own speech the personified ἥττων λόγος directly picks up the typically sophistic motif of the power that the word has in transforming things into their opposites (Ar. Nu. 1019-1021): καί σ᾿ ἀναπείσει τὸ µὲν αἰσχρὸν ἅπαν καλὸν ἡγεῖσθαι, τὸ καλὸν δ᾿ αἰσχρόν. And he [the Worse Argument] will convince you that that all foul things are fair and fair things foul.

In other words, the morally suspect teachings offered at the phrontisterion are, in Aristophanes’ eyes, virtually indistinguishable from the deceitful illusionism practiced by magicians. As a result, rhetoric becomes almost impossible to tell apart from magic. The plot of the Golden Ass quite neatly corresponds to this paradigm too, although Apuleius’ version of it contains a slight twist. Whereas in the Clouds Strepsiades would like to learn the art of oratory in order to acquire something approaching magic power, the situation in Apuleius is reversed. At the beginning of his narrative, Lucius strives to be instructed in magic in the traditional sense of the word. This attempt results in a comic failure, which eventually leads to his transformation into an ass. At the end of his adventures, however, he does succeed in acquiring expertise in magic, even though this time it is not the magic of Thessalian witches but the verbal magic of a sophistic orator. From this perspective, Lucius’ upward progress from the naive belief in the magic tricks performed by folksy witches to the realization that similar results can be much more easily and much more reliably achieved through the modern sophistic magic of the word is indeed a dazzling success story. Apuleius, no doubt, relies on the ‘magic-as-rhetoric’ paradigm to the same extent as Aristophanes does, except that his attitude to this equation does not seem to be quite as critical. On the contrary, unlike Aristophanes’ Clouds, which ends in Strepsiades’ indignantly burning down the phrontisterion – the ultimate source of the rhetorical evil that befell his family (Ar. Nu. 1476-1511), Apuleius’ Golden Ass concludes with Lucius’ ever increasing enthusiasm over his glorious career – both as an Isiac and as an orator. It is, as it were, a variant 157

of the familiar Aristophanic plot related from the viewpoint not of Strepsiades but of Pheidippides. In this connection, it is important to bear in mind that in the Second Sophistic traditional negative stereotypes about rhetoric that go back to Plato were generally reconsidered in a much more positive vein.30 The traditional dichotomy between rhetoric and philosophy had largely lost its momentum and continued to exist as nothing but another rhetorical topos.31 For instance, the ideal of the ‘Protean’ orator capable of manipulating (and metamorphosing) any topic to suit his particular purpose is no longer perceived as contradicting Plato’s views: although Plato expressed a rather critical opinion of such a relativistic approach to language,32 it did not prevent Apuleius from reversing his master’s pronouncement to his own advantage and to claim that, according to Plato (Apul. Pl. 3), oratoris excellentis est lata anguste, angusta late, vulgata decenter, nova usitate, usitata nove proferre, extenuare magna, maxima e minimis posse efficere aliaque id genus plurima. An outstanding orator has to be able to present extensive things succinctly, succinct things extensively, new things in a common manner, and common things in a new way, to shrink what is great, to produce the largest out of the smallest, and to do a great many other things of this sort.

The fact that Apuleius himself was both an avowed Platonic philosopher and a practicing virtuoso orator, who regarded himself as an heir of the older Greek sophists,33 provides the most cogent proof that in his culture there was no contradiction whatsoever between the love for the truth and the mastery of the 30 31 32

33

Cizek 1994, 102-10. Kasulke 2005, 49-187. E.g., Pl. Phdr. 267a Τεισίαν δὲ Γοργίαν τε ἐάσοµεν εὕδειν, οἳ πρὸ τῶν ἀληθῶν τὰ ἐοικότα εἶδον ὡς τιµητέα µᾶλλον, τά τε αὖ σµικρὰ µεγάλα καὶ τὰ µεγάλα σµικρὰ φαίνεσθαι ποιοῦσιν διὰ ῥώµην λόγου, καινά τε ἀρχαίως τά τ᾿ ἐναντία καινῶς, κτλ. Cf. Apul. Fl. 9. On stylistic connections between Apuleius and Gorgias, see Tatum 1979, 139-141. Cf. Norden 1909, II 600-601: “Alles, was vor ihm war, hat Appuleius übertroffen, der virtuoseste Wortjongleur, den es gegeben hat. Dieser Mann, dessen Ehrentitel zu seinen Lebzeiten und lange nach seinem Tode philosophus Platonicus war, der von Platon als dem ‘seinen’, von Sokrates als seinem ‘Vorfahren’ spricht, hat die Sprache entwürdigt. Bei ihm feiert der in bacchantischen Taumel dahinrasende, wie ein wilder Strom sich selbst überstürzende, in ein wogendes Nebelmeer wüster Phantastik zergehende Stil seine Orgien; hier paart sich mit dem ungeheuerlichen Schwulst die affektierteste Zierlichkeit: alle die Mätzchen, die dem weichlichsten Wohlklang dienen, werden in der verschwenderischsten Weise angebracht, als da sind Alliterationen, Ohren und Augen verwirrende Wortspiele, abgezirkelte Satzteilchen mit genauester Korresponsion bis auf die Silbenzahl und mit klingendem Gleichklang am Ende. Die römische Sprache, die ernste würdige Matrone, ist zum prostibulum geworden, die Sprache des lupanar hat ihre castitas ausgezogen.” See also Hunink 2001, 11ff.

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word. For this reason, it should hardly surprise us that the last image with which we are confronted in the novel is not only that of a bald Isiac ministrant, but also that of a triumphant (sophistic) orator. No doubt, this is a comic image, too, drawn with the same exquisite irony (or, in this case, probably self-irony) as almost everything else in the novel. Nevertheless, it succeeds in creating a kind of sphragis, which explicitly draws our attention to the novel as a product of the Second Sophistic – the aspect that I will discuss in detail in Chapter 9. Before I turn to the role of sophistic rhetoric in the Golden Ass, I would like to address the more general issue of the novel’s status as a written narrative.

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Part III Narrative

8. Desultoriae scientiae stilus: From Drama to Narrative 8.1. The Writer as a Stand-up Comedian Although it seems to be perfectly justified to analyze the fictional world of the Golden Ass in theatrical terms – as a succession of mime scenes in which recognizable scenarios are time and again reenacted in a buffoonish manner and which, despite their fragmentation, cohere into something approaching a multidimensional large-scale mime score, – it is also necessary to account for the fact that the text that we deal with is not a theatrical play but a literary narrative intended to be read as a book rather than to be performed onstage. The question that I would like to address in this chapter is how the text combines its theatricality with its status as a written narrative. It has often been observed that the prologue to the Golden Ass (Apul. Met. 1.1) is characterized by a constant oscillation between the oral and the written modes of discourse.1 On the one hand, the text unequivocally states that the only way one can access it is by reading “the Egyptian papyrus inscribed with the sharpness of a reed-pen from the Nile” (modo si papyrum Aegyptiam argutia Nilotici calami inscriptam non spreveris inspicere); that is to say, the narrative voice with which we seem to be dealing here is that of a writer addressing his hypothetical reader. On the other hand, by promising “to stroke your kind ears with an elegant whisper“ (auresque tuas benivolas lepido susurro permulceam), the prologue speaker clearly describes his communication with his addressee in terms of purely aural perception. In other words, the narrator presents himself as both a writer and an oral storyteller at the same time. The easiest way to interpret the inherent duality of the narrator’s stance would be, in my opinion, to perceive it in theatrical terms too: the Latin author of the novel reenacts in his writing a situation in which an oral Greek narrator (he explicitly points to his Greek origin in the subsequent section of the prologue)2 tries to curry favor from his potential listeners; by stressing that, in order to have his ears stroked, the reader, as it were, has to use his eyes, the author breaks the fictional illusion, lays bare his impersonation, and encourages the reader to enjoy the amusing discrepancy between the pretense of the oral 1

2

Many contributions to A Companion to the Prologue of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (Kahane – Laird 2001) touch in one way or another upon the interaction between orality and textuality in the prologue. See particularly Fowler 2001. See also Graverini 2007, 1-55. Apul. Met. 1.1 Hymettos Attica et Isthmos Ephyrea et Taenaros Spartiaca, glebae felices aeternum libris felicioribus conditae, mea vetus prosapia est.

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communication and the reality of his writerly activity. Seen this way, the metafictional relationship between the author and the narrator in Apuleius would find the closest parallel in metatheatrical antics familiar to us from ancient comic theater – first and foremost, from Aristophanes, Plautus, and the mime.3 Just as comic buffoons constantly step out of their roles and base their humor on the ridiculous incompatibility between their status as actors and the roles that they are playing,4 so the novel’s Latin author, too, admits that he is just an impersonator and turns the incongruity between his actual status as a writer and the mask that he is wearing into an exuberant comic joke. We can thus clearly see that the spirit of popular theater, which largely determines the overall tonality, subject matter, and plot patterning of the novel, underlies the author’s roleplaying narratorial posture as well. The identity of Apuleius’ prologue speaker has occupied scholars for a long time. That the identity question is anything but futile is explicitly indicated by the fact that the prologue speaker’s fictional addressee reacts to the rather confusing metafictional joke of the first sentence with an utterly perplexed quis ille?5 So who is this character that we encounter for the first time in the prologue? He is obviously not Apuleius himself:6 as we have seen, the author is not, but pretends to be, that is, plays the role of, the oral entertainer who delivers the prologue. On the other hand, he cannot be the novel’s protagonist Lucius either,7 since on closer look the prologue speaker betrays no intention of telling an autobiographical account. On the contrary, he presents himself as a literary artist: he describes his method as joining various tales together (varias fabulas conseram) in order to make his addressee marvel at their fantastic subject matter (figuras fortunasque hominum in alias imagines conversas et in se mutuo nexu refectas ut mireris), refers to the narrative on which he is about to embark as a ‘Greekish tale’ (fabulam Graecanicam incipimus), and explicitly says that his aim is nothing but the reader’s pleasure (lector, indende: laetaberis). In other words, there is a clear sense of distance between the prologue speaker and the narrative that he is offering to his addressee. Thus the wording of the prologue excludes a fictional autobiography as a viable option for the subsequent narrative.8 The figure of the narrator that we 3 4 5 6 7 8

Kirichenko 2007a. Cf. Lefèvre 1999 on connections between Plautus’ metatheater and the mime. Cf. Lefèvre 1999. Winkler 1985, 180-203. Riefstahl 1938; Edwards 1993. Bürger 1888. Nor would it be justified to divide the prologue between the author and the protagonist (Harrauer – Römer 1985; Korenjak 1997) or to see in the prologue speaker a speaking book (Harrison 1990): there is no compelling indication of the change of speaker either within the prologue or at the transition from the prologue to the narrative.

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encounter in the prologue is obviously a Greek oral storyteller whose only concern is to provide credible educational credentials (his mastery of Greek literary culture and his migration from Greece to Rome, where he learnt Latin all by himself),9 which would qualify him as someone worth listening to. As such a storyteller, he assumes the mask of a fictional character and pretends to be telling a first-person autobiographical account from this character’s viewpoint. The most convincing parallel to this relation between the prologue speaker and his narrative once again uncovers the essentially theatrical quality of the text. As has repeatedly been pointed out, the identity of Apuleius’ prologue speaker can best be understood by analogy with some of Plautus’ prologues (or, I would add, with prologues to mimes, too, which, according to our evidence, must have been in some cases quite similar to those of Plautus):10 just as Plautus’ prologi are distinct from both the playwright Plautus and the characters in the play, so is Apuleius’ prologue speaker a separate person who, while delivering the prologue, is located outside the fictional world but, once the narrative begins, enters it by impersonating one of the characters.11 As a result, “if he is neither Apuleius nor Lucius, we can only say that he is some itinerant Greek now working as a storyteller in Rome.”12 We can thus clearly see now that the prologue to the Golden Ass is based on a double impersonation that ingeniously juggles three different planes of reality. On the one hand, the Latin author enacts in his writing the activity of a fictional Greek oral storyteller and, as we have seen, goes out of his way to draw attention to his constant presence behind this mask. On the other, this Greek oral storyteller successively assumes personas of numerous fictional characters with whom we are confronted while reading his account. Moreover, the relation between the composite figure of the narrator and the characters impersonated by him in the course of the narrative is marked by the same kind of metafictional fluidity as the one that we have observed in the prologue between the two facets of his own role-playing image. By the time we reach the first sentence of the announced fabula Graecanica and see that it is a first-person statement (Apul. Met. 1.2 Thessaliam ex negotio petebam) we have already learnt enough from the prologue to realize that the narrator, who has so far been speaking in his own voice, is now pretending to be a character in a fictional story. At the same time, the fact that there is no perceptible change of identity of the speaking ‘I’ explicitly marked in the text makes the transition 9

10 11 12

Apul. Met. 1.1 ibi linguam Attidem primis pueritiae stipendiis merui. mox in urbe Latia advena studiorum Quiritium indigenam sermonem aerumnabili labore nullo magistro praeeunte aggressus excolui. Isid. Etym. 1.18 habebant [sc. mimi] suum actorem, qui, antequam mimum agerent, fabulam pronuntiaret. See Wüst 1932, 1745. Smith 1972; Winkler 1985, 200-202. Winkler 1985, 203.

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from the prologue to the narrative very smooth and blurs the boundary between the two levels of fiction. The curious parenthesis that interrupts the flow of the sentence intensifies this impression (Apul. Met. 1.2): Thessaliam – nam et illic originis maternae nostrae fundamenta a Plutarcho illo inclito ac mox Sexto philosopho nepote prodita gloriam nobis faciunt – eam Thessaliam ex negotio petebam. To Thessaly - for I pride myself on stemming from that region too: through the connection on the maternal side of my family with that famous Plutarch and later with his nephew philosopher Sextus - so, it was to this Thessaly that I was on my way to transact some business.

The most peculiar thing about this phrase is that it simultaneously has three different meanings depending on which facet of the composite narrator’s voice we choose to apply it to. For Lucius as a fictional character, the family link to Plutarch is true in the literal sense (this information is later on corroborated as true in his fictional world when we learn that his Thessalian aunt Byrrhena and his mother Salvia are both related to Plutarch).13 For the narrator as a Greek oral entertainer, Plutarch constitutes just another element of his rich literary heritage (the parenthesis clearly refers back to the prologue and, strictly speaking, belongs to it conceptually: the et linking the speaker’s origin to Thessaly and introducing the mention of Plutarch and Sextus undoubtedly connects this sentence to the description of the prologue speaker’s prosapia, that is, to the purely literary Greek landscape that he inhabits).14 Finally, for the figure of the novel’s Latin author who prided himself on being a philosophus Platonicus, a relation with Plutarch can be understood in a yet different sense: as we repeatedly observed above, Plutarch has indeed left a significantly more palpable imprint on the conceptual universe (i.e., the philosophical undercurrent) of the Golden Ass than on the fictional world of its protagonist. The fact that all these different senses turn out to be equally true shows how difficult it is to distinguish among the three aspects of Apuleius’ roleplaying narrator.15 This baffling confusion of frames and multiple identities continues unabated throughout the entire novel. The author now merges these three personae into a homogeneous, mimetically credible entity, now emphasizes their differences and savors their glaring incompatibility. As in the 13 14 15

Apul. Met. 2.3 nam et familia Plutarchi ambae prognatae sumus. On Apuleius’ ‘literary landscape’, see Harrison 2002 and Kirichenko 2007b, 256-261. Cf. Winkler 1985, 159: “He is not just a character about whom books can be written, he is in essence a multiple ego whose parts are writer, narrator, and actor. Lucius has a booklike self: the episodes of his life define not a life (in a sense that could apply to Caesar or ourselves) but a book. Lucius is never simply a person, he is always a writer, behind a narrator, behind an actor.”

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prologue, the narrator constantly oscillates between directly addressing his reader as lector16 and describing his narrative in terms of oral storytelling.17 The supposedly Greek narrator sometimes assumes a detached attitude to things Greek that would much better become the Latin author.18 In the tale of Cupid and Psyche, he makes the oracle of Apollo at Claros issue a prophecy in Latin for the sake of the Milesiae conditor, that is, the novel’s Latin author.19 He presents himself now as a wealthy Greek from Corinth (Apul. Met. 2.12), now as a poor Latin speaker from Apuleius’ hometown of Madaurus (Apul. Met. 11.27). Casual references to various things Roman that sound comically incongruous in the context of the tale further emphasize its Latin provenience.20 Finally, Lucius the actor himself betrays his awareness of the fact that he is a fictional character in somebody else’s tale when he describes his own story as both an oral fabula and a written historia,21 that is to say, as a product of common effort, as it were, by the Greek oral storyteller and the Latin writer. The constant oscillation between the oral and the written modes in the Golden Ass finds a correspondence in the tension between two other notable extremes. On the one hand, the novel is obviously held together by a clever control mechanism, by a higher authorial intelligence responsible for its overall formal coherence, the sophistication of its literary texture, and the challenging complexity of its ‘multiple plotting’. On the other, as I will show below, one cannot escape the feeling that the novel’s narrator often exercises no perceptible control over the events that he relates and, what is more, is utterly unaware of the elaborate principles according to which his own narrative functions. As a result, the narrator produces the bizarre impression of being trapped in the incomprehensible maze of his own fiction, and is forced, as it were, to extemporize in order to find a way out. Both of these extremes – the sophisticatedly literary and the na16

17 18

19 20 21

Apul. Met. 9.30 sed forsitan lector scrupulosus reprehendens narratum meum sic argumentaberis: ‘unde autem tu, astutule asine, intra terminos pistrini contentus, quid secreto, ut adfirmas, mulieres gesserint, scire potuisti?’ 10.2 iam ergo, lector optime, scito te tragoediam, non fabulam legere et a socco ad coturnum ascendere. 11.23 quaeras forsitan satis anxie, studiose lector, quid deinde dictum, quid factum. E.g., Apul. Met. 9.14 fabulam denique bonam prae ceteris, suavem, comptam ad auris vestras adferre decrevi. E.g., Apul. Met. 3.9 nec mora, cum ritu Graeciensi ignis et rota, cum omne flagrorum genus inferuntur; 3.29 inter ipsas turbelas Graecorum genuino sermone nomen augustum Caesaris invocare temptavi; 11.17 renuntiat sermone rituque Graeciensi πλοιαφέσια. Apul. Met. 4.32 sed Apollo, quanquam Graecus et Ionicus, propter Milesiae conditorem sic Latina sorte respondit, etc. E.g., the mention of the shrine of the goddess Mucia in the Roman Circus Maximus, which was notoriously frequented by prostitutes: Apul. Met. 6.8. See Kenney 1990, ad loc. Apul. Met. 2.12 mihi denique proventum huius peregrinationis inquirenti multa respondit et oppido mira et satis varia; nunc enim gloriam satis floridam, nunc historiam magnam et incredundam fabulam et libros me futurum. On the distinction between fabula as an oral narrative and historia as a written narrative, see Jensson 2004, 259-260.

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ively improvisational – serve in equal measure to draw the reader’s attention to the presence of the narrator’s complex role-playing personality behind the text: on the one hand, the exaggerated literariness of the novel is often framed as utterly discordant with the ostensibly oral status of some of its tales, which betrays a sophisticated ironic writer as the ultimate source of the entire narrative construct; on the other, the narrator’s stance of colloquial nonchalance and improvisational buffoonery clashes sometimes with the fictional notion of his narrative as a personal recollection and thus points to his status as a detached oral entertainer concerned primarily with an immediate striking effect.22 One of the major sources of the novel’s humor consists in the fact that its role-playing narrator presents the narrative style and the personality of some of his internal storytellers as ridiculously unsuitable for the subject matter of their tales. For instance, he really seems to go out of his way to emphasize the comic incompatibility between the identity of the drunken delirious old hag entertaining Charite in the robbers’ den and the exquisite charm, philosophical depth, and elaborately allusive texture of the tale of Cupid and Psyche, which she formally reveals; moreover, he directly provides an explanation for this discrepancy by ascribing the ultimate authority for the narrative to the Latin Milesiae conditor, that is, the author of the novel, who simply dons the mask of a fictional comic storyteller for the duration of the tale.23 In a similar way, the gap between the narrator’s identity and his narrative style is stressed in the tale of Charite’s death. Its narrator, an illiterate slave, declares it to be worthy of being written down by learned men in historiae specimen.24 The clear implication of this statement is that he himself would be absolutely incapable of producing such an account. However, contrary to what the text explicitly states, the actual narrative that we end up reading is a perfect specimen of learned historiography composed in accordance with the standard rhetorical principles of the genre and interspersed with numerous allusions to other literary works.25 Finally, the robbers’ tales present a double contrast: the elevated style of the tales is completely inconsistent not only with the narrator’s identity but also with their lowly subject matter. The robber-tales are narrated in a style that presents a mixture of heroic epic and military historiography.26 Both the names of their protagonists (Lamachus, Alcimus, and the grandiloquent Thrasyleon) and 22 23 24

25 26

On the Golden Ass as a recollection narrative in personis, see Jensson 2004, 203-206. Apul. Met. 4.32 sed Apollo, quanquam Graecus et Ionicus, propter Milesiae conditorem sic Latina sorte respondit, etc. Apul. Met. 8.1 sed ut cuncta noritis, referam vobis a capite, quae gesta sunt quaeque possint merito doctiores, quibus stilos fortuna subministrat, in historiae specimen chartis involvere. Hijmans et al. 1985, 4-7. La Penna 1985; Loporcaro 1992.

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the locales in which they unfold (Thebes, Plataeae) are suggestive of the idealized glorious Greek past. The choice of diction and imagery constantly evokes associations with elevated genres: the robbers go to Thebas heptapylos (Apul. Met. 4.9); Lamachus is compared to the great kings and generals of the past and his suicide is portrayed as a glorious deed of truly epic proportions; the third tale, in which Thrasyleon disguised as a bear infiltrates Demochares’ house, is in effect a burlesque of the Trojan horse episode of the Greek heroic saga,27 etc. At the same time, the narrator of this lofty panegyric of heroic valor is portrayed as a member of a band of crude bloodthirsty robbers who resemble wild beasts rather than humans,28 whereas the content of the tales is a series of ridiculously inadequate attempts at robbery that miserably fail one after another. The effect of these comic disjunctions is quite similar to the metafictional humor of the prologue. Just as in the prologue the narrator self-consciously plays on the duality of the entire novel as both a written text and a piece of oral communication, so here, too, he constantly draws attention to the literary status of his internal tales: although these tales are presented as oral within the fictional world of the primary narrative, he couches them in elevated language of various established literary genres. The fact that tales composed in an ornate, allusive style are repeatedly attributed to humble illiterate storytellers not only serves as a source of humor but also once again explicitly reveals the elusive figure of the narrator (is it really possible to tell in each case whether we are dealing with the learned Latin author or with the rhetorically trained Greek storyteller?) hiding behind the text. At the same time, the incongruous images of some of the internal storytellers put in perspective the mimetically impossible image of Lucius as the narrator of his own adventures and, thus, further enhance the impression that the primary narrative does not compute if taken as a straightforward autobiographical account. In a sense, there is no fundamental difference between the old hag who talks in Platonic allegories or a crude robber who sounds like an outlandish hybrid between Livy and Virgil, on the one hand, and the ascetic Isiac priest practicing law on the Roman forum (Apul. Met. 11.28-30), who tells salacious stories, inadvertently ridicules religion, and claims that his own style is infinitely remote from forensic speech,29 on the other. We can thus see that Lucius is just one of the numerous storytelling personae that the narrator adopts in the course of the novel. This realization is further supported by the fact that the narrative situations of some of the inserted tales to a large extent reproduce that of the pro27 28

29

Frangoulidis 1991. Apul. Met. 4.8 estur et potatur incondite, pulmentis acervatim, panibus aggeratim, poculis agminatim ingestis. clamore ludunt, strepitu cantilant, conviciis iocantur, ac iam cetera semiferis Lapithis cenantibus Centaurisque similia. Apul. Met. 1.1 exotici ac forensis sermonis rudis locutor.

