Intende, Lector - Echoes of Myth, Religion and Ritual in the Ancient Novel 311031181X, 9783110311815

Table of contents :
Introduction
Roundtable Myth and the Novel
Myth and the Novel: Introductory Remarks and Comments on the Roundtable Discussion
Myth in the Novel: Some Observations
The Literary Myth in the Novel
Myths in the Novel: Gender, Violence and Power
Novel and Mythology – Contribution to a Round Table
Greek Novel and Local Myth
Mythical Repertoire and Its Functions in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses
Storyline, Poetics and Religion
Love, Mysteries and Literary Tradition: New Experiences and Old Frames
The Tale of a Dream: Oneiros and Mythos in the Greek Novel
From Mystery to Initiation: A Mytho-Ritual Poetics of Love and Sex in the Ancient Novel – even in Apuleius’ Golden Ass?
From the Legend of Cupid and Psyche to the Novel of Mélusine: Myth, Novel and Twentieth Century Adaptations
Apuleius and Cupid and Psyche: Anthropological, Christian and Philosophical Perspectives
Puella Virgo: Rites of Passage in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses
Gnostic Variations on the Tale of Cupid and Psyche
Apuleius and Christianity: The Novelist-Philosopher in front of a New Religion
Ritual, Myth and Intertextuality
Donkey Gone to Hell: A Katabasis Motif in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses
Iphigenia Revisited: Heliodorus’ Aethiopica and the ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ Pattern
‘Non humana viscera sed centies sestertium comesse’ (Petr. Sat. 141,7): Philomela and the Cannibal Heredipetae in the Crotonian Section of Petronius’ Satyricon
Religious Imagery, Cult, Mystery and Art
False Fortuna: Religious Imagery and the Painting-Gallery Episode in the Satyricon
The Bees of Artemis Ephesia and the Apocalyptic Scene in Joseph and Aseneth
Magic, Comic Reversal and Healing
Shamans and Charlatans: Magic, Mixups, Literary Memory in Apuleius’ Golden Ass Book 3
Lucius’s Rose: Symbolic or Sympathetic Cure?
General Index
Index locorum
About the Authors

Citation preview

Intende, Lector – Echoes of Myth, Religion and Ritual in the Ancient Novel

MythosEikonPoiesis

Herausgegeben von Roger Beck Wissenschaftlicher Beirat: Gregory Nagy, Richard Martin

Band 6

Intende, Lector – Echoes of Myth, Religion and Ritual in the Ancient Novel Edited by Marília P. Futre Pinheiro, Anton Bierl and Roger Beck

isbn 978-3-11-031181-5 e-isbn 978-3-11-031190-7 issn 1868-5080 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. © 2013 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Satz: jürgen ullrich typosatz, Nördlingen Druck und Bindung: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ♾ Gedruckt auf säurefreiem Papier Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Editors’ Preface and Acknowledgements This collection presents a selection of fourteen papers and seven contributions to a Roundtable originally presented at the Fourth International Conference on the Ancient Novel (ICAN IV), which was held at the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, in Lisbon, from 21–26 July 2008. In particular, the volume explores the connections between myth, religion and ritual on the one hand and the ancient novel on the other. Despite the recent and intensified scholarly interest in the field of myth and ritual, inquiry into major shifts in mythical and ritual poetics is still in a preliminary stage. The essays in this collection advance our understanding considerably as they probe the intersections of myth and ritual with the plots of the novels. Topics include such issues such as poetics and intertextuality; myth, rite and magic; rites of passage, gendered ambiguities and transgression; morality and religiosity; narrative, folktale and performance. Despite the variety of texts examined, one common purpose is the effort to question the assumption that myth and ritual are a mere underlying religious basis, and to focus instead on how they influence and shape the plot of the novel. First of all, Marília Futre Pinheiro takes the opportunity to express her utmost gratitude to her fellow editors, Anton Bierl and Roger Beck, for their accurate reading and editing of the papers, and for their friendly, collegial and continuous support during the long process of preparing this volume. Special thanks are also due to our conference sponsors. In the impossibility of naming them all, we thank, in the person of the President of the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Dr. Rui Vilar, all those who contributed to making ICAN 2008 a success. A team of key-note speakers of ICAN IV together with Marília Futre Pinheiro was responsible for the selection of the contributions to the different themes. Consequently, all articles assembled in this volume were already carefully reviewed before they were delivered in Lisbon in 2008. After the conference, Marília Futre Pinheiro picked Anton Bierl as co-editor of the area Myth, Ritual and Religion. Soon afterwards both decided to coopt Roger Beck. Marília Futre Pinheiro and Roger Beck together with Anton Bierl chose the selection of the articles for this volume. Marília Futre Pinheiro and Roger Beck, in correspondence with the authors, made numerous suggestions for improvements and cuts. They wish to thank the authors for their patience and cooperation. After the conference, Marília Futre Pinheiro picked Anton Bierl as co-editor of the area Myth, Ritual and Religion. Soon afterwards both decided to coopt Roger Beck. Marília Futre Pinheiro and Roger Beck together with Anton Bierl made the selection of the articles for this volume. In correspondence with the authors, they made numerous suggestions for improvements and cuts. They

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Editors’ Preface and Acknowledgements

wish to express their thanks to the authors for their patience, cooperation and careful reviewing. Thanks are also due to Alison Smith, who further edited the English both of Anton Bierl’s Roundtable and of his other contribution to the volume, as well as to Ann-Kathrin Stähle and Austin Diaz, both student assistants of Anton Bierl in Basel, who carefully read the manuscript for style, especially in the bibliographies, and for the English, again respectively. We further thank Katharina Legutke, Project Editor Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at de Gruyter, for supporting the publication process, as well as Mr. Florian Ruppenstein for producing this volume. Last but not least, Marília Futre Pinheiro and Roger Beck wish to thank their fellow editor, Anton Bierl, for kindly volunteering to publish this work in his series MythosEikonPoiesis. Marília P. Futre Pinheiro Anton Bierl Roger Beck

Contents Anton Bierl Introduction

1

Roundtable Myth and the Novel Anton Bierl Myth and the Novel: Introductory Remarks and Comments on the Roundtable Discussion 7 Jan N. Bremmer Myth in the Novel: Some Observations Edmund Cueva The Literary Myth in the Novel

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24

Marília P. Futre Pinheiro Myths in the Novel: Gender, Violence and Power

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Fritz Graf Novel and Mythology – Contribution to a Round Table Tim Whitmarsh Greek Novel and Local Myth

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39

Maaike Zimmerman Mythical Repertoire and Its Functions in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses

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Storyline, Poetics and Religion Emilio Suárez de la Torre and Enrique Pérez Benito Love, Mysteries and Literary Tradition: New Experiences and Old Frames Aglae Massima Valeria Pizzone The Tale of a Dream: Oneiros and Mythos in the Greek Novel

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Table of Contents

Anton Bierl From Mystery to Initiation: A Mytho-Ritual Poetics of Love and Sex in the Ancient Novel – even in Apuleius’ Golden Ass? 82 Giovanni Solinas From the Legend of Cupid and Psyche to the Novel of Mélusine: Myth, Novel and Twentieth Century Adaptations 100

Apuleius and Cupid and Psyche: Anthropological, Christian and Philosophical Perspectives Joanna Atkin Puella Virgo: Rites of Passage in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses Chiara O. Tommasi Moreschini Gnostic Variations on the Tale of Cupid and Psyche

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123

Ilaria L. E. Ramelli Apuleius and Christianity: The Novelist-Philosopher in front of a New Religion 145

Ritual, Myth and Intertextuality Sonia Sabnis Donkey Gone to Hell: A Katabasis Motif in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses

177

Anna Lefteratou Iphigenia Revisited: Heliodorus’ Aethiopica and the ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ Pattern 200 Paolo Monella ‘Non humana viscera sed centies sestertium comesse’ (Petr. Sat. 141,7): Philomela and the Cannibal Heredipetae in the Crotonian Section of Petronius’ Satyricon 223

Table of Contents

Religious Imagery, Cult, Mystery and Art Mike Lippman False Fortuna: Religious Imagery and the Painting-Gallery Episode in the Satyricon 239 Maria S. Kasyan The Bees of Artemis Ephesia and the Apocalyptic Scene in Joseph and Aseneth 251

Magic, Comic Reversal and Healing R. Drew Griffith Shamans and Charlatans: Magic, Mixups, Literary Memory in Apuleius’ Golden Ass Book 3 271 Max Nelson Lucius’s Rose: Symbolic or Sympathetic Cure?

General Index

295

Index locorum

307

About the Authors

315

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Anton Bierl

Introduction In the last two decades we can notice a fresh and intensified interest in myth and ritual, especially in Greek literary studies. Both categories, as well as religion in general, are not separated from ancient literature understood as l’art pour l’art but interact with literary texts and their plots. At the same time, we have given up the search for origins instead looking at intersections and mutual effects. Thus, myth and ritual have ceased to be the underlying religious basis, which serves as the key of meaning only for the initiated or from which literature has gradually liberated itself as a secularized product of art. Accordingly, in the studies on the novel, including those presented at ICAN IV, we witness a move away from the Procrustean bed of Reinhold Merkelbach’s mystery theory to freer models of interaction between literature and religion. Critics now focus on how myth and ritual influence and shape the plot of the novel. Thus, religion is not the hidden superstructure of the romances but is intrinsically intertwined with them. At the same time, the fictional and erotic text is not derivative of religious discourses but rather functions in conjunction with them as an effective aesthetic and poetic medium. Especially with regard to such highly rhetorical and sophisticated texts as the Greek and Roman novels, myth and ritual cannot be separated from intertextual perspectives. Furthermore, the ancient romance tends to enrich and elevate its basic anthropological and bio-ritual substrata with religious, mystic, philosophical, gnostic, or even Christian concerns. The troubling experience of adolescence, the shocking experiences of first love and sexuality as well as the rite of passage to adulthood and marriage are acted out in chains of nightmares, daydreams and fantasies. The stories of sophistic paideia overlap with tales of wonder as well as traditional, popular tales in which the anthropological crisis of puberty, with its scary and confusing state of liminality, underpin fictional narration. With these issues, questions of gender tie in as well, the novel often highlighting the love of young couples with a special emphasis placed on the experience of the girl. The spatially intended subtitle of ICAN IV, featuring ‘crossroads’, ‘frontiers’ and ‘intersections’, can be translated even more broadly and metaphorically to zonal liminality, dynamic interface, cross-overs, passage and interdiscursivity. With respect to the renewed focus on religious issues in the novel, Anton Bierl together with Marília Futre Pinheiro organized a Roundtable on myth which sheds a different light on the subject of this volume. We decided to ask the invited participants to rewrite their statements keeping mainly to their oral remarks. While Edmund Cueva and Fritz Graf contend that myth, also seen as hyper- or

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intertext, triggers the action at decisive points, produces important analogies, intensifies content through exempla, and is simply a matter that is ‘good to think and play with’, Jan Bremmer points out that far-fetched myths function as proof of a Second Sophistic education. According to Tim Whitmarsh, novelistic plots, as far as their mythic substance is concerned, must be explored on the interface between local and global perspectives. Marília Futre Pinheiro reminds us that myths stress gender, violence and power. Last but not least, Maaike Zimmerman adds that through myths about gods like Dionysus novelists can express hope for union with the divine and hope for the afterlife. The fourteen contributions we assembled in this volume, which perfectly fits into the thematic program of the series MythosEikonPoiesis, explore the interaction between the novel and religion in a similar vein. In the beginning of the first chapter, entitled ‘Storyline, Poetics and Religion’, (1) Emilio Suárez de la Torre and Enriquez Pérez Benito build on recent observations by the former and Anton Bierl, specifically that love, not religion, is constitutive of the erotic novel. The authors come to the conclusion that mystery and religion are not the origin of the novels but are assimilated to the poetics of the genre. Thus, they interact with the literary and philosophical concerns combined within the ‘falling in love’ episode and other moments of the storyline where desire and erotics are central. (2) Aglae M. V. Pizzone, taking up a recent insight on the dream quality of the novel, makes a good case for linking the novel deeply to the working of dream and phantasia as ancient theory presents them. She confirms, from a different point of view, that fantastic nightmares, daydreaming and fluctuating perspectives build the backbone of the poetics of the novel’s literary genre. (3) Anton Bierl, starting from similar premises and adhering to a bio-ritual, psycho-anthropological model, pleads for a shift from mystery to puberty initiation and contends, using Apuleius’ story of Cupid and Psyche narrated in the Golden Ass as his example, that the ancient novels, which possess similar traits to traditional wondertales, act out, revolve around and help to overcome the central crisis of adolescence. (4) Giovanni Solinas reinforces the link with later popular folklore, exploring the particular association between the medieval legend of Mélusine and, again, Apuleius’ Cupid and Psyche. Moreover, he widens his perspective to modern reception, looking at two twentieth-century reworkings of the mythic Mélusine by André Breton and Antonio Porta. A smooth transition is therefore built to the next chapter, entitled ‘Apuleius and Cupid and Psyche: Anthropological, Christian and Philosophical Perspectives’. (5) Joanna Atkin investigates the gender terms of virgo and puella and their differences in meaning as used to characterize Psyche and Charite. From this perspective, she too applies the initiation paradigm to the central myth in Apuleius, not in the historical sense as done in a recent monograph by Sophie Lalanne

Introduction

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but, like others in this volume, in an anthropological manner as a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood. She regards gender switches from female to male in this light too. (6) Chiara Tommasi Moreschini examines how the famous Apuleian episode is reflected in a Coptic Gnostic text from the so-called ‘Nag Hammadi Library’ (NHC 2,5), the Valentinian myth of the fallen Sophia, and the interpretation given by Plotinus. She shows that Apuleius’ allegorical Platonism was enriched by various mysteriosophical and even Orphic strands. (7) Ilaria L. E. Ramelli inquires into how Apuleius incorporates anti-Christian stereotypes and accusations for his plot, as, e.g., the episode of the miller’s wife, placing particular emphasis on the motif of the ass-man. In the next chapter, called ‘Ritual, Myth and Intertextuality’, (8) Sonia Sabnis explores again the mill episode in Book 9 of Apuleius, this time as a katabasis to the underworld and hell, which complements the katabasis of Psyche. She also stresses the clear intertextual play with the Odyssey and the Aeneid. (9) Anna Lefteratou analyzes Charicleia’s narrow escape from human sacrifice in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica on the intertextual model of both Euripides’ Iphigenia plays. The reported death and the death of the maiden theme again ties in with the mythic pattern of girls’ initiation acting out the ritual change of status in death, rebirth and transformation. At this point, the volume touches upon Petronius’ Satyricon. First, (10) Paolo Monella demonstrates the thematic and symbolic net of money and death, desire for heritage, cannibalism and dismemberment in the Crotonian episode and the preceding stories. The narrative link is highlighted through allusions to the Philomela myth and its specific form as narrated in Book 6 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Sex, violence and the imagery of sacrifice in the Procne and Philomela episode are marked against the background of a novel focusing on the body, greed, and death in a comic and satyric reversal of the genre’s ideal form. Second, opening the new chapter entitled ‘Religious Imagery, Cult, Mystery and Art’, (11) Mike Lippman reads Eumolpus’ artful recitations in the pinacotheca as a comic allusion to religious expressions since the location only later turns out to be part of a temple site, probably belonging to Fortuna. In such a cultic framework, Eumolpus, whose name evokes Eleusinian mysteries, becomes a comically reversed priest and mystagogos, who instead of bringing elevated closure ironically leads Encolpius out again into a new set of problematic and erotic adventures. (12) Maria S. Kasyan re-evaluates the apocalyptic scene in the JudeoHellenistic novel Joseph and Aseneth involving bees and a honeycomb on the basis of the cult imagery of the famous Artemis of Ephesus. Imagery, mystical inclusion in the divine sphere and concern with both love and the girl’s body form a new hybrid unity.