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logue. Aristomenes, Thelyphron, and the robbers’ old female servant all represent clear cases of storytelling entertainers similar to the figure that we encounter in the prologue: Aristomenes’ entertaining tale succeeds in making the hardships of the journey easier to bear (Apul. Met. 1.20), Thelyphron tells his account in order to amuse Byrrhena’s guests at a banquet (Apul. Met. 2.20), and the aim that the old hag pursues by telling the tale of Cupid and Psyche is to pacify the captive maiden Charite (Apul. Met. 4.27). Besides, the notion of storytelling as an urbane pastime exercising an enchanting effect on the listener, used to characterize all these accounts, immediately evokes the wording of the prologue too: at ego tibi ... varias fabulas conseram auresque tuas benivolas lepido susurro permulceam (1.1, the prologue), lepidae fabulae festivitate nos avocavit (1.20, Aristomenes), more tuae urbanitatis fabulam illam tuam remitire, ut et filius meus iste Lucius lepidi sermonis tuae perfruatur comitate (2.20, Thelyprhon), sed ego te narrationibus lepidis anilibusque fabulis protinus avocabo (4.27, the old hag).

Furthermore, there are notable similarities between these inserted fictions and the primary narrative in terms of their status as fabulae. In Chapter 5, I mentioned that Aristomenes, too, tells a supposedly autobiographical tale, which, however, turns out to contain numerous elements irreconcilable with the notion of an authentic eyewitness account. In other words, Aristomenes, like the primary narrator, only pretends to be offering a recollection narrative, while allowing the attentive listener / reader (lector scrupulosus (Apul. Met. 9.30)) to recognize his account as nothing but a piece of entertaining fiction (lepida fabula). The situation with Thelyphron is slightly more complex but essentially quite similar. It is more complex because the text contains no indication that, within his fictional world, Thelyphron’s tale is not ‘based on a true story’. However, the tale’s function as sympotic entertainment clearly serves to make the question of its truth-value utterly irrelevant.30 Moreover, the fact that Byrrhena’s guests cannot control their laughter at Thelyphron’s horrendous mutilation – the laughter that Thelyphron himself finds anything but funny – provides a further indication that to them he is not so much a fellow human being with a life that deserves sympathy as a circus freak whose only role is to amuse a willing audience with his droll little stories. This does not necessarily imply that they do not 30

Cf. Zimmerman 2008, 147-149.

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believe in the veracity of his tale; what it does imply, however, is that they approach his account as if it were pure fiction. No matter what the truth might be, Thelyphron has to assume an appropriate persona in order to live up to his listeners’ expectations, and is forced to play by the rules imposed on him by the situation. From this perspective, there is no substantial difference between Thelyphron and the prologue speaker as tellers of (possibly) fictional firstperson narratives, because in both cases storytelling to some extent implies roleplaying. The tale of Cupid and Psyche draws our attention to a different facet of the narrator’s composite figure, to his status not only as an oral entertainer but also as a sophisticated writer with pronounced philosophical interests. The old woman entertaining Charite not only strikes a tone in many ways similar to that of the prologue but also, as I argued in Chapter 5, produces a tale that greatly contributes to emphasizing the entire narrative’s gradual transformation from an anilis fabula into a philosophical myth. By aligning itself with the dramatic setting of the primary narrative, the tale of Cupid and Psyche serves to underscore the status of Lucius’ account as two kinds of fabula (fiction) at the same time – both as an old wives’ tale and a moralistic fable – and to reveal the narrator as a teller of such fiction. These mise en abyme configurations shed further light on the ontological status of Lucius the narrator. Not only do fictional narrators of some of the inserted tales resemble the prologue speaker in assuming storytelling personae, but they all turn out to serve in equal measure as masks that the composite figure of a buffoonish Greek oral entertainer cum refined Latin writer intermittently dons throughout his narrative (in this connection, we only have to recall that it is technically the narratrix of Cupid and Psyche who remarks that the Clarian Apollo prophesied in Latin for the sake of the Milesiae conditor (Apul. Met. 4.32), thus revealing the presence of this chameleonic figure behind her storytelling mask). Thus Lucius’ status can be regarded as privileged only in the sense that he gets a lot more lines by comparison with other speakers. In all other respects, he is perfectly on a par with such internal narrators as Aristomenes, Thelyphron, the robber, the old hag, or any other mask that the narrator chooses to wear during his storytelling performance. In one respect, however, he is probably even inferior to most of the narrators of the inserted tales. We saw above that most of the inserted tales form transparent, self-coherent, closed plot units, whereas the primary narrative often seems to be an incongruous patchwork consisting of mutually incompatible scenarios and imperfectly impersonated identities. Translated into narratorial terms, this would imply that, whereas the other speaking personae are always more or less perfectly in control of their narratives, Lucius the primary narrator sometimes completely fails to exercise control over the account that he formally reveals. This brings me to the second extreme of the novel’s narrative style to which I pointed above, namely to the ineluctable sensation that the narrator 171

sometimes becomes, as it were, lost in his own text and has to resort to impromptu buffoonery in order to get out of his impasse. There are two passages in particular that point to the impromptu dimension of the narrator’s storytelling manner. One of them occurs at the end of Book 10. After Lucius finishes his sensuous description of the pantomime of the Judgment of Paris, he all of a sudden bursts into an indignant vituperation against the outcome of the judgment, which he now presents as the archetypal case of the venality of judges. As we saw above, both the tone of this short speech and its stock-in-trade reference to Socrates’ fate are reminiscent of a typical Cynic diatribe.31 As unexpectedly as he plunged into his moralizing rage, the narrator cuts himself short and remarks that he had better return to his narrative lest somebody get annoyed with the ‘philosophizing ass’ (Apul. Met. 10.33): sed nequis indignationis meae reprehendat impetum secum sic reputans: ‘ecce nunc patiemur philosophantem nobis asinum’, rursus, unde decessi, revertar ad fabulam. But lest someone be irritated with the fervor of my indignant outburst, thinking to himself: “Are we really going to put up with an ass teaching us about philosophy?”, I will return to the point in the tale, from which I digressed.

This passage obviously combines a number of positions irreconcilable with the conventional notion of personal identity – self-indulgent voyeurism, moralistic rigor, and detached self-irony are all intertwined here in an extravagant fusion and delivered more or less in the same breath. This blatant inconsistency can of course be explained by the fact that Lucius’ ‘life’ unfolds according to the principles of a mimic farce in which he can adopt any role that he finds particularly advantageous at the moment without, however, sparing any second thought to whether or not it will produce a mimetically credible result. There is a further, and much more blatant, inconsistency in this passage, however. The most peculiar thing about Lucius’ sophomoric remark is that, by assuming that at this point one may get irritated with an ass talking about philosophy, he encourages his readers to imagine him as still being an ass at the time of narration.32 A similar thing happens on an earlier occasion, when the 31 32

Zimmerman 2000, 393-394. Other passages, in which the narrator refers to himself as asinus, and some of which Zimmerman 2000, ad loc., adduces as parallels for Lucius’ self-description as philosophans asinus, are in effect quite different because they clearly refer to Lucius as actor. At 4.6, Lucius the narrator provides an elaborate description of the robbers’ cave in order that his readers may see for themselves whether or not, as an actor, he was an ass in his mind too (faxo vos quoque, an mente etiam sensuque fuerim asinus). When at 7.10 he attacks Charite for her untimely readiness to respond to Haemus’ caresses and says that the

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narrator finishes reporting the tale of Cupid and Psyche and all of a sudden bitterly complains about the fact that back at the robbers’ cave he had neither a pen nor writing tablets to write down such a beautiful little tale.33 If we continue to abide by the seemingly unavoidable notion of Lucius as a post factum reporter of his own past adventures, the absurdity of this statement becomes truly overwhelming: Lucius here expresses the distress at having been unable to accomplish as protagonist what he has just brilliantly done as narrator. The obvious silliness of the situation that this statement urges the reader to envisage (Lucius, who at this moment is still at the beginning of his long asinine existence, could not have written anything down even if he had had an entire stationary store at his disposal), along with the fact that the narrator does not provide any comment whatsoever that could mitigate its absurdity, corroborates the impression that Lucius’ narration could be conceived of as in some sense simultaneous with his experiences. In other words, the narrator is portrayed here as more or less utterly clueless as to the nature of the narrative environment in which he finds himself. He displays no sign of anticipation of retrospection that is a conventional conditio sine qua non for both the production and the processing of any first-person recollection narrative that aims at mimetic credibility.34 The contradiction inherent in this kind of narration is immense: on the one hand, the narrator is endowed with the limited scope of a live television reporter (or, as I argued in Chapter 1, of Theocritus’ mime character Praxinoa), who seems to be telling about events as they unfold without being able to determine their ultimate outcome or significance; on the other, he relates the events of his story in the past tense, which inevitably creates the expectation that he should be in a position to control the totality of his past. By collapsing the double-time perspective essential for any first-person past-tense narrative, the narrator obviously merges two mutually exclusive viewpoints. The only conceivable explanation that could, in my opinion, account for a peaceful coexistence of these viewpoints within a single narrative voice is to assume that the narrator is simply inventing things as he goes along (that is say, extemporizing to a certain extent) and, thus, in a sense, experiencing them for the first time. Although there are only very few instances where this aspect of Lucius’ narration manifestly comes to the fore, the entire primary narrative can be perceived as narrated in this manner. In effect, the understanding of Lucius’ narration as in some way simultaneous with the events that it relates is perfectly

33 34

fate of the entire female sex depended on the judgment of an ass (et tunc quidem totarum mulierum secta moresque de asini pendebant iudicio), he talks about the judgment of Lucius the actor. Apul. Met. 6.25 sed astans ego non procul dolebam mehercules, quod pugillares et stilum non habebam, qui tam bellam fabellam praenotarem. Brooks 1984, 23.

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in keeping with my analysis of Lucius as a mime actor that I offered above. In terms of the narrator’s activity, Lucius’ constant reenactment of various previously rehearsed scenarios translates into an ingenious ‘stitching-together of tales’ (fabulas conserere). For the figure of the narrator as an oral entertainer, this implies that his account resembles a one-actor performance onstage, in which some parts (the inserted tales) are carefully scripted and memorized, whereas some others (first and foremost, the primary narrative that holds the multiplicity of the novel’s fictions together) heavily rely on improvisation, adapting themselves to their narrative surroundings in order to create the impression of a formal unity of the whole. From this perspective, the Greek storyteller whom we encounter in the prologue can best be compared to a mime actor impersonating all the characters of his multi-layered account – both the narrators and the participants in dialogues. One of the main speaking personae of this solo mime performance is, perfectly in keeping with what one would normally expect from a typical mimic play, a buffoon (mimus stupidus, calvus, actor secundarum partium), who, on closer scrutiny, turns out to be one not only in his capacity as a laughable fictional character, or as an actor reducing to absurdity other actors’ performances, but also as a narrator. Furthermore, the very fact that this performance is to a great extent based on improvisation perfectly agrees with what we otherwise know about mime performances: as we saw above, only a broad outline of a mimic play was generally agreed upon beforehand (in the case of Apuleius’ narrator, it would include not only the basic plot of the ass-tale but also the entire repertoire of the inserted tales that are for the most part inspired by the mime), whereas the show itself was largely extemporaneous. That it is the persona of Lucius the buffoon that is responsible for much of the narrative’s improvisatory momentum does not strike us as all that surprising, given what we learnt above about the impromptu acting practices of actores secundarum. These individual details seem to fall into a fairly coherent picture: on the one hand, the relationship among the three facets of the narrator’s voice (the writer, the oral entertainer, the characters that he impersonates) is governed by the principles of mime role-playing; on the other, Lucius turns out to be a typical buffoon in all of his three different capacities (as character, as actor, and as storyteller). As a result, we can see that the role of theatricality in Apuleius’ novel is even more pervasive than it appeared in the beginning: elements of popular theater determine not only much of the novel’s subject matter and structure, as well as the role-playing behavior of some of its characters, but also the aspect that, theoretically, should most visibly distinguish it from a theatrical performance – namely, its status as an account related by a single narrative voice. It is of utmost importance for our appreciation of Apuleius’ ingenious narrative art that the kind of a solo mime performance that I have assumed for its narrator is well attested elsewhere. The existence of something like a mimic stand-up comedy, in which a single actor would impersonate different characters 174

by modulating his voice, changing his facial expressions, and using different kinds of gesticulation, has been assumed for the entire history of the ancient mime.35 In Chapter 1, I discussed Aristoxenus’ evidence on the hilarodists and magodists – solo mimes acting out multi-character plots of tragedies and comedies. If Herodas’ mimiambs were indeed designed for recitation by a single voice, as has often been assumed,36 their performance would constitute an important forerunner for Apuleius’ literarized version of this popular dramatic form. The most conclusive evidence for this kind of mime performances, however, is provided in the epitaph of the mime actor Vitalis preserved in the Anthologia Latina (PLM III 246, 15-16):37 fingebam vultus, habitus ac verba loquentum, ut plures uno crederes ore loqui. I mimicked expressions, appearances, and verbal mannerisms of different speakers, so that you would have thought that many people spoke through the same mouth.

What the speaker seems to imply here is that, among the shows that he performed during his lifetime there were such as involved a single actor successively impersonating multiple roles. The superb art of mimicry allowed him to capture individual characteristics of different personages in such a way as to create the dramatic illusion of a multi-actor production, even despite the fact that all the parts were ‘spoken by the same mouth’. The situation with which we are confronted in Apuleius’ prologue clearly aims to reproduce such a stand-up comedian’s performance. Moreover, the atmosphere conjured up in the prologue is highly reminiscent of the motley theatrical ambience in which both Apuleius himself and other sophistic orators of the age envisaged mimic performances to take place (e.g., Apul. Fl. 5.3):38 bono enim studio in theatrum convenistis, ut qui sciatis non locum auctoritatem orationi derogare, sed cum primis hoc spectandum esse, quid in theatro deprehendas. Nam si mimus est, riseris, si funerepus, timueris, si comoedia est, faveris, si philosophus, didiceris. It is for a laudable reason that you have assembled in the theater. For you know that the place does not detract from the authority of the speech but that, first and foremost, you have to consider what you find in the theater: if it’s a mime, you’ll

35 36 37 38

Wüst 1932, 1741-1742. Cunningham 1971, 6 and 15, with further bibliogrpahy. On a single pantomime playing multiple roles within the same performance, see LadaRichards 2007, 40-41. Cf. Lada-Richards 2007, 135ff.

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laugh; if it’s a tightrope acrobat, you’ll experience fear; if it’s a comedy, you’ll applaud; but if it’s a philosopher, you’ll learn.

It is an atmosphere in which not only every kind of actor, first and foremost a mime, and every kind of θαυµατοποιός is perfectly at home, but also an orator and a philosopher. Their performances follow one after another in a miscellaneous succession forming a bizarre variety show. The prologue to the Golden Ass is veritably saturated with this atmosphere. To begin with, the prologue speaker’s very first words (at ego tibi) clearly imply that he has to compete for his recipients’ attention against other performers who have alternative cultural goods on offer.39 This competitive stance evokes Apuleius’ own assertive posture in the Florida passage that I have just quoted – the posture to which both he himself and other sophistic performers regularly have recourse at the beginning of their speeches, particularly in the so-called προλαλίαι:40 just as a sophistic orator, when he is about to embark upon a philosophical lecture, has to work hard in order to draw to himself the attention of the audience who have so far been entertained by mimes, comic actors, and acrobats, so the mimic stand-up comedian of Apuleius’ prologue would have to defend the attractiveness of his own performance against all of the above, plus, one would assume, against the likes of Apuleius and Maximus of Tyre giving rhetorically polished lectures on philosophy in the same theater. This would explain why, in the immediate context of the prologue, it makes such good sense for the prologue speaker to put pronounced emphasis on his own literary and rhetorical education and on his family link with Plutarch and his nephew, the philosopher Sextus (Apul. Met. 1.2). But this is not all. Orators and philosophers are not the only competition that our mime actor would have to face in his show. As we have seen, acrobats, circus artists, and all manner of other θαυµατοποιoί firmly belonged to the performance context of the mime as well. It is thus perfectly in keeping with the Florida description of a second-century AD theater that, by presenting his own narrative manner as desultoria scientia, the narrator compares himself to an acrobat jumping from one horse to another.41 This metaphor allows him to present his own performance as something on a par with the spectacular art of a circus desultor (and probably as something by far surpassing that of the funerepus of the Florida). But what exactly is the foundation on which the narrator bases the comparison between his own narrative style and the art of jumping from one horse to another? The two other attested instances where desultor is used metaphorically 39 40 41

On the antithesis inherent in the first words of the prologue, see Graverini 2007, 2-11. On the προλαλίαι in general, see Mras 1949. For other attempts to explain the phrase desultoria scientia, see Harrison’s and Winterbottom’s commentary in Kahane – Laird 2001, 14-15. See also Keulen 2007, 88-89.

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emphasize the unsteadiness of one’s personal allegiances – either erotic or political: for Ovid a desultor amoris is obviously someone who jumps from one one-night stand to another,42 whereas Messala Corvinus, according to Seneca the Elder, called Dellius desultorem bellorum civilium because during the civil wars he repeatedly changed sides – from Dolabella to Cassius, to Antonius, and finally to Caesar.43 That is to say, love affairs and political factions function in these two instances as metaphorical ‘trick horses’ that one keeps changing as one sees fit. It would indeed be perfectly in keeping with these figurative usages, if we assumed that in the case of Apuleius’ narrator the metaphor is based precisely on the fact that his is a performance in which a single actor adopts multiple roles, erratically jumping, as it were, from one to another. In order to justify the novel’s fictional notion that its essentially Greek narrative is told in Latin (fabula Graecanica),44 the author, as we have seen, creates for his fictional Greek narrator a plausible pre-history of independently mastered Roman education. From this viewpoint, the relation between the Greek and the Latin aspects of the text can be presented as a kind of mutual impersonation unfolding on different levels of reality: the Latin author of the novel adopts the persona of a Greek oral entertainer, who in turn, in his fictional world, tells his story in Latin, that is, adopts a foreign language and thus, in a way, pretends to be someone else too. In other words, the Greek narrator’s change of language (linguae immutatio) can also be understood in terms of roleplaying. In this connection, it is highly symptomatic that it is precisely this roleplaying activity that the narrator explicitly compares with the desultoria scientia that characterizes the narrative to come (Apul. Met. 1.1 iam haec equidem ipsa vocis immutatio desultoriae scientiae stilo quem accessimus respondet). What the narrator does in the course of the novel can indeed best be described as desultoria scientia: as we have seen, all he does is continuously keep changing masks, more or less in the same manner as a circus desultor jumps from one horse to another. Quite significantly, however, the narrator describes his storytelling manner not as desultoria scientia but as desultoriae scientiae stilus, which reminds us of the fact that the narrator with whom we are dealing in the Golden Ass is not a mime actor but a writer whose literary performance is comparable to that of a stand-up comedian. The stilus can in this context only mean – almost literally – the writer’s pen, which serves in the context of the book as the only 42 43

44

Ov. Am. 1.3.15-16 non mihi mille placent, non sum desultor amoris: / tu mihi, si qua fides, cura perennis eris. Sen. Suas. 1.7 bellissimam rem Dellius dixit, quem Messala Corvinus desultorem bellorum civilium vocat quia ab Dolabella ad Cassium transiturus salutem sibi pactus est si Dolabellam occidisset, a Cassio deinde transit ad Antonium, novissime ab Antonio transfugit ad Caesarem. On the meaning of fabula Graecanica, see Keulen 2007, 90.

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conceivable instrument of the mimic actor’s desultoria scientia.45 The stand-up comedian’s ‘desultory’ role-playing tricks are made possible only through the agency of the author’s writing, which makes all the characters impersonated by the narrator come to life. Within the multi-layered role-playing construct of Apuleius’ novel, it is precisely the writer’s pen (stilus) that turns out to possess the ultimate knowledge (scientia) of how to transform the art of a versatile mercurial mime (desultoria) into the diegetic mode of a literary account designed to be enjoyed by an attentive reader (lector intende: laetaberis). Thus with the final image of the prologue everything falls into place. This single phrase epitomizes, in a superbly clever way, the novel’s continuous tension between disciplined literary sophistication and erratic buffoonish theatricality, or, to put it differently, its status as both a historia and a fabula. At the same time, it provides a pithy image for the multi-layered system of impersonations that constitutes the core of the novel’s narrative technique: in only three words, it describes the almost inextricable confusion of a writer behaving like a mimic buffoon who in turn presents a solitary rendition of a complex multi-actor scenario. 8.2. Milesian tales We have thus established that the figure of Apuleius’ narrator is a writer reenacting with his pen a solo mimic performance in which a single stand-up comedian impersonates a multiplicity of characters. What I would like to investigate now is one of the literary contexts that provided the matrix for the particular pattern in which this narrator ‘stitches his tales together’. At the very beginning of the prologue, the narrator says that he will join his tales together sermone isto Milesio.46 What function does this reference to the tradition of the so-called Milesian tales have for our understanding of the literary texture of the novel as a whole? In order to find it out, we have to begin by examining what can be gleaned about this elusive genre of narrative literature from other sources. The scanty evidence that we have for the Milesian tales indicates that originally they were oral anecdotes that propagated the popular stereotype of the inhabitants of Miletus as wanton and self-indulgent.47 Although nothing can be said for sure about their plots, what seems to be relatively certain is that the action of these tales took place in Miletus and that they were characterized by sa45 46 47

Cf. Varro’s Desultorius περὶ τοῦ γράφειν. Winkler 1985, 294-296. On different possible meanings of stilus, see Keulen 2007, 89. On the difficulties involved in the interpretation of this phrase, see Jensson 2004, 259. See also various contributions in Kahane – Laird 2001, especially Bitel 2001. Benz 2001, 47-50.

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lacious subject matter, with the theme of adultery and other kinds of illicit sexual affairs possibly playing the central role.48 These features allow us to locate the Milesian tales at the intersection of two different sub-literary contexts. On the one hand, the Milesian tales would belong to the vast category of anecdotes about inhabitants of different localities that ridicule (or simply perpetuate) certain stereotypical traits traditionally attributed to them. Among such anecdotes there are, for instance, the Philogelos jokes that portray the Cumeans, Sidonians, and Abderites as clinical idiots and stories about the Sybarites spoiled by their luxurious lifestyle that could have formed the basis of the Sybaritika mentioned by Ovid (Trist. 2.417).49 A great number of other nationalities were regularly ridiculed in a similar way: Thessalians as uncouth and impervious to the concepts of Greek high culture, Massaliots as effeminate, etc.50 Incidentally, under the same category one could probably also include stories about Thessalian women as sex-crazed scheming witches that form the basis of the first three books of the Golden Ass.51 Alongside other similarly stereotyped locations, Miletus of the Milesian tales would thus turn into a purely imaginary landscape inhabited by attractive adulteresses and cunning gallants. On the other hand, the generally erotic subject matter of the Milesian tales makes them very similar to the tradition of erotic mimes that I discussed above – to the adultery mimes in particular. As I showed in Chapter 1, Apuleius’ adultery tales, which have repeatedly been used, along with Petronius’ Widow of Ephesus and Boy of Pergamon, as the primary evidence for the content and structure of the Milesian tales,52 can be regarded as a catalogue of different manifestations that the generic super-plot of the adultery mime could assume in its individual productions. It would indeed be impossible to determine (and, in my opinion, any attempt to do so would of necessity be ill-conceived) whether mime performances or oral anecdotes were the original locus of the archetypal adultery plot. Most likely, we are dealing with an age-old wandering narrative motif, whose undeniable triviality has not prevented it from stirring up the listeners’ (readers’, spectators’) interest from Homer to our own time. The oldest, and by far the most famous, comic portrayal of adultery in antiquity is after all 48

49 50 51 52

The sparse ancient testimonies all agree that Milesian tales were patently indecent. E.g., Plutarch’s Crassus (32) can serve as a vivid illustration of their indecency, where Plutarch tells that the Parthians thought that one of the reasons why Crassus’ army was defeated was the enervating effect of Aristides’ Milesiaca, a copy of which one of his officers was discovered to possess. Thierfelder 1968, 15-17. On the Sybaritika, see Benz 2001, 48-49. On Thessalians, see Plut. Poet. 15c, Quint. Inst. 11.2.11–16 (cf. van Groningen 1948); on Abderites, see Philogelos 110-127; on Massaliots, see Jensson 2004, 112-116. On the stereotypical image of Thessalian witches, see Philips 2002. E.g., Lefèvre 1997.