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The final chapter, called ‘Magic, Comic Reversal and Healing’, starts with (13) R. Drew Griffith’s contribution in which he contends that Photis in Apuleius’ Golden Ass is modeled on the figure of the alazon in Old Comedy, a shaman-like boaster. As many authors in the volume, he believes that the connection is not essentially based on origins but drawn from intertextual and literary-historical models. He further sees a link between the alazon and Socrates who is the ironic mastermind in Apuleius’ Platonic worldview. Finally, (14) Max Nelson argues that the roses which the ass must eat to return to a man are not a symbol of his erotic drive for beauty and knowledge or of Venus or Isis, but rather a sympathetic substance to induce a magical cure. It betrays Apuleius’ knowledge of contemporary arcane practices.

Roundtable Myth and the Novel

Anton Bierl

Myth and the Novel: Introductory Remarks and Comments on the Roundtable Discussion 1 Introduction In the last two decades we can notice a new interest in myth and ritual, especially in Greek Studies. Both categories interact with plot and literature. We can even speak about mythical and ritual poetics in Greek literature from its earliest beginnings until Imperial times.1 In the genre of the novel myths have been rather understudied, even though they appear ubiquitously in the texts.2 Therefore, I had the idea of organizing a roundtable at ICAN IV with the title ‘Myth and the Ancient Novel’ together with Marília Futre Pinheiro, who had just published a volume on Greek myth (2011).3 We agreed on the following lead questions: How does myth influence and shape the plot of the novel? Are there similarities in the mode of narration between myth and novel? How can an episode be marked by superimposing certain myths? What is the specific mythic poetics of the novel? Can we talk about a mythopoeia in the novel? Which myths are utilized in particular and emphasized, and what might be the reason? Our approach, as becomes clear, is far from a search for origins in the sense of a development from myth to novel. Thus, myth is not, as Karl Kerényi believed, the origin or Urbild of the genre from where, in accordance with the trend of a literary secularization, the novel developed into a bourgeois (verbürgerlichte) and humanized form.4 Therefore, the chain of suffering and erotic episodes can hardly be localized in a single Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris; rather, myth has to be seen as a poetic, narrative and aesthetic device. By using the communicative medium of myth, fundamental problems that concern all human beings can be investigated in various ways. Thus, the novel is not deriva-

1 See Bierl 2002; 2007a; previously Bierl 2001 (Engl. 2009); for the concept of ‘ritual poetics’, see Yatromanolakis and Roilos 2003; 2004. 2 Recent exceptions are Cueva 2004 and Bierl 2007b. See earlier e.g. Laplace 1983; MacQueen 1990. 3 Lisbon, 21 July 2008, 8 to 10 p.m. (chair: Anton Bierl). 4 Urbild: Kerényi 19622, 43; see ‘Hellenisierung – Humanisierung’ (ibid. 263) and the Nachbetrachtungen of the second edition (‘Nachwort über die Methode’, esp. 291 n. 2); see also Henrichs 2006.

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tive of myth but rather functions in conjunction with myth as an effective aesthetic and poetic medium. As I have shown in my previous work, anthropological concepts and critical phases, including the transition of puberty and early marriage, can be emphasized and fictionally staged in such a mythical discourse. Myth is the authoritative word which possesses exemplary significance and, simultaneously, can focus on normative behavior ex negativo by processing transgressive scenarios. Like mythical tales and images, the novel is able to model and legitimize roles and thinking patterns. On the one hand, myth puts events in an ideal frame; on the other hand, the inherent tension of oppositions turns into violence, chaos and transgression. Moreover, through myth and novels, one can project imaginary worlds, scan and act out wishes and fears, and delineate the power of Eros. As I have shown, myth is linked to the basic structure of the novel as an initiation story or rite de passage.5 Furthermore, myth is related to the production of the novel as a narrative, contributes to education and paideia, and is a feature of the local embedding and sophistication of the author. It is part of an intertextual and interdiscursive play which conforms to the taste and expectations of the readers. Moreover, myth – in Burkert’s (1979, 23) words, ‘a traditional tale with secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance’ – is simply ‘good to think with’. Last but not least, μῦθος has already been applied to the plot, in particular to tragedy (e.g. Arist. Po. 1450a4–5), and has consequently been used as a terminus technicus for plot in all fictional literature.6

2 Results After an exhausting first conference day, our roundtable tried to involve the audience on a hot summer evening. The result of our thoughts and lively discussions can be summarized as following: myth plays a significant role in the plots of the novels; it triggers the action at decisive points (often by means of an ekphrasis), produces important analogies, intensifies content through exempla, and is simply material that is ‘good to think and play with’ (Cueva and Graf). Sometimes, the novel can be understood as a reaction to a mythical narration (Graf). Rare myths, moreover, can serve as signs of sophistic education (Bremmer), and local myths play a particular role in that paideia, even seen as the foil of ‘glocalization’ (Whitmarsh). In the literary form, myth becomes part of an overall intertextual

5 Bierl 2007b. 6 Kerényi 19622, 1–23.

Myth and the Novel: Introductory Remarks and Comments

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play (Cueva). However, myth is not only read, but also performed and part of an interperformative, interdiscursive and interritual process as well. Furthermore, through myths one can express hope for union with the divine (Zimmerman). Moreover, we should not forget that myths place emphasis on gender, violence and power (Futre Pinheiro). In the discussion, Fritz Graf made the important point that novels were the new myths of the Greeks. I tried to expand on this interesting point with a contribution to the role of myth in Longus.7

3 Novel as Myth and Dream Before I come to Longus, I want to elaborate on some thoughts about how all ideal love novels might be considered new myths, or reactions to myths as translations into their own fictitious world. Both young protagonists are of the highest social status, beautiful and brilliant, and far above human standards in all respects. Accordingly, they behave and act as if they were heroic or even divine. All in all, they are like superstars, comparable to the movie heroes of Hollywood, or even better, Bollywood. The young people’s beauty is simply outstanding. Therefore it goes without saying that third parties fall in love with them as soon as they see them. Moreover, they are explicitly compared to glamorous figures of myth, to famous young heroes and heroines, familiar from tragedy (or even to gods and statues). Thus, as Graf notes, ‘the borderline between mortals and gods in the novel sometimes seems unstable.’ Therefore, our stars frequently appear to others in epiphany-like scenes and seem to be gods. Thus, they are often mistaken for gods or equated with them.8 Through further exempla, models and analogies, a simple love story can assume the flair of the sublime and highlight key themes.9 The mythic coloring is not deployed at random; rather, the protagonists are notoriously compared with heroic figures who personify the girl or the boy on the threshold of adulthood. Or they are often assimilated to gods responsible for this decisive rite de passage. Accordingly, on the male side, novelists tend to use figures like Hippolytus, Achilles, Orestes and Apollo, and on the female side, Iphigenia, Andromeda, Philomela, Artemis and Aphrodite, among others. At the same time, the accompanying myths often reflect Burkert’s ‘maiden’s tragedy’.10 As I have outlined elsewhere, the love novel thematizes, acts out

7 Bierl 2009. 8 Hägg 2002; Schmeling 2005; Bierl 2007b, 288–298. 9 Cueva 2004. 10 See Burkert 1979, 6–7; Burkert 1996, 69–79. For the novel, see e.g. Ach. Tat. 3,15–22.

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and resonates with this fundamental crisis of transition.11 It is well known that the protagonists are very young and in the middle of puberty. Their sudden experience of love runs parallel to the discovery of sexuality. Moreover, the novel’s oneiric perspective is a feature of the myth-like plot, because myth and dream are intertwined. Synesius (De insomniis 19,45–53) believes that myths and fantastic stories are based on dreams. Therefore, he thinks that sophists should complement their rhetoric progymnasmata, which are full of mythological examples, with dream narrations. It is a well-known fact that such mythological exercises of oratory have a considerable influence on the narrative patterns and technique of the novelists. Thus, novels are often associated with myths pretending to be logoi.12

4 The Novel as the New Myth: Longus Taking Pan’s remark that the Methymneans have ‘snatched from the altars a girl whom Eros wants to make a myth’, that is, the subject of a novelistic story (ἀπεσπάσατε δὲ βωμῶν παρθένον ἐξ ἧς Ἔρως μῦθον ποιῆσαι θέλει 2,27,2) as a point of departure,13 I attempted to show how Daphnis and Chloe is composed entirely as a myth.14 Longus uses several strategies of renaturalization and remythization to build up the mythic and ideal dimension of his novel. The artful mimesis of how a young boy and girl take four entire books in order to learn to make love is most amusing, and the regression to the perspective of children creates pleasure.15 In early modern scholarship, myth was sometimes associated with the childhood phase of human evolution.16 Upon closer inspection, however, the idyllic novel is only the simulation and artificial mimesis of a myth. For sophists like Longus, the gods acting naturally in the bucolic landscape are no longer real, religious beings, but rather secularized gods of literature. In an intertextual play, they belong instead to literary pretexts and mythology. The author tries to lull the reader through this mythic world. As readers, we should be aware of Longus’ deceptive strategies. He deploys the gods – artificial products of

11 Bierl 2007b, esp. 262–276. From a different perspective, see Lalanne 2006. 12 Cf. Ach. Tat. 1,2,1–2; Chariton 4,2,13; 5,8,2; 6,3,6; Long. 2,7,1; 2,27,2; 4,20,1. See Pizzone in this volume. On the oneiric in Xen. Eph., see Bierl 2006. 13 See also Morgan 1994, 75–77. 14 Bierl 2009. 15 According to Aristotle, men like to imitate from childhood onward, and mimesis provides pleasure (Arist. Po. 1448b4–12). 16 Graf 19913, e.g. 15, 20, 32.

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his literary inventio – to create his plasmatic mythos, and he self-consciously uses this theoretical and metaliterary term for plot in a fictional story.17 In the aetiological Ur-mythos of how men learn to make love for the first time, gods are both the principles and first movers. After all, Longus purposefully oscillates between myth and mythology. He uses myth to create the atmosphere of natural origins as the basis of his plot. At the same time, however, he refers to the artificiality of his aesthetic construct through open breaches and ironic comments.

5 Positions and Comments Jan Bremmer opens his contribution with the critical remark that I overemphasize the connection with Volksgut, popular fairy tales, and overlook the context of handbook sophistry and the use of myth as demonstration of abstruse education. I want to clarify my position: I refer, of course, to such a popular and performative substrate, but I am well aware that myth is part of the sophistic culture and used as a showcase of erudition. Bremmer’s emphasis on paideia is well taken and obvious, and I share his view, as I have just shown above. However, we have to ask which myths the authors prefer, along with why and how they use them. Moreover, even if the novelists take them without a doubt from literary sources, I am convinced it is important to initiate thoughts on the function of these applied myths for the plot in the specific context of the genre. In such a perspective, it is perfectly legitimate to examine the basis of narration in popular culture. Märchen and popular traditions are the key to research on the function of such stories. It is my conviction that making observations about where a myth comes from, in the sense of Quellenforschung, is insufficient. Rather, it is essential to initiate an investigation into the deeper narratological, discursive and psycho-historical structure of the myths dealing with the crisis of puberty and premature marriage. Margaret Alexiou’s book After Antiquity. Greek Language, Myth, and Metaphor (2002) had a decisive influence on my fresh look at myth. According to her,18 the meaning of myth is not a universal, but lies in the gap between true and false, between past and present, and is permanently deferred in a dialogic process. Myth, therefore, is not unidirectional, but multidimensional, dynamic, and in constant transformation. Therefore, myth can help to highlight, reflect and act

17 Arist. Po. 1450a4–5; on the ancient ‘theory’ of the novel, see Kerényi 19622, 1–23, on μῦθοι ibid. 13. 18 See Alexiou 2002, 151–171.

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out a fundamental crisis, such as puberty and early marriage represent, and it can be linked to literature as well. I wonder why Bremmer, a scholar who has worked so much with the paradigm of initiation and with Burkert’s concepts, has a problem with following me on this hermeneutical path. To repeat, I believe that behind the novelistic plots and traditional tales we can detect a psycho-anthropological substrate. It is the ‘maiden’s [and/or boy’s] tragedy’, but less in the sense of Walter Burkert, who tries to establish a structural program of action in biological terms,19 than as a loose set of narrative motifs which can be freely associated in various combinations. Love as nosos is constitutive of the love novel. The desire of the young couple for each other, the sense of ‘absence’,20 gives way to miraculous fantasies of loss, fear, sexual threats by third parties, death and rebirth; they are transformed into stories of separation, sacrifice, rape and violence, on the level of myth, fairy-tale and novelistic literature. In a Lacanian sense, the deep longing leads to a gliding concatenation of signifiers in a metaphorical and metonymical process.21 Edmund Cueva’s paper is a precise summary of his useful monograph The Myths of Fiction. Studies in the Canonical Greek Novels (2004). I agree with his intertextual and narratological perspective which analyzes character illustration using analogies and myth as a plot-structuring device. However, I still miss, to some extent, more detailed analyses of the textual structure. Moreover, he could apply a more refined theoretical approach to understanding how myth and ritual function in a mytho-ritual poetics. We still have to ask why and how the novelists use the particular myths in their intertextual play on canonical authors. On a remarkable theoretical level, Marília Futre Pinheiro explores the role of myth as an analogy to the fictional character of the protagonists in terms of gender role, violence and power relations. She rightly rejects older feminist research that saw the woman always as the Other and emphasizes instead that the gender categories stressed by mythic parallels work in a dialogic, unstable, dangerously oscillating, ambiguous and dynamic manner. Thus, men can transgress on the feminine side and women on the male one. Therefore, the novel, particularly with the comic, ironic model of Achilles Tatius, incessantly glides along the traditional gender norms, subverting and affirming them simultaneously. At the same time, Futre Pinheiro calls into question the Foucauldian paradigm and Konstan’s (1994) widely accepted theory of a ‘sexual symmetry’. Obviously

19 Burkert 1996, 69–79 (on the model of Psyche in Apul. Met.). 20 Barthes 1979, 13–17. 21 Lacan 1966, 260. See Bierl 2006, esp. 85–86; 2007, 244–245; and Bierl in this volume.