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Demodocus’ song about Hephaestus disturbing the amorous rendezvous between Aphrodite and Ares in Odyssey 8.266-366. Despite the fact that this story includes all central characters of classic adultery tales, as we know them from both Apuleius and other sources (a young attractive adulteress, a vigorous lover, and an old cuckolded husband, who at first makes the impression of a silly dupe (stupidus) but then manages to outsmart the adulterous couple by catching them red-handed), it would obviously be preposterous to postulate either the adultery mime or the Milesian tales as its ultimate source of inspiration. Similarly, the fact that the adultery anecdotes told in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae (477ff.) have much in common with other plots dealing with the same topic is absolutely useless in terms of Quellenforschung: it can neither prove nor disprove that adultery mimes and/or Milesian tales were known in the fifth-century Athens, let alone that they exerted a direct influence on Aristophanes, or vice versa.53 Even though it is probably impossible to trace the exact genesis of the adultery motif in ancient oral culture and literature, we could postulate with a fair amount of certainty a two-way traffic between dramatic and narrative genres that exploited this motif: the erotic themes of the mime could have been influenced by the tradition of the adultery anecdote, which in turn could have been further enriched by developments that took place on the mime stage.54 Between these two sub-literary forms, there must have existed an intertextual (or rather, interdiscursive) continuum of common plots and motifs, which were not protected by any copyright and which, for that reason, anyone could freely employ for his or her own purposes. As an aside, I would like to add that this kind of relationship between the performative and diegetic modes could be surmised not only for adultery mimes and adultery tales but also for other popular narrative plots recycled in Apuleius’ novel. As we have seen, Apuleius’ tales of magic, robber tales, and tales of rejected women all display a very strong mimic background. At the same time, all of them are presented within the fictional world of the novel as oral anecdotes related by a single narrator, which provides a clear indication that all of these plots most likely circulated simultaneously in two different sub-literary media – mimic performance and oral narrative. Be that as it may, it seems to me quite probable that the association between erotic tales and Miletus is of a secondary nature and occurred, due to the stereotypical reputation of that city, after the bulk of motifs and plot turns had taken shape in the oral tradition elsewhere. Although it is impossible to determine when exactly narratives on titillating sexual topics began to be localized in Miletus, it would be quite safe to assume that there were quite a large number of such narratives in circulation by the time when, in the first century BC, Aristides 53 54

Pace Benz 2001, 68-72. Cf. Benz 2001, 60-137.

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collected them in his Milesiaca, which was adapted into Latin by Sisenna within a few decades from the composition of the original.55 The fragments preserved from these two works are too scanty to allow us any conclusions about their content beyond the fact that they doubtless did contain some sexually explicit matter.56 There are, however, two pieces of external evidence that could help us gain a better insight into the possible nature of Aristides’ work. The first of them can be found at the very beginning of the Pseudo-Lucianic Amores (1): πάνυ δή µε ὑπὸ τὸν ὄρθρον ἡ τῶν ἀκολάστων σου διηγηµάτων αἱµύλη καὶ γλυκεῖα πειθὼ κατεύφραγκεν, ὥστ᾿ ὀλίγου δεῖν Ἀριστείδης ἐνόµιζον εἶναι τοῖς Μιλησιακοῖς λόγοις ὑπερκηλούµενος, ἄχθοµαί τε νὴ τοὺς σοὺς Ἔρωτας, οἷς πλατὺς εὑρέθης σκοπός, ὅτι πέπαυσαι διηγούµενος. This morning I have derived such great pleasure from the sweet enticing seductiveness of your uninhibited narratives that I almost thought I was Aristides charmed beyond measure by the Milesian tales, and I swear by these Cupids of yours, to whom you have provided so broad a target, that I find it regrettable that you have stopped narrating.

The relevance of this passage for Apuleius’ novel can hardly be overlooked. To begin with, the notion of Milesian tales as ‘enchanting’ fictions, almost literally casting a spell on their listeners, is clearly taken up in the promise that Apuleius’ narrator makes in the prologue – to soothe the reader’s ears with an agreeable whisper (auresque tuas benivolas lepido susurro permulceam). Furthermore, the passing reference to Aristides as an enchanted listener (ὑπερκηλούµενος) of Milesian tales allows one to assume that the author described a fictional journey to Miletus during which he had a chance to hear numerous first-person accounts of erotic adventures told by one or more secondary narrators, that is to say, things that were generally considered to constitute the most appropriate subject matter for Milesian tales.57 In other words, like Apuleius’ Golden Ass, Aristides’ Milesiaka most likely was a first-person travelogue interspersed with numerous embedded narratives.58 As a compositional device, the travelogue form obviously provides a very convenient way of putting together numerous tales within the framework of a single narrative, and it is highly probable that Apuleius’ reference to ille sermo Milesius is an indication of his indebtedness to 55 56

57 58

Jensson 2004, 262-263. There is only one word preserved from Aristides (Jensson 2004, 262). Fragments of Sisenna’s Milesiae are published in Bücheler’s edition of Petronius’ Satyricon (Berlin 1862). They all originate from Charisius’ Ars Grammatica, which naturally shows more interest in linguistic peculiarities than in content. One fragment, however, directly betrays the obscene tendency of the work (fr. 10): ut eum paenitus utero suo recepit. Scobie 1975, ad loc.; Bitel 2001. Jensson 2004, 263-266.

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the use of this form by Aristides: just as Aristides creates a fictional journey to Miletus as a matrix for multiple literarized specimens of this single, thematically and geographically limited, genre of oral storytelling, so Apuleius, too, uses a fictional journey to Thessaly as a receptacle not only for a number of typical witch-stories but also for a variety of other kinds of popular narrative plots. The following passage from Ovid’s Tristia may shed some more light on the possible narrative situation and composition of Aristides’ work and, by extension, on the relationship between the Milesiaca and the Golden Ass (Ov. Tr. 2.413): iunxit Aristides Milesia crimina secum. Aristides connected Milesian crimes with himself.

What could it mean exactly that Aristides connected these tales with himself? Of course, it could simply mean that he associated himself with the Milesia crimina by lending a curious ear to those who have committed them. Alternatively, or rather additionally, it could imply that Aristides presented himself not only as a listener but also as a protagonist of some of the Milesian adventures that he describes.59 That is to say, his own experiences would have corroborated what he had heard from his local informants in that, after listening to typical Milesian tales, he would have gotten involved in similar erotic adventures of his own. Enchanted (ὑπερκηλούµενος) by the tales that he had heard in Miletus, Aristides would have been thus, as it were, transformed into a character of a typical Milesian tale. This understanding of Ovid’s text would to a certain extent agree with the information that we can deduce from the dramatic setting of Ps.-Lucian’s Amores in which some scholars have seen a direct reflection of the structure of Aristides’ original work. We have to bear in mind of course that, unlike the Milesiaca, the Amores is not a novelistic account, in which characters can perform a virtually unlimited variety of actions, but a dialogue, whose participants can act only in their capacity as speakers. For this reason, a transformation from a listener of tales told by Milesian lovers into such a Milesian lover would be hardly conceivable within this generic framework. What certainly is conceivable, however, is a comparable transformation from a listener to a teller of erotic tales. And this is precisely what happens in Ps.Lucian’s text. At the beginning of the dialogue, Lycinus (the speaker of the passage that I quoted above) casts himself as Aristides enthralled by the erotic reminiscences of his friend Theomnestus, whom he thus presents as a typical Milesian storyteller. When Lycinus asks for more similar stuff, Theomnestus admits that, despite his innumerable amorous adventures, he has run out of 59

Cf. Jensson 2004, 261.

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stories and urges Lycinus to engage in an erotic discourse of his own. Lycinus, still spellbound by his interlocutor’s charming narratives, readily takes up the challenge and begins an account of a voyage that he undertook some time before (that is, a travelogue, presumably similar to that of Aristides’), during which he heard an anecdote and two speeches on erotic subjects, which he quotes verbatim.60 Thus the seductive power of the Milesian storytelling, which I have assumed for Aristides’ account in the literal sense (listening to tales of erotic adventures inspires one with the desire to experience something similar), manifests itself in Ps.-Lucian as a purely discursive seduction – as a desire to talk about a similar subject matter. However the exact relationship between Ps.-Lucian’s Amores and Aristides’ Milesiaca might have been, the fact that the Ovidian passage allows us to hypothesize that the structure of Aristides’ Milesiaca included a primary narrative that essentially reproduced the most salient motifs and plot turns of the subordinate tales is of great significance for our understanding of the fact that Apuleius describes the chief compositional device of his own narrative as sermone isto Milesio varias fabulas conserere. Could it be that, in the eyes of both Apuleius and his original readers, “that famous Milesian storytelling manner” consisted precisely in a particular compositional pattern of joining multiple stories into a unified whole, irrespective of the tales’ content – a pattern within which the first-person narrator/protagonist in the end experienced something similar to what was first presented to him merely as a series of entertaining stories? This is after all exactly how Apuleius’ narrative is structured. As we saw above, plot patterns of a great number of episodes of Apuleius’ primary narrative essentially follow in the footsteps of what has been previously rehearsed in inserted tales. Adopting Ovid’s phrasing, one could say that the novel’s primary narrator/protagonist in a way ‘connects with himself’ (iungit secum) the tales that he happens to hear. Moreover, Apuleius further expands this structure by applying it not only to the first-person narrator but also to other characters of the primary narrative: not only do Lucius’ adventures in Thessaly by and large echo Aristomenes’ and Thelyphron’s tales and his fictional ‘life’ as a whole the basic scenario of the tale of Cupid and Psyche (which is, by the way, explicitly referred to as a Milesia at 4.32), but the robbers’ fate in the primary narrative corresponds to the outcomes of the inserted robber-tales, the miller’s wife reenacts, with some variations, the essential plot of the adultery tales that she has heard from other narrators, etc. Only one section of Apuleius’ novel contains subject matter that one would typically associate with the original Milesian tales, namely the erotic tales of Books 9 and 10. The rest of the novel employs the Milesian principle in the purely structural sense. There are nevertheless further similarities between the 60

Cf. Jensson 2004, 263-267.

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Golden Ass and Aristides’/Sisenna’s Milesiaca. To begin with, the Miletus of the Milesian tales, as I emphasized above, is a purely imaginary landscape whose sole dependable characteristic is the stereotypical promiscuity of its inhabitants. If I am right in assuming that Aristides portrayed himself as an active participant in typically Milesian erotic escapades, it would certainly have served to corroborate this cliché even further. The implicit moral of the whole story would have been that, once one has entered this imaginary locale, one’s own life, as it were, is inevitably bound to assume traits of a Milesian tale too. Similarly, the Thessaly to which Lucius travels is not a real country but a fantastic land entirely reduced to the barebones of a popular stereotype.61 Lucius, too, is first exposed to this stereotype in the tales about Thessalian magic. As the narrative progresses, however, he himself gradually becomes sucked into the plot of a typical witch story. Another possible point of contact between the Milesiaca and the Golden Ass is the relation between the written and oral modes. As we saw above, Ps.Lucian’s passage emphasizes the oral character of the tales by which Aristides was ‘enchanted’ in the fictional world of his narrative. In other words, the narrative situation of Aristides’ account ideally captures the oral conditions that we have assumed for the circulation of the original Milesian anecdotes. It is precisely this fictive orality that Aristides reenacts in his writing (in this connection, it is of utmost importance to remember that indirect witnesses on Aristides’ work stress its status as a book designed for enjoyment by a solitary reader).62 Could it be that Aristides, too, like Apuleius’ narrator, presented himself in his book as an oral storyteller faithfully reproducing to his recipient (who would then be cast as a listener) what he heard from other narrators during his journey? Although this relationship between the oral and the written modes is certainly conceivable for the Milesiaca, we have to admit that our sources provide no unequivocal evidence on how the figure of Aristides’ Milesian narrator was introduced in the original text. This, however, by no means implies that Apuleius’ narrator as a solo mimic entertainer, whose performance is translated into writing by a sophisticated author, has no precursors in ancient literature.

61

62

Cf. Bowersock 1965, 278: “Die meisten Römer des Prinzipats kannten Thessalien hauptsächlich als einen Ort von Magie und dämonischen Frauen. Von dem tatsächlichen Thessalien hatten sie nur geringe Ahnung.” Plu. Crass. 32, for instance, mentions ἀκόλαστα βιβλία τῶν Ἀριστίδου Μιλησιακῶν.

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8.3. Omnis musae mancipium: Petronius’ Satyricon Whereas the virtually complete loss of Aristides’ and Sisenna’s writings makes most of the things that we have to say about them of necessity hypothetical, Petronius’ Satyricon, which also displays a conglomerate of structural and thematic elements similar to those of Apuleius’ novel, provides us with a much more user-friendly comparative material. To begin with, most individual episodes of the Satyricon, as those of the Golden Ass, display unmistakable thematic connections with the mime.63 The very fact that the novel’s protagonist Encolpius and his friends are referred to as scholastici (Petr. Sat. 10) is immediately reminiscent of the scholasticus jokes of the Philogelos, which, as I mentioned above, are quite likely to have been – directly or indirectly – inspired by the world of mimic buffoonery and, in turn, to have influenced the image of Apuleius’ Lucius. Some episodes are particularly redolent of the counter-intuitive absurdity characteristic of the Philogelos and the mime. For instance, the urbanitas stulta with which Encolpius asks an old woman selling vegetables on the street whether she knows where he lives (Petr. Sat. 6 ‘rogo’ inquam ‘mater, numquid scis ubi ego habitem?’) sounds like a typical specimen of the sophomoric humor of the scholasticus jokes. The fact that the ‘home’ to which the old woman brings this confused but obviously quite attractive youth turns out to be a brothel enhances this impression even further.64 Further, the marketplace scene in Sat. 12-15 shares a common mimic background with the Pythias episode of the Golden Ass, whose theatrical associations I discussed above.65 Not only do both scenes take place at a market but they are also based on essentially the same kind of unassumingly absurd humor characteristic of the mime in general: whereas the Pythias episode, as we have seen, exploits the recognizable routine of the scholasticus jokes, Petronius’ episode involves a typically comic quid pro quo situation and contains elements of slapstick typical of the mime.66 Slapstick humor is one of the most pervasive aspects of the novel in general. At 22, for instance, two Syrians (incidentally, Syrians are typical stock figures of the mime)67 surreptitiously intrude upon Quartilla’s Priapic ritual with 63 64 65 66

67

See Panayotakis 1995, for numerous thematic parallels between virtually each scene of the Satyricon and the surviving mime fragments. Panayotakis 1995, 1-9. For theatrical elements of Petronius’ marketplace scene, see Panayotakis 1995, 20-31. E.g., Petr. Sat. 14 cum primum ergo explicuimus mercem, mulier aperto capite inspectis diligentius signis iniecit utramque laciniae manum magnaque vociferatione latrones tenere clamavit. contra nos perturbati, ne videremur nihil agere, et ipsi scissam et sordidam tenere coepimus tunicam atque eadem invidia proclamare nostra esse spolia quae illi possiderent. Panayotakis 1995, 47.

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the intention of robbing its participants, cause a table to collapse, wake up some of the drunken celebrants, and immediately drop on the floor and begin to snore in order to avoid any suspicion. The extended description of a drunken fight at 95 deploys an entire arsenal of slapstick devices, with candlesticks, forks, and other household implements inflicting bruises and wounds on the infuriated opponents. A similar brawl that occurs on Lichas’ ship is brought to an end only when Giton threatens to cut off his genitals – the ultimate cause of so many evils (tot miseriarum causam) – with a harmlessly blunt knife with which he has already tried to commit a sham (mimic!) suicide (mimicam mortem) at 94. Finally, the farting exchange between Corax and Giton at 117 seems to capture one of the essential characteristics of mime humor in general, as is attested for instance by the Charition papyrus fragment in which the goddess worshipped by the crude barbarians is called Πορδή and the µωρός character engages in incessant farting.68 I mentioned in Chapter 1 that the magic ritual conducted by Oenothea and Proselenus in order to cure Encolpius of impotence is probably rooted in the mime tradition, too, which goes back to Theocritus’ Idyll 2 and ultimately to Sophron.69 There are a number of other female characters in the Satyricon who display notable affinities with familiar figures of the mime. For instance, Petronius’ sex-crazed women, Quartilla and Circe, with their sadistic inclinations and, at least in Circe’s case, strong preference for having sex with slaves, are clearly reminiscent of such female monsters of the mime as Herodas’ Bittina and the protagonist of the papyrus Moicheutria. The entire Quartilla episode is explicitly marked by the risus mimicus.70 I mentioned in Chapter 1 that the manner in which Petronius characterizes the risus mimicus is highly similar to the laughter that overpowers the spectators of Apuleius’ Risus festival. It is, however, quite as conspicuous that the mechanisms that cause laughter in both cases have a great deal in common too. In the Risus festival, it is first and foremost Lucius’ degradation to the level of an unsuspecting passive actor in a ritualized theatrical performance that leads to the explosion of uncontrollable laughter. Similarly, in Quartilla’s Priapic ritual, Encolpius is manipulated into succumbing to various (for him) nauseating sexual practices, and it is likewise his humiliation that causes laughter in its cunning organizers.71 Moreover, what in both cases emerges as a concomitant of

68 69 70 71

Wiemken 1972, 48-80. See also Panayotakis 1995, 171-172. Panayotakis 1995, 39-40. On the theatrical quality on the Quartilla epiode, also see Slater 1990, 43-44. Conte 1996, 111-113; Courtney 2001, 65-71.

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the universal laughter is the victim’s tears of despair.72 As a result, both Lucius and Encolpius are revealed as forced participants of farcical shows (in a sense, as mimic stupidi), whose planners simultaneously serve as their main intended audiences: just as Lucius is forced to perform onstage in a scapegoat rite that aims to produce laughter in the entire community of celebrating Hypatans, so Encolpius and his friends, too, are turned into laughable puppets performing an amusing farce for Quartilla and her gang. The fact that Encolpius’ status in the novel can be compared to that of a mime actor particularly comes to the fore in the scene that takes place onboard Lichas’ ship. In order to avoid being discovered by Lichas and Tryphaena, Encolpius and Giton agree to disguise themselves as Eumolpus’ slaves by having their heads shaved. When the plot is discovered, Lichas explicitly refers to it as mimicae artes (106). This conspicuous combination of mimic impersonation and baldness inevitably brings to mind the familiar image of a mimic buffoon. In other words, at least on this one occasion Encolpius does unmask his identity as a mimus calvus in the literal sense of the word.73 Encolpius’ mimicae artes in the Lichas episode are by far not the only instance of mimic impersonation in the novel. As a matter of fact, the entire extant text is virtually saturated with the spirit of duplicity and role-playing explicitly conceived of in mimic terms. When Giton leaves Encolpius for Ascyltus, the narrator gives vent to his ire in a moralizing epigram in which he presents all human relationships as instances of mime role-playing practiced only as long as the actors find it advantageous (Petr. Sat. 80): grex agit in scaena mimum: pater ille vocatur, filius hic, nomen divitis ille tenet. mox ubi ridendas inclusit pagina partes, vera redit facies, assimulata perit. A company mounts the stage, presents a mimic play, Taking the roles of rich man, father, son; But once these comic parts have had their say, 74 Our true selves reappear; the roles are gone.

Similarly, Eumolpus’ plot of how to outsmart the Crotonian legacy-hunters is based on performing a mime – in its basic outline virtually identical to the one that failed to command belief in the Lichas episode (Petr. Sat. 117): 72

73 74

Petr. Sat. 25 non tenui ego diutius lacrimas. Apul. Met. 3.10 nec prius ab inferis emersi, quam Milon hospes accessit et iniecta manu me renitentem larcimisque rursum promicantibus crebra singultientem clementi violentia secum adtraxit, etc. Panayotakis 1995, 141. Translation after P.G. Walsh.

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‘quid ergo’ inquit Eumolpus ‘cessamus mimum componere? facite ergo me dominum, si negotiatio placet.’ Eumolpus said: “Why are we delaying the performance of this mime? Let me play your master, if you like this business proposal.”

In this mime, Eumolpus plays the role of an astronomically wealthy childless landowner, who convinces the rapacious legacy-hunters that the ship carrying all his unimaginable fortune from Africa is to arrive soon, whereas his companions, including Encolpius, agree to play his slaves. It is, however, the longest surviving episode of the Satyricon – the Cena (Petr. Sat. 26-78) – that contains the greatest number of references to the mime. It is quite obvious that Petronius’ description of Trimalchio’s sumptuous symposium readily lends itself to an interpretation in theatrical terms.75 Not only does Trimalchio’s ostentatious display of wealth transform him into a composite figure of a tyrannical actor cum director, who manages both to play his role onstage and to keep a vigilant eye on the spectators’ conformity with the paradigm of subservient behavior imposed on them by this bizarre performative setting (the result is a confusion between audience and stage, which has been convincingly described as typical for imperial – not only Neronian – theater).76 The theatrical component of Trimalchio’s banquet is particularly enhanced by the fact that, perfectly in keeping with the contemporary sympotic routine, the entertainment that it provides includes a great variety of performance genres: in addition to learned table talk, ghost stories, and sympotic epigrams, we are confronted with pantomime, modern adaptations of classical poetry (Homer and Virgil),77 rope-dancing, and last but not least, mime.78 Needless to say, at the hands of the ignoramus nouveau riche Trimalchio this unpalatable farrago of high and low culture is reduced to the level of mildly unsettling burlesque. What is of utmost importance for our appreciation of Trimalchio’s feast, however, is the fact that the variety of sympotic entertainment that Trimalchio achieves at his banquet perfectly corresponds to what one would expect from those given by his aristocratic contemporaries.79 In addition to the fact that the Cena contains numerous explicit references to the mime, it constantly draws attention, more than any other scene of the novel, to its own status as a mime (imitatio vitae, µίµησις βίου). Not only is Trimalchio’s banquet particularly rich in slapstick interludes typical of the 75 76 77 78

79

Bartsch 1994, 197-199; Panayotakis 1995, 52-109. Bartsch 1994. On the Homeristae as mime actors performing scenes from Homer, see Jones 1991, 189. On the Satyricon as a mixture of genres, see Zeitlin 1971; Christesen-Torlone 2002. On the theatricality of Trimalchio’s banquet, as well as on its being representative of the imperial sympotic culture in general, see Jones 1991. On entertainment at symposia during the imperial period, see Jones 1991, 191-197.

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mime, as well as in direct references to the mime genre (the mimus Laserpiciarius at 35 and Trimalchio’s syncrisis of Cicero and Publilius Syrus at 55),80 but the fact that the episode is interspersed with numerous instances of the freedmen’s substandard parlance, scintillating with precious nuggets of vernacular authenticity, immediately brings to mind the imitatio nimia characteristic of the mime.81 The only goal that these trivial conversations seem to pursue is to produce an imitation of ‘reality’ for imitation’s sake – in agreement with the standard notion of mime as mimesis.82 The Cena’s pervasive emphasis on its own mimic nature is coupled with repeated references to life-like imitation (in almost all conceivable kinds of media, including food), which constitute a steady presence over the course of the narrator’s description of the banquet. The episode is framed by two ekphraseis of art-works – the one real, the other imaginary – that celebrate Trimalchio’s life and death respectively. The painting of Trimalchio entering Rome as a youth that sports all manner of trite mythological paraphernalia is preceded – to the viewer’s gaze – by a fresco of a savage dog depicted with such naturalistic precision that Encolpius takes it for a real thing (Petr. Sat. 29, cf. 72 et qui etiam pictum timueram canem). The maudlin rehearsal of his own funeral in which Trimalchio forces his malleable guests to engage towards the end of the episode (which, insofar as it is an imitation of a real funeral, can also be perceived as a mime of sorts) includes a detailed description of the funerary monument that the not-yet-deceased wants his friend, the sculptor Habinnas, to construct for the occasion. This description, too, emphasizes the permeability of the border between art and reality: among the lavish, overly detailed decorations of his future tombstone, Trimalchio imagines huge amphorae that are sealed with gypsum – in order to prevent the wine from spilling (Petr. Sat. 71 amphoras copiosas gypsatas, ne effluant vinum). In both cases, we are obviously dealing with similar kinds of confusion of frames: in the former, the representation is so true to life that it becomes virtually impossible to distinguish between the two, whereas in the latter reality is expected to be transplanted into art wholesale with minute empirical concerns retaining their full validity. Similarly, the food that Trimalchio serves his guests is a product of elaborate mimetic art. In addition to edible objects dressed as mythological figures (35ff.), which produce mythological charades of sorts, closely related to the fatal charades of the imperial theater that I discussed in Chapter 2, we are confronted with numerous dishes that turn out to be anything but what they appear at first glance: what looks like an ungutted pig is revealed as a pig stuffed with sausages (Petr. Sat. 49), a statue of Priapus made out of pastry holds all manner of 80 81 82

Panayotakis 1995, 55, 62-63, 77-78, 88-89, 92-93, 102-104. Boyce 1991. Cf. Panayotakis 1995, xii-xxv.

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fruit that spurt saffron when touched (Petr. Sat. 60), etc. As a matter of fact, Trimalchio’s cook turns out to be a perfect mimetic artist par excellence who can trick the beholder’s eye by molding any kind of material into any kind of shape (Petr. Sat. 69-70): nam cum positus esset, ut nos putabamus, anser altilis circaque pisces et omnium genera avium, ‘’ inquit Trimalchio ‘quidquid videtis hic positum, de uno corpore est factum’. ego, scilicet homo prudentissimus, statim intellexi quid esset, et respiciens Agamemnonem ‘mirabor’ inquam ‘nisi omnia ista de facta sunt aut certe de luto. vidi Romae Saturnalibus eiusmodi cenarum imaginem fieri’. necdum finieram sermonem, cum Trimalchio ait: ‘ita crescam patrimonio, non corpore, ut ista cocus meus de porco fecit. non potest esse pretiosior homo. volueris, de vulva faciet piscem, de lardo palumbum, de perna turturem, de colepio gallinam. et ideo ingenio meo impositum est illi nomen bellissimum; nam Daedalus vocatur. When what we thought to be a fat goose, surrounded by fish and all manner of fowl, had been placed in front of us, Trimalchio said: “My friends, whatever you can see laid out here is made out of a single body.” As an extremely clever man I immediately understood what was going on. I looked at Agamemnon and said: “I will be surprised if all these things are not made of wax or at any rate of clay. I have seen this kind of fake dinners served for Saturnalia in Rome.” I hadn’t yet finished my observation, when Trimalchio said: “As surely as I hope to increase in wealth and not in weight, my cook has made all these things out of pork. He is the most valuable man ever! If you want, he’ll make fish out of tripe, a pigeon out of bacon, a turtle-dove out of ham, a chicken out of pork-knuckle. So, by a stroke of genius, I gave him the most suitable name: he is called Daedalus.

Next to Daedalus, an unrivaled master of culinary mimesis, there are a number of other mimetic artists in the Cena whose skills more closely correspond to the conventional notion of mime as mimesis. The freedman Plocamus claims that when he was younger his mimic skills could be compared only to the skills of Apelles – one of the most famous mimetic artists of the Classical period (Petr. Sat. 64 quando parem habui nisi unum Apelletem).83 Trimalchio himself, too, challenges his friend’s self-appraisal as a mimetic virtuoso by imitating fluteplayers (Petr. Sat. 64 cum tibicines esset imitatus). The Alexandrian slave-boy serving warm water to Trimalchio’s guests (the indication of his origin must be significant here, as Alexandria was generally perceived in the Roman period as the homeland of all kinds of mimic/mimetic excesses)84 imitates a nightingale 83

84

Cf. Herod. Mim. 4.72-76, where Apelles is mentioned as the most versatile master of artistic mimesis, who can literally imitate anything: ἀληθιναί, Φίλη, γὰρ αἰ Ἐφεσίου χεῖρες / ἐς πάντ᾿ Ἀπέλλεω γράµµατ᾿. οὐδ᾿ ἐρεῖς ῾κεῖνος / ὤνθρωπος ἒν µὲν εἶδεν, ἒν δ᾿ ἀπηρνήθη᾿, / ἀλλ᾿ ᾦ ἐπὶ νοῦν γένοιτο καὶ θέων ψαύειν / ἠπείγετ᾿. Cic. Rab. Post. 35 audiebamus Alexandriam, nunc cognoscimus. Illim omnes praestigiae, illim, inquam, omnes fallaciae, omnia denique ab iis mimorum argumenta nata sunt. Hist. Aug. M. Ant. philos. 29.1-3 fidicinae et tibicines et histriones scurrasque mimicos et

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(Petr. Sat. 68 luscinias coepit imitari). Finally, a young slave of Habinnas’, in addition to producing an incongruous mixture of Virgil and Atellane verses, proves to be capable of imitating virtually anything and anyone (Petr. Sat. 68): ‘et numquit [sc. Habinnas] ‘didicit, sed ego ad circulatores eum mittendo erudibam. itaque parem non habet, sive mulionem volet sive circulatores imitari. desperatum valde ingeniosus est: idem sutor est, idem cocus, idem pistor, omnis musae mancipium.’ [Habinnas] said: “And he has never received any formal training. I only educated him by sending him to itinerant jugglers. So he has no equal whether he wants to imitate muleteers or jugglers. This is how terribly talented he is: tailor, cook, baker, you name it, all in one person; he is a slave of every talent.

In a sense, this boy epitomizes the mimic spirit of the episode and, as I will show immediately, of the novel as a whole. He is a typical sympotic mime – an imitator par excellence – known from the earliest periods of the ancient written record,85 whose indiscriminate mimesis Plato in the Republic scornfully paralleled with the philosophical pointlessness of mimetic poetry86 and whose literary ancestry indirectly goes at least as far back as the Delian maidens of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo.87 This image thus serves as a quintessence of the pervasive emphasis on mime as mimesis that permeates the entire Cena. What emerges from such an obtrusive juxtaposition of the mimic imitatio nimia, which characterizes Petronius’ narrative in this episode, and the obsession with the lifelikeness of mimetic arts, which characterizes its fictional world, is the clear sense of self-referentiality: all these numerous descriptions of successfully implemented visual (including culinary), acoustic, and theatrical mimesis are obviously meant to emphasize the status of the narrative as a work of mimetic art too, that is to say, as a mime in the broadest sense of the term. As I showed in Chapter 1, we can observe a similar kind of selfreferentiality in the Golden Ass too. Lifelikeness of visual mimesis as a metaphor for the text’s own status as an imitatio vitae, which informs both Petronius’

85

86

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praestigiatores et omnia mancipiorum genera, quorum Syria et Alexandria pascitur voluptate. See, e.g., the description of the Dionysus-and-Ariadne pantomime in Xen. Smp. 9.2-7, with its emphasis on the lifelikeness of the actors’ performance (6): ἐῴκεσαν γὰρ οὐ δεδιδαγµένοις τὰ σχήµατα ἀλλ᾿ ἐφειµένοις πράττειν ἃ πάλαι ἐπεθύµουν. Cf. Plu. Quaest. conv. 712e. Pl. Rep. 396b ἵππους χρεµετίζοντας καὶ ταύρους µυκωµένους καὶ ποταµοὺς ψοφοῦντας καὶ θάλατταν κτυποῦσαν καὶ βροντὰς µιµήσονται. Hom. H.Ap. 154-164 κοῦραι Δηλιάδες πάντων δ᾿ ἀνθρώπων φωνὰς καὶ βαµβαλιστύν / µιµεῖσθ᾿ ἴσασιν· φαίη δέ κεν αὐτὸς ἕκαστος / φθέγγεσθ᾿· οὕτω σφιν καλὴ συνάρηρεν ἀοιδή.

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and Apuleius’ understanding of their novels as mimic narratives, doubtless has its origin in Hellenistic literary mime. The Cena, however, participates in this tradition to a much greater extent than any episode of Apuleius’ novel. Petronius follows Theocritus 15 and Herodas 4 not only in adopting the motif of indistinguishability between art and life but also in placing descriptions of mimetic objects and tricks in a context marked by what purports to be a faithful imitation – however artful it may appear on closer look – of the most trivial aspects of everyday life.88 The obtrusive stress on artistic representations passing for real objects in all three texts – a tapestry in Theocritus, statuary and paintings in Herodas, and food in Petronius – aims to underscore, respectively, the mimic/mimetic nature of the Syracusan women talking about everyday concerns of their households, the female worshippers of Asclepius worrying about the success of the sacrifice, and Trimalchio’s sulky fellow-freedmen talking about rising food prices. One of the advantages of regarding the Satyricon as continuing the tradition of literary mime is that it can help us explain such a characteristically Petronian feature as the novel’s prosimetry. It has often been stressed that of all genres of ancient literature the mime is characterized by the highest conceivable degree of formal freedom.89 The violation of limitations imposed on other genres, both dramatic and other, appears to be a programmatic raison d’être of the mime’s buffoonery. One of the manifestations of this freedom consists in the fact that the mime’s status within the broadest division of literary speech into poetry and prose is far from clearly defined. The ancient distinction between µιµολόγοι and µιµῳδοί may be indicative of the coexistence between prose and poetry from the earliest stages of the genre’s development.90 Individual pieces of evidence corroborate this general picture, as among the remains of ancient mimes that have come down to us there are both prose and poetry in more or less equal measure. Sophron’s mimes that are supposed to have been particularly influential on Platonic dialogues were in prose.91 Athenaeus attests an entire variety of genres of verse mimes (Ath. Deipn. 620d-622d) – a popular tradition, which Herodas and Theocritus continue in their literary compositions. The scanty surviving fragments of Roman literary mimes seem to belong to the same poetic tradition, too. As far as the papyrus finds go, we are confronted with a variety of both prosaic and poetic fragments too.92 What is particularly revealing, however, is that this indefinite status could occasionally lead to hybrid 88 89 90 91 92

On Theocritus’ and Herodas’ ‘realism’, see Zanker 1987, 9-18 and 158-160. Benz 1999, 57-63. Wüst 1932, 1732. Hordern 2004, 4-10. E.g., the Moicheutria mime is in prose, whereas the “Damsel in Distress” fragment (Page, Select Papyri 3, 366-371) is a combination of different meters.

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forms in which prose was combined with poetry within the same text.93 Verse passages that we occasionally see in prose mimes can probably be best compared to choral songs in other kinds of Greek and Roman drama: in both cases we are dealing with spoken dialogues interspersed with lyrical portions, the most conspicuous difference between the two being that the iambics of tragedy and comedy could (although they didn’t have to) be replaced by prose in the mime. Poems that we find in the Satyricon are framed in a variety of ways.94 Some of them are explicitly marked as poems (Agamemnon’s Lucilian satire (Petr. Sat. 5), the cinaedus’ carmen in the Quartilla episode (Petr. Sat. 23), sympotic epigrams recited during Trimalchio’s banquet (Petr. Sat. 34, 55), Eumolpus’ Troiae Halosis (Petr. Sat. 89), Bellum Civile (Petr. Sat. 119-124), and the rest of his compulsive poetic productions).95 Others are part of characters’ speech, as it were, quoted by the narrator, where the characters who pronounce them betray no explicit awareness of speaking in verses. And yet others belong to the narrator’s own account. I leave the first and the third categories for later consideration and begin by considering poems that unexpectedly intrude into the speech of the novel’s fictional characters who, unlike Eumolpus, otherwise display no propensity for expressing themselves in poetic language. My impression is that these poems reveal a particularly close affinity with the choral songs of classical drama. Their function is, as a rule, to provide a generalized perspective on a particular event that takes place in the narrative, or conversely, to extrapolate a universal law from a particular occasion. For instance, Ascyltus in the marketplace episode attempts to persuade Encolpius to buy the cloak that rightfully belongs to them, instead of bringing their case to court in a strange city where no one will heed their plea anyway (Petr. Sat. 12). To corroborate his reasoning, he then bursts into a moralistic epigram that stresses the unrivaled power of money over law in the world at large (Petr. Sat. 14): quid faciunt leges, ubi sola pecunia regnat aut ubi paupertas vincere nulla potest? What point have laws where money solely reigns 96 Where poverty no victory obtains? 93

94 95 96

The Charition mime is in prose with short metrical sections: 95-98 Sotad.; 103 iamb.; 105110 and 112 troch. tetr.; 111 iamb. (Page, Select Papyri 3, 339). See also Immisch 1923, 10-11. On Petronius’ poems in general, see Courtney 1991 (a commentary); Connors 1998; Courtney 2001, 31-35. On Trimalchio’s and Eumolpus’ poetry, see Connors 1998, 51-68 and 84-146. Translation based on P.G. Walsh.

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Similarly, Quartilla, when she agrees to accept atonement from Encolpius and his friends for their violation of the secrecy of her Priapic ritual, supports her own desire to take revenge by an epigram that depicts vengefulness as a universal phenomenon (Petr. Sat. 18): contemni turpe est, legem donare superbum: hoc amo, quod possum qua libet ire via. nam sane et sapiens contemptus iurgia nectit, et qui non iugulat, victor abire solet. If patronized by others, I lose face; It’s arrogance to put me in my place. I like the chance to go my own sweet way. Why, even wise philosophers of the day, If treated with contempt, weave words to harm. 97 The merciful combatant oft wins the palm.

Poems that belong to Encolpius’ retrospective narration fulfill the same generalizing function: like individual characters of his fictional account, the narrator, too, uses poems to uncover a universal potential of the specific events that he describes.98 Before I turn to the way Encolpius’ poems are integrated into the texture of the novel, however, it is necessary to discuss the way in which the text frames its status as a narrative. I have established so far that both the fictional world and the literary texture of the Satyricon, just as those of the Golden Ass, are deeply rooted in the tradition of the mime – both popular and literary. At the same time, like the Golden Ass, the Satyricon is obviously not a drama but a narrative related by a single voice. How does Petronius reconcile the mimic literary texture of his account with its status as a narrative? It is again the text of the Cena that provides an indirect answer to this question. If, as we saw above, Petronius’ mimic narrative is implicitly paralleled with the numerous mimetic representations that it describes, then the figure of the narrator so faithfully mimicking empirical reality in his account will inevitably emerge as in some way analogous to the omnis musae mancipium who entertains Trimalchio’s guests with his mimetic tricks. Just as Habinnas’ slave is a sympotic mime capable of producing recognizable imitations of every conceivable sound and mannerism, so Petronius’ narrator, too, could be perceived as an unbridled imitator, who impersonates every single character of his account and reproduces every conceivable manner of speech – from elevated poetry to the freedmen’s vernacular prattle. In this respect, as a single impersonator of multiple fictional characters, the figure of Petronius’ narrator is obviously constructed in 97 98

Tr. P.G. Walsh. On Encolpius’ poems, see Connors 1998, 68-83.

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accordance with the same principles as we have observed in Apuleius. Since the illusion of the narrative as oral communication is carefully maintained throughout the entire surviving text (an illusion that is never breached as conspicuously as it is in Apuleius), the narrator-figure with which we are confronted in the Satyricon resembles Apuleius’ narrator even more closely – in being an oral entertainer, that is, a solo stand-up comedian delivering a one-actor mimic performance in which he adopts numerous personae of a multi-character mime plot. As such an oral entertainer, he transplants into his own narrative most of the salient features that characterize the literary texture of the mimic fictional world that he portrays, including its mimic cantica. In other words, Encolpius’ moralizing epigrams with which he constantly interrupts his account can also be regarded as another element in Petronius’ overall mimetic enterprise of transforming the dramatic mode of the mime into the diegetic mode of a first-person novelistic account. We can thus clearly see that the image of Petronius’ narrator can quite plausibly be conceived of along the lines of the solo mime whom we have already encountered in Apuleius. For Apuleius’ narrator, I have tentatively established a possible fictional setting in which his one-actor performance is likely to be taking place – a theater of the kind presented in the Risus festival episode. The fragmentary state of the Satyricon, however, leaves us with a certain handicap when it comes to determining the dramatic situation in which the fictional implied narrator of the novel delivers his account: whereas in Apuleius it was the prologue that was instrumental in helping us envision the narrator’s performance, Petronius’ prologue is missing, leaving us in the dark as to how the narrator was introduced in the first place. Is it nevertheless possible to make the narrative setting of the Satyricon more perspicuous? There are two aspects that can help us clarify this issue. The first one is the unmistakable affinity between the Satyricon and the Odyssey. It is one of the best known commonplaces of Petronian scholarship that Encolpius’ travelogue is marked by far-reaching associations with Odysseus’ travels: the motif of the wrath of Priapus, clearly evoking the wrath of Poseidon in the Odyssey, is likely to have provided the basic structure of Encolpius’ adventures,99 whereas some individual episodes are explicitly linked to their Odyssean prototypes (hiding from Ascyltus, Giton clings to the mattress underneath the bed in the same way as Odysseus hides under a ram when escaping from Polyphemus’ cave (Petr. Sat. 98); in Croton, Encolpius assumes the identity of a slave named Polyaenus (= Odysseus) and has an affair with a rich matron named Circe (Petr. Sat. 126139). Moreover, one could claim that the content, the structure and the overall

99

Sullivan 1968, 92-98; Courtney 2001, 152-157.

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tone of Petronius’ account are reminiscent of Odysseus telling of his adventures during the banquet at the palace of the Phaeacian king Alcinous.100 The second aspect is the fact that Petronius’ implied narrator is indirectly paralleled with Habinnas’ omnis musae mancipium, the virtuoso mimetic artist entertaining the guests at Trimalchio’s symposium. If we take this parallel seriously, the role of the Cena for the interpretation of the surrounding narrative as a mise en abyme, which highlights its most significant characteristics, will automatically become even more apparent. I have already mentioned that the intrusion of verse into Encolpius’ narrative may be an indication of its being a singlevoice mimetic image of a multi-character prosimetric mimic spectacle. However, I think one could go significantly further. I have pointed out that the banquet described in the Cena presents a conglomerate of popular genres typical of the sympotic culture of the period. It is quite noteworthy that most of these genres resurface in one way or another in the remaining parts of the novel. Encolpius’ and other characters’ moralizing epigrams find obvious thematic parallels in Trimalchio’s poetic effusions, which he now and then recites during the banquet.101 Encolpius’, Agamemnon’s, and Eumolpus’ learned discussions correspond to Trimalchio’s attempt to initiate a civilized table talk (Petr. Sat. 39 oportet etiam inter cenandum philologiam nosse). Eumolpus’ compulsive recitation of his own epic compositions is echoed by the Homeristae and by Habinnas’ mimetic slave reciting Virgil during the banquet. The erotic tales (the Boy of Pergamon and the Widow of Ephesus) with which Eumolpus entertains his listeners take up the entertaining wonder stories told by Trimalchio and Niceros. And last but not least, the Cena’s self-referential reflection on its own mimic/mimetic status endows with particular significance the novel’s numerous direct references to the mime and individual scenes inspired by the mime. Considering all these correspondences, could one not hypothesize that Petronius’ fictional narrator is to be imagined not simply as a stand-up comedian but as a stand-up comedian performing in the context of a symposium – as a kind of mixture between Niceros, or Apuleius’ Thelyphron for that matter,102 telling an alleged eye-witness account of entertaining adventures, and the omnis musae mancipium presenting in one voice the entire generic diversity of sym100

On Odysseus’ apologoi as a model for ancient travel narratives in general, see Romm 1992, 176-183; for Petronius in particular, see Jensson 2004, 82-83. 101 Connors 1998, 51-62. 102 This parallel shows that my idea of placing Apuleius’ narrator in an explicitly theatrical context is nothing but a tentative hypothesis. The way the dramatic setting is constituted in the prologue is too unspecific to allow any precise identification. As a matter of fact, there is nothing in Apuleius that could prevent us from seeing his fictional narrator perform at a banquet (cf. Keulen 2007, 27-42 and Zimmermann 2008). But, however that may be, the mechanism of theatricality involved in creating the dramatic setting in which the fictionally oral narrative is communicated in Petronius and Apuleius would be more or less the same.

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potic entertainment? The parallel between Encolpius’ narrative and Odysseus’ apologoi would certainly support this hypothesis. From this perspective, the narrator would emerge as a latter-day comic (and/or mimic) Odysseus performing at a typical Roman banquet instead of at a king’s court. Now, what about the relation between the narrator and the first-person protagonist? Are we meant to accept the fiction of Encolpius’ account as a straightforward ‘recollection narrative’ (Jensson 2004) or are there any indications that, as in Apuleius, the figure of the protagonist constitutes just one of the multiple personae that the fictional oral storyteller adopts during his narrative performance? On the one hand, unlike in Apuleius, in the surviving text of the Satyricon there is not a single palpable breach of the fictional illusion of Encolpius’ account as an autobiography. On the other, Petronius does anticipate Apuleius in creating a clear sense of distance between the implied narrator’s stance and the first-person protagonist’s actions. Just as Encolpius the character constantly does things that he finds despicable in others, so Encolpius the narrator, too, inadvertently reproduces the language that as character he declares to be aesthetically intolerable. Most conspicuously, the potentially satirical impetus of Encolpius’ epigrams is completely undermined not only by continuous expostulations, delivered by Encolpius the actor, against the absurdity of poetry as a means of expression in general, but also by the fact that their content turns out to be as trivial as other characters’ moralizing sentences implicitly ridiculed in the text.103 As a consequence, Encolpius emerges as a comically unreliable narrator, whose status is virtually indistinguishable from that of such subordinate narrators as Trimalchio, Niceros, and Eumolpus in the sense that qua narrator he is ridiculed as uncompromisingly as any other of the novel’s speakers. One of the implications of this realization is that the relationship between the implied narrator and the novel’s multiple fictional speakers in Petronius is after all not that dissimilar from the one we have observed in Apuleius: despite the formal appearance of the whole as a hierarchical structure with a primary narrative subsuming a variety of inserted materials, Encolpius and other narrators, just as their counterparts in Apuleius, are essentially identical in terms of their ontological status as ridiculous fictional masks that the ironically detached implied narrator dons during his narrative performance. I argued above that the figure of Apuleius’ narrator is based on a double impersonation – of the author impersonating a mimic buffoon who in turn impersonates the multiple characters of his account. Now I have established that the latter kind of impersonation is likely to have been anticipated in Petronius’ narrative. Are there any traces of the desultoriae scientiae stilus in the Satyricon, that is, of the author impersonating the oral storyteller? 103

Relihan 1993, 95-97.

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The fact that Petronius’ characterized author-figure never explicitly reveals himself has allowed G.-B. Conte to formulate the idea of the Satyricon’s ‘hidden author’ (Conte 1996). By comparison with Apuleius’ exhibitionistic posture in the Golden Ass, Petronius can indeed be perceived as hiding his presence from the reader’s view. There is, however, one passage that allows us a glimpse at the dialectics of double reenactment inherent in the performance of Petronius’ narrator, which is highly reminiscent of what we have seen in Apuleius. As a character Encolpius seems to be especially given to rhetorical genres (declamation (Petr. Sat. 1-2), invective (81), diatribe (115)) in the same compulsive manner as Eumolpus is to poetry. As a narrator, however, he completely disregards his protagonist’s disgust with poetry as a means of expression and acts like a Eumolpus-like compulsive poetaster. At 132, we witness a bizarre confusion between these two discourses. In this passage, Encolpius bursts into an indignant vituperation of his flaccid penis. He delivers this speech in the declamatory fashion typical of the rhetorical style that he uses elsewhere in the novel.104 At some point, however, the speaker diverges from his topic in order to defend the very fact that he is openly addressing a body part that one would normally try to hide. This apology includes a poem, which, typically for the Satyricon, provides a universal perspective on the specific predicament in which the protagonist finds himself at the moment (Petr. Sat. 132) quid me constricta spectatis fronte Catones damnatisque novae simplicitatis opus? sermonis puri non tristis gratia ridet, quodque facit populus, candida lingua refert. nam quis concubitus, Veneris quis gaudia nescit? quis vetat in tepido membra calere toro? ipse pater veri doctos Epicurus amare iussit et hoc vitam dixit habere τέλος. You Catos, why do you wear that frosty look? Why slate my new and unpretentious book? The language is refined, the smile not grave, My honest tongue recounts how men behave. For mating and love’s pleasures all will vouch; Who vetoes love’s hot passion on warm couch? Hear Epicurus, father of truth, proclaim: 105 “Wise men must love, for love is life’s true aim!”

With this unexpected intrusion of verse into the speech of someone who professedly loathes such intrusions, we are confronted with an incongruous fusion 104 105

Conte 1996, 188-189. Tr. P.G. Walsh.

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between the two incompatible facets of the novel’s narrative voice – a fusion that makes all the more tangible the presence of the role-playing narrator behind the text. But this is not all. In addition, the text of the poem indirectly reveals the figure of the writer – the novel’s author – ultimately responsible for the composition of the whole. It would indeed be hard to conceive of a better referent for novae simplicitatis opus than Petronius’ book that the reader is holding in his hands.106 In other words, this passage introduces a third dimension into the speaker’s voice, unveiling the palpable presence of the author behind the fictional figure of the narrator as an oral entertainer. As a result, the image of Petronius’ narrator appears to be a product of essentially the same kind of double impersonation as the composite narrator of the Golden Ass. We can thus see that the Satyricon provides a formal pattern for an entire range of features that Apuleius later adopts in his novel. Most importantly, both are realizations of the same generic matrix, which consists in a writerly adaptation of a fictionally oral performance by a solo mime impersonating a multiplicity of characters. Despite these generic commonalities, however, there are significant differences between the two texts.