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women in the novel are different, sometimes even stronger than men and thus, on a surface level, ideologically equal, but, as I try to work out myself in an article on sacrifice in Achilles Tatius,22 the female body is constantly subject to the male gaze and fantasies of violence, rape, torture and abuse. Thus, as Futre Pinheiro rightly argues, women displayed in such a perspective are still being shaped according to the social norms and values of a patriarchal society. But they can find their own voice in silent resistance, as underlined by ecphrastically focused mythic analogies, such as in the case of Philomela’s myth in Achilles Tatius (5,5), or in many other instances. Besides all the tendencies of subversion, irreverence and transgression, I would add that the traditional power and gender relation finally prevails. Moreover, it is crucial to the ancient romance that the display of violence on the chaste and intact female body is also part of the sexual aggression by third parties expressed in metonymic and metaphorical variations. Such an erotic poetics, constantly highlighted through mythic and ritual analogies, is constitutive of the genre as love novel. I have already expressed my appreciation for Fritz Graf’s paper above. He investigates the cognitive and narratological aspects of myths in the novel, and thus responds to the decisive question of how myth functions in the novel. It is not only a showcase of paideia, ‘a learned arabesque’, but also a device for successfully telling a story. Like Whitmarsh, he tackles old theories of possible origins in a new way. Coming back to Erwin Rohde, Graf does not view the link to myth in an evolutionary sense, but instead tries to explain myth in novel as a ‘reaction to mythic narrations’ and as a phenomenon of reception and translation into new generic contexts. Tim Whitmarsh revisits Bruno Lavagnini and his idea of how local myths could serve as a possible source for the novel. He is well aware that no local saga can really be called a novel. However, he shows how epichoric myth is constituent of the intertextual web, using Lesbos and its traditions in Longus as an example, and he tackles the problem of how it can be authentic or a literary commonplace, applying a sophisticated theoretical approach of framing, since Longus’ literary world, after all, is a Panhellenic construct. Maaike Zimmerman describes the mythical dimension of Apuleius with special reference to the mythical undercurrent of Dionysus. She shows how the important motif, the hope of union with the divine, is implicitly linked to Dionysus, the god of mysteries and concern with life after death. Zimmerman’s reading demonstrates the capricious and manifold web of allusions and associations that

22 Bierl 2012.

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are too diffuse to be locked into a unidirectional pattern of Isis and Osiris. She recalls that Merkelbach had tried to confine the sense of Metamorphoses to such a theoretical bed of Procrustes. In some ways, however, she follows Merkelbach (1988) in his approach to Longus. We might ask whether Dionysus might symbolize even more than afterlife and mysteries. I think of comic inversions, the idea of metamorphosis, wine, sexuality, phallus, violence, sacrifice and cruel sparagmos, theater, festival, spectacular performances in the arena, and even metapoetic self-consciousness. Let us take a look at Lucius’ bald head (11,30,5) as an example. His baldness stands in sharp contrast to the emphasis on hair and sexual attractiveness in the novel. Being hairless is a common feature of comic inversion. Lucius is finally initiated into mysteries of Osiris, a god associated with Dionysus, and he envisions thyrsoi and ivy. In the realm of Dionysus, we meet his escort of satyrs with their notorious baldness. They are linked with ithyphallic erections, a sign of sexual hyperactivity that fails to come to terms with the opposite sex. Lucius was transformed into an ass, an animal that is also part of Dionysus’ foolish entourage, and then back into his human form. At the very end, he experiences new transformations in the form of mystery initiations. Yet even at this point he retains some signs of his former existence: he is naive, gullible and overcredulous; he is curious and full of craving for the miraculous and the transcendent.

6 Final Remark All in all, the participants and listeners left enriched by the new perspectives that our roundtable gave to very old questions. And simply given the fact that we brought – along with all recent theoretical insights – myth as the constituent element of the plot of the novels to the scholarly attention of a large number of specialists, our roundtable was, I hope, a success.

Bibliography Alexiou, M. 2002. After Antiquity. Greek Language, Myth, and Metaphor, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Barthes, R. 1979. A Lover’s Discourse. Fragments (translated by R. Howard), London: Hill and Wang. Bierl, A. 2001. Der Chor in der Alten Komödie. Ritual und Performativität, Munich and Leipzig: Saur (see the revised second English edition Bierl 2009).

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Bierl, A. 2002. ‘Religion und Literatur’, DNP 15/2, 669–677. Bierl, A. 2006. ‘Räume im Anderen und der griechische Liebesroman des Xenophon von Ephesos. Träume?’, in: A. Loprieno (ed.), Mensch und Raum von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Munich and Leipzig: Saur. 71–103. Bierl, A. 2007a. ‘Literatur und Religion als Rito- und Mythopoetik. Überblicksartikel zu einem neuen Ansatz in der Klassischen Philologie’, in: A. Bierl, R. Lämmle and K. Wesselmann (eds.), Literatur und Religion I. Wege zu einer mythisch-rituellen Poetik bei den Griechen, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 1–76. Bierl, A. 2007b. ‘Mysterien der Liebe und die Initiation Jugendlicher. Literatur und Religion im griechischen Roman’, in: A. Bierl, R. Lämmle and K. Wesselmann (eds.), Literatur und Religion II. Wege zu einer mythisch-rituellen Poetik bei den Griechen, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 239–334. Bierl, A. 2009. Ritual and Performativity. The Chorus in Old Comedy (translated by A. Hollmann), Washington, DC and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bierl, A. 2012. ‘Ästhetik, Sex und Opfer: Der Blick auf die hingeschlachtete Jungfrau im Liebesroman des Achilleus Tatios’, in: A. Honold, A. Bierl and V. Luppi (eds.), Ästhetik des Opfers. Zeichen/Handlungen in Ritual und Spiel, Munich: Fink. 131–161. Burkert, W. 1979. Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual, Berkeley et al.: University of California Press. Burkert, W. 1996. Creation of the Sacred. Tracks of Biology in Early Religions, Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Cueva, E. P. 2004. The Myths of Fiction. Studies in the Canonical Greek Novels, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Futre Pinheiro, M. P. 2011. Mitos e Lendas da Grécia Antiga, Lisboa: Clássica Editora (first edition: Lisboa, Livros e Livros, 2007). Graf, F. 19913. Griechische Mythologie. Eine Einführung, Munich and Zurich: Artemis & Winkler (19851). Hägg, T. 2002. ‘Epiphany in the Greek Novels: The Emplotment of a Metaphor’, Eranos 100, 51–61. Henrichs, A. 2006. ‘Der antike Roman: Kerényi und die Folgen’, in: R. Schlesier and R. Sanchiño Martínez (eds.), Neuhumanismus und Anthropologie des griechischen Mythos. Karl Kerényi im europäischen Kontext des 20. Jahrhunderts, Locarno: Rezzonico. 57–70. Kerényi, K. 19622. Die griechisch-orientalische Romanliteratur in religionsgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (19271; 19733). Lacan, J. 1966. Ecrits I, Paris: Seuil. Lalanne, S. 2006. Une éducation grecque. Rites de passage et construction des genres dans le roman grec ancien, Paris: La Découverte. Laplace, M. 1983. ‘Légende et fiction chez Achille Tatius: les personnages de Leucippé et de Iô’, BAGB, 311–318. MacQueen, B. D. 1990. Myth, Rhetoric, and Fiction. A Reading of Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe, Lincoln, NB and London: University of Nebraska Press. Morgan, J. R. 1994. ‘Daphnis and Chloe. Love’s Own Sweet Story’, in: J. R. Morgan and R. Stoneman (eds.), Greek Fiction. The Greek Novel in Context, London and New York: Routledge. 64–79. Schmeling, G. 2005. ‘Callirhoe: God-like Beauty and the Making of a Celebrity’, in: S. Harrison, M. Paschalis and S. Frangoulidis (eds.), Metaphor and the Ancient Novel (Ancient Narrative, Suppl. 4), Groningen: Barkhuis and Groningen University Library. 36–49.

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Yatromanolakis, D. and P. Roilos 2003. Towards a Ritual Poetics, Athens: Foundation of the Hellenic World. Yatromanolakis, D. and P. Roilos (eds.) 2004. Greek Ritual Poetics, Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.

Jan N. Bremmer

Myth in the Novel: Some Observations In his remarkable synthesis and analysis of religion in the novel, Anton Bierl also talks at several points about the position and function of myth in the novel.1 The omnipresence of the Greek mythical universe in the contemporary world, be it in literature or the visual arts, naturally left its traces in the Greek novels, several of which were probably written in Caria, especially Aphrodisias, and Northern Lycia.2 Bierl regularly stresses the connection of the novel with ‘Volksgut’, suggesting ties with a ‘Volkslegende’ or noting its ‘volkstümliche Substrat’,3 but I am not sure if that is right. Certainly in the case of mythical allusions we hardly need to postulate such a background, as the Greeks could see myth everywhere. This does not mean that the novels are filled with references to all kinds of myths. In fact, there are relatively few references to the principal characters of myth, often not more than fleeting mentions – like for instance the enumeration of heroes and heroines from the stage at Achilles Tatius 1,8,6. At least that is what is suggested by the speaker, but the author will probably have derived his list from some mythographer, who, in the manner of Hyginus, had compiled a list of women fatal to men.4 Yet there are some more elaborate myths too, and I will start with Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon. At the end of the novel, both heroines, the seductress Melite and chaste Leucippe, must pass a chastity test. The wronged husband Thersandros challenges his wife: ‘Melite, if she has not had to do with this foreigner during the time that I was abroad, is to enter the sacred water of the Styx, take the oath and be cleared, if she can, of the charges brought against her.’ Leucippe, on the other hand, ‘if she persists in declaring that she is a virgin, is to be shut into the grotto of the pan-pipes’ (8,11,2, tr. S. Gaselee, Loeb). Achilles Tatius (8,12) presents a long exposition about the origin of this ordeal, which, for a moment, delays the actual test.5 There was a maiden Rhodopis, a passionate huntress with ‘her hair cut short like a man’s’. When Artemis came to like her and summoned Rhodopis to join her in the hunt, the maiden

1 Bierl 2007. 2 For the origin of Chariton, Achilles Tatius, ‘Lucius of Patrai’, but also, albeit with various degrees of probability, Ninus, Chione, Parthenope and Antonius Diogenes’ Wonders beyond Thule in this area, see Bremmer 1998, 167–171. 3 See, for example, Bierl 2007, 254, 256, 264, 266, etc. 4 Cameron 2004, 245. 5 For some earlier observations, see Bremmer 1999a.

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swore an oath that she would never submit to ‘Aphrodite’s violence’. This offended the goddess of love and she made an Ephesian youth with the rare name Euthynicus, an equally passionate hunter, fall in love with her when they met during their hunts. They consummated their love in the very cave where Melite had to prove her chastity. The indignant Artemis changed the maiden into a spring ‘on the very spot where she had exchanged her virginity for womanhood.’ The actual ordeal took place in this very spring. The accused had to enter the spring with her oath of innocence on a tablet around her neck. If she was indeed innocent, the water stayed at a low level, but if not, it would rise to her neck and cover the tablet. Achilles Tatius’s story about the maiden Rhodopis and her breaking of her oath to Artemis contains some elements familiar from myth, such as the typically initiatory hunt of Artemis and her girl friends as well as the antagonism of Artemis and Aphrodite as in Euripides’ Hippolytus,6 but the myth as such had no known literary antecedents. Fortunately, however, the publication some decades ago of a calyx-crater by the Darius Painter has changed this situation. On a vase from the mature period of the painter (c. 340–330 BC), Rhodopis is actually identified by name (Rhodope), as are King Skythes, Antiope, her small son Hippolytus, and Herakles. Above them is the dominating figure of Artemis, flanked by Apollo and Aphrodite. Clearly, as the late Margot Schmidt persuasively argued,7 we have here a variant of our myth, in which Rhodope has to prove her sexual innocence before the king: we see the same goddesses as in Achilles Tatius, and the name of Hippolytus indicates their divine antagonism. The myth points to Northern Greece, where we actually find a mountain Rhodope, already mentioned by Herodotus (4,49), and where a coin from Thracian Philippopolis from the reign of Antoninus Pius displays Rhodope seated on a rock;8 moreover, the near-homonymous Rhodopis, the famous courtesan of Naucratis who was loved by Sappho’s brother Charaxos (Hdt. 4,135), was of Thracian origin (Hdt. 2,134). The Darius Painter probably derived his material from a contemporary tragedy, but Achilles Tatius will, directly or indirectly, have taken his myth from a mythological handbook. However, the fact that the heroine’s lover is an Ephesian, not Apollo, strongly suggests that Achilles Tatius had adapted the myth to Asia Minor, the area where our novelist probably once lived and worked (note 2). Moreover, Achilles Tatius had changed the name of Rhodope into Rhodopis, thus converting the name of the chaste maiden of the myth into that of the

6 For the initiatory character of Artemis’ hunt, see Bremmer 1999b, 193. 7 Schmidt, Trendall and Cambitoglou 1976, 95–108. 8 Triantaphyllos 1994. For the Darius Painter, see Aellen, Cambitoglou and Chamay 1986.

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famous courtesan. This change must have been made easier by the fact that sometimes the names of Rhodopis and Rhodope seem to have been confused with one another, as Lucian (Salt. 2) refers to ‘Rhodopes’ as examples of very lustful women, and Rufinus (AP 5,36 = XII Page) mentions a beauty contest of three young naked women: Rhodope, Melite and Rhodokleia. Is it purely chance to find there the names of two women, Rhodope and Melite, which also occur in Achilles Tatius? Probably, but it is perhaps worth mentioning that Rufinus had been to Ephesus (AP 5,9 = I Page), and may well have been known to Achilles Tatius. Finally, Rhodopis was also mentioned by Heliodorus (2,25,1), who may well echo Achilles Tatius, as in later antiquity Rhodopis is mentioned only by Hesychius (s.v.).9 Among the many characters of Achilles Tatius’ enumeration is Hippolytus, who is mentioned more than once in the Greek novel. In Achilles Tatius himself the reference is to the adulterous love of Phaedra, but when in Heliodorus (1,10,2) Demaenete calls out of Knemon, obviously a relationship also based on Hippolytus and Phaedra: ‘the new Hippolytus, my Theseus’, she clearly intends to evoke the name of an attractive young man by referring to Hippolytus, as is indeed the case in Chariton (1,1,3). On the other hand, Hippolytus’ asocial character is alluded to in the remnants of the early second-century novel discovered by Klaus Alpers in the Etymologicum Genuinum. Here somebody reproaches a young man: ‘you, you are a real Hippolytus from Troizen with your contracted eyebrows, biting your lips and passing us by deeply bent over without saying a word as if you are passing the grave of a hero’ (fr. 21).10 In other words, the novelists freely took those aspects of mythological figures that suited their plot. That in this case precisely Hippolytus is one of the most popular male names can hardly be surprising, given the popularity of Euripides in later antiquity and the popularity of Hippolytus on Roman sarcophagi.11 Yet it is not only tragedies that served as a source of inspiration for mythological names. When Melite helps Clitophon to escape from Thersandros, she dresses him in her own clothes with a veil so that he will not be recognisable. Looking at the result she comments: ‘How much more lovely you have become in this dress. I once saw such an Achilles in a painting’ (Ach. Tat. 6,1). Here we may note two things. First, the passage refers to the popularity of mythological subjects on mosaics and paintings, which we know best from Pompej and Late

9 For Heliodorus having read Achilles Tatius, see Plepelits 1996, 394–398. For the traditions about Rhodopis, see Yatromanolakis 2007, 312–37, who overlooked the Darius Painter. 10 Alpers 1996. 11 Zanker and Ewald 2004, 325–329. Theseus, on the other hand, rarely occurs on sarcophagi: ibid. 377–381.