106

Courtney 1991, 13 and 35; Courtney 2001, 199-201. Cf. Mart. 11.20.9-10 absolvis nimirum, Auguste, libellos, qui scis Romana simplicitate loqui. See Kay 1985, ad loc., for further parallels.

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9. Theatricality and Rhetoric: The Golden Ass and the Second Sophistic 9.1. Simili stilo: Apuleius’ Narrator as a Sophistic Entertainer It is a commonplace of Petronian scholarship that direct speech in the Satyricon always serves characterization, or at least is always consonant with the mimetic features of individual characters: it is only logical that Eumolpus the poet should constantly recite poetry, Encolpius the scholasticus be fond of the declamatory style, and the illiterate freedmen speak substandard Latin. In other words, the stylistic distribution in the Satyricon is based on the mimetic principles reflecting the Peripatetic theory of propriety that forms the foundation of the ancient rhetorical teaching.1 What we observe in the Golden Ass is exactly the opposite. It has been pointed out that Apuleius does not match character and style, but writes throughout in the same “Apuleian” manner.2 Moreover, he even seems to go out of his way to emphasize the gap between some of his characters’ mimetic qualities and the kind of literary prototypes that they rely on to express themselves:3 a bloodthirsty robber and an illiterate slave narrate their tales in the manner of sophisticated historians, the robbers’ old female servant talks in Platonic allegories, whereas the first-person narrator of all this learned farrago of magic, sex, and violence turns out to be an ascetic priest of Isis. As we have seen, Apuleius’ narrator is presented in the fictional world of the novel as an oral entertainer inordinately proud of his superb literary and rhetorical education. Despite the fact that the fictional illusion of the Golden Ass as an autobiography is now and then blatantly breached, the narrator’s voice is clearly marked by a certain sense of mimetic continuity that connects the prologue of the novel with its epilogue: in the prologue the narrator puts particular emphasis on his literary education and rhetorical skills,4 whereas at the end of his adventures Lucius unexpectedly becomes a practicing orator.5 This conspicu1 2 3 4

5

Petersmann 1985. Bernhard 1927, 255-258. Cf. Smith 1994. Apul. Met. 1.1 quis ille? paucis accipe. Hymettos Attica et Isthmos Ephyrea et Taenaros Spartiaca, glebae felices aeternum libris felicioribus conditae, mea vetus prosapia est; ibi linguam Attidem primis pueritiae stipendiis merui. mox in urbe Latia advena studiorum Quiritium indigenam sermonem aerumnabili labore nullo magistro praeeunte aggressus excolui. Apul. Met. 11.28 plena iam fiducia germanae religionis obsequium divinum frequentabam. quae res summum peregrinationi meae tribuebat solacium nec minus etiam victum uberi-

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ous overlap between the prologue’s stress on rhetoric and the final image of the protagonist as an orator should encourage us to pay closer attention to elements of contemporary rhetoric in the novel. Occasionally, the narrator inserts into his account lengthy passages suggestive of contemporary epideictic oratory. His descriptions (e.g., of his travel to Thessaly at the very beginning of Book 1), ekphraseis (Diana and Actaeon, the robbers’ cave, and the Judgment of Paris),6 and other rhetorical set pieces (e.g. the encomium of hair, a particularly popular topic of humorous epideictic literature)7 possess numerous typical features of the Second Sophistic rhetoric.8 Thus the image of Apuleius’ fictional narrator as an oral entertainer displays in this respect a recognizable similarity with the novel’s empirical author – one of the most dazzling Latin orators of his age. In this connection, the fact that the text unmasks the presence of the empirical author behind his fictional narrator by referring to Lucius as a poor man from Apuleius’ North African hometown of Madaurus (Apul. Met. 11.27 Madaurensem, sed admodum pauperem) becomes all the more significant. There are further connections between the protagonist/narrator of the Golden Ass and the world of the Second Sophistic. To begin with, Lucius’ Greek prototype in the Onos is explicitly referred to as a sophist’s student (Onos 2). Even though Apuleius omits this detail, his description of Lucius as a scholasticus related to Plutarch – one of the most renowned Greek intellectuals of the early imperial period – essentially points in the same direction.9 Besides, in addition to the numerous typically sophistic discursive elements and the overall emphasis on sophistic paideia that informs large portions of the Golden Ass,10 the novel contains a number of salient structural and thematic parallels with various kinds of sophistic literature. First of all, one of the most important characteristic features of sophistic performances is their improvisational nature.11 As a rule, a sophistic orator would come onstage without knowing in advance the topic on which he was to declaim. The audience would propose a declamation theme, and then, either straightaway or after some deliberation, the speaker would deliver an impromptu oration.12 If we keep in mind the centrality of improvisation for the rhetorical

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

orem subministrabat, quidni, spiritu faventis Eventus quaesticulo forensi nutrito per patrocinia sermonis Romani. On the sophistic character of Apuleius’ ekphraseis, see Slater 2008. Sandy 1997, 169. Cf. Harrison 2000, 215-235. Harrison 2000, 215. Harrison 2000, 220-226, and numerous contributions in Riess 2008. On sophistic performances, see Russell 1983, 74-86; Anderson 1993, 47-68; Whitmarsh 2005, 23-40. On the role of improvisation in sophistic performances, see Anderson 1994, 55-64; Schmitz 1997, 156-159; Whitmarsh 2005, 24-26.

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culture of the Second Sophistic, we could certainly surmise that the elements of fictionally extemporaneous delivery that we have observed in Apuleius’ narrative were meant to evoke not only improvisational popular theater but also sophistic declamatory performances. The ability to speak extempore on any given topic was generally valued as the highest skill to be achieved by a sophistic performer, and there is no doubt that it required a great deal of innate talent and rigorous training. It would be a grave mistake, however, to imagine that the audience was expected to give free rein to their fantasy when proposing a declamation theme. On the contrary, the number of potential topics suitable for declamation was relatively limited. Most of them derived from the standard repertoire of Greco-Roman paideia, comprising universally known plots of classical mythology, literature, and history.13 In other words, the situation in which the classically educated orator would be completely surprised by the novelty of the proposed topic was virtually unimaginable. In addition to the circumscribed limits of classical learning, further declamation themes were drawn from a fixed pool of equally predictable fictitious situations.14 Quite interestingly, many of these fictional plots find thematic parallels in the mime.15 In this connection, it is particularly noteworthy that most of the motifs of the Golden Ass that I have so far traced to the mime resurface in one way or another in the repertoire of Greek and Roman declaimers.16 The theme of magic, which plays the central role in Apuleius’ novel, was eagerly employed in declamations. Philostratus, for instance, mentions that the sophist Adrian of Tyre was thought to be a magician because he had a weakness for delivering declamations on behalf of sorcerers (VS 590). Among the plots that another sophist – Hippodromus of Thessaly – used in his declamations was one involving a sorcerer who wanted to die because his magical skills had failed to kill another sorcerer who had cuckolded him (VS 619).17 Such prominent figures of the Golden Ass as astrologers (cf. Apuleius’ Diophanes) and robbers also appear in declamations, the latter category more often represented by pirates.18 The mock trial of the Risus festival, too, is clearly reminiscent of a controversia – an exercise or a display speech, in which one has to plead for (the night guard) or 13 14 15 16 17 18

On the limitations of the imaginary world of Sophistopolis, see Russell 1983, 21-39. See also Anderson 1993, 61-64; Korenjak 2000, 116-120. On declamation as fiction, see van Mal-Maeder 2007. Reich 1903, 76; Russell 1983, 38. On connections between Apuleius’ tales and declamation themes, see van Mal-Maeder 2007, 121-128. Among the declamations ascribed to Quintilian, there are also some that treat similar topics (e.g., Ps.-Quint. Decl. maiores 10). Van Mal-Maeder 2007, 60-62. For astrologers, see Ps.-Quint. Decl. maiores 4. For pirates, see for instance Sen. Con. 1.7, Ps.-Quint. Decl. maiores 5 and 6, as well as van Mal-Maeder’s 2007 passim. Petronius’ Encolpius, too, mentions pirates as one of the stock themes of declamations: Petr. Sat. 1 piratas cum catenis in litore stantes.

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against (Lucius) an imaginary court case.19 The marked historiographical undercurrent of the tale of Charite’s death evokes pseudo-historical fictions that constituted an integral part of the standard declamation repertoire.20 Apuleius’ adultery tales display conspicuous thematic affinities not only with popular theater but also with declamation (both Greek and Roman), where the undeniable potentials of this topic as a fruitful source of controversy were eagerly employed.21 In Book 10 we are confronted with two female poisoners – the stepmother from the ‘Phaedra’ tale, who schemes to poison her stepson but ends up by mistake killing her own child instead, and the poisoner from the tale of the criminal woman, who, albeit not a stepmother, behaves like one in that she kills her entire family including her own daughter. Both of these women approach the type of the saeva noverca, widespread in Latin literature, particularly in declamation, where this type’s association with poison is equally pronounced.22 Finally the tale of three brothers from Book 9 (Apul. Met. 9.35-38), who die while helping their poor friend in a dispute with his rich neighbor, represents a recognizable specimen of an entire subgenre of declamatory fiction that dealt with conflicts between a rich and a poor man.23 Declamation is, however, not the only kind of sophistic literature echoed in the Golden Ass. The fact that the narrator of Apuleius’ novel is presented as a philosophizing ass evokes the paradoxical use of animals versed in philosophy in such works of the period as Lucian’s Gallus, which presents a talking rooster who claims to be a reincarnation of Pythagoras. Similarly, the fact that a boorish robber, a drunken hag, and an illiterate slave are cast as narrators of rhetorically polished, elegant literary accounts is reminiscent of the Second Sophistic’s general predilection for barbarians or primitive brutes as proponents of civilized

19 20

21

22 23

On the compliance of the two speeches with school rhetoric, see van der Paardt 1971, 4647 and 63-64. In addition to the narrator’s explicit announcement that the story of Charite’s death should be told in historiae specimen, there are some other points of contact between this tale and ancient historiography. E.g., the tale as a whole resembles the ostensibly historical narrative of Camma, Sinatus, and Sinotrix told by Plutarch in Mul. virt. 20, 257e and Amat. 22, 768b, whereas Thrasyllus’ murder of Tlepolemus during a hunting expedition finds a parallel in the Atys tale in Herodotus 1.34f. See Hijmans et al. 1985, 6. On historical fictions in declamations, see Russell 1983, 21-39; van Mal-Maeder 2007, 3-9. In addition to Polemo’s µοιχὸς ἐκκεκαλυµµένος mentioned by Philostratus, VS 542, there are numerous Roman examples of adultery in declamation; e.g., Sen. Con. 1.4, 1.7, 2.7, 4.7, 6.6, 7.5, 9.1, etc.; Quint. Decl. 244, 249, 273, 275, 277, 279, etc. On the saeva noverca in declamation, see Watson 1995, 92ff. Russell 1983, 27ff.; van Mal-Maeder 2007, 121-122. See also Petr. Sat. 48, where this topic serves as an emblem for a hackneyed declamation: dic ergo, si me amas, peristasim declamationis tuae. cum dixisset Agamemnon: “pauper et dives inimici erant,” at Trimalchio, “quid est pauper?” Cf. Luc. De salt. 65 (see below).

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wisdom.24 Further, the tale of Cupid and Psyche alludes to the tradition of philosophical myth, which enjoyed great popularity among such instrumental figures of the Second Sophistic as Dio Chrysostom, and Maximus of Tyre.25 Finally, Book 11, with its detailed description of an Oriental cult, its account of a personal religious experience, and its prose hymns, finds parallels among the writings of Lucian (De Dea Syria) and Aelius Aristides.26 In addition to these numerous thematic parallels with sophistic literature, we are now and then confronted with fictional storytellers displaying immediately recognizable features of sophistic performers. Thelyphron, for instance, who tells his harrowing tale at Byrrhena’s banquet, assumes a posture typical of a declaiming orator (Apul. Met. 2.21 ad instar oratorum) before he begins his narrative.27 Two other internal narrators produce accounts that, as we have just seen, find parallels among attested genres of the Second Sophistic literature: the old hag entertaining Charite ends up telling an allegorical tale suggestive of a philosophical myth, and the slave reporting the events that have led up to Charite’s death produces a pseudo-historical fiction and, what is more, betrays his awareness of the generic affiliations of his account (ad speciem historiae). Moreover, the prefaces that introduce the act of narration in the last two cases display a fair amount of similarities with introductions appended by sophistic orators to their performances. The narrators of Cupid and Psyche and the tale of Charite’s death begin by focusing on their pretended inability to perform the storytelling task at hand, and yet at the same time promise to do a good job: the old hag, on the one hand, is confident of being able to provide successful entertainment (avocabo) but, on the other, self-ironically refers to her own account as humble aniles fabulae (Apul. Met. 4.27), whereas Charite’s slave (Apul. Met. 8.1) begs his recipients to excuse his inability to live up to the high standards required by the elevated subject matter that he is about to approach and yet promises to relate the events of Charite’s tragedy (fuit Charite) as accurately as possible (referam vobis a capite quae gesta sunt). It is quite conspicuous that this prefatory strategy used by internal storytellers has a great deal in 24

25 26 27

E.g., virtuous Euboean hunters living in conformity with nature and, thus, with the Stoic philosophical ideal in Dio’s Euboikos (Or. 7); the noble Scythian in Lucian’s Anacharsis; the Thracian vine-dresser as an expert on Homeric controversies in Philostratus’ Heroikos; Agathion (“Herodes’ Heracles”), a brawny giant from central Attica, who leads an uncivilized life but speaks perfect classical Attic Greek and eagerly engages in commonplaces of popular moral philosophy in Philostratus’ VS 552-554, esp. 553: “τὴν δὲ δὴ γλῶσσαν” ἔφη δ᾿ ὁ Ἡρώδης “πῶς ἐπαιδεύθης καὶ ὑπὸ τίνων; οὐ γάρ µοι τῶν ἀπαιδεύτων φαίνῃ.” καὶ ὁ Ἀγαθίων “ἡ µεσόγεια” ἔφη “τῆς Ἀττικῆς ἀγαθὸν διδασκαλεῖον ἀνδρὶ βουλοµένῳ διαλέγεσθαι, κτλ.” On philosophical myths in Plutarch and in his contemporaries, see Vernière 1977. On the allegorical use of myth in the second century in general, see Edwards 1992. Harrison 2000, 250-251. On this gesture, see van Mal-Maeder 2001, ad loc.

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common with the prologue to the novel as a whole: there, too, we are first confronted with the speaker’s brief self-introduction stressing his pretended modesty with regard to his linguistic and rhetorical skills (Bescheidenheitstopos), which is then followed by a self-assured pledge to do his best to give pleasure to the attentive reader. The fact that these introductory passages clearly evoke the rhetorical strategies typically used in sophistic προλαλίαι – short introductions that preceded declamations proper – is of course anything but coincidental.28 The aim of these sophistic prefaces, too, consisted primarily in drawing the recipients’ attention to the speaker’s rhetorical skills and his general ability to live up to the audience’s expectations. For this reason, they often display a mixture of pretended self-doubts (Bescheidenheitstopos) and ostentatious self-praise.29 A sophistic προλαλία delivered in the speaker’s own voice was normally followed by a declamatory speech in which the speaker assumed the persona of a historical, literary, or purely imaginary stock character.30 This combination of a prologue spoken by the author in his own person and a narrative related by a first-person fictional character was occasionally transposed to other kinds of sophistic literature that were most likely designed for reading rather than for performance. The best illustration of this trend can be found in another masterpiece of the Second Sophistic, Lucian’s True Histories. There, too, the voice that we hear in the prologue is that of the author figure who comments on the literary qualities of his work as well as on its status as a work of self-evident fiction.31 At the end of the prologue, however, he states that none of the things that he is about to relate is true and adopts in his narrative the purely fictional persona of an Odyssean traveler to the realm of learned fantasy.32 It is thus anything but surprising to encounter elements of a similar ‘προλαλία’ in the Golden Ass. As we have seen, Apuleius’ narrator also begins by presenting his own rhetorical credentials in the prologue only in order to adopt at the beginning of his narrative the persona of the fictional character Lucius. As a result, this pattern of role-playing adopted by the narrator further contributes to making Apuleius’ novel as a whole similar to an over-sized declamation. It is important to recall at this juncture that the concept of role-playing was truly essential for both the production and the reception of sophistic performances. It is quite obvious that every orator delivering a declamation had to perform an ἠθοποιία – that is, to produce a speech consisting of words that a 28 29 30 31

32

Cf. Harrison 2000, 235. On προλαλίαι in general, see Mras 1949; Anderson 1993, 53-55. Russell 1983, 77-84. Luc. VH 1.4 γράφω τοίνυν περὶ ὧν µήτε εἶδον µήτε ἔπαθον µήτε παρ᾿ ἄλλων ἐπυθόµην, ἔτι δὲ µήτε ὅλως ὄντων µήτε τὴν ἀρχὴν γενέσθαι δυναµένων. Gorgiadou-Larmour 1998, 5152. On the Odyssey in the VH, see Gorgiadou-Larmour, 1998, 5-10. Cf. Romm 1992, 176-183.

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particular kind of character was likely to say in a particular situation. By assuming the role of a Demosthenes, an Achilles, a tyrannicide, or a poor man, the sophistic declaimer would perform a kind of solitary mini-drama, “a dramatic monologue with a plot.”33 I mentioned in Chapter 8 that sophistic declaimers performed in the same theaters as mimes and pantomimes and, as a consequence, regarded the latter as potential rivals.34 At the same time, to keep their own competitive edge, they had to borrow histrionic techniques from professional actors. In other words, connections between the (panto-)mimic theater and the world of declamation were not limited to common venues or the shared store of plots and motifs but comprised specific elements of acting as well. Philostratus, for instance, is particularly impressed by the way the sophist Scopelian raved, as if in bacchic frenzy, while impersonating barbarians in a declamation on the theme of the Persian wars (VS 520). He further praises the acting skills of Alexander Peloplato, who shed real tears while speaking on behalf of those who, wounded in the Sicilian campaign, were begging their fellow Athenians to kill them (VS 574), and stresses that one of the greatest achievements of the sophist Rufus of Perinthus consisted in being able to impersonate malicious characters, which radically differed from his own benign nature (VS 597).35 What is particularly symptomatic is that declaimers’ role-playing activity was often explicitly conceived of in terms of theatrical acting on a par with the art of a mime or a pantomime. Philostratus, for instance, uses not only the verb ὑποκρίνεσθαι to describe declaimers’ histrionics but also the noun σκηνή to subsume all aspects of theatricality characteristic of sophistic performances.36 Lucian, in De saltatione, explicitly draws a parallel between theatrical roleplaying and declamatory performances (Luc. Salt. 65): ἡ δὲ πλείστη διατριβὴ καὶ ὁ σκοπὸς τῆς ὀρχηστικῆς ἡ ὑπόκρισίς ἐστιν, ὡς ἔφην, κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ τοῖς ῥήτορσιν ἐπιτηδευοµένη, καὶ µάλιστα τοῖς τὰς καλουµένας µελέτας διεξιοῦσιν· οὐδὲν γοῦν καὶ ἐν ἐκείνοις µᾶλλον ἐπαινοῦµεν ἢ τὸ ἐοικέναι τοῖς ὑποκειµένοις προσώποις καὶ µὴ ἀπῳδὰ εἶναι τὰ λεγοµένα τῶν ἀριστέων ἢ τυραννοκτόνων ἢ πενήτων ἢ γεωργῶν, ἀλλ᾿ ἐν ἑκάστῳ τούτων τὸ ἴδιον καὶ τὸ ἐξαίρετον δεικνύσθαι. The main goal pursued by the pantomime is, as I have said, role-playing, which it practices in the same manner as the orators do, especially those who occupy themselves with the so-called declamations. In them, too, there is nothing that we praise more than the ability to resemble characters that they represent and to find words that are not out of tune with those of valorous heroes, tyrannicides, poor 33 34 35 36

Russell 1983, 15. Cf. Lada-Richards 2007, 135ff. On the theatrical element of sophistic performances, see Connolly 2001. Philostr. VS 537 (on Polemo) τὴν δὲ σκηνὴν τοῦ ἀνδρός, ᾗ ἐς τὰς µελέτας ἐχρήσατο. Cf. Russell 1983, 74-86.

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men, or peasants, and, in each of these roles, to bring out the most characteristic and singular features.

Choricius, in a preface to one of his declamations, goes even further and compares to theater not only his own declamations but also all kinds of fictional literature, first and foremost Homer (Chor. Dial. 12.1-2): ἤδη που καὶ χορῶν ἐν Διονύσου γεγόνατε θεαταί, ἐν οἷς, οἶµαι, τινὰ καὶ ὀρχηστὴν ἑωράκατε νῦν µὲν ἀνδρείοις σχήµασι θέλγοντα τὴν σκηνήν, ἡνίκα τὸν Θεσσαλὸν ἢ τὸν τῆς Ἀµαζόνος µειράκιον ἤ τινα ἕτερον ἄνδρα ὀρχεῖται, νῦν δὲ ποθουµένην τε τὴν Βρισέως καὶ Φαίδραν ἐρῶσαν εὖ µάλα µιµούµενον καὶ πειρώµενον πεῖσαι τὸ θέατρον οὐχ ὅτι ἄρα µιµεῖται, ἀλλ᾿ ὅτι πέφυκε τοῦτο ὃ δὴ µιµεῖται. οὕτω καὶ Ὅµηρος ὀρχεῖται τοῖς ἔπεσιν. ἢ οὐχ ὁρᾶτε τὸν ποιητὴν ὅ τι ἂν ἐθέλῃ τοῦτο εἶναι δοκοῦντα; ἐµοὶ µὲν, εὖ ἴστε, παρασύρει τὴν φαντασίαν, καὶ εἴ που νεανίσκον ἐξ Αἰτωλίας ἢ γέροντα Πύλιον ὑποκρίνοιτο ἤ τινα ὅλως τῶν Ἀχαιῶν καὶ οἷς ἐπολέµουν οἱ Ἕλληνες, αὐτὸν ὁρᾶν µοι δοκῶ, ὃν ἂν ἐκεῖνος ὑποκρινόµενος τύχοι, εἴτε οὖν αἱ Μοῦσαι αὐτῷ τοῦτο ἐπέπνευσαν εἴτε καὶ µῦθος αἱ Μοῦσαι, φύσεως δὲ τὸ πλεονέκτηµα ἦν, ἄγαµαί τε αὐτὸ καί τι παρόµοιον εὐξαίµην ἄν µοι προσεῖναι. I am sure you have been spectators of choruses at the festival of Dionysus, where you must have seen a dancer now charming the stage with masculine movements, dancing the Thessalian or the Amazon’s boy [sc. Achilles and Hippolytus] or some other man, now brilliantly impersonating pining Briseis or Phaedra in love, and trying to persuade the audience that he is not engaging in imitation but that he really is what he is imitating. This is how Homer dances in his epics too. Or can’t you see that the poet seems to be whatever he likes? As for me, you should know that he certainly does excite my imagination, and whenever he impersonates the boy from Aetolia or the old man from Pylos [sc. Diomedes and Nestor] or, in general, any of the Achaeans and those against whom the Greeks fought, it seems to me that I can actually see the character that he happens to be playing – whether it is the Muses who inspired him with this ability or whether the Muses are a myth too and it is the excellence of his nature. Whatever it is, I admire it and aspire to having something like it myself.

It is highly symptomatic that Choricius subsumes under the general category of mimesis not only theatrical role-playing and fictional literature in general but also his own activity as a sophistic declaimer. All three thus turn out to be nothing but facets of the same overarching phenomenon, which combines features both of the Aristotelian literary mimesis and of the mime as µίµησις βίου. As a result, declamation emerges as a theatrical genre that aspires to the mimetic perfection of Homer. The complex system of impersonations that we have seen at work in the Golden Ass largely agrees with this ‘rhetorical’ understanding of mimesis. The fictional narrator of the novel, who briefly reveals himself in the prologue, can be considered to impersonate a succession of different personae – fictional from

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the viewpoint of his own fictional world – thus, in a way, performing a series of entertaining ἠθοποιίαι. The notion of ἠθοποιία brings me back to the starting point of my discussion in this chapter, namely to the relative homogeneity of the Apuleian style. Unlike in other kinds of mimetic texts (such as the mime or its direct diegetic descendant, Petronius’ Satyricon), impersonation in sophistic displays never involved imitation of linguistic idiosyncrasies of a particular character type (nor, for that matter, did it involve dressing like a character).37 Every Greek declamation was expected to live up to the highest standards of Atticism, irrespective of its topic or the character of its fictional speaker. In addition to using an entire arsenal of vocal techniques and gestures designed to imitate emotions, impersonation was limited only to finding the right train of thought that a certain figure would be likely to use in a certain situation and to clothe it in the codified Atticist koine of sophistic rhetoric.38 If we bear in mind this central feature of sophistic oratory, it will hardly surprise us that all characters of the Golden Ass speak in the same ‘Apuleian manner’, which resembles the exaggeratedly ‘Gorgianic’ style Apuleius uses in his rhetorical works, particularly in the Florida.39 The realization that the novel’s relative stylistic homogeneity may be explained as part of its rhetorical legacy further contributes to narrowing the divide between the novel’s fictional narrator and its empirical author – a versatile sophistic performer who prided himself on the fact that the entire variety of his generically diverse literary productions was composed simili stilo (Apul. Fl. 9): prorsum enim non eo infitias nec radio nec subula nec lima nec torno nec id genus ferramentis uti nosse, sed pro his praeoptare me fateor uno chartario calamo me reficere poemata omnigenus apta virgae, lyrae, socco, coturno, item satiras ac griphos, item historias varias rerum nec non orationes laudatas disertis nec non dialogos laudatos philosophis atque haec et alia eiusdem modi tam graece quam latine, gemino voto, pari studio, simili stilo. For in fact I do not deny that I am not familiar with the use of a weaving shuttle, a shoemaker’s awl, a chisel, a lathe, or any other iron tool of this kind. I confess that instead I prefer to compose all manner of poems with a reed pen alone – not only poems suited for a rod, a lyre, low-heeled shoes, and buskins, but also satires and riddles, motley histories, orations praised by the eloquent, and dialogues praised by philosophers. These and other things of the same sort I compose both in Greek and Latin, with a double aspiration, yet with the same ambition and in a similar style.

37 38 39

Russell 1983, 82. Anderson 1993, 86-100; Schmitz 1997, 67-96. Callebat 1994, 1643-1662.

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Seen from this perspective, the fictional narrator of Apuleius’ novel emerges as a sophistic orator, whereas the solo mime that he performs acquires even more tangible characteristics of a declamation involving multiple impersonations. The idea of an oration as a one-actor theatrical performance of a multicharacter drama is not unheard-of in rhetorical theory. As a matter of fact, ancient rhetoricians perceived impersonation of multiple characters within a single declamation as a highly attractive device. Demetrius (On Style), for instance, stresses that impersonation contributes to a livelier performance and turns a speech into something approaching a drama.40 Furthermore, both Cicero (De Inventione 1.27) and the Rhetorica ad Herrenium mention (1.12) the rhetorical narratio in personis, which they declare to be unsuitable for a forensic speech41 but which, one would assume, would be perfectly appropriate in a declamation (Cic. Inv. 1.27):42 illa autem narratio, quae versatur in personis, eiusmodi est, ut in ea simul cum rebus ipsis personarum sermones et animi perspici possint. The kind of narrative that involves dialogues between different personae is of such nature that not only events as such, but also conversations and attitudes of the speaking characters can be seen in it.

The quotation from Terence that Cicero uses as an illustration of this kind of rhetorical narrative (Ad. 60ff.) involves a speaker directly reporting words by another speaker and, thus, impersonating a different character. Thus, ancient rhetorical theory accounted for the possibility of an oration functioning as a solitary rendition of a drama. Whereas the passages I have just mentioned focus on importing dramatic techniques into rhetorical genres, there is one piece of evidence that attests that this process could be reversed. In his Apology of the Mimes, Choricius explicitly mentions the existence of what seems to be full-fledged mimic spectacles performed by sophistic orators (Chor. Apol. mim. 95): ἡδεῖα δὲ καὶ πλήρης ἁβρότητος ἡ πανήγυρις αὕτη· ἀφικνεῖται γὰρ ἅπασα τῆς πόλεως ἡ σκήνη, παραγίνονται δὲ καὶ ῥήτορες ἄνδρες τὰ µίµων ὑποκρινόµενοι οὐ φαύλως βεβιωκότες οὐδ᾿ εὐγλωττίᾳ λειπόµενοι τῶν ὁµοτέχνων. This festival is elegant and full of splendor. For all actors of the city come there, and orators are present too, who perform mimic plays, although they lead a noble

40

41 42

Dem. Eloc. 266 πολὺ γὰρ ἐναργέστερα καὶ δεινότερα φαίνεται ὑπὸ τῶν προσώπων, µᾶλλον δὲ δράµατα ἀτεχνῶς γίνεται. Cic. Inv. 1.27 tertium genus remotum a civilibus causis; Rhet. Her. 1.12 tertium genus est id, quod a causa civili remotum est. See the discussion in Jensson 2004, 256ff.

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lifestyle and do not lag behind their colleagues in their command of cultured speech.

It is very unlikely that Choricius wants us to envisage a mime troupe consisting entirely of orators. What he seems to have in mind is rather a mime performed by a solo sophistic declaimer. Far from simply borrowing individual themes and spectacular acting effects from the rivaling theatrical genre, such a declaimer would have adapted an entire mimic drama to the constraints of his own solitary performance. Although we have no earlier evidence for such performances, it is hardly conceivable that they emerged only in the sixth century AD, shortly before the ancient mime’s ultimate demise. It would thus be a highly attractive hypothesis to assume that the fictional narrative situation of Apuleius’ novel is based precisely on the kind of performance described by Choricius – a multicharacter mimic play presented by a single sophistic orator proud of his literary and rhetorical education (i.e., his εὐγλωττία). From this viewpoint, the Golden Ass emerges as a specimen of the same narrative genre as the Satyricon, adapted to the aesthetics of the Second Sophistic. Needless to say, there are further points of contact between the Golden Ass and Apuleius’ contemporary rhetorical culture. In the next two sections, I return to such a central characteristic of the novel’s narrative aesthetics as its multiple plotting. I show that it can be traced not only to the performative dynamics of the Roman arena, as I argued in Chapter 2, but also to the extreme fascination with ambiguity and polysemy characteristic of the Second Sophistic rhetoric. 9.2. Varias fabulas conserere: Apuleius’ Narrative as a Specimen of Figured Speech Deliberate play with ambiguity was a recognized phenomenon of ancient rhetorical theory, known as λόγος ἐσχηµατισµένος, or figured speech.43 According to Quintilian, it is the notorious detractor of Homer, Zoilus, who gives the term schema, which otherwise denotes any kind of rhetorical figure,44 a more specific sense of ‘meaning one thing while saying another’; moreover, Quintilian stresses the popularity of this understanding of schema among his contemporaries, reflected in the widespread phenomenon of ‘figured controversies’, that is, entire speeches composed in this deliberately ambiguous mode (Quint. Inst. 9.1.13-14):45 43 44 45

On figured speech in general, see Chiron 2000; Chiron 2003a and 2003b; Whitmarsh 2005, 57-59. Quint. Inst. 9.1.14 figura sit arte aliqua novata forma dicendi. Lausberg 1990, 267. On the semantic development of the term, see Chiron 2003a, 225-229. Cf. Phoibammon, Rhet. Gr. III 44, 1-3 Spengel: ὁρίζεται δὲ Ζωίλος οὕτως· σχῆµά ἐστι ἕτερον µὲν προσποιεῖσθαι, ἕτερον δὲ λέγειν.

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sic enim verum erit, aliam esse orationem ἀσχηµάτιστον, id est carentem figuris, quod vitium non inter minima est, aliam ἐσχηµατισµένην, id est figuratam. verum id ipsum anguste Zoilus terminavit, qui id solum putaverit schema, quo aliud simulatur dici quam dicitur, quod sane vulgo quoque sic accipi scio: unde et figuratae controversiae quaedam, de quibus post paulo dicam [cf. 9.2.65], vocantur. So it will be correct to say that speech can be either aschematistos, that is, lacking in rhetorical figures, which is to be considered one of the gravest errors, or eschematismene, that is, figured. The definition that Zoilus gave to this very phenomenon is too narrow, since he regarded as schema only those expressions that convey a meaning different from what is actually being said. I know quite well that this understanding is very widespread. Hence there are orations that are called figured controversies, which I will discuss below.

Classical rhetoric did not produce a unified theory of figured speech, but the high degree of discrepancy that we find in our sources undoubtedly testifies to a heated debate as to the status of this phenomenon among other rhetorical devices, the contexts in which its use was appropriate, and the effects it was expected to produce. Two treatises Περὶ ἐσχηµατισµένων ascribed to Ps.Dionysius of Halicarnassus (second or third century AD) connect figured speech with the figure of irony,46 whereas Quintilian understands it as a subcategory of the figure of emphasis, which allows the speaker, by saying one thing, to make another one appear in the recipient’s mind.47 In keeping with this difference, Ps.-Hermogenes, Apsines of Gadara, and Ps.-Dionysius of Halicarnassus distinguish among three types of λόγος ἐσχηµατισµένος according to the degree of deviation of the ostensible meaning from the speaker’s intention (281Us.-Rad.): 1) saying the opposite of what one intends to say, 2) saying something different, 3) saying what one intends to say in a less harsh manner,48 whereas Quintilian excludes the first category from his varieties of figured speech subsuming it under the general heading of irony.49 As to the purposes for which the use of figured speech is deemed to be acceptable, Demetrius names only two purely practical ones, namely propriety and personal safety, both of them predicated upon particular real-life circumstances, whether it be the desire not to hurt the addressee’s feelings by saying something unseemly or the desire not to jeopard46

47

48 49

On the possible date of the two treatises, see Chiron 2000, 80-81. Ps. Dionysius of Halicarnassus 323 (Us.-Rad.) ἵνα βραχέως εἴπω, ὅλον τὸ τῆς εἰρωνείας σχῆµα ἐσχηµατισµένου λόγου σηµεῖόν ἐστι. Quint. Inst. 9.2.65 huic [sc. emphasei] vel confinis vel eadem est, qua nunc utimur plurimum. iam enim id genus, quod et frequentissimum est et exspectari maxime credo, veniendum est, in quo per quandam suspicionem quod non dicimus accipi volumus. On Ps.-Dionysius’ theory of figured speech and its connections with other similar rhetorical theories, see Chiron 2000. Quint. Inst. 9.2.66 non utique contrarium, ut in εἰρωνείᾳ, sed aliud latens et auditori quasi inveniendum.

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ize one’s own life while speaking before a powerful potentate. At the same time, he completely rejects the use of figured speech for its own sake, which he considers ridiculous and self-indulgent (Dem. Eloc. 287): τὸ δὲ καλούµενον ἐσχηµατισµένον ἐν λόγῳ οἱ νῦν ῥήτορες γελοίως ποιοῦσι καὶ µετὰ ἐµφάσεως ἀγεννοῦς ἅµα καὶ οἷον ἀναµνηστικῆς, ἀληθινὸν δὲ σχῆµά ἐστι λόγου µετὰ δυοῖν τούτοιν λεγόµενον· εὐπρεπείας καὶ ἀσφαλείας. Modern orators use the so-called figured element of speech in a ridiculous way, with an innuendo that is both base and suggestive, whereas the true skhema of speech can be used only for the two following reasons – propriety and safety.

Quintilian, on the other hand, approvingly adds the third – purely aesthetical – variety of figured speech to the two recognized by Demetrius (Quint. Inst. 9.2.66): eius [sc. schematos] triplex usus est: unus si dicere palam parum tutum est (=ἀσφαλείας), alter si non decet [=εὐπρεπείας], tertius qui venustatis modo gratia adhibetur et ipsa novitate ac varietate magis, quam si relatio sit recta, delectat. There are three different uses of schema: first, if it is not safe to speak openly; second, if it is not appropriate; the third kind is used for the sake of elegance only, and it provides more pleasure than a straightforward expression precisely by its surprising novelty.

Whereas modern scholars are particularly fascinated by the use of figured speech to express a subversive political innuendo (si dicere palam parum tutum est),50 both rhetoricians and audiences in the Second Sophistic were equally aware not only of practical advantages but also of purely aesthetical potentials of this ambiguous way of speaking. Philostratus, on the one hand, takes it for granted that no one in his right mind would ever speak before an emperor without using the techniques of figured speech (Philostr. VS 560-561). On the other, he regularly uses the ability to compose declamations (i.e., purely entertaining speeches) that maintain the figured mode throughout their entire length (Philostr. VS 542, ἐσχηµατισµέναι ὑποθέσεις) as one of the most important criteria in his appraisal of a sophist’s skills.51

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Ahl 1984; Bartsch 1994. Philostr. VS 542 (on Polemo) ἐν γὰρ ταύταις µάλιστα τῶν ὑπ᾿ αὐτοῦ κατὰ σχῆµα προηγµένων ἡνία τε ἐµβέβληται τῷ λόγῳ καὶ τὸ ἐπαµφότερον αἱ διάνοιαι σώζουσιν. VS 609 (on Hermocrates of Phocaea) οὐ τὰς µὲν τῶν ὑποθέσεων, τὰς δ᾿ οὐχί, ἅπαξ δ᾿ ἁπάσας τὰς µελετωµένας εὖ διέθετο ἀµφιβολίας τε πλείστας ἐπινοήσας καὶ τὸ σηµαινόµενον ἐγκαταµίξας τῷ ὑφειµένῳ.

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All three kinds of figured speech that Quintilian lists in his classification can be used both in orations pursuing practical goals in real life (be it in forensic or in political speeches) and in declamations.52 There is, however, one marked difference between the uses of figured speech in real-life situations and in declamatory fictions. In dicanic and symbouleutic orations, the use of figured speech seems to have been limited to individual expressions or short passages.53 It is indeed quite noteworthy that neither Quintilian, who is concerned only with devices applicable in forensic oratory, nor Demetrius, who vehemently opposes the exaggerated use of schemata for their own artistic sake, provide any examples of an entire oration maintaining the figured mode from beginning to end (even though Quintilian briefly mentions controversiae figuratae, he does not dilate on this topic). The reason for this limitation must have been the high risk of misunderstanding involved in indulging in too much all-encompassing ambiguity while debating an issue whose outcome would have had palpable consequences in the empirical world. It is, no doubt, this obvious constraint that gave rise to the view that only parts of speeches, not speeches in their entirety, could be figured – the view that the authors of the Ps.-Dionysian treatises Περὶ ἐσχηµατισµένων attempt to refute.54 Whereas this kind of uninhibited expansion of the figured mode to an entire speech is virtually impossible to maintain in a real-life situation, it can be quite easily achieved in a work of fiction, that is, within rhetorical genres, in a declamation. The effect of such a speech would be essentially theatrical in nature. The speaker would impersonate a fictional character addressing a fictional (imaginary or characterized) audience, whereas the empirical listener/reader would be expected to derive particular pleasure from the fact that s/he is allowed to understand things that remain hidden from the inhabitants of the declamation’s fictional world. This kind of collusive relationship between the audience and the speaker is thus the most important prerequisite for a figured declamation to succeed.55 There are numerous examples of such ‘figured fictions’ in the Second Sophistic. The widespread rhetorical exercise consisting in arguing for and against a particular imaginary case provided the ideal intellectual environment for the composition of controversiae figuratae.56 These kinds of ‘figured fictions’, however, could be used not only in school exercises but also in literary works and in sophistic displays. Somewhat ironically, Rhetorum praeceptor – 52 53 54

55 56

On different ways in which figured speech could be applied, see Chiron 2003b. Chiron 2000, 79. Ps.-Dionysius Περὶ ἐσχηματισμένων Α.1 ἀγῶνας ἐσχηµατισµένους παντάπασιν οὔ φασιν εἶναι τινές, ἀλλὰ µέρη µὲν ἀγώνων ἐσχηµατίσθαι συνοµολογοῦσιν, τὸ δὲ ὅλας ὑποθέσεις διὰ τούτου τοῦ τρόπου τῶν λόγων περαίνεσθαι οὐχ οἷόν τε εἶναι φασί (µὴ γὰρ δυνατὸν εἶναι µὴ σαφῶς ἀκούοντας τοὺς ἀκροωµένους συνιέναι περὶ οὗ ὁ λόγος ἐστίν). Cf. Chiron 2000, 79-80. Cf. van Mal-Maeder 2007, 5-6.

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Lucian’s scathing critique of contemporary declamatory culture – can be used as a good example of such a figured fiction. Despite the fact that the fictional speaker of this text ostensibly favors the ‘easy’, modern path to rhetoric, his diction makes it perfectly clear that he sees contemporary sophists as nothing but a subspecies of the vast category of charlatans against whom Lucian lashes out in his other dialogues.57 It is precisely by creating a fictional setting that Lucian succeeds in maintaining the tension between the intended and the ostensible meanings throughout the entire text. The effect mainly relies on the pronounced difference between the characterized fictional addressee (the µειράκιον), whose compliance with the attractive precepts taught by the fashionable professor of rhetoric is taken for granted, and the implied reader who is expected to share with the implied author the conviction that these precepts are utterly ridiculous.58 Similarly, among the examples that Philostratus provides for ἐσχηµατισµέναι ὑποθέσεις in VS 542 there are only typical declamatory fictions.59 The goal of the speaker playing a historical or fictional character in such a declamation is to make clear to the recipient that, despite the apparent surface meaning, Xenophon does not want to die after Socrates’ death (ὁ Ξενοφῶν ὁ ἀξιῶν ἀποθνῄσκειν ἐπὶ Σωκράτει), Solon does not want to repeal his laws under any circumstances (ὁ Σόλων ὁ αἰτιῶν ἀπαλείφειν τοὺς νόµους λαβόντος τὴν φρουρὰν τοῦ Πεισιστράτου), and an adulterer caught by a cuckolded husband is an adulterer, no matter what he has to say to the contrary (this seems to be the most likely dramatic situation of ὁ µοιχὸς ὁ ἐκκεκαλυµµένος). It is the last example in particular that can serve as an illustration of the importance of figured speech in the Golden Ass. Two of Apuleius’ adultery tales involve adulterers escaping unscathed from the scene of adultery: the gallant from the tale of the barrel (Apul. Met. 9.5-7) pretends to be the cuckolded husband’s well-meaning customer, whereas the cultus adulter from the tale of the slippers delivers a pre-emptive blow by accusing the husband’s slave of theft (Apul. Met. 9.17-21). What these cunning lovers (these µοιχοὶ ἐκκεκαλυµµένοι) end up saying in their defense can obviously be regarded as pithy nuclei that could be easily developed into full-fledged figured declamations based on the same rhetorical strategies as those implied by Philostratus. It is, however, the Tlepolemus/Haemus travesty in Book 7 (Apul. Met. 7.5-8) that provides the most salient instance of rhetorical figuration in Apuleius’ novel. Charite’s bridegroom Tlepolemus, who, in order to save his bride from the robbers, pretends to be the glorious brigand Haemus, manages to 57 58 59

Cf. Zweimüller 2008, 108-147. Cf. Zweimüller 2008, 89-107. Philostr. VS 542, topics of ἐσχηµατισµέναι ὑποθέσεις delivered by the sophist Polemo: ὁ µοιχὸς ὁ ἐκκεκαλυµµένος καὶ ὁ Ξενοφῶν ὁ ἀξιῶν ἀποθνῄσκειν ἐπὶ Σωκράτει καὶ ὁ Σόλων ὁ αἰτιῶν ἀπαλείφειν τοὺς νόµους λαβόντος τὴν φρουρὰν τοῦ Πεισιστράτου.

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convey to the reader a meaning radically different from the one understood by his immediate internal recipients, who fail to notice the ruse and elect him their leader. From this perspective, Tlepolemus’ tale emerges as a typical specimen of successful λόγος ἐσχηµατισµένος. This episode can indeed serve as a paradigm of duplicitous impersonation characteristic of the narrative situation of the novel as a whole. Apuleius’ primary narrative, too, can be interpreted by analogy with Tlepolemus’ clever roleplaying trick. Among the multiple characters impersonated by the role-playing implied narrator (a sophistic orator performing a mime) there is the unreliable fictional persona of Lucius who, as we have repeatedly observed, is hardly ever capable of correctly assessing the situation in which he finds himself. As a consequence, the meaning conveyed by the narratorial intelligence, whose presence always remains palpable behind this fictional mask, is at times radically different from the surface meaning that the fictional character seems to intend. So, at first glance it may simply appear that the author/narrator adopts the persona of a dupe (a mimic stupidus) and skillfully manages to convey something different from what this dupe is trying to say – for instance, by indirectly deflating Lucius’ zealous excitement about the Isis cult. Some ancient theoreticians of figured speech, too, put particular emphasis on similar discrepancies occurring in literary texts, that is, discrepancies between the surface meaning put forward by one of the fictional characters and the intention that they ascribed to the author. For instance, both authors of the Ps.-Dionysian treatises Περὶ ἐσχηµατισµένων point to this kind of semantic tension in Euripides’ Melanippe: while Melanippe is ostensibly talking about her own personal predicament of having given a seemingly portentous birth, Euripides supposedly uses these words to express Anaxagoras’ philosophical views (Περὶ ἐσχηµατισµένων Α.10). From the perspective of this rhetorical construct, the narrative situation of Apuleius’ novel, too, can be perceived as another literary ἐσχηµατισµένη ὑπόθεσις based on a tension between the ostensible narratorial and the intended authorial meanings. And yet there is a problem with this understanding of Apuleius’ rhetorical strategy. The clear-cut dichotomy between verba and res, implicit in all theoretical treatments of λόγος ἐσχηµατισµένος that we have seen so far, will obviously fail to account for the significantly more complex narrative dynamics of the Golden Ass (as we have seen, Apuleius’ novel can be made to cohere in accordance with more than two different plot patterns). This, however, by no means implies that ancient rhetorical theory provided no frame of reference for describing the kind of semantic polyphony that throughout my discussion I have been calling ‘multiple plotting’. Ps.-Dionysius’ treatises Περὶ ἐσχηµατισµένων not only provide a theoretical foundation and practical advice for the composition of entire speeches that maintain their figured character from beginning to end but also aim to dis-

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pute the widespread opinion that this way of speaking is a modern invention. To counteract this alleged error, the authors provide numerous examples of figured speech from classical literature – from Homer to Demosthenes. In its analysis of individual literary works, the first of the two treatises (Περὶ ἐσχηµατισµένων A) consistently analyzes figured speech as a result of the intertwining (συµπλοκή) of simple discourses. From this perspective, two (or more) discourses are conceived of as tied together within a single text to form an inextricably polyphonous unity. Among the examples of figured speech in classical literature analyzed in these terms there are both a number of relatively simple cases that combine only two discourses (Euripides’ Melanippe is one of them) and a few significantly more challenging instances in which up to four separate simple discourses overlap within one text. One of the best illustrations of the author’s understanding of the συµπλοκή phenomenon is provided by his discussion of Plato’s Apology, which he interprets as a combination of all chief genera of classical rhetoric (Ps. Dion. Hal. Περὶ ἐσχηµατισµένων Α.8): λάβε καὶ παρὰ Πλάτωνος παραδείγµατα ἀγώνων πλειόνων συµπεπλεγµένων καὶ τρόπον τινὰ πάντων ⟨τῶν⟩ µερῶν τῆς ῥητορικῆς συναγοµένων. ἡ Σωκράτους Ἀπολογία τὴν µὲν πρότασιν ἔχει, ὡς τὸ ἐπίγραµµα δηλοῖ ἀπολογίαν, ἔστι δὲ καὶ Ἀθηναίων κατηγορία, εἰ τοιοῦτον ἄνδρα εἰς δίκην ὑπήγαγον. ⟨…⟩ δύο µὲν αὗται συµπλοκαί. τρίτη δέ· ὁ λόγος ἐστὶ Σωκράτους ἐγκώµιον. ⟨…⟩ τρίτη αὕτη συµπλοκή. καὶ γεγόνασι δύο µὲν δικανικαὶ ὑποθέσεις συνηµµέναι, ἡ ἀπολογία καὶ ἡ κατηγορία· µία δὲ ἐγκωµιαστική, ὁ ἔπαινος ὁ Σωκράτους. τετάρτη συµπλοκή, ἥπερ µεγίστη ὑπόθεσις τῷ Πλάτωνι, ἔχουσα συµβουλευτικῆς ἰδέας δύναµιν, φιλόσοφον δὲ τὴν θεωρίαν· ἔστι γὰρ τὸ βυβλίον παράγγελµα, ὁποῖον εἶναι δεῖ τὸν φιλόσοφον. Take more examples of intertwined speeches from Plato too, in which he somehow combines all types of rhetoric. The main objective of the Apology of Socrates is, as is indicated by its title, an apology. At the same time, it is an accusation against the Athenians for their bringing to court such a great man. So we have two interwoven discourses. There is, however, a third one: it is an encomium of Socrates. This is a third intertwining. Two of the combined discourses are forensic, namely the apology and the accusation, while the third one is encomiastic, namely the praise of Socrates. The fourth intertwined discourse is Plato’s greatest concern: its effectiveness is of a deliberative kind, and its thesis is philosophical, for the book is an instruction as to what a philosopher should be like.