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Antiquity. Secondly, she alludes to the cross-dressing of Achilles, which enjoyed great popularity in the first centuries of the Christian era, as we can see not only from Statius’ Achilleid or the interest in Euripides’ Scyrii, but also from the occurrence of the theme on many sarcophagi.12 Achilles is also invoked as ancestor by the Ainianes that come to visit Calasiris in Delphi, whose leader even claims to be a direct descendant of Achilles (Heliod. 2,34). These Ainianes lived in Thessaly along the coast of the Gulf of Malis, where their capital was Hypata. It is slightly odd to hear about this capital, as its mention serves no immediate interest, but we may remember that Hypata also plays a role in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, which probably goes back to his Vorlage, the Greek Metamorphoses, which was written, as I have argued, in the same area as the novels by Chariton and Achilles Tatius.13 It seems not unlikely, therefore, that Heliodorus had read this Vorlage, another example of novelists as readers of each others’ works. The Aianian claim suggests the theme of mythological kinship that was highly popular in the Roman period.14 Clearly, a group of Thessalians tried to raise its status by invoking ancestry from Achilles.15 Moreover, the leader displays the necessary mythological knowledge. He makes use of the somewhat unclear extent of Phthia to claim his territory as belonging to it, but also claims Menesthios, Achilles sister’s son,16 and in that capacity an important commander of the army of the Myrmidons, as his ancestor – all taken from the Iliad (16, 173 ff.). Such erudition was not hard to acquire, and in this respect the novel in general differs from other genres that like to display obscure and out-ofthe-way knowledge. In fact, full-blown myths are relatively scarce in the novel. I end by looking at the three myths, all about metamorphosis, that are recounted in some detail by Longus. The first starts with the time-honored beginning, ‘Once upon a time there was a young girl’ (1,27), an opening popular in the novel but not in traditional myth.17 There follows an aetiological myth about the origin of the phatta (wood pigeon/ring-dove),18 a singing bird that was also eaten by Longus’ Lesbians (3,5; 3,8; 3,11). Yet we can see immediately from its beginning and the lack of a proper

12 Kossatz-Deissmann 1981, 57–65; Dunbabin 1999, 158; Zanker and Ewald 2004, 280–282; Cameron 2009. 13 Bremmer 1998, 168. 14 See Graf 2011. 15 For such kinships, see Curty 1995; Jones 1999. 16 For the relevance of this particular kinship relationship, see Bremmer 1984. 17 This has been overlooked by C. Gill (in Reardon 1989, 300) when he translates: ‘There was a young girl’; see de Vries 1969 on Pl. Phdr. 237b and Kenney 1990 on Apul. Met. 4,28,1. 18 On these birds, cf. Ath. 9,393f-395c.

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name for the female protagonist that this is not a traditional myth, as indeed the lack of any other evidence for it demonstrates. Instead we have a tale in the form of a traditional myth but adapted to the palette of Longus’ novel with its interest in the life of shepherds and shepherdesses. This is also indicated by the lack of any good reason for the metamorphosis. Loss of cows is of course serious for a farmer, but it is of a different order from the tales of incest or cannibalism that usually precede a transformation into birds in traditional myth.19 Our second myth is an aetiological one about the musical pipes, which Philetas tells Daphnis and Chloe and which he learnt, characteristically, from a Sicilian goatherd (2,33), thus artfully tying the story to Theocritus (Syrinx), the first author to ascribe the syrinx to Pan. It relates the sad fate of the maiden Syrinx, who tended goats while singing and playing with the Nymphs. When Pan tried to rape her, she disappeared into the reeds, and in memory of their unequal love Pan fashioned the pan-pipes (2,34). The myth is not attested before Ovid and probably dates from Hellenistic times.20 It is also one more example of a growing interest in the god Pan in the post-Classical period, especially in Asia Minor.21 Now, the syrinx also plays an important part in the chastity ordeal that is described by Achilles Tatius (8,6; 8,13), a pre-nuptial rite de passage, in which Pan plays an analogous role to the goddess Artemis, who was traditionally connected with such rituals and who is clearly closely associated with him here.22 Achilles Tatius sets the ritual in Ephesus, but, given the poor attestation of Pan in Ephesus, this need not imply that such a ritual actually existed there, as is often thought.23 As in the case of the Thracian myth of Rhodope, Achilles Tatius made this Arcadian tradition more familiar by transferring it to the metropolis of Asia Minor. Moreover, like Ovid (Met. 1,705–708), he lets Pan make the syrinx accidentally by groaning when he places his lips on the reeds to kiss them. Clearly, both derived their version from a mythological handbook we no longer have.24 Our last example is the myth of Echo, which Daphnis tells to Chloe. Echo was a daughter of a Nymph by a mortal father, who was taught by the Muses to play

19 Forbes Irving 1990, 96–127; in general see also Buxton 2009. 20 Cameron 2004, 288–289. For fuller accounts of the myth, cf. Ov. Met.1,689–712; Serv. on Verg. Ecl. 2,31; Forbes Irving 1990, 277–278. For the connection between Pan and the pan-pipes, see Haas 1985, 51–52. 21 Brommer 1956; Tuchelt 1969–70. 22 For the ritual and the myth, see Weinreich 1968, 236–241, overlooked by Borgeaud 1979, 125– 127; no certain representation: Boardman 1997, 931. Pre-nuptial: Calame 1997, 139–140; Borgeaud 1979, 239–252. Virgin priestesses: see Bremmer 1999b, where this example has to be added, and Bremmer 2008. 23 For example, Fehrle 1910, 93, 133; Borgeaud 1979, 125. 24 Cameron 2004, 302.

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all available musical instruments. Once she had grown up, she rejected all male approaches. This angered Pan, who drove the shepherds and goatherds mad, who tore her apart and scattered her still singing limbs over the earth. Gaia then buried the limbs but preserved their musical qualities, which means that they can still imitate all sounds, even that of Pan when playing the pipes (3,23) – a detail that reminds one of the singing head of Orpheus rather than the Dionysiac diasparagmos.25 The myth as related by Longus is clearly not a standard version, although it is echoed by Nonnus. Evidently, like Heliodorus,26 Nonnus had read Longus: one more male reader of the novel.27 Yet in the context of our novel, the myth not only fits Longus’ focus on music, but may also serve as a warning about what happens when men are all too eager to avail themselves of women. To conclude, myth is not an important part of the novel. Yet where we notice it, it conforms to the taste for myth in the Roman period, when myth became entertainment and provided an occasion for the display of erudite knowledge. In the examples briefly discussed, we notice, however, that the novelists also adapted their myths to the wider themes of their works and the geographical contexts of their readers. The novelists were more thoughtful than is often thought.

Bibliography Aellen, C., A. Cambitoglou and J. Chamay 1986. Le peintre de Darius et son milieu, Geneva: Association Hellas et Roma. Alpers, K. 1996. ‘Zwischen Athen, Abdera und Samos. Fragmente eines unbekannten Romans aus der Zeit der Zweiten Sophistik’, in: M. Billerbeck and J. Schamp (eds.), Kainotomia, Fribourg: Universitätsverlag. 19–55. Bierl, A. 2007. ‘Mysterien der Liebe und die Initiation Jugendlicher. Literatur und Religion im griechischen Roman’, in: A. Bierl, R. Lämmle and K. Wesselmann (eds.), Literatur und Religion II. Wege zu einer mythisch-rituellen Poetik bei den Griechen, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 239–334. Boardman, J. 1997. ‘Pan’, LIMC VIII.1, 923–941. Borgeaud, P. 1979. Recherches sur le dieu Pan (Bibliotheca Helvetica Romana), Rome: Istituto Svizzero; Geneva: Droz. Bowie, E. 1995. ‘Names and a Gem: Aspects of Allusion in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica’, in: D. Innes, H. Hine and C. Pelling (eds.), Ethics and Rhetoric. Classical Essays for Donald Russell on his Seventy-fifth Birthday, Oxford: Clarendon. 269–280.

25 Contra Borgeaud 1979, 125, with the best discussion of the myth (124–125, 144–145), which is ‘not certainly identified in art’: Boardman 1997, 931. 26 Bowie 1995, 279–280. 27 Nonn. D. 6,260; 15,388; 16,288 and 361; 48,642 and 804. For other male readers of the novel, see Bremmer 1998, 173–174.

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Bremmer, J. N. 1984. ‘The Importance of the Maternal Uncle and Grandfather in Archaic and Classical Greece and Early Byzantium’, ZPE 50, 173–186. Bremmer, J. N. 1998. ‘The Novel and the Apocryphal Acts: Place, Time and Readership’, GCN 9, 157–180. Bremmer, J. N. 1999a. ‘Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus in Christian East Syria’, in: H. L. J. Vanstiphout (ed.), All Those Nations… Cultural Encounters within and with the Near East, Groningen: Styx. 21–29. Bremmer, J. N. 1999b. ‘Transvestite Dionysos’, The Bucknell Review 43, 183–200. Bremmer, J. N. 2008. ‘Cult Personnel of the Ephesian Artemision: Anatolian, Persian, Greek and Roman Aspects’, in: B. Dignas and K. Trampedach (eds.), Practitioners of the Divine in Ancient Greece, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 37–53. Brommer, F. 1956. ‘Pan’, RE Suppl. 8, 949–1008. Buxton, R. 2009. Forms of Astonishment. Greek Myths of Metamorphosis, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Calame, C. 1997. Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Cameron, A. 2004. Greek Mythography in the Roman World, New York: American Classical Studies; Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cameron, A. 2009. ‘Young Achilles in the Roman World’, JRS 99, 1–22. Curty, O. 1995. Les parentés légendaires entre cités grecques, Geneva: Droz. de Vries, G. J. (ed.) 1969. A Commentary on the Phaedrus of Plato, Amsterdam: Hakkert. Dunbabin, K. M. 1999. Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fehrle, E. 1910. Die kultische Keuschheit im Altertum, Giessen: Töpelmann. Forbes Irving, P. 1990. Metamorphosis in Greek Myths, Oxford: Clarendon. Graf, F. 2011. ‘Myth and Hellenic Identities’, in: K. Dowden and N. Livingstone (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Classical Mythology, Malden, MA: Blackwell. 211–216. Haas, G. 1985. Die Syrinx in der griechischen Bildkunst, Vienna: Böhlau. Jones, C. P. 1999. Kinship Diplomacy in the Ancient World, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kenney, E. J. (ed.) 1990. Apuleius. Cupid and Psyche, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kossatz-Deissmann, A. 1981. ‘Achilleus’, LIMC I.1, 37–200. Plepelits, K. 1996. ‘Achilles Tatius’, in: G. Schmeling (ed.), The Novel in the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill. 387–416. Reardon, B. P. (ed.) 1989. Collected Ancient Greek Novels, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press. Schmidt, M., A. D. Trendall and A. Cambitoglou 1976. Eine Gruppe apulischer Grabvasen in Basel, Mainz: von Zabern. Triantaphyllos, D. 1994. ‘Rhodope’, LIMC VII.1, 637–638. Tuchelt, K. 1969–1970. ‘Pan und Pankult in Kleinasien’, MDAI(I) 19/20, 223–236. Weinreich, O. 1968. Religionsgeschichtliche Studien, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (19291). Yatromanolakis, D. 2007. Sappho in the Making, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Zanker, P. and B. C. Ewald 2004. Mit Mythen leben. Die Bilderwelt der römischen Sarkophage, Munich: Hirmer.

Edmund P. Cueva

The Literary Myth in the Novel The function of myth in the ancient novel is a literary one: the novelists use or borrow myths found in other literary works and reflect them in their texts. No new myths are created or mentioned, with the possible exception of the reference to the Heleioi in Daphnis and Chloe (3,23). This is methodologically similar both to that of the ancients who borrowed whole myths, lines, or passages from Homer as a source for their own stories and to that of modern authors who see the Old Testament as a fertile source for stories and quotations. These authors do not necessarily incorporate any religious feeling in their works even though the religious quality of their source is apparent. Moreover, there was a transition in the ancient Greek novel from the historical to the romantic and mythological with an increasing role of myth in enabling the change. The question of the importance of myth for the novel appears to some scholars to be implicated in the origins of the genre. As we all know, for example, it has been hypothesized that the roots of the ancient novel are found in religious texts associated with the worship of Isis. Myth in the novel has been seen as catalyst for the plot or as filler, and therefore of no essential purpose.1 Or, the novelists employed myth to illustrate a moral or religious principle. Another view is that myth is essential for the completion of ring-composition and thus is structurally vital.2 My approach is based on the work of Grundy Steiner (1969), who, although he stopped short of a thorough analysis of myth’s function in the Greek novel, did supply some usages: specific mythological stories as exemplars for all types of plot situations, moral patterns to be imitated, evidence for what may happen to anyone under similar circumstances, and illustration and graphic analogue.3 A few words on the settings of the novels: the authors chose to place their novels either in a time in which Rome had not yet become the ruler of the Greek world or in an idyllic, unreal setting, e.g., Longus. The authors wrote in a time in which the Greek cities were politically dead; this political extinction was most forcefully felt at the time of the Second Sophistic. Greeks were not all happy with Roman rule – especially the lower classes – but Roman rule did not lead to a capitulation of culture or identity. This situation is reflected in themes that

1 Deligiorgis 1974. 2 MacQueen 1990. 3 See also Cueva 2004.

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‘harked back constantly to the classical period.’4 The authors of the novels were not just appealing to a sense of nostalgia – they could only work with preexisting materials. By using a historical background the authors of the earlier novels showed that the narrative plot was at least plausible and realistic,5 and thereby helped the reader suspend disbelief.6 This historical background is most evident in the earlier pre-sophistic novels and disappears as the genre develops. In the later novels the authors do not only include and devise ‘more fantastic events and adventures for their couples’ and place the action in ‘more exotic settings’,7 but also displace the historical with the mythological. I would like to define myth in the novel only as a traditional story, dealing with the supernatural or the marvelous, which has made its way into written form or whose literary origin can be identified. The literary nature of myth allows us to approach myth and the novel in an intertextual manner: the manner in which the ancient novelists incorporate myths into their writings through literary allusion8 and treat myth as a literary construct: the change in context and literary effect caused by the inclusion of myth. Moreover, there is a relationship between the diminution of historical detail and the increase of mythological and literary allusion in the development of the

4 Bowie 1974, 170. 5 Morgan 1995 suggests that the embracing of historical fact looks like a ‘deliberate strategy on the part of novelists at a particular juncture in the form’s development’ (133), and that the ‘historical nature of the early novels served to legitimize their very existence, a stratagem particularly effective in view of the fact that ancient historiography already acted on occasion as a receptacle for narrative which acknowledged the goal of pleasure above information. Historiography was being enlisted to provide fiction with the literary pedigree which, as a late arrival, it lacked’ (134). 6 Morgan 1982, 222. The suspension of disbelief is created by the inclusion of very few references to present history in the Greek novel; see Morgan 1982. García Gual 19913 notes that this escapist literature (62–63) arose as a literary form meant to be an ‘evasión de un tiempo sin ideales’ (56). 7 Dihle 1994, 236. Bowie 1985, 693–694 (= 1999, 52) observes that in the case of Achilles Tatius the location of the novel ‘is no longer historical. The contemporary world of the East Mediterranean reader is envisaged and evoked with a fair measure of consistency and realism. Only the Byzantines’ Thracian war invites the reader to imagine a particular date, less probably historical than invented.’ 8 The source of these myths is of special importance. Chariton took the majority of his myths from the Homeric epics, and Xenophon seems to have imitated Chariton. Longus, Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus, while showing Homeric influence on their selection of myths, employ myths that had been heavily reworked in the Hellenistic period by authors like Callimachus and Theocritus. Reardon 1971, 352 identifies the Hellenistic period as having been an important source for the myths used in the novels: ‘mythe hellénistique dans lequel nous avons cru voir le noyau du roman’.