What this analytic approach clearly shows is that, in the imperial period rhetorical theory was becoming increasingly aware of the multi-layered polysemy inherent in every literary text. A student of rhetoric (the intended reader of Ps.Dionysius’ treatise) was expected to sharpen this awareness while reading standard works of classical literature and then to use it in his own compositions by weaving simple discourses together into a polyphonous unity. As a consequence, this ubiquitous emphasis on conscious cultivation of ambiguity was bound

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to have an effect not only on reception but also on production of literature, where it inevitably opened up new avenues for experimental exploration. In other words, it can hardly be coincidental that Apuleius’ Golden Ass, which clearly goes out of its way to parade its deliberate intertwining (συµπλοκή) of several simple plots, was written roughly around the time of the Ps.-Dionysian treatise’s composition. Despite this obvious similitude between Ps.-Dionysius’ understanding of figured speech and Apuleius’ use of it in his novel, there is an important difference between the two. It is quite obvious that the polysemy discussed in the treatise is never at odds with the conventional notions of logic or personal identity. Each further semantic layer in Ps.-Dionysius’ συµπλοκή is nothing but an extra connotation that adds depth to the speaker’s image and contributes to making his or her words sound more nuanced and persuasive. There is indeed nothing particularly disturbing about the fact that Melanippe’s words indirectly connote a particular philosophical teaching or that Plato’s Socrates uses the same speech to defend himself, berate his accusers, praise his own way of life, and exhort others to imitate it. What is conspicuously lacking from this discussion is a possibility of conflict among the constituent parts of this complex unity. The ‘multiple plotting’ structure that I have postulated for the Golden Ass is obviously characterized by a much higher degree of dissonance among its individual constituents. In Apuleius’ version of the συµπλοκή paradigm, a harmonious choir of mutually complementary connotations is replaced by a rather jarring polyphony. Lucius is neither a mimetically credible character (such as Plato’s Socrates) nor a stable ready-made persona taken directly from the storehouse of Greco-Roman paideia, but a shifting mercurial figure whose individual facets represent direct or indirect quotations (reenactments) of various intra- and extra-textual fictional and cultural paradigms. As a result, what we are dealing with in the Golden Ass is neither a discursive harmony (as in the instances of συµπλοκή discussed by Ps.-Dionysius) nor a mere double entendre that exploits the tension between the fictional mask and the authorial voice (as in figured controversies mentioned by Philostratus) but a much more complex mechanism, in which multiple intertwined discourses, despite overtly contradicting each other, never succeed in completely canceling out each other’s semantic validity. It is obviously impossible for a single text to function as a full-fledged realization of multiple plot paradigms, some of which are incompatible with each other on logical grounds. At the same time, the text of the Golden Ass provides no indication as to which one of these ‘simple’ discourses is to be preferred over others as an integral part of the intended ‘authorial meaning’. There seems to be no such thing in Apuleius as a monolithic meaning. The point seems to consist precisely in the narrative’s being irreducibly polyphonous. This kind of radical polyphony does not seem to be accounted for in rhetorical

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theory. There are, however, numerous examples of it in contemporary rhetorical practice. 9.3. Acting out paideia. In Rhetorum praeceptor Lucian draws a satiric picture of contemporary sophistic oratory. An effeminate, heavily perfumed practitioner of this métier gives an aspiring young sophist a crash course on easy shortcuts that can reliably turn him into a successful orator within a single day.60 All one has to do to achieve this goal, the teacher says, is to acquire a swaying gait, to wear flashy clothes, to learn no more than twenty old Attic words, and not to be afraid of being accused of ignorance while mixing them with outlandish sounding neologisms (Luc. Rh.Pr. 15-17). To become proficient in this kind of rhetoric, one should lay aside such classical models as Plato, Demosthenes, and Isocrates and concentrate instead on imitating modern declamations (Luc. Rh.Pr. 17). Here is the advice that the professor gives his student about the way he is to handle a declamation theme proposed by the audience (Luc. Rh.Pr. 18): ἑλομένων δέ [sc. ὑπόθεσιν], μηδὲν ἔτι μελλήσας λέγε ὅττι κεν ἐπ᾿ ἀκαιρίμαν γλῶτταν ἔλθῃ, μηδὲν ἐκείνων ἐπιμεληθείς, ὡς τὸ πρῶτον, ὥσπερ οὖν καὶ ἔστι πρῶτον, ἐρεῖς ἐν καιρῷ προσήκοντι καὶ τὸ δεύτερον μετὰ τοῦτο καὶ τὸ τρίτον μετ᾿ ἐκεῖνο, ἀλλὰ τὸ πρῶτον ἐμπεσὸν πρῶτον λεγέσθω, καὶ ἢν οὕτω τύχῃ, περὶ τῷ μετώπῳ κνημίς, περὶ τῇ κνήμῃ δὲ ἡ κόρυς. πλὴν ἀλλ᾿ ἔπειγε καὶ σύνειρε καὶ μὴ σιώπα μόνον. κἂν περὶ ὑβριστοῦ τινος ἢ μοιχοῦ λέγῃς Ἀθήνησι, τὰ ἐν Ἰνδοῖς καὶ τὰ ἐν Ἐκβατάνοις λεγέσθω. ἐπὶ πᾶσι δὲ ὁ Μαραθὼν καὶ ὁ Κυνέγειρος, ὧν οὐκ ἄν τι ἄνευ γένοιτο. καὶ ἀεὶ ὁ Ἄθως πλείσθω καὶ ὁ Ἑλλήσποντος πεζευέσθω καὶ ὁ ἥλιος ὑπὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν βελῶν σκεπέσθω καὶ Ξέρξης φευγέτω καὶ ὁ Λεωνίδας θαυμαζέσθω καὶ τὰ Ὀθρυάδου γράμματα ἀναγιγνωσκέσθω, καὶ ἡ Σάλαμις καὶ τὸ Ἀρτεμίσιον καὶ αἱ Πλαταιαὶ καὶ πολλὰ ταῦτα καὶ πυκνά. Once they have chosen the topic, say with no hesitation whatever ill-timed thing occurs to you. And take no pains to begin by saying in the right order the thing that actually is first, adding the second thing after it, and then the third. But the first thing that comes into your mind should be said first, even if it turns out that you are wearing leggings on your head and a helm on your leg. Just keep pushing on and stringing things together. Only don’t be silent! And if you talk about some Athenian transgressor or adulterer, affairs in India and Ecbatana should be mentioned too. Of course, no speech should be deprived of a mention of Marathon and Cynegirus. And Mount Athos should always be crossed by ship and the Hellespont by foot, and the sun should always be covered by the Medan arrows, Xerxes should flee, Leonidas be admired, and Othryades’ letter be read. And don’t forget frequent references to Salamis, Artemision, Plataeae, and many other such things.

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Zweimüller 2008, 11-27.

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Despite his derisory attitude, Lucian inadvertently uncovers a serious problem here, with which every sophistic orator had to deal. Thematic limitations of sophistic speeches inevitably had far-reaching consequences that went beyond the mere lack of variation. Sophistic rhetoric’s almost complete dependence on a relatively small number of classical prototypes and commonplaces of Greek paideia resulted in a situation in which the only way to display originality was by ingeniously combining banalities. This led to the emergence of an extremely peculiar kind of literature, whose highest achievement seems to have consisted in creating surprising collocations of universally known motifs, anecdotes about illustrious historical figures, and learned clichés of other kinds.61 While composing school progymnasmata, an incipient orator would have been taught how to use these traditional discursive elements in talking about any conceivable topic and in arguing for and against any conceivable cause.62 It is precisely these hackneyed snippets of received wisdom that then served as minimal building blocks in improvised sophistic performances. It would probably be going too far to claim that form was the only thing that mattered in sophistic productions, since many of the second-century sophists were not only entertainers but also influential political figures who used their eloquence for specific practical purposes.63 But irrespective of the content of these speeches, most of the individual components that went into their making were not only predictably trivial, but, by virtue of deriving from literature of the classical period, they had been trivial for centuries! What emerged as a result, however, was not necessarily a ridiculous chaos envisaged by Lucian, but (at least in some cases) a sophisticated aesthetics of detrivialized banality, which consisted in creating something genuinely new by juggling a series of hopeless platitudes. In what follows I will briefly demonstrate what remarkable effects Apuleius achieved in his rhetorical works by relying on this aesthetics. Both in the Florida and in the Apology, Apuleius combines learned clichés in such a way as either to destabilize their established meanings or to produce a formally unified whole whose meaning proves to be hard to pinpoint. As a result, the stale banality of the cliché is harnessed to express something refreshingly elusive and playful. This effect is achieved by means of theatricality, which is quite compatible with the mime histrionics I discussed in Chapters 1 and 2: just as a mime actor tended to disregard the overall coherence and mimetic credibility of the whole while eagerly employing whatever gags and slapstick routines were particularly advantageous in heightening the immediate comic effect, so Apuleius the sophistic entertainer, too, adopted a variety of personae associated with individual fragments of learning, which he combined in his performances,

61 62 63

Cf. Russell 1983, 21-39. Anderson 1993, 47-53. Bowersock 1969.

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thus creating a dazzling kaleidoscopic vision irreconcilable with the conventional notion of a unified worldview.64 Apuleius’ Florida In some excerpts from Apuleius’ Florida, this technique is used to achieve quite subtle effects. Florida 3, for instance, consists of two distinct sections that are juxtaposed in such a way that they mutually destabilize each other’s – otherwise relatively straightforward – meanings. The fragment begins with the praise of the inventor of the double flute Hyagnis, who is presented as the first true musician worthy of the name. Before him, music is said to have completely lacked art. After this generous encomium, the speaker makes the transition to Hyagnis’ son Marsyas, who is said to have resembled his father only as a flautist. In all other respects, he was entirely barbarous. So it was this despicable brute who dared to compete with Apollo himself – taeter cum decoro, agrestis cum erudito, bellua cum deo (Apul. Fl. 3). The Muses pretended to serve as judges of this competition, but in fact they were there only in order to laugh at Marsyas’ uncouth performance and to punish him for his stupidity: Marsyas was so naïve in his arrogance as to present Apollo’s outer glitter as absolutely worthless compared with his own virtue and skill (Apul. Fl. 3 haec omnia blandimenta nequaquam virtuti decora, sed luxuriae accommodata). As a result, the Muses laughed at him, as he was being flayed alive, and left his gory remains to lie on the ground! The moral of this strange story seems to be quite straightforward at first.65 The conflict between Marsyas and Apollo clearly evokes the widespread motif of the futility of competition between filthy, uneducated Cynic philosophers (Marsyas), who look like caricatures of the founding fathers of their school 64

65

The best parallel for Apuleius’ theatrical treatment of paideia can be found in the Dialexeis of Maximus of Tyre – a second-century sophistic performer, polymath, and ‘philosophus Platonicus’ in many ways resembling Apuleius (Sandy 1997, 94-103). In each of his speeches Maximus adopts a particular philosophic persona (a Platonist, a Stoic, a Cynic, or an Epicurean, etc.), which, needless to say, fails to cohere into the image of a personal identity with a comprehensible, logically sound worldview. Moreover, some of these personae engage in hostile polemics against the personae of other speeches (e.g., the persona of Or. 31 condemns the persona of Or. 30 as σοφιστής and ἀπατεών, whereas the Epicurean persona of Or. 32 openly argues against the persona of Or. 31, who rejected ἡδονή as summum bonum, etc.), creating a veritable theater of philosophy (Koniaris 1982, 104-105). Maximus’ theatrical stance becomes particularly apparent in the first – programmatic – speech, in which he presents different philosophical schools as nothing but theatrical costumes designed to clothe the unchangeable truth of philosophy (Koniaris 1983, 234-237). Apul. Fl. 3 ita Marsyas in poenam cecinit et cecidit. enimvero Apollinem tam humilis victoriae puditum est.

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(Hyagnis; cf. Chapter 6), and civilized thinkers, such as Apuleius himself.66 However, the fact that the two distinct discourses combined in this excerpt fail to cohere into a unified whole makes this straightforward conclusion rather problematic. The speech begins as a typical narrative of a culture hero – a primus inventor who has perfected the rude art of flute-playing by inventing a double aulos. Needless to say, this myth has a venerable literary pedigree,67 and, in accordance with the standard plot of all primus inventor narratives, it presents Hyagnis in an unequivocally positive light – as someone who contributed to leading the world from barbarity to civilization.68 Having been exposed to such an emphatic panegyric of Hyagnis’ achievements, we inevitably expect this image to be somehow significant in shaping our idea of the inventor’s son, especially since it is explicitly stressed that as a flautist, that is, in the only aspect that truly matters in the context, he indeed did take after his father. This, however, proves not to be the case. The narrative of Marsyas’ death, which is of course also attested in numerous earlier sources,69 conveys a radically different message: the god justly punishes the silly arrogance of an animallike creature that has challenged him. The overall discrepancy of tone and meaning between the two parts of the speech is so overwhelming that it indeed seems to be virtually impossible to reconcile the two in such a way as to make them express a comprehensible meaning. If we allot semantic primacy to the Marsyas story, the narrative of the invention of the double flute will emerge as nothing but a learned vignette devoid of any clear significance in the context. If, on the other hand, we take the content of the first part of the discourse seriously, it will completely undermine the surface meaning of the second part. Hyagnis’ superb art, which by extension is also Marsyas’, will reduce Apollo’s advantage only to his civilized grooming: in the end, it will look like a victory of glittering superficiality over (perhaps somewhat negligently packaged) content. Conjoined with Apollo’s disproportionate cruelty in punishing his unwitting opponent, this pronounced emphasis on the contrast between Maryas’ virtue and Apollo’s

66

67

68 69

Harrison 2000, 98-99. Cf. Apul. Fl. 7 quod utinam pari exemplo philosophiae edictum valeret, ne qui imaginem eius temere adsimularet, uti pauci boni artifices, idem probe eruditi omnifariam sapientiae studium contemplarent, neu rudes, sordidi, imperiti pallio tenus philosophos imitarentur et disciplinam regalem tam ad bene dicendum quam ad bene vivendum repertam male dicendo et similiter vivendo contaminarent. quod utrumque scilicet perfacile est. quae enim facilior res quam linguae rabies et vilitas morum, altera ex aliorum contemptu, altera ex sui ? Hunink 2001, 70. Aristoxenus Περὶ µουσικῆς (fr. 77 Wehrli). Hunink 2001, 70, refers to Dioscorides, AP 9.340 and Ps.-Plut. De Musica 5. Cf. Pl. Rep. 399c and Smp. 215c, where Marsyas is presented as inventor. On πρῶτος εὑρετής narratives, see Kleingünther 1933. E.g., Ov. Met. 6.382-400; Hyg. Fab. 165 and 191; Liv. 38.13; Juv. 9.2.

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beauty completely deprives the ultimate message of the narrative of any convincing moral force.70 The semantic tension that we can observe in this fragment is obviously a consequence of the fact that the speaker successively adopts two distinct personae, which, if combined, fail to merge into a mimetically credible image. The first persona is that of a sophistic storyteller aiming to impress the audience with an entertaining display of his mythological erudition. The second one is that of a philosopher with an agenda and with an axe to grind against his philosophical rivals. The fact that the story told by the speaker is not quite suited to support his purported message underscores the rift between these two personae, neither of which succeeds in winning the upper hand in the end. What we thus end up with is not a unified complex statement but a collage consisting of two jarring discourses. The obvious conflict between these two discourses inevitably leads us to pose the question of what the whole thing means or whether it is meant to have any definite meaning at all. On the surface, it seems to be a (needless to say, clichéd) statement of the speaker’s own superiority over unrefined Cynic philosophers who preach moral reform without resorting to cultured techniques of sophistic rhetoric. On closer look, however, it turns out to make the opposing voice equally audible – the easily recognizable voice of the Stoic-Cynic critique of the superficially pretty, but in fact senseless, verbal acrobatics of sophistic rhetoric that contributes nothing to what truly matters in life.71 The result of the juxtaposition of these two voices within the same speech seems to be a devastatingly ironic comment on the speaker’s own sophistic superficiality, which aims at nothing but light civilized entertainment and conceals its own lack of meaningful content under the guise of cliché-laden ‘philosophy’. Can we really be sure that this caustic self-irony is just a careless slip, an inadvertent self-deconstruction of the ostensible message, rather than a part of the ‘intended meaning’? If we assume that this irony is there for a purpose, the whole thing will after all appear much less hollow than it seemed at first glance. 70

71

Even if we are to see in Hyagnis one of the founding figures of Cynic philosophy (such as Diogenes or Crates), in Marsyas their contemporary followers (drawn in accordance with the paradigm of the Lucianic satire on charlatans, which I discussed in Chapter 6), and in Apollo a modern philosopher of Apuleius’ cast, Apollo’s superficiality and cruelty will reduce the potentially meaningful message to utter absurdity. E.g., the anecdote about the eunuch sophist Favorinus in Lucian, Demonax 12 ἐπεὶ γὰρ ὁ Φαβωρῖνος ἀκούσας τινὸς ὡς ἐν γέλωτι ποιοῖτο τὰς ὁµιλίας αὐτοῦ καὶ µάλιστα τῶν ἐν αὐτῶν µελῶν τὸ ἐπικεκλασµένον σφόδρα ὡς ἀγεννὲς καὶ γυναικεῖον καὶ φιλοσοφίᾳ ἥκιστα πρέπον, προσελθὼν ἠρώτα τὸν Δηµώνακτα, τίς ὢν χλευάζοι τὰ αὐτοῦ· Ἄνθρωπος, ἔφη, οὐκ εὐαπάτητα ἔχων τὰ ὦτα. ἐγκειµένου δὲ τοῦ σοφιστοῦ καὶ ἐρωτῶντος, Τίνα δὲ καὶ ἐφόδια ἔχων, ὦ Δηµῶναξ, ἐκ παιδείας εἰς φιλοσοφίαν ἥκεις; Ὄρχεις, ἔφη. On Lucian’s ridicule of sophists in Rhetorum Praeceptor, see above. For criticism of sophists in Plutarch, Dio Chrysostomus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, see Stanton 1973, 352-358.

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In this case, we could certainly claim that it is precisely the mastery with which universally known clichés are combined into something relentlessly polyphonous and, for that reason, thought-provoking and new, that constitutes the particular art practiced by Apuleius in his capacity as sophistic entertainer. Apuleius’ Apology Examples of this kind of elusive treatment of learned banalities can be found in abundance in Apuleius’ Apology.72 Throughout the entire speech Apuleius goes out of his way to reduce to absurdity each individual allegation presented against him by the prosecution. The strategy on which he relies is to decontextualize each individual point and then to dismantle it even further by breaking it up into a series of clichés and blowing each of them up out of proportion, with the result that, if taken together, they cease to make any comprehensible sense. Among other things, the prosecution aims to prove that Apuleius’ only motive for marrying Pudentilla was material gain (Apul. Apol. 17-23). One piece of evidence that they adduce is that upon his arrival in Oeae Apuleius had only one slave and that some time later, after marrying Pudentilla, he set free three slaves on the same day.73 The meaning of this allegation is crystal clear: the marriage has made the once poor defendant so rich that he doesn’t have to worry any more that prodigal manumissions can reduce him to poverty. What Apuleius does to defend himself is to turn everything inside out by isolating the first component of the allegation, namely his supposed initial poverty. From this point on, he constructs his argument on the pretence that he is poor, but largely obfuscates this circumstance by shifting the focus from his own person to poverty as a virtue befitting a philosopher in general, which is of course an extremely widespread commonplace (Apul. Apol. 17.6).74 A panegyric of poverty combined with a long list of examples of noble poverty from both Greek and Roman history (more clichés) further detracts our attention from Apuleius’ own financial situation (Apul. Apol. 17.7-18.12).75 Then the judge – the proconsul Claudius Maximus – is praised for his enormous wealth, which he, however, bears sine ostenatione (Apul. Apol. 19), so that he can be considered to be an implicit embodiment of the noble poverty ideal that has been illustrated by the historical exempla (Apul. Apol. 18). Then the discussion turns to another philosophical (Stoic) commonplace, according to which the notion of 72 73

74 75

On the sophistic character of Apuleius’ Apology, see Helm 1955 and Harrison 2000, 39-88. Apul. Apol. 17.2 at tu me scis eadem die tris Oeae manu misisse, idque mihi patronus tuus inter cetera a te sibi edita obiecit, quanquam modico prius dixerat me uno servo comite Oeam venisse. On Apuleius’ rhetorical strategy in this section of the speech, see Hunink 1997, vol. 2, 67-68 with further bibliography. Hunink 1997, vol. 2, 70; Stok 1985, 361. On intertextual affiliations of Apuleius’ laus paupertatis, see McCreight 2008.

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poverty is identical with that of need (Apul. Apol. 20).76 The only person who can be considered truly rich is a philosopher content with having nothing but a pouch and a staff (Apul. Apol. 22.1-7). At this point, wealth and poverty become virtually interchangeable: Apuleius seems to imply that, by virtue of being a true philosopher, who desires to reduce his needs to a bare minimum, he can be regarded as rich, although he implicitly continues to present himself as poor in the conventional sense of the word. The fact that he compares himself to such stock characters of Cynic diatribes as Diogenes and Hercules further corroborates this point (Apul. Apol. 22.8-10). Then, all of a sudden, Apuleius abandons the topic of philosophical poverty, superior to earthly riches, and says that his father has bequeathed him two million sesterces (Apul. Apol. 23.1). Although this fabulous sum has somewhat diminished through his travels, studies, and generosity (Apul. Apol. 23.2-3), Apuleius must still possess something beside a pouch and a staff (whether the money is his own or Pudentilla’s is not specified for clear strategic reasons), because he allows himself a contemptuous remark about his accuser Aemilianus’ initial poverty (Apul. Apol. 23.6), which he has only recently overcome by means of frequent ‘unmerited inheritances’ (Apul. Apol. 23.7 immeritis hereditatibus). The disconcerting quality of this text is based, once again, on the fact that its speaker adopts a series of recognizable personae, each expressing clichéd opinions traditionally associated with them, whose combination fails to result in a unified worldview. To begin with, there is the persona of a poor Cynic philosopher, for whom philosophy is a way of life devoid of earthly possessions rather than a set of doctrinal tenets. It is followed by the persona of a Roman traditionalist, who is opposed not to the idea of possessing property as such but only to ostentatiously amassing unnecessary wealth and from whose viewpoint the beggarly existence of a Cynic would of course appear rather despicable. Then there is the persona of a philosopher as an intellectual with a pronounced taste for scholastic hairsplitting, who savors the Stoics’ musings on the relative worth of wealth and poverty. And finally, the speaker adopts the Juvenal-like persona of an upper class Roman satirist, who ridicules his opponent as a parvenu and a legacy-hunter to boot. Τhe speaker’s voice dissolves into a collage consisting of these incompatible personae. As a consequence, to answer the question of whether, or in what sense, Apuleius was rich or poor when he arrived in Oeae would be as impossible on the basis of this piece of rhetoric as to disentangle the mystery of the rich Corinthian becoming a poor Madauran in Apuleius’ novel. Whatever the case might be, one cannot help but have a vague feeling that the prosecution’s charge is closer to the truth than anything Apuleius has to say, but that, at the same time, the appeal of verifiable facts completely pales by comparison with such a dazzling display of erudite theatricality.

76

E.g., Sen. Helv. 11.4. See Hunink 1997 (2), 74 with further references and bibliography.