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ancient Greek novel. Chariton, as one may recall, wrote the earliest extant ancient Greek novel, and the abundance of historical minutiae in Chaereas and Callirhoe suggests that Chariton was relying upon the major preexisting prose form to give his erotic work a respectable veneer.9 Due to time limitations, let me briefly summarize the elements that elucidate the historical and the rise of myth in two novels. Myth and mythological allusions serve two functions in Chariton’s novel; firstly, the author developed his major characters through analogue. Callirhoe was likened to Aphrodite, Ariadne, Artemis, Helen of Troy, the nymphs and Medea. Chaereas was compared to Achilles, Nireus, Hippolytus and Alcibiades. Chariton relied heavily upon literary predecessors for the depiction of his characters and for the formation of his plot. The second literary use of myth is plot structuring through Homeric quotation. Chariton introduced into the narrative lines and passages from the Homeric epics, which, at first glance, may seem to be decoration or erudition. A closer look at these borrowings shows that the Homeric lines and passages had to be reinterpreted in an intertextual manner: the original locations and backgrounds of the Homeric borrowings had to be considered when analyzing their new surroundings in the novel. Once this new interpretation is accomplished, it is quite plain to see that the Homeric quality of the novel was not ornamental, at least in the first four books. In the second-half of the work there is a noticeable drop in the employment of myth, Homer and allusion. The diminution of mythological detail gives way to historical features, as witnessed by the importance given to the ‘Battle of Champions’ passage. Overall, the historical nature of Chariton’s opus overwhelms the mythological quality. In the Aethiopica the mythological analogue of Theagenes of the novel is found in the tragic subtext of the novel.10 Heliodorus uses passages, lines and myths found in the Persians of Aeschylus, the Ajax and Oedipus Rex of Sophocles, the Phoenicians, Medea, Hecuba, Heraclidae, Orestes and Hippolytus of Euripides to enable the reader to identify Theagenes. The Hippolytus supplies the majority of signs which point to the solution of the analogous identity. Literary allusion is not limited to tragedy. Heliodorus also includes references to Hesiod, Homer, Plato, Aratus and Lucian; even historical works are employed. The historical, however, is limited to affording some authenticity to the novel. In Heliodorus, myth reaches its ancient apex as a literary tool.

9 Other preexisting forms, which serve as building blocks for the novel genre, are epic, New Comedy, Alexandrian erotic poetry and periegesis. A specific form, however, cannot be designated as the progenitor of the novel. 10 Morgan (1994) examines several passages in the novel that must be interpreted. These passages are in the form of riddles, whose solutions are found in the narrative.

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In Chariton history gives the backdrop for the novel, sets the stage for the action, identifies the characters and puts the reader at ease by supplying him with a literary genre, although new, which owes a great deal to history. Myth is marginal in Chariton. Heliodorus does away with the historical or ecphrastic manner of opening a novel and chooses to use the stage techniques of in medias res (to begin) and deus ex machina (to end). Like the Sophistic novelists he employs myth, though more subtly. No longer are the characters constantly likened to mythological personae, no longer is Homer used to dictate plot or mythological context, no longer is the mythological element one of many components of the novel: mythical allusion is the constituent of the Aethiopica.

Bibliography Bowie, E. L. 1974. ‘The Greeks and their Past in the Second Sophistic’, in: M. I. Finley (ed.), Studies in Ancient Society, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 166–209. Bowie, E. L. 1985. ‘The Greek Novel’, in: P. E. Easterling and B. M. W. Knox (eds.), The Cambridge History of Classical Literature I. Greek Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 683–699 and 877–886; repr. in: S. Swain (ed.), Oxford Readings in the Greek Novel, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999, 39–59. Cueva, E. P. 2004. The Myths of Fiction. Studies in the Canonical Greek Novels, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Deligiorgis, S. 1974. ‘Longus’ Art in Brief Lives’, PhQ 53, 1–9. Dihle, A. 1994. Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire: From Augustus to Justinian, New York: Routledge. García Gual, C. 19913. Los orígenes de la novela, Madrid: Istmo (19721). MacQueen, B. D. 1990. Myth, Rhetoric, and Fiction. A Reading of Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe, Lincoln, NB and London: University of Nebraska Press. Morgan, J. R. 1982. ‘History, Romance, and Realism in the Aithiopika of Heliodoros’, ClAnt 1, 221–265. Morgan, J. R. 1994. ‘The Aithiopika of Heliodoros. Narrative as Riddle’, in: J. R. Morgan and R. Stoneman (eds.), Greek Fiction. The Greek Novel in Context, London and New York: Routledge. 97–113. Morgan, J. R. 1995. ‘The Greek Novel. Towards a Sociology of Production and Reception’, in: A. Powell (ed.), The Greek World, London: Routledge. 130–152. Reardon, B. P. 1971. Courants littéraires grecs des IIe et IIIe siècles après J.-C., Paris: Belles Lettres. Steiner, G. 1969. ‘The Graphic Analogue from Myth in Greek Romance’, in: Classical Studies Presented to Ben Edwin Perry (Illinois Studies in Language and Literature 58), Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. 123–137.

Marília P. Futre Pinheiro

Myths in the Novel: Gender, Violence and Power* The Greek novel is a privileged ground for a debate on myth and gender in antiquity. Myth can be used to stress the similarity between the mythological character and the fictional hero and heroine. In what follows, I would like to propose a new insight, evaluating the role of myth in the context of the notion of alterity, according to the binary opposition masculine/feminine. Violence and violent behaviour, such as abduction, rape and torture and, on the other hand, the heroines’ staunch defence of chastity and their often manly conduct, raise the question of whether such behaviour falls within a set of traditional ideologically grounded androcentric precepts or whether, on the contrary, a series of cultural and social circumstances under the Roman Empire forced the literary canon to accept women’s new social role, imposing feminine presence upon it, and thus subverting traditional gender norms and established social conventions. Some notions put forward by feminist literary criticism or genre studies1 have drawn my attention to the importance of certain aspects, such as the manipulation of language and silence or the way violence and chastity are handled. For this analysis, I accept as a starting point that the two sexes emerge before and/or by opposition to the Other, this Other being understood not as the feminine gender as Simone de Beauvoir (1976) sees it, but from a dialogic standpoint which

* For a fuller and expanded discussion of this topic, see Futre Pinheiro, ‘Fashioning the Other: the Masculine/Feminine Duality in the Ancient Greek Novel’, in: B. MacQueen and M. Pachalska (eds.), Order and Fantasy: The Roots of Fiction in Classical Antiquity (Essays in Honour of Prof. Bernhard Kytzler), (forthcoming). I would like to thank Stephen J. Harrison for his kind revision of the English of my contribution. 1 Nowadays, there is a trend in feminist criticism that sees ‘Female Identity’ within genre studies as a cultural and socially marked construction. Many feminist writers of the 1970s and 1980s were preoccupied with the phenomenon of binary opposition, rooted in a patriarchal system – the tendency to envisage conceptual systems in terms of hierarchically-ordered pairs (see, among others, Cixous 1981, 90–91; Cixous and Clément 1986; Laqueur 1992). They propose a new reading of social and literary history within the context of a growing awareness of women’s importance in the civilization process, taking it upon themselves to identify the constraint and coercion structures which lead to feminine cultural construction (see Showalter 1979 and 1985; Lefkowitz 1981; Brooten 1985; Culham 1990). Special mention should also be made of Fiorenza’s challenging interpretations of biblical texts (1983; 1988; and 1992) that have had quite an impact on New Testament scholarship.

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assumes that gender is a dynamic and interrelational system, seen from a semiotic perspective. The I takes shape and defines itself through the way in which it sees the Other and projects itself upon it or, in other words, awareness of the polysemous features of genre can work as part of a discourse of self-definition. To attain this goal, it becomes necessary to describe some characterising patterns of male and female sexual identity, within a framework of a dialectic game of mutual dependence and conflict, misunderstandings and complicities. In his History of Sexuality (1976), Foucault examines the different attitudes to human sexuality adopted throughout the ages by addressing, in particular, the function of the body as a key element in the expression or repression of that sexuality. The way everyone of us deals with what we know about our body and how we see it, how that knowledge affects each one of us not only on an individual basis but also, and above all, as a social being, in the relationships we establish with others and with the world as a whole, obviously depends on a series of factors linked with the cultural (ethical and moral) values of the communities we are part of, and with a series of opinions and preconceived ideas derived from those values. The study of this set of values sheds light on the world’s reality and on people’s nature and their relationships with others and with themselves. However, the mediation process between nature and culture with which sexuality presents people is not a linear one, but rather works, one might say, in ambiguous and devious ways, in which the erotic game provocatively insinuates itself into the harsh reality of sex.2

1 The Topos of Violence In the Greek novel, heroes and heroines undergo a sort of rite of passage and embody, from a strictly narrative point of view, a kind of equality that led to the thesis of a ‘sexual symmetry’.3 When facing a crisis, when their lives are at risk, they express their feelings in identical fashion, through sighs and moans, tears and suicidal attempts. Also identical are the resources they draw upon to try to overcome the dreadful hardships they face and that represent a test to their sworn love and fidelity. Thus, this pattern of symmetrical or reciprocal love seems initially to indicate a significant improvement in love relationships where the woman is not condemned to have a passive role, setting the Greek novel apart from the other literary genres in antiquity.

2 See Liviabella Furiani 2002, 138. 3 See Konstan 1994.

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Yet, this apparently equalitarian scheme does not withstand a closer look. The topos of the woman as a victim of violence is quite common in the Greek novel. In Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe we have a flagrant example: in a fit of anger and moved by jealousy, Chaereas violently kicks his wife and abandons her in a state of apparent death (1,12). In Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon, the ekphraseis function as a foreboding symbol of the abuse (close to cruelty sometimes) to which the heroine will be subjected throughout the narrative, in a sequence that some insist on interpreting as an initiation route4 or as an aristocratic paideia.5 In the novel, the story is told from the male protagonist’s point of view; the hero is also the narrator and the female is a mere object of contemplation. Woman as an icon, as a feast for male eyes and as an object of desire, becomes, from a feminist critical perspective, an important methodological tool for all those who wish to unravel the dynamics of power relationships within a text.6 The narrative starts with a description and the reader is immediately confronted with the detailed ekphrasis of a painting which depicts in a very sensual way the abduction of a mythical heroine (Europa/Selene, 1,1,10–13). The association of Europa/Selene with Leucippe becomes clear not only when Clitophon gives the reader an account of his reaction as he sees his beloved for the first time, but also when, a little further into the story, he describes her as a feast for the eyes, making a step further towards the conceptualization of the woman as an object. Clinias’s instructions on how to manage an amorous relationship and the recurrent generalizations about female conduct (‘Habit reduces wild beasts to domesticity: the same method works even better on women’, 1,9,6) move us further away from the conception of the heroine as subject, underlining her conformity to a standardized female pattern. The ekphrasis of the garden of Clitophon’s house, which is next described,7 also confirms this stereotype: the garden is regarded as a place full of beautiful sights, a feast for the eyes, sheltering within it the biggest and most enjoyable sight: Leucippe. Leucippe is metaphorically ‘eaten’ by Clitophon, who consumes her with his eyes.8 However, she will soon be transformed into food, in a spectacu-

4 See Merkelbach 1962. 5 See Lalanne 2006. 6 See Haynes 2003, 53 and n. 23. 7 Leucippe and Clitophon 1,15. On the analysis of this ekphrasis, see Bartsch 1989, 50–52 and Futre Pinheiro 2001, 129–130. 8 According to Morales 2004, 165–166, ‘The most recurrent metaphor of the gaze in Leucippe and Clitophon is that of eating.’ The ‘consumptive gaze’ is analyzed in detail by Morales 2004, 32–34 and 165–170.

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larly dramatic episode, in which the consumptive gaze is taken ‘to a literal and grotesque extreme’.9 Throughout the narrative, there are other ekphraseis portraying Andromeda (3,7) and Philomela (5,3,48) which underscore the relationship between beauty and violence, present in Europa’s depiction, and anticipate the future attacks on the heroine’s integrity. Nevertheless, nowhere else in the novel is the violence committed against a woman’s body so explicit as in the scene of the false sacrifice. Stupefied, Clitophon looks on while the robbers plunge the sword into Leucippe’s body, pulling out her entrails which they carve up, and all the bandits share the meal. Due to his restricted viewpoint, the narrator can only convey his own feelings to the reader but, by drawing a comparison between himself and the suffering Niobe (3,15,6), he undergoes a unique personality transfer, incorporating the ultimate image of feminine suffering. Only at the very end of the story is Leucippe given the right to affirm herself and her subjectivity. This takes place when she proudly declares to Thersander, who had insulted and assaulted her by slapping her on the face, that the new spectacle being provided for his amusement was the spectacle of women’s resistance (6,22,4). In the same way, in the other novels, the heroines are, as a rule, victims of violent aggressors. Thus, kidnapping, rape and torture are often associated with the feminine, the female body often being enslaved, maimed, appropriated, and in Leucippe’s case, apparently eaten in the name of unspeakable religious anthropophagic rites. This omnipresent reality, violence, finds its explanation, on an imaginary level, in the myth of the raped virgin: Philomela, Echo and Syrinx serve as inspiration for Chloe’s education; Europa, Syrinx, Philomela, Amphitrite, Andromeda, Daphne and Pitys are all Leucippe’s doubles. These myths10 are usually told from a male narrator’s point of view, which leads us to the conclusion that women’s education is carried out not only by means of certain situations and specific facts (rape threats and submission to the satisfaction of male lust), but also through the exemplum the myth conveys. Such extreme brutality and constant abuse of power against women undoubtedly reveal different social attitudes towards the two sexes. However, not all examples follow this regular pattern. In some cases, there is a reversal, so to speak, of the usual paradigm of the woman as a victim of violence. For instance, the most outstanding feature of Niobe’s story (her grief and petrification before the horrific spectacle of the murder of her children) is used to

9 Leucippe and Clitophon 3,15–22. The quotation is taken from Morales 2004, 169. 10 On the study of myth in the Greek novel, see Cueva 2004 and López Férez 2004.

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illustrate the similarity between the mythological character and the fictional hero (3,15,6). On the contrary, on some other occasions, the mythological example of a male character is presented as a prototype of female experience. Leucippe is compared to the image of Marsyas as pictured by sculptors, bound to a tree (3,15,4), to better visualize the scene in which Leucippe is also tied to stakes just before the macabre cannibalism scene she apparently falls prey to. Likewise with the painting of Prometheus (3,8): here, the realistic depiction of Prometheus tied to a rock, agonizing as a bird devours his entrails, is a telltale sign to the reader who easily recognizes its premonitory character. The previous analysis points to the fact that there is an ambivalence concerning the feminine condition in the Greek novel: women seem to have an extraordinary character, decidedly more ‘manly’ than that of men; but, in reality, they are subjected to a restrictive and violent education according to the social norms of the Greek city of the classical period, which clearly aim to preserve a balance in the city’s social body. Following in the footsteps of Winkler, Heffernan (1993, 56) argues that the obsession of ancient novels with the motif of rape or seduction (either real or symbolic) exposes what we would call a ‘sentimental education’: women are brought up to believe that sex is a socially constructed system deeply rooted in male thought and closely associated with violence. Thus, marriage is infallibly connected to kidnapping, rape and sacrifice.

2 The Language of Silence The myth of Philomela (5,5) can be used to illustrate another important aspect of the traditional pattern of feminine behaviour. The ekphrasis of Philomela’s painting definitely breaks away from the predominantly male rhetorical architecture of Achilles Tatius’ novel. Heffernan (1993, 46), referring to this painting, says that there is a genealogy of feminine ekphrasis opposed to the masculine tradition of the Iliad and the Aeneid. Philomela’s mutilation, which deprives her of speech, forces her to discover ‘the language of silence’,11 a voiceless speech, to make her voice heard. The most meaningful aspect of this mythical example consists in the power of pictures to ‘speak’ and also in the fact that women are granted a voice through a task, which symbolically denies them that voice, silencing them: weaving (along with spinning) within the oikos. It is not by chance that the

11 See Futre Pinheiro 2001.

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punishment Philomela and Procne suffer for their exorbitant revenge12 is the loss of human form and metamorphosis into birds (5,5,8 ff.), the loss, in short, of physical identity which amounts to a loss of spiritual identity too.13 If we contrast this ekphrasis with the masculine descriptive passages of the Iliad and the Aeneid, the differences become obvious. The objects described are different: on the one hand, we have the shield, a symbol of masculine prowess associated with warmongering; on the other hand, we have the tapestry, traditionally connected with women’s discreet silence. This opposition is emphasized by the relationship each object has with speech and its gender. The shield is an instrument of the male voice that has lasted over many years and has enabled the conquest and glory immortalized by poets. But the tapestry can also be the instrument of female voice, the pictorial surrogate for women’s utterance. Consequently, Philomela’s myth lends a voice to female silence, combining, in close complicity, the impact of the image and its expressive power with the (‘literally graphic’)14 voice of the woman who created that vivid tale. Thus, we can conclude that in the ancient novel silence has a gender (usually the feminine one) and that women are often regarded as visual objects for male contemplation and depicted as mere objects of desire. However, there are also signs of a change in the traditional pattern of masculinity. The best example of the comic use of the theme of novelesque heroism is to be found in Achilles Tatius, where the battlefield is metaphorically transferred to the campaign of love. Satyros teaches Clitophon the amorous mysteries, presenting Eros and his paraphernalia of martial attributes: Eros is a manly and martial god who does not tolerate hesitation and cowardice, but demands courage and swiftness in the attack (2,4,5). There are still further signs of a change in the traditional patterns of masculinity. Sexual ambivalence is addressed in the episode of Clitophon’s disguise (6,1). That disguise, which lends him a woman’s appearance, demeans his male status and renders his body strange in other people’s eyes.15 According to Anderson (1982, 31), ‘it is no accident that when this hero chooses to compare himself with Achilles, it is to the Achilles of the boudoir.’ Melite’s affectionate aside that her lover had become much more lovely in a woman’s dress is full of irony and

12 They plan a feast whose gruesome meal is Tereus’s son. After cutting the child up and cooking his flesh, they serve it to the unwitting father, and gleefully bring in the basket with the child’s remains. 13 See Liviabella Furiani 2002, 138. 14 The expression is from Heffernan 1993, 49. 15 See Liviabella Furiani 2002, 144.

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reinforces Clitophon’s compromising situation, insidiously casting doubt on his true masculinity. The heroes’ lack of defensive strategies, and their apparent passivity in the face of adverse events, is in sharp contrast with the heroines’ skills and persuasive abilities. Daphnis, who, after being accused by the Methymneans, tries to defend himself through reasonable arguments, ruins all the impact his words might have had when he breaks into tears,16 in a scene reminiscent of Telemachus’ behaviour in the Odyssey (2,80–81). It is obvious that the protagonists of the novel, regardless of their sex, frequently subvert the norms of social behavior, which makes us aware of the unstable conceptualization of the feminine and masculine in this literary genre. Indeed, the novelistic heroes and heroines are the protagonists of a troubled, insecure and hostile historical reality, of a divided and fragmented society, imbued with ambivalence and ambiguities, and they express, through mythical allusions, the somewhat equivocal relation of the genre with the social structures and with society’s existing conflicts. Should we see in these signs a subtle and subliminal challenge to power and imperial institutions? As Bierl acutely stresses in p. 83 of this volume, ‘Myth and rituals serve, according to Stephen Greenblatt, as centers of “circulation of social energy”, and become “generators of patterns of action and narration in poetic texts.” As a megatext, they are part of a cultural machine which constantly brings forward new forms by variation and combination.’ Even if we adopt a skeptical attitude when it comes to accepting that the fictional world can convey a political message, the fact that it endows heroines with an unusual degree of power (be it rhetorical, emotional or sexual) seems to indicate some kind of critical attitude towards tradition. In this respect, as in many others, the novel, since its origins and over the many centuries of its existence, does justice to its features of irreverence and transgression.

Bibliography Anderson, G. 1982. Eros Sophistes: Ancient Novelists at Play, Chico: Scholars Press. Bartsch, S. 1989. Decoding the Ancient Novel. The Reader and the Role of Description in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bierl, A. 2013. ‘From Mystery to Initiation: A Mytho-Ritual Poetics of Love and Sex in the Ancient Novel – even in Apuleius’ Golden Ass?’, in: M. Futre Pinheiro, A. Bierl and R. Beck (eds.), Intende, Lector: Echoes of Myth, Religion and Ritual in the Ancient Novel. 82–99.

16 Daphnis and Chloe 2,16.

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Brooten, B. J. 1985. ‘Paul’s Views on the Nature of Women and Female Homoeroticism’, in: C. W. Atkinson, C. H. Buchanan and M. R. Miles (eds.), Immaculate & Powerful: The Female in Sacred Image and Social Reality, Boston: Beacon Press. 61–87. Cixous, H. 1981. ‘Sorties’, in: E. Marks and I. de Courtivron (eds.), New French Feminisms: An Anthology, Brighton: Harvester. 90–98. Cixous, H. and C. Clément 1986. The Newly Born Woman, translated by Betsy Wing, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Cueva, E. P. 2004. The Myths of Fiction: Studies in the Canonical Greek Novels, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Culham, P. 1990. ‘Decentering the Text: The Case of Ovid’, Helios 17, 161–170. de Beauvoir, S. 1976. Le deuxième sexe, Paris: Gallimard (repr. 2003, 1st ed. 1949). Fiorenza, E. S. 1983. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins, New York: Crossroad. Fiorenza, E. S. 1988. ‘The Ethics of Biblical Interpretation: Decentering Biblical Scholarship’, JBL 107, 3–17. Fiorenza, E. S. 1992. But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation, Boston: Beacon Press. Foucault, M. 1976. Histoire de la sexualité, I–III, Paris: Gallimard. Futre Pinheiro, M. 2001. ‘The Language of Silence in the Ancient Greek Novel’, in: S. Jäkel and A. Timonen (eds.), The Language of Silence, I, Turku: Turun Yliopisto. 127–140. Haynes, K. 2003. Fashioning the Feminine in the Greek Novel, London and New York: Routledge. Heffernan, J. A. W. 1993. Museum of Words. The Poetics of Ekphrasis from Homer to Ashbery, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Konstan, D. 1994. Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lalanne, S. 2006. Une éducation Grecque. Rites de passage et construction des genres dans le roman grec ancien, Paris: La Découverte. Laqueur, T. 1992. Making Sex. Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lefkowitz, M. R. 1981. Heroines & Hysterics, London and New York: Duckworth. Liviabella Furiani, P. 2002. ‘Il corpo nel romanzo di Achille Tazio’, AN 1, 134–151. López Férez, J. A. (ed.) 2004. Mitos en la literatura griega helenística e imperial, Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas. Merkelbach, R. 1962. Roman und Mysterium in der Antike, Munich and Berlin: Beck. Morales, H. 2004. Vision and Narrative in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Showalter, E. 1979. ‘Towards a Feminist Poetics’, in: M. Jacobus (ed.), Women Writing and Writing about Women, London: Croom Helm; New York: Barnes and Noble, Harper & Row. 22–41. Showalter, E. 1985. The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture (1830–1980), New York: Pantheon Books.

Fritz Graf

Novel and Mythology – Contribution to a Round Table 1. Myths appear in most novels in a seemingly banal way: in artworks that make an appearance in the story – a painting of the Rape of Europa in Achilles Tatius; a series of wall-paintings of the love between Andromeda and Perseus in the bedroom of queen Persinna in Heliodorus; a statue group of Actaeon in a private house and an enactment of the Judgement of Paris as a mimus in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses; an art gallery with its paintings described in Petronius’ Satyrica.1 On one level, this reflects the readers’ world and shows how much these readers of the novels were themselves surrounded by narrations of myth in all conceivable media, but also how knowledge of myth was a given in this society (only the up-start Trimalchio confuses the stories). On a more technical level, it also demonstrates how much these writers, especially those connected with the Second Sophistic, put ekphrasis to use in their narratives – a use that still found some interest lately.2 The novel thus can be seen as an ideal medium to gauge the presence of traditional mythical stories in their own culture, and this presence is surprisingly strong. 2. On a more functional level, these stories are sometimes set at important junctures in the novel. Achilles Tatius’ novel begins in the temple of Astarte in Sidon, with the ekphrasis of a painting of the abduction of Europa that triggers the entire narration of the novel.3 Apuleius puts mythical stories, their representation and their ekphrasis at two crucial turning points of his Metamorphoses. The statue group in the house of Byrrhena, Actaeon, Diana and her dogs, described early in Book 2, sets the tone for Lucius’ almost fatal curiosity and the problem to which it leads, despite the warnings of Byrrhena.4 A lengthy narration of the Judgment of Paris that explicitly characterizes it as unfair precedes the final turn in Book 11 that leads away from the fickle world of traditional gods to the higher

1 Ach. Tat. 1,1; Hld. Aeth. 4,8. 2 See Webb 2009, 178–185 on ekphrasis in the Greek novels, especially Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus, with reference to earlier studies. 3 Ach. Tat. 1,2 (with the well-known problem that the novel’s end does not return to this beginning). 4 The ekphrasis Apul. Met. 2,4; Byrrhena’s commentary on Actaeon that the reader will understand only later, and Lucius never (tua sunt omnia), and her warnings in Met. 2,5.

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justice of Isis.5 Those two detailed ekphraseis are symmetrical in the novel’s structure; but whereas the Actaeon ekphrasis is ‘a story that is fixed in place’ and as such aptly prefigures the predicament of Lucius banned into the ass’s body, the Judgment of Paris is all movement and action and thus announces the moment when the predicament is about to be broken.6 To a certain extent, the viewing of the Andromeda painting in Heliodorus shapes the basic conditions of the entire story: without this incident, Charicleia’s mother never would have exposed the baby Charicleia with its wrong skin-color who, in turn, never would have arrived in Delphi and grown into the woman whom mortals mistook for a goddess and, more pertinently, with whom Theagenes would fall in love. To sum up: mythical narration is more than a learned arabesque in the appearance of the novel that helps to satisfy the taste for ekphrasis. It often has an important structural role, either to pull the reader into the fictional world through the enargeia of ekphrasis and, at the same time, to remind him of the fictional character of the narration,7 or to provoke reflection on the moral meaning of the story. By the time of the novel, myth has long become a story that needs interpretation, and the ecphrastic presentation of a myth emphasizes this need of reflecting on the story as to its meaning, both in the novel and perhaps outside as well.8 3. The case of Charicleia mistaken for a goddess (‘Some said she was a divinity, either Artemis or the indigenous Isis’ 1,2,35) should remind us that the delimitation between mortals and gods in the novels is sometimes unstable. This is especially true for the heroines. Not only Heliodorus’ Charicleia, Xenophon’s Anthia too is mistaken for Artemis (‘Often the Ephesian visitors of the sanctuary worshipped her as Artemis, when they saw her’ 1,2,7), and Psyche is worshipped as Venus, which starts all her troubles. It goes without saying that the Ur-form of these Artemis maidens is Homer’s Nausicaa, addressed as Artemis by the cautious Odysseus and compared to her by the narrator himself.9 But beyond the imitatio Homeri, this also establishes the fictional world of the novel as not far from the world of myth where gods and humans converse; already Hellenistic rhetorical theory, after all, had

5 Met. 10,30–34.1, with an narratorial digression by the philosophans asinus that underlines the injustice of human justice. 6 The citation is from Winkler 1985, 168. – Unlike the function of ekphrasis in the Greek novels (see above n. 2), these instances follow the function it has in some philosophers, namely to disrupt the readers participation in the scene in order to provoke reflection; see Bartsch 2007. 7 Thus Bartsch 1989. 8 I enlarge on Webb 2009, 179 who points to the tension in the ecphrastic presentation between immersion and the need to understand the role the presented story plays in the novel. 9 The comparison is in Hom. Od. 6,102–109, the address in 6,151–152.

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opposed the fiction of myth and (Menandrian) comedy to the truth of historiography; the novel is not far from the ‘plausible fiction’ of comedy.10 4. All this makes me inclined to follow Erwin Rohde (18761; 19745) in understanding the novel as a continuation and rival of earlier mythical narratives. Unlike Rohde, however, I would not read this in the sense that mythical narrative was replaced by the novel; after all, mythical narration stayed boyantly alive through late antiquity, as Nonnus’ Dionysiaca or Claudian’s Rape of Persephone demonstrate (although we might guess that they interested different readers whose social stratification, however, is far from certain). Rather, I would see the novels as a reaction to mythical narrations which they translate into their own terms: prose instead of poetry, outstandingly good and beautiful or evil and nasty actors. In this view, Apuleius’ Metamorphoses really look back to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, even if somewhat playfully (as befits a follower of Ovid), and the novella/ allegory/myth/fairy tale of Cupid and Psyche marks the space where the two types of narration almost merge, as a clever experiment in transformative reception by an unusually alert author who took more risks than most of his Greek novelist colleagues.11 The fact that Byzantine scholars allegorized Heliodorus’ Aethiopica, as they allegorized traditional mythical stories, demonstrates how successful the novelists were in their enterprise: it is only a text that has become authoritative to call for allegorization instead of simple rejection.

Bibliography Bartsch, S. 1989. Decoding the Ancient Novel. The Reader and the Role of Description in Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bartsch, S. 2007. ‘Wait a Moment, phantasia: Ecphrastic Interference in Seneca and Epictetus’, CPh 102, 83–95. Fehling, D. 1977. Amor und Psyche. Die Schöpfung des Apuleius und ihre Einwirkung auf das Märchen: eine Kritik der romantischen Märchentheorie, Wiesbaden: Steiner. Rohde, E. 19745. Der griechische Roman und seine Vorläufer, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (Leipzig 19002; 18761). Webb, R. 2009. Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice, Farnham: Ashgate. Winkler, J. J. 1985. Auctor & Actor. A Narratological Reading of Apuleius’s Golden Ass, Berkeley et al.: University of California Press.

10 Rhet. Her. 1,12; Cic. De inv. 1,27. 11 It is somewhat otiose to try to define the story of Cupid and Psyche; connections with early modern fairy tales are obvious, but it is tempting to follow Fehling 1977 in his rejection of an influence of timeless fairy tales (or, worse, fairy tale motives) on Apuleius.