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Conclusion In the Golden Ass, Lucius’ personae are intertwined in the same manner as the multiple personae in this passage from the Apology. We have seen that Lucius’ narrative, too, represents a mosaic of discourses rather than a single semantically unified discourse and that each of these multiple discourses possesses a respectable pedigree in the world of Greco-Roman paideia. What is more, the multiple plots of the Golden Ass are combined in essentially the same theatrical manner as the incompatible literary stances in the excerpts that I have just discussed. As Lucius plays a different role in each of these intertwined narrative plots, his personality dissolve into a succession of recognizable literary personae, which do not cohere into a single mimetically credible character. As we approach the novel’s conclusion, it becomes particularly apparent that Lucius’ image undergoes constant transformations – from a repenting humble devotee of a popular Oriental cult to an enlightened philosopher looking for eternal truths in traditional Egyptian lore, to an abstract symbol of the soul’s progress to the divine, to a philosophical charlatan duped by a bunch of even more cunning religious frauds, to a calculating sophistic orator concerned only with personal gain. Moreover, we can see in retrospect that the preceding sections of the novel support each of these versions in equal measure. What emerges as a result is a kaleidoscopic συµπλοκή of a rather discordant kind. Like Apuleius’ rhetorical compositions, his novel reveals no unequivocal semantic center that would hold together its individual components. The reader of the Golden Ass is implicitly encouraged to accomplish the a priori impossible task of discovering a centripetal force in a text that is deliberately multi-polar, and the frustration that this process inevitably entails is an integral part of the ironic game which this sophistic author plays with us.

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Index nominum et rerum Abroia 2 Achilles 207 Actaeon, see Diana and Actaeon Adonis 39, 42 Adrian of Tyre 203 Aelius Aristides 74-78, 205 Aemilianus 224-225 Aeschines 96 Aesop 80-81 Aetolia 119 adultery 15, 20, 21-31, 33-35, 48-50, 66-67, 120, 179-183, 204, 215-216, 219 Agamemnon 190, 193 Agathion 205 Ajax 121 Alcimus 50, 169 Alcinous 196 Alexander of Abonouteichos 126-129, 133, 137 Alexander Peloplato 207 Alexandria 190 allegory 96-97, 101103, 107-121, 201, 205 Ammon 112 amphitheater 49 Anaxagoras 88, 217 anilis fabula 109-121, 171 anteludia 38-39, 135 Apelles 42, 190 Aphrodite, see Venus Apollo 39, 88, 127, 167, 171, 221 apologoi 196-197 Apuleius passim - as an orator 6-7, 221-226 - as a philosopher 6-7 Ares 180 aretalogus 71, 74

aretalogy Ariadne Arignotus Aristides Aristomenes

Aristophanes Aristotle Aristoxenus Arsinoe Asclepius Ascyltus astrologers Athenaeus Athens Atticism autobiography baldness beard Bellum Civile Bescheidenheitstopos Bittina Boy of Pergamon buffoon, buffoonery

Byrrhena

71-85 198 125, 135-136 181-184 33, 37, 59-62, 64, 84, 91, 117-119, 131-132, 143-145, 147, 170-171, 183 91, 143-159, 164, 180 1, 88-89, 208 15, 222 39 39-41, 46, 72, 74-76, 126127, 192 187, 193, 195 15, 123, 203 11-12, 15-16, 39, 192 13, 150, 180 205, 209, 219 1, 90, 164165, 169-170, 197, 201 18, 21, 35-36, 124, 140 124-125, 136, 140 193 206 26-27, 31 179 11-22, 57-58, 133, 163-164, 168, 172, 174, 178, 180, 185, 187, 192, 197 61-62, 84, 235

Caesar Canidia Carthage Catullus, mimographer Cenchreae Chaeremon Chaerephon Charite

Charition charlatans Chryseros Cicero cinaedus Circe - in Homer - in Petronius Cleon Claudius Maximus controversiae figuratae Corax Corinth

Crates credulity Cronus Croton Cupids Cupid and Psyche

curiosity

236

139, 148, 166, 170, 205 56 21, 33-34 6 18, 21, 35, 50 41, 71, 76, 98, 138 101 88 20, 47-48, 51, 63-65, 107, 109, 120, 168, 170, 171, 204-205, 215 16-17, 20, 29, 186, 193 123-141, 215 50 17, 41, 189, 210 18, 129, 193

Cybele Cynno Daedalus Dea Syria declamation Delian maidens Delphi Delphic oracle Demochares Demodocus Demosthenes deus ex machina Diana and Actaeon diatribe Dio Chrysostom

95 186, 195 11 224 212, 214, 218 186 5, 17, 38-39, 41, 45, 48, 71, 92, 120, 139, 167, 225 92 35-36, 117119, 123-141 94 187, 195 43-44 5, 64-65, 8485,107-111, 114, 120,167168, 170-171, 173, 183, 204-205 1-4, 71,7985, 89-91, 96, 99, 103, 107-

Diogenes Dionysus Diophanes Dodona Egyptian cults

ekphrasis elegy emphasis, rhetorical figure Encolpius encomium Epicharmus Epictetus Epicurus epigram Eumolpus

108, 118, 130, 136-137, 145 128 40 190 3, 18, 36, 128-130, 133, 139, 205 198, 201-220 191 39 88-90 36, 38, 50-52, 169 180 207, 219 4-5 43, 46-47, 84, 120 92, 96-99, 120-121, 134, 172, 198, 225 90-93, 99, 99, 114, 205 89, 92, 123, 128-129, 225 46, 198, 208 15, 36, 133, 139, 203 113 71-85, 100105, 123, 125, 128, 136-140 38-44, 46-47, 189, 202 21, 24 212 185-198, 201 72-75, 202, 217 39 98-99 198 12, 45-55, 187-188, 193-198 187-198, 201

Euripides ‘fatal charades’ fictionality Floralia Fortune Fronto Giton gladiatorial games Glycon Gorgias Gyllis Habinnas Hercules Hermocrates of Phocaea Herodas Hipparchia Hipparchus Hippodromus of Thessaly Homer

Homeristae Horace Hyagnis Hypata

impersonation

improvisation initiation

invective irony, rhetorical figure

17, 20, 27, 29, 216-217 45-58, 189 45-58, 107122 39 79-80, 95100 90 186-187, 195 36 126, 137 156 23-24 189, 191, 194, 106 225 213 18-20, 23-33, 39-43, 175, 186, 192 92 2, 14 203 43, 78, 82, 179, 188, 196-197, 208, 211, 217 196 21-2, 24, 3334, 57 221-223 2, 12-13, 5, 58, 60-62, 119, 148-150, 187 38-39, 45-69, 163-178, 187, 194-199, 207-209 16, 57-58, 163-178, 202-203, 220 5, 72, 77-85, 93, 100, 102103, 137-140, 146, 150-154 198 212

Ischomachus Isis

11 71-85, 98105, 125, 138, 140, 150-156 - cult of, see Egyptian cults - praises of 72-73 - many names of 73 - priests of, see also Mithras 75, 77-78, 81, 83, 100-101, 123-124, 128 - self-revelations of 73-74, 140 - temple of 73, 79, 82, 150-151 Isocrates 219 Isthmus 41 judgment of Paris 38, 40, 43, 47, 71, 92, 120-121, 172, 202 Juno 43 Jupiter 46, 48, 113, 151 Juvenal 22-24, 50, 127, 129 Laberius 29, 35, 56, 58 Lamachus 50, 63, 169 laughter 36-37, 39 - festival of, see Risus Festival Laureolus, Laureolus 18, 36, 49-52, 55, 57-58, 63-64 Lichas 186-187 Livy 169 Lucian 90, 94-99, 123-141, 204-208, 215, 219-220 Lucius passim - as a mime actor 55-67 - as a mime character 12-20 - as a narrator 163-178 - as an orator 155-158 - as a sophist’s student 1, 202 Lycinus 182-183 Madaurus 5, 17, 167, 202, 225

237

magic Marcus Aurelius Maroneia Marsyas Martial Maximus of Tyre Medea Melanippe Menander Menecles Meroe Mercury metafiction Metamorphoses of Lucius of Patrae metatheater Metriche Miletus Milo mime

mimesis Minerva mise en abyme Mithras - Persian god - priest of Isis Moicheutria Moon Myrmex myth - interpretation of - Platonic - reenactment of Nero New Comedy

238

2, 4, 21, 3335, 59-62 90-91 75 221-223 45-55 114, 205, 220-221 27-29, 31 216-218 30 3 33-34, 60, 84 42 163-174

Niceros Nymphodorus Odysseus Odyssey Oeae Oenothea Orpheus Orpheotelestai Osiris

1, 4 163-178 23 178-184 12-17, 51, 60, 62, 148-150 1-43, 49-48, 163-165, 173-180, 185-199, 203, 207-208 42-44, 46-48, 189-199, 208 43 170-172, 196-199

pantheism Panthia pantomime

Palaestra Palamedes Pamphile

paradoxography Parmenides ‘Pasiphae mime’ pastophorus Patrae Pegasus Peregrinus Proteus Petronius Phaedra, ‘Phaedra’

104 79-84, 99100, 104, 121 18-20, 26-28, 186, 192 20, 72, 76, 148, 151, 157 24 100-105 107-121 45-58 51-52, 56, 58 13, 16-17, 24, 29-30

Pheidippides Philisitherus Philistion Philogelos philosophy - Cynic

- enslavement to - Epicurean - as a form of popular culture

196-197 11 195-197 180, 195, 206 224-225 21, 33, 186 54-55 123 76, 78, 82, 91, 101, 104, 137-138, 155-156 2, 19 121 33, 60, 62, 148 73-74, 83 34 38, 47, 53-54, 92, 121, 134, 172, 188, 207 19 94, 98 19, 41, 45, 48-50, 52, 67 140 1, 5 39 128-129, 136 21, 33, 37, 185-199, 201, 209 28-31, 65-67, 204, 208 146-148, 154-157 24-25 12 11-16 92-98, 120, 123-124, 128, 134-136, 221-223 95, 99 127, 221 6-7, 93-97, 175-176, 209,

- Peripatetic - Platonic - Pythagorean - ridicule of - Stoic

Philostratus Photis phrontisterion

pirates Plataeae Plato

Plautus Plocamus Plotina Plutarch Polemo Polyaenus Polyphemus pornography Poseidon Praxinoa prayer Priapus primus inventor progymnasmata prolalia Prometheus prophecy, prophets

221-223 15, 43, 201 6, 94, 101, 107-121, 125, 127, 166, 221 94, 98, 101, 123, 125, 127, 135-136 123-141, 144-155 92-101, 120, 125, 127, 133-134, 221, 223 203, 207, 213, 215, 218 33, 60, 62-63 144-145, 147-151, 153-154, 156-157 203 169 87-90, 100, 104, 107-117, 191-192, 217-219 16, 164-165 190 65 91, 97, 101105, 114-121, 137, 202, 204 204, 207, 213, 215 195 195 19 195 40, 42, 173 72-75, 78-79, 151-153 189, 195 222 220 206 49-50 83, 125-126,

130, 132-133, 138 prophetic vision 72, 75-77 Proselenus 21-33, 186 prosimetrum 192-195 Proteus 156 providence 76, 98-100 Publilius Syrus 189 Pudentilla 224-225 pyrrhicha 38, 45 Pythagoras 100, 123, 127, 129, 204 Pythia 88 Pythias 13-14, 60, 62, 150, 185 Quartilla 37, 186-187, 193 Risus Festival 35-37, 51-52, 55-63, 186, 195, 203 robbers 18, 20, 36, 47, 50-56, 63-65, 268272, 273, 180, 201-205, 215 role-playing, see impersonation Rufus of Perinthus 207 Rutilianus 128, 138 roses 2-3, 38, 75, 98 Sagana 33 Salvia 166 Scheintod 28 schema 211-218 scholasticus 11-15, 185 Scopelian 207 Semele 46 Seth, see Typhon sex in public 92, 128 Sextus 91 Simaetha 32-34 Sisenna 181, 184 slapstick 18, 185-188, 220 Solon 215 Socrates - philosopher 87-93, 96, 98,

239

107, 109, 111-114, 121, 129, 143, 145, 156, 172, 215, 217-218 - character in Apuleius 17, 33-34, 36, 60-62, 84, 132, 143-144 - character in Aristophanes 144-154 Sophron 18, 21, 32-34, 39, 41, 186, 192 Strepsiades 145-157 stupidus, see buffoon Suda 11-12 Suetonius 45, 49, 51-52, 57, 64 Sulla 140 superstition 123-124, 127, 137, 140-141 symploke, rhetorical term 217-218, 226 symposium 170, 188, 191, 193-194, 196 Terence 210 Thales 100, 145 Thebes 169 Thelyphron 33-35, 59, 61-62, 170171, 183, 196, 205 Theocritus 1, 32-34, 3943, 173, 186, 192 Theomnestus 182-183 Theophrastus 12, 43, 137 Thessalonica 3, 92 Thessaly 19, 33, 59-61, 77, 83, 91, 118-119, 130, 137, 144-148, 150, 166, 182-184, 202 Thestyllis 33 Thiasus 38-39, 45 Thoth 112

240

Thrasyleon Thrasyllus Tlepolemus Trimalchio Troiae Halosis Trojan horse Tryphaena Tychiades Typhon venatio Venus Virgil Widow of Ephesus Winkler, J.J. Xenophon Zatchlas zelotypos Zeno Zeus, see Jupiter Zoilus

50-52, 64, 169 65, 204 20, 51, 63-65, 204, 215-216 188-190, 192-197 193 51-52, 64 187 125, 132 103-105 36, 46, 52 39-43, 71, 121, 180 169, 188, 191, 196 179 5, 12, 19, 35, 138 87, 191, 215 83 26-32 89, 93 211

Index locorum Aelius Aristides Sacred Discourses 1.1 1.66 2.5 2.8 2.25 2.30 2.45 2.49 2.69 2.72

78 75 74 78 76 75 75 78 74 75

Anthologia Latina PLM III 246.15-16

175

Apuleius Apol. Fl.

Met.

13 17-23 39 3 5 7 9 14 18 1.1

1.2 1.2-4 1.3 1.4 1.5-19 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.12

17 224-224 124 221-224 175 124, 221 158, 209 92, 124 6 111-114, 163-166, 169-170, 176-178, 201 61, 118, 146, 165-166, 176 131-132 133, 148 36, 46 84 17 33, 36, 60, 143 34, 132 34, 84

1.13 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.22-24 1.24-25 1.26 2.1 2.2-4 2.3 2.4 2.6 2.10 2.11-12 2.12 2.13-14 2.14 2.18 2.19 2.20 2.21 2.21-30 2.27-29 2.28 2.31 3.1-11 3.2 3.3 3.4-6 3.8-9 3.9 3.10 3.13-18 3.15 3.17-18 3.19

143 143 118 118, 131, 147, 170 12, 150 149 14, 150 13 14, 150 60, 61 139 166 43, 46, 84, 120 148 12 132-133 5, 102, 167 120, 133 15 60, 62 61, 143 170 203 61, 120 34-35 83 62 60 36 51-52 58 51 55, 167 37, 56-57, 187 62 149 33 60 241

3.28-7.12 3.28-10.35 3.29 4.5 4.6 4.8 4.9 4.9-21 4.13-21 4.27 4.28 4.32 5.5 5.11-12 5.22-24 5.24 5.31 6.8 6.12-21 6.21 6.24 6.25 6.26 6.29 6.31-32 7.5-8 7.5-12 7.10 7.10-11 7.11-13 7.13 7.16 7.17-22 7.28 8.1 8.1-14 8.22 8.28 8.30-31 9.5-7 9.5-28 9.8 9.14 9.17-21 9.26-27 9.27 9.29-30 9.30 9.35-38 242

80 80 167 80 172 20, 169 169 50 36, 51-52 64, 109, 111, 170, 205 108 167, 171, 183 84 84 108 84 109 167 109 84 109 120, 173 80 47 80 51, 65, 215 64 172 120 20 51 80 80 80 168, 205 65 28 120 80 213 24-26 120, 130 120, 134, 167 213 120 66 32 167, 170 65, 202

10.2 10.2-12 10.19-22 10.22 10.23-28 10.29 10.29-35 10.30-32 10.31 10.33 10.34 11.1 11.1-6 11.2 11.3 11.3-6 11.5-6 11.6 11.7 11.8 11.8-9 11.8-16 11.9 11.10 11.11 11.12 11.13 11.15 11.16 11.17 11.19 11.18 11.20 11.21 11.22 11.23 11.24 11.25 11.26 11.27 11.27-30 11.28 11.29

66, 167 29-30, 71 71 48 30-32, 71 71 38, 40-41 43, 47 71 92-93, 121, 134, 143, 172 71, 80, 92 72, 76, 98, 135 75 40, 72-73, 75, 79, 151-152 151 152 73 76, 103, 153 93 99, 136 38-39 41 102 83, 102 102 98 76 76, 79-80, 99-100 80 102, 167 77 139 137 77, 81 35, 76, 136, 140 82, 103, 167 140 78, 93 77, 137 5, 35, 76, 78, 93, 167, 202 138-139, 169 154-155, 201-202 35, 78

11.30 Pl. 3 Socr. 164

18, 35, 78, 140-141, 155 158 143

Aristophanes Nu.

Th.

26-27 102-104 133 135-136 143 174-178 180 192-194 245-246 250-253 269-271 340-341 439-442 464-465 728 749-754 856-859 866-1150 1019-1021 1321-1446 1345-1350 1391-1398 1476-1511 477

147 148 148-149 149 151 150 145 149 148 152 152 151 153 152-153 144 148, 157 153-154 154 157 154 155 155 145, 157 180

22-24 35-41

Choricius Apol. mim. 26 33-34 54-55 95 109 Dial. 12

Cael. 65 Fam. 12.18.2 Inv. 1.27 Phil. 2.65 Rab. Post. 35

39 11 192 32 15 21 16

Ps.-Cebes Tab.

6-7 11-13 15-16 22

95 96 97 95

16, 41-42 56 212 17 190

Demetrius Eloc. 266 287

210 213

Dio Chrysostom Or.

7 8.4 8.20 8.36 9.1-4 9.13 13.9-12 32.8-9 72.2

205 92 95 92 92 97 90 124 124

Diodorus Siculus 1.25 1.27

Athenaeus Deipn. 362b 453a 620d-622d 620e 621b-c 621c 621d

21 23 23 210-211 18 208

Cicero

Aristoteles De phil. fr. 1 Walzer 89 Poet. 1450b-1452b 1

97 95

74-75 73

Diogenes Laertius 2.34

96

Diomedes Gramm. Lat. I 491

42-43

Ps.-Dionysius of Halicarnassus Περὶ ἐσχηματισμένων (ed. U.-R.) Α.1 214 243

Α.8 Α.10

217-218 216

9.340

222

Horace Ep. Epod.

Dioscorides AP

Epictetus 97 97

Gellius 17.14.2

56

8-14

Hymns 1.14-19

156

23-24 40 41 42 40 41-42 190 41 26 26 26 26

73

Etym.

1.18

165

(ed. Totti)

1

73, 74, 140

19.1 19.94

50 50

2 6.41-44 8.186-188 9.2

127 22 50 222

Josephus A.J.

Juvenal Sat.

Laberius

Herodotus 1.34 2.81 2.123

204 100 100

M. Ant. phil. 29.1-3 23, 190-191 Heliog. 25.4 19

Homer 2.489 20.131 8.266-366

78 82 180

Homeric Hymns h.Ap. 154-164

(ed. Bonaria) Belonistria 24-25

191

29

Livy 38.13

Historia Augusta

244

222 222

“Isis Aretalogies”

Mim. 1 4.1-11 4.20-38 4.27-38 4.41-56 4.56-78 4.72-76 4.80-85 5.10-34 5.40-41 5.53-55 5.80-85

Od.

165 191

Isidorus of Seville

Herodas

Il.

Fab.

Isidorus

Gorgias Hel.

57-58 34 34 22

Hyginus

Ench. 2.17.29 3.24.52

NA

S.

1.18.10-14 17.56-59 17.76-81 2.7.58-61

222

Lucian Alex. 6 13 13-16 22 25 26-28 30 33 40-41 44 44-47

130 127 126 126 127 126 128 126, 137 127 126 127, 132

60 Bis acc. 20 Fug. 13 Demon. 12 Nigr. 1 2 4 18 20 24-26 35 38 Peregr. 1 3 11-13 15 17 Philops. 7 8 9 11 13 14-15 16-17 18-20 31 34 34-36 Pisc. 11 32 34 37 Rh.Pr. 15-18 Salt. 65 VH 1.4

129 95 134 221 95, 97 94 95-96 97 95 96, 99 97 99-10 128 129 128 128 128, 136 125 132 125 125 125, 131, 132 126, 131 125 131 135 136 125 124 134-135 126 125 219-220 206, 209 208

Ps.-Lucian Amores 1 Onos 1 2 4 11 13 14 15 22-27 28-34 35 35-41

181 2, 14 1, 90, 204 1, 2, 59, 61, 91, 130 2 2 2 1, 4, 91 3 3 65 129

36-42 43-47 45 50-56 51 55 56

3 3 1, 4, 91 3-4 19, 48 1 1, 91

11.254

53-55

Lucillius AP

Macrobius Sat.

2.3.10 2.7.2-11 Somn. 1.2.7

56 56 111

Marcus Antoninus Med. 1.9

91

Martial Ep. 11.20.9-10 Spect. 6 8 9 10 14 24

199 45 46 49-50 54 46 54

Maximus of Tyre Or.

30 31 32

221 221 221

Nonius Marcellus (ed. Lindsay) De comp. doctr. p. 10

35

Ovid Am. 1.3.15-16 Fast. 5.329 Met. 6.382-400 9.666-797 Pont. 1.1.51-58 Tr. 2.413 2.417 2.497-500 2.503-506

177 39 222 80 79 182 179 21 22

245

P.Oxy.

Philogelos

iii.413 xi.1381 xi.1382

17, 20, 27-28 73-78 75

Pausanias 10.32.13-17

82

1 1-2 5 6 10 12 12-15 14 18 18-19 22 23 25 26-78 29 34 35 39 48 49 55 64 68 69-70 71 80 81 89 98 106 115 117 119-124 126-139 132

203 198 193 185 185 193 185 185, 193 194 37 185-186 193 187 188 189 193 189 196 204 189 189, 193 190 191 190 189 187 198 193 195 187 198 186, 187-188 193 195 198-199

Petronius Sat.

Philo Leg. All. 2.108

246

97

4 6 9 12 15 22 31 32 45 54 96 104 105 110-127 120 187

11 13 13 13 13 13 13 15 13 13 15 13 14 179 12 15

520 537 542 552-554 560-561 574 590 597 609 619

207 207 204, 213, 215 205 213 207 203 207 213 203

Philostratus VS

Phoibammon (ed. Spengel) Rhet. Gr. III 44, 1-3 211

Pliny the Elder Nat.

18.286

39

Plato Ap. Cri. Euthd. Phd.

19b-22e 53d 288b 96c 97b-99e Phdr. 230a 229a-b 237a 243b-c 243e-257b 267a

88-90 144 156 95 88 104 143 144 143 107-109 158

274c-275c 291c 315a 364e-365a 377c 382d 389b 395d 396b 399c 414b-415c 433a-b 443c-d 607a Sph. 234b-235c Smp. 215c Tht. 174a Plt. Prt. Rep.

112-114 156 156 123 110 110 110 110 191 222 110 89 89 110 156 224 145

211-212 212 212-213 179

Ps.-Quintilian Decl. 4 5 6 10 244 249 273 275 277 279

203 203 203 203 204 204 204 204 204 204

Rhetorica ad Herennium

Plutarch

1.12

Adv. Col. 20 Amat. 768b Crass. 32 De fac. 943d Is. 342b 352a 352b 352c 355c-358d 361d-e 362e 368d-370c 372e Mul. virt. 257e Poet. 14e 15c-d 17a 21d 22a-25b 26b 28d-e 30c-d 36d-e Quaest. conv. 712e

89 206 179, 184 97 101 101, 151 103, 124 124 101 140 103 104 102 204 117 119, 179 115 116 116 116 116 116 116 191

Ps.-Plutarch De mus. 5

224

6.3.8

210

Seneca the Elder Con.

1.4 1.7 2.7 4.7 6.6 7.3 7.5 9.1 Suas. 1.7

204 204, 213 204 204 204 56 204 204 177

Seneca the Younger Ep.

8.7 78.16 80.8 90.28 108.29-30 Dial. 7.4 Dial. 12.11.4

95, 99 97 17 100 117 95, 99 224

Sophron (ed. Hordern) fr. 3 fr. 3-9

33 21

Suda Φ364

Quintilian Inst.

9.1.13-14 9.2.65 9.2.66 11.2.11–16

11

36 247

Suetonius Aug. 74 Cal. 57 Nero 11 12 29

71 50, 57, 64 56 45 52

Theocritus Id.

2.159-160 15.27-42 15.80-84 15.80-86 15.100-144

34 40 42 40 42

Scholia in Theocritum (ed.Wendel) 2, p. 270 15, p. 305

32 39

Valerius Maximus Mem. 2.20.8

39

Vita Aesopi 8

81

Mem. 1.1.11-16 Smp. 9.2-7

89 191

Xenophon

248