Tim Whitmarsh

Greek Novel and Local Myth Back in the days when people still exercised themselves over the origins of the novel, one of the candidates was local myth. It is hard to imagine it, but this was actually a radical proposition at the time. Bruno Lavagnini, the most articulate proponent of this theory, was a leading papyrologist, and his ideas emerged out of the papyrological revolution.1 New discoveries at the time were reinforcing the point that Hellenistic literature was suffused with localism, principally (but not exclusively) in hymnic, ktistic and aetiological forms. Local discourse, moreover, provides the missing link between Hellenistic love poetry (one of Rohde’s [18761; 19745] candidates, of course) and our earliest collections of ‘myth-fictional’ prose texts: late Hellenistic and imperial collections by figures like Nicander (lost), Conon’s Diegemata (summaries by Photius) and Antoninus Liberalis’.2 Some of these collections – notably Parthenius’ Erotika pathemata and the (pseudo-?) Plutarchan assemblage – are, moreover, erotic in theme. I am not about to resuscitate Lavagnini. The reasons why the quest after origins has been abandoned are good ones, and too well-known to need restating (although it is possible that the issue of origins might be reopened in a more sophisticated way). Another reason for steering clear is the fact that none of our local myths looks anything like a Greek novel. If they are erotic (which they are not always), local myths tend to focus on deviant sexuality and nasty endings: rape, incest and murder. If the local-myth blood-line leads anywhere, it is not to (what we have come to call) the ‘ideal’ Greek novel, but to now-lost works like Aristides’ Milesiaka (‘lascivious books’, according to Plutarch: Crass. 32,4). Ovid refers to Aristides in the same breath as one Eubius, ‘the author of an impure history’, and ‘he who recently wrote a Sybaritic Events’ (Tristia 2,413–416). Philip of Amphipolis (of unknown date), we are told by the Suda, composed Coan Events, Thasian Events and Rhodian Events, the last of which are styled ‘totally disgraceful’ (Suda s.v. Philip of Amphipolis; cf. Theodorus Priscianus Eupor. 133,5–12). What I do want to suggest, however, is that local myth is part of the intertextual fabric of some of the Greek novels, and that awareness of this helps us to interpret certain narrative features, and identify the cultural work they are doing. In the brief span allotted to me I want to focus upon Daphnis and Chloe, although

1 Lavagnini 1922. 2 Lightfoot 1999, 224–234.

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I think there are interesting things to be said about other novels too (particularly Anthia and Habrocomes and Leucippe and Clitophon). In the proem, as we all know, the narrator claims to have stumbled into a sacred grove while hunting on Lesbos; on seeing a picture dedicated there, he asked an exegete to explain it. As Christopher Jones has emphasized,3 this resembles the kind of scenario we find throughout Pausanias: the curious outsider is enlightened by the guardian of sacred local knowledge. Pausanias and Longus’ narrator both play similar roles, mediating between local discourse and panhellenic (or panimperial) audience. Perhaps a similar kind of process is envisaged at the start of Philostratus’ Apollonius, where the author-narrator presents himself as having agreed to Julia Domna’s request to ‘rewrite’ (μεταγράψαι) the crude memoir of Damis, the ‘man of Nineveh’, polishing the style and combining it with other sources. This is more than just pseudo-documentarism: local discourse has become a powerful source of cultural authority, albeit one that is never allowed to speak for itself. In this respect, Daphnis and Chloe and Apollonius come close to the Hellenistic collections of local myth discussed above. The author-narrator constructs himself as the redactor, not the inventor, of the story – and, crucially, conceives of his role in terms of the reorientation of the narrative away from its originally local setting and towards a more cosmopolitan imagined community. Parthenius compiles his myths not out of a desire to buttress the authority of local cult (as the exegete does), but as a gift to his patron Cornelius Gallus, who will then translate them into the language of empire. The narrator of Daphnis and Chloe is more ambiguous, offering his work ‘both as a dedication to Eros, the Nymphs and Pan, and as a pleasurable possession for all men’ (ἀνάθημα μὲν Ἔρωτι καὶ Νύμφαις καὶ Πανί, κτῆμα δὲ τερπνὸν πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις, Prooemium 3–4): it is a Janus-faced work, which looks both inwards towards the enclosed space of the Lesbian grove – replicating the local-religious work done by Daphnis’ and Chloe’s original dedication of the picture (εἰκόνας ἀνέθεσαν, 4,39,2) – and outwards towards a universal readership. None of these represents ‘authentic’ local myth. Let me be clear: I do not mean that I am absolutely sure that (e.g.) there was no real Lesbian grove corresponding to that described by Longus, no real painting and no genuine story. That is the kind of detail that we can never know. What I mean is that the position adopted by figures like Longus and Parthenius, as mediators between the local and the universal, erases any possibility of authenticity. Myth is no longer local, but ‘local’: it signifies primarily in terms of its exoticism to a nonlocal readership, much as some clothing is branded ‘ethnic’, so as to sell it to a global consumer market.

3 Jones 2001.

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In fact, the more one thinks about it, the more the idea of authentic local myth becomes deeply paradoxical. Genuine locals (if we could imagine such people) would doubtless think of their belief system not as local – delimited by its parochialism – but as universal. It is only when a topical discourse is framed within a global framework that it becomes marked as ‘local’. Indeed, cultural theorists emphasize that local modes are created and accentuated particularly at times of rapid globalisation: hence (e.g.) the commercial success of Malian music and organic cider, and the promotion of regional identities and revival of regional languages. Scholars sometimes call this phenomenon ‘glocalisation’.4 I think (and argue elsewhere)5 that we can trace a similar process in the Hellenistic and early imperial periods. What I am claiming, then, is not that the novel is generically derived from local myth, but that Daphnis and Chloe specifically (a) presents itself as a version of a local myth, and (b) shares many of the discursive features of myth collections like Parthenius’ Erotika pathemata: in particular, the distinctive presentation of the author-narrator as a figure of mediation, shuttling between the local and the global. My final suggestion is that this might help us with the familiar issue of Longus’ irony: this narrator, I propose, finds himself occupying two completely contradictory roles, one of which demands the realistic articulation of a narrative focalized at the local level, while the other deconstructs this realism for the benefit of a cosmopolitan readership. That duality is what generates the unsettling pleasure of reading Longus. But a full version of that argument will have to wait.

Bibliography Jones, C. P. 2001. ‘Pausanias and his Guides’, in: S. E. Alcock, J. F. Cherry and J. Elsner (eds.), Pausanias: Travel and Memory in Roman Greece, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 33–39. Lavagnini, B. 1922. ‘Le origini del romanzo greco’, ASNP 28, 9–104; repr. in: H. Gärtner (ed.), Beiträge zum griechischen Liebesroman, Hildesheim: Olms 1984. 41–101. Lightfoot, J. L. 1999. Parthenius of Nicaea, The Poetical Fragments and the Ἐρωτικὰ παθήματα, Oxford: Clarendon. Robertson, R. 1994. ‘Globalization or Glocalization?’, Journal of International Communication 1, 33–52. Robertson, R. 1995. ‘Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity’, in: M. Featherstone, S. Lash and R. Robertson (eds.), Global Modernities, London: Sage. 25–44.

4 Robertson 1994; 1995. 5 Whitmarsh 2010.

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Rohde, E. 19745. Der griechische Roman und seine Vorläufer, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (Leipzig 19002; 18761). Whitmarsh, T. 2010. ‘Thinking Local’, in: T. Whitmarsh (ed.), Local Knowledge and Microidentities in the Imperial Greek World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1–16.

Maaike Zimmerman

Mythical Repertoire and Its Functions in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses Like the Greek Love Romances, Apuleius’ novel, too, is a tale in which an absence, a desire, is spatially projected in a journey:1 In the opening chapters, the reader meets Lucius, the protagonist, while journeying to Thessaly, in search of an experience with the supernatural, with magic. He characterizes himself as someone desiring to acquire as much knowledge as possible.2 After he has lost his human shape, a seemingly endless search for roses, which will help him to return to his former self, pervades his subsequent adventures, until, through the grace of Isis, he regains his human shape. In recent studies it has, moreover, been argued that the absence of, the desire for, union with the divine is one of the motivating forces in this novel.3 It lends what I would call a mythical dimension to the Metamorphoses. The mythical dimension of this novel that I will only roughly outline here, is easily overlooked, or is simply drowned out by the more readily tangible highbrow literary and stylistic glitter work, the comic intermezzos, the burlesque and lowlife entertainment that this text offers. Moreover, the rigidly allegorical interpretation by Merkelbach (1962) of the Metamorphoses as an esoteric Isis text, only to be deciphered in full by the initiates of the Isis mysteries, has not only evoked many justified counter reactions, but also had made readers and interpreters of the novel for a long time disinclined to acknowledge the general mystical undercurrent that undoubtedly is there in this text. The hope of union with the divine, implicitly linked to a concern about life after death, so common to all men, was represented with particular ardour in all kinds of aesthetical and other activities in the age in which Apuleius lived. It is, for instance, attested in the manifold manifestations of the thriving Dionysian mysteries that enjoyed renewed attention and a remarkable upsurge from the time of Hadrian onward, right through to the third century.4 The renewed interest in Dionysus from the second century onward manifests itself by an increase of

1 See Bierl 2007, 244. 2 Cf. Apul. Met.1,2,6: ‘Isto accepto, sititor alioquin novitatis’, ‘Immo vero’ inquam ‘impertite sermones non quidem curiosum, sed qui velim scire vel cuncta vel certe plurima’. – ‘When I heard that, my thirst for novelty being what it is’, I asked, ‘Please let me share your conversation. Not that I am inquisitive, but I am the sort who wants to know everything, or at least most things …’ (transl. Hanson). 3 See e.g. Dowden 2006, 55–6; Zimmerman 2008, 153–154. 4 This has been described in detail by Bruhl 1953.

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epigraphic evidence, by the restoration of sanctuaries and by establishment of new thiasoi in places where none had existed before, not only in the eastern provinces but in Italy and the western provinces as well. Dionysian funerary symbolism has been thoroughly studied by Turcan (1958; 1966; 1978). Turcan has also discussed the figures of Eros and Psyche as an embracing couple that appear on second century sarcophagi, and has argued that we may understand that these figures express ideas concerning the afterlife of the soul. Eros and Psyche, like Dionysus and Ariadne and other figures that decorate funerary monuments of this era, tell a tale of union of a mortal with the divine, and enable us to trace the ever more insistent concern for personal salvation and triumph over death that inspired those who commissioned these funerary monuments.5 Apuleius himself, with his strong tendency of ‘à la carte’ paganism,6 among other cults, most probably refers to the Dionysian mysteries as well, when he addresses his audience during the trial at Sabratha as follows: Sacrorum pleraque initia in Graecia participavi. Eorum quaedam signa et monumenta tradita mihi a sacerdotibus sedulo conservo. Nihil insolitum, nihil incognitum dico. Vel unius Liberi patris mystae qui adestis, scitis quid domi conditum celetis et absque omnibus profanis tacite veneremini. I have been initiated into many mystery cults in Greece. Priests have given me some symbols and souvenirs, which I carefully preserve. I am not saying anything unusual, anything new. You, for example, the initiates of Liber present here, you know what you keep stored at home and silently venerate, out of reach of all who have not been initiated.7

Some scholars have in passing pointed to Dionysian associations in the Metamorphoses. For instance Carl Schlam (1978, 101) noted that Apuleius developed the theme of phallic potency further than has been done in the pseudo-Lucianic Onos, and that he particularly exploited the association of the ass with the cult of Dionysus. In his monograph of 1992, Schlam adumbrated other Dionysian elements in the novel in passing. In an interesting article, Hijmans (1986) has elaborated on the remarkable cluster of Dionysian associations in the tale of Tlepolemus/Haemus and Charite, culminating in the intriguing scene where Charite mourns and venerates her murdered husband (Met. 8,7,7): imagines defuncti, quas ad habitum dei Liberi formaverat, adfixo servitio divinis percolens honoribus …

5 See the numerous examples discussed, with full references, in Koortbojian 1995. 6 For this expression, see Turcan 2003, 556. 7 Apul. Apol. 55,8, transl. Hunink, in: Harrison and Hilton 2001.

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She worshipped the portraits of the deceased that she had ordered to be made in the appearance of the god Liber, and making herself his votary she paid him divine honors ….

Some Dionysian associations in the Tale of Cupid and Psyche will be discussed below. The Dionysian aspects of the laughter that pervades Apuleius’ novel have been discussed by Münstermann.8 The tenth book of the Metamorphoses has been shown to breathe in many places a Dionysian atmosphere. It is probably no coincidence that one of the characters in the tenth book bears the name Thiasos.9 Other allusions to the Dionysus myth and cult can be, and have sometimes been, adduced. It should be pointed out, however, that these manifold associations with the myth and cult of Dionysus in no way suggest a closed and coherent dogmatic system in this novel. But they do have a share in a whole network of allusions to mythical tales of journeys to, and returns from the Underworld, myths of reborn life and posthumous bliss. The idea of posthumous salvation might well be discovered to be a common denominator of many of the mythical themes found in the novel. This is probably as far as we can go: the playful originality in adapting the mythical imagination to one’s own ends, ubiquitous in the writings of the cultured circles of Apuleius’ time, and especially in this fictional work by Apuleius himself, is too capricious and diffuse to allow us to make firm and systematic statements in one direction or another. I am convinced, however, that a careful investigation of the various mythological comparisons, associations and allusions in this novel that refer to myths of life reborn and eternal posthumous bliss could be rewarding and might lead us to detect new patterns, much more widely formulated than the Isis/Osiris pattern that has been applied in a far too procrustean manner by Merkelbach and others. This is not the occasion to go into a detailed discussion of the vast web of more and less overt mythical allusions to such myths strewn throughout Apuleius’ novel. One could think of the unmistakable associations in the tale of Cupid and Psyche with the tale of the awakening of Ariadne and the subsequent marriage consecrating eternal bliss: in Metamorphoses 6,21 Cupid arouses Psyche from her death-sleep, and soon after that the marriage in heaven is described in ways that are remarkably reminiscent of the numerous sacred marriage scenes on Roman funerary monuments with Dionysian imagery from the second century of our era. One could go into the allusions

8 See Münstermann 1995, 82, with further references. 9 See further Zimmerman 2000, 222, on Apul. Met. 10,15,3; ibid. 236, on Met. 10,16,8; 238, on Met. 10,16,9; 249, on Met. 10,18,1; 254, on 10,18,3.

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to the Endymion myth, the Adonis myth, and more. Moreover, allusions to famous literary journeys to, and returns from, the Underworld (Odysseus, Aeneas) abound in the Metamorphoses. Psyche’s hardships often invite comparison with Hercules’ labours.10 In various ways allusions to the labours of Hercules, and especially his visit to Hades, surface throughout the eleven books of the novel,11 and suggest comparison of Lucius with that most adaptable mythical hero, the essence of whose myth is summarized by Wilamowitz with the words: ‘Mensch gewesen, Gott geworden; Mühen erduldet, Himmel erworben’ (‘[he has] been a human being, [he has] become a god, [he has] suffered hardships, [he has] reached Heaven’).12

Bibliography Bierl, A. 2007. ‘Mysterien der Liebe und die Initiation Jugendlicher. Literatur und Religion im griechischen Roman’, in: A. Bierl, R. Lämmle and K. Wesselmann (eds.), Literatur und Religion II. Wege zu einer mythisch-rituellen Poetik bei den Griechen, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 239–334. Bruhl, A. 1953. Liber Pater: origine et expansion du culte dionysiaque à Rome et dans le monde romain, Paris: De Boccard. Dowden, K. 2006. ‘A Tale of Two Texts: Apuleius’ sermo Milesius and Plato’s Symposium’, in: W. H. Keulen, R. R. Nauta and S. Panayotakis (eds.), Lectiones Scrupulosae. Essays on the Text and Interpretation of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses in Honour of Maaike Zimmerman (Ancient Narrative, Suppl. 6), Groningen: Barkhuis and Groningen University Library. 42–58. Hanson, J. A. (ed. and trans.) 1989. Apuleius Metamorphoses, I-II (Loeb Classical Library 44 and 453), Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Harrison, S. J. and J. Hilton (eds.) 2001. Apuleius. Rhetorical Works, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hijmans, B. L. 1986. ‘Charite Worships Tlepolemus-Liber (Apuleiana Groningana IV)’, Mnemosyne 39, 350–364. Koortbojian, M. 1995. Myth, Meaning, and Memory on Roman Sarcophagi, Berkeley et al.: University of California Press. Merkelbach, R. 1962. Roman und Mysterium in der Antike, Munich: Beck. Münstermann, H. 1995. Apuleius. Metamorphosen literarischer Vorlagen. Untersuchung dreier Episoden des Romans unter Berücksichtigung der Philosophie und Theologie des Apuleius, Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner.

10 See e.g. Zimmerman et al. 2004, 440, on Met. 6,10,5, with further references. 11 Cf. e.g. Apul. Met. 2,32,7; 3,19,1–2; in 7,16 Lucius, the ass, is confronted with fierce horses, which the narrator compares to the horses of Diomedes, to whose cruelties Hercules put an end. 12 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 19592, 2, 38.

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Schlam, C. 1978. ‘Sex and Sanctity: The Relationship of Male and Female in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius’, in: B. L. Hijmans and R. T. van der Paardt (eds.), Aspects of Apuleius’ Golden Ass, Groningen: Bouma. 95–105. Schlam, C. 1992. The Metamorphoses of Apuleius. On Making an Ass of Oneself, London: Duckworth. Turcan, R. 1958. ‘Dionysos dimorphos, une illustration de la théologie de Bacchus dans l’art funéraire’, MAFR 70, 243–293. Turcan, R. 1966. Les sarcophages romains à représentations dionysiaques. Essai de chronologie et d’histoire religieuse, Paris: De Boccard. Turcan, R. 1978. ‘Les sarcophages romains et le problème du symbolisme funéraire’, ANRW II.16.2, 1700–1735. Turcan, R. 2003. ‘Fani quidem advena, religionis autem indigena (Apulée, Métamorphoses XI,26,3)’, in: P. Defosse (ed.), Hommages à Carl Deroux IV. Archéologie et Histoire de l’Art, Religion, Bruxelles: Ed. Latomus. 547–556. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von 19592. Euripides. Herakles, I-III, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Zimmerman, M. 2000. Apuleius Madaurensis. Metamorphoses, Book X. Text, Introduction and Commentary (Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius), Groningen: Egbert Forsten. Zimmerman, M. et al. 2004. Apuleius Madaurensis. Metamorphoses, Books IV 28–35, V and VI 1–24: The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Text, Introduction and Commentary (Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius), Groningen: Egbert Forsten. Zimmerman, M. 2008. ‘Cenatus solis fabulis? A Symposiastic Reading of Apuleius’ Novel’, in: W. Riess (ed.), Paideia at Play: Learning and Wit in Apuleius (Ancient Narrative, Suppl. 11), Groningen: Barkhuis and Groningen University Library. 135–155.

Storyline, Poetics and Religion

Emilio Suárez de la Torre and Enrique Pérez Benito

Love, Mysteries and Literary Tradition: New Experiences and Old Frames Abstract: An important aspect of the Greek Novel, in which the weight of the literary and philosophical tradition becomes decisive, is the description of experiences of love and desire, enhanced and renewed by the contemporary religious circumstances, thanks to the assimilation of many traits coming from the mystery cults, combined with many other religious elements. We analyze in this paper the interaction of these elements with the literary and philosophical tradition, both in the description of the process of ‘falling in love’ and in the different moments of the narratives where the power of love has a significant role.

1 Preliminary Remarks The aim of this paper is to present a concise analysis of the interaction, in the five main extant Greek novels, of the literary tradition concerning love and the experience of beauty with the philosophical tradition and with the modes of assimilating and structuring religious experiences among the Ancient Greeks. Yet, it would be erroneous to assert that it is possible to find a ‘key’ to explain all the preserved novels in the same way. We cannot reduce each of them to an artistic story concealing a kind of hidden code to be deciphered only by initiates. However, recently scholars have shown that the basic scheme of the novels can be assimilated to the main structure of the rites de passage and, eventually, to the process of initiation.1 This has opened interesting perspectives for assessing the religious elements of the novels.

2 Lyric Poetry and the Expression of Love Ancient Greek lyric had created the model for the expression of love, and it is easy to reconstruct this paradigm through an attentive reading of the main poets. If we want to summarize this paradigm, the topics would be as follows.

1 See Dowden 1999; Lalanne 2006; Bierl 2007.

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(1) Deities involved in the process (mainly as responsible for the passion). (2) The beauty of the beloved person, with a special emphasis on (2.1) The external details that bestow on her/him her/his appeal: (a) general aspect or manifest beauty; (b) the ‘delicacy’ or ‘freshness’ of this beauty; (c) the ‘radiance’ of the face; (d) the effect of the look and of the eyes, the main vehicle of desire (and sometimes of disdain); (e) smile and laugh; (f) sweetness of the voice; (g) the ‘lovely walk’; (h) skin smoothness; and (i) beauty of the hair. (2.2) Some recurrent images: (a) the comparison with animals (in the first place, horses or mares); (b) the assimilation to deities or heroes/heroines. (3) The effects of love (3.1) Where you feel it (thymos, kradie, phren[es], even psyche). (3.2) How you feel it: (a) enjoyment of Aphrodite’s gifts; (b) the power of love (violent and unrelenting: it dominates us), becoming a madness and causing symptoms like those of a sickness; (c) suffering infidelity, adikia; (d) love as memory (or, better, remembrance). (4) The satisfaction of love and of sexual passion (more or less explicitly). (5) Some connotations of immortality by means of the ‘gardens of love’. From Sappho on, the landscape is not only the natural space of love (as real space and as inspiration of images), but also a kind of prelude of the landscape beyond.

3 The Philosophical Background A second milestone in the framing of a tradition on the expression and definition of love is undoubtedly the Platonic philosophy as paradigmatically fixed in the Symposium and Phaedrus.2 From a cultural and literary perspective, the Symposium is not only a masterful vindication of the philosophical dialogue as a super-

2 And, of course, sometimes also the neoplatonic perspective: see Sandy 2001.

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ior genre in confrontation with tragedy and comedy, but also a proof that philosophy can surpass all the preceding models in the analysis and description of love, and therefore in the establishment of a new paradigm while absorbing and renewing the poetical tradition about Eros. As for the Phaedrus, this dialogue consolidates an imagery of the experience of love and beauty which was enormously successful afterwards. The sequence vision-himerou aporrhoe-‘burning’ of the soul becomes a topic in the description of the process. It is important to bear in mind that these metaphors have a close relationship with the terminology of the mystery cults.3

4 The ‘Religious Question’: Mystery Cults and Contemporary Religions One of the most debated problems in the study of Greek novels is that of the exact value we must give to the religious component of these works. Methodologically we must differentiate between (a) the relation of these texts to mystery cults (i.e., the degree of mysteric value and symbolism they have as a whole, independently of the actual mention of those cults) and (b) the presence in them of actual and specific religious elements. Kerényi (1927) defended the thesis of the ‘secularisation’ of mystery legends as the basis of the novels, particularly that of Isis and Osiris, well defined by Beck4 in a few words as ‘in its narrative essence … a story of love, separation, wandering and eventual reunion.’ But it was to be the work of Merkelbach5 which would convert the mystery cults into the key to the ancient novel with a more radical formulation. According to him, every Greek romance must be read as a kind of hidden code of the mystery cults, to be deciphered by the readers. For obvious reasons, the work that had for Merkelbach all the constituents of an Isiac hieros logos was Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, but the same mysteries were also definitive for understanding Chariton’s and Xenophon’s works (the latter re-elaborated by an adept of the solar cult); Mithraic mysteries would be the key to Iamblichos’ Babyloniaca, those of Dionysus to Longus’ Pastorals; Antonios Diogenes would have written a Pythagorean novel (Wonders beyond Thule) and, finally, the cult of

3 See Riedweg 1987. 4 Beck 1996, 131. 5 Merkelbach 1962; 1988.

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the Sun (then assimilated to the mystery cults) would be the core of Heliodorus’ Aethiopica.6 After the ground-breaking works of Kerényi and Merkelbach, the interpretation of the novel as a ‘mysteric’ (so to say) text has encountered more resistance than acceptance, though even the most reluctant scholars recognize at least some coincidences between the experience of the mystai and that of the protagonists of the novels on the one side, and in the ways both are narrated and structured on the other (for instance, the parallel between aretalogies and romances). In the last few years, some scholars have emphasized the importance of the rites de passage in the novel.7 Recently A. Bierl (2007) has opened an important new way of accounting for the presence of the religious constituents of the novels in his contribution to the two volumes Literatur und Religion, the start of the new series MythosEikonPoiesis.8 Bierl has made a detailed ‘disaggregation’ of the constituents of the novels belonging to the sphere of rite, myth and cult, and he has applied a methodology based on sociological and anthropological principles. After establishing the links between the different modes of representation (and varieties of discourse) underlying the concepts of metaphor, dream, myth and rite, he puts forward a symbolic reading of the journeys of the novel. Against Merkelbach, he rejects the allegorical-religious value of the novel and, instead, he prefers to define it as an initiation (‘Einweihung’) of a different nature: ‘the initiation of the youth into the status of adulthood.’9 The narrative structure organizes a symbolic chain of motifs in the form of a ‘fantastic-traumatic dream’,10 representative of the situation of the individuals before marriage. The catalogue of motifs is really impressive11 and becomes a kind of ‘radiography’ of the Greek novel. According to this analysis, the novel integrates and re-elaborates, in an ‘inter-textual, inter-discursive and inter-performative’ way, constituents coming from myth, religion, cults and rites, according to the model of the rites of passage and adapted to the love experience. This is a very interesting approach, of course. The question is a double one: do we accept that mystery cults and the experience of the rites of passage and initiation are the key to understand the novels or, on the contrary, are they (i.e.

6 For the spread of this cult, see, for instance, Fauth 1995 and Berrens 2004. 7 See Dowden 1997 and Lalanne 2006. 8 Bierl, Lämmle and Wesselmann 2007. 9 ‘[D]ie Initiation Jugendlicher in den Status des Erwachsenendaseins’ (Bierl 2007, 262). 10 Ibid. 264. 11 Initiation, rites, sacrifices, fertility, New Year, the world ‘upside down’, heortology, gods and heroes, myth, cult, magic (et similia), dedications and aretalogies, travels, and (in Heliodorus) the sun.

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mystery experience and arguments of the novel) merely the crystallization of the same mental and psychic way of explaining a strong life experience? What to do with those novels in which the cults explicitly mentioned (and functional for the argument) are not properly mystery cults? We will put the question in other terms. First, initiation into the mysteries and its effects are not very well documented (at least in detail) in Greece and Rome, although some texts and documents may reflect their main traits adequately. However, the emotions and successive steps in the process of initiation must have varied in good measure depending on the cult and the type of initiation, and on the individual (social status, sex, personality, circumstances). Of course, the main purpose of those initiations, that is, to reach a strong degree of fusion with the divine, the security offered by the achievement of proofs and the acquisition of a ‘new’ status, in which one can feel blessed by the gods, could be experienced in a similar way by every adept of the cult. But is it possible to translate this experience into the code of the narrative technique in such a way that readers purportedly sharing the same code and values can understand it? If the answer is yes, then we must ask ourselves the reason and aim for doing so: À quoi bon, ces histoires? And the answer cannot be ‘to spread the cult’ (because that could not be apprehended by the non-initiated), or ‘to make a clin d’oeil to hypothetical initiated readers’ (too much effort for too small a reward). In our opinion, the main reason is that, as much for the initiated as for the uninitiated (but with much more intensity for the former), novels display a process which can be easily shared by the readers because it belongs to a category familiar to most of them, culturally and socially speaking, and with the added value of bringing to an extreme point the concentration and power of the imaginary situations and the displayed emotions. In the same way as Athenian spectators appreciated the link between past and present in the myths performed on the stage, hearing and reading these stories allowed people to experience pleasure with the peripeteiai of the characters, but with a deeper degree of identification. And even more, this possibility of identification could also break the limits of time, on a scale from the expectation of the future to the remembrance of the ‘old good times’, but always from a hopeful and optimistic perspective. To sum up this part: mysteries, yes … but much more. And in a good measure this ‘much more’ is given by the second aspect (contemporary religion beyond mysteries). Mystery cults are sometimes not so evident as many would wish (we mean: they are more latent than apparent); on the contrary the presence of gods, festivals, prayers, prophecies, ominous dreams and even magical operations pervade the ancient novel and become a kind of superstructure, sometimes decisive for the plot, sometimes with a more modest function. And this superstructure interacts with the underlying initiatic structure belonging to mystery

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cults. To the point that, in fact, religious experiences belonging to very different cults become in a certain way – sit venia verbo – ‘mysterified’ by the context. (Finally, we must not forget that, despite its importance, side by side with the experience of the mysteries, there are other no less decisive ways of ‘having a religious life’, either as a citizen or as an individual). We want to underline the importance of passive or active participation in public ceremonies (which in the imperial period sometimes reached a high degree of ‘dramatization’), in pilgrimages of a wide range of types (traditional theoriai, journeys to healing sanctuaries, etc.), in long-distance travels (this last group can also fit into the ‘rite of passage’ scheme), and in many private and even secret rites of a very diverse nature. In all of them, the impact on the individual could be very important and could contribute to the creation of an imaginary and even fantastic world, not far from the fictional space of the novel. But there is something more. When a citizen participates in a religious ceremony, he can share a kind of dynamic religious experience, by playing an active role. On the contrary, the readers of the novel have a passive experience of the religious elements of each novel, through the ritual (and sometimes mythical) complex(es) embedded in the narration. We could speak of a reintegration of the myth and ritual complex in a narrative structure. In other words, the dynamics of the heorte is integrated into the actions of the story, into the structure of the plot.12 The hypothetical process of participation (that is, the degree of personal implication of the reader) is articulated by means of the experiences and the geographic space in which the paradigmatic-initiatic journey of the main characters is developed. In fact, the spectator’s experience of direct participation in a religious performance is transformed into a new one, characterized by a reader’s/listener’s psychological perspective. See, for instance, the effort of the authors to create occasions fitting into oral communication (symposia, private meetings) as well as visual experiences, together with a frequent introduction of detailed analysis of psychic reactions, feelings, passions, etc. (to begin with Eros, but also zelotypia, thymos, piety, mercy, cruelty: all of them well explored by philosophers and other literary genres). On the other side, from the cultural identity of the group in the polis, with a well defined profile with historical roots that allow a periodical actualisation kata ta patria, we pass now, in the novel, to the creation of a cultural identity open to competing alternatives. This is possible by means of the religious, mythical and social factors (playing with the possibility of creating a new, yet no less effective, semi-fictitious complex), and also thanks to the help of the literary tradition,

12 See Hidalgo 1990 and Edsall 2000–01.

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which has fixed formal and ideological paradigms, and by using renewed religious experiences, as much personal as collective, and a subtle assimilation of new elements of diverse cultural origins. The experiences of the young lovers showed the reader the power of the gods, starting with Eros and Aphrodite, two deities who opened to the initiate of their mysteries a way to reach happiness, though after many hard sufferings. In this process, the chain of events appeared as an effect of Tyche, but at the end divine providence was confirmed and the reader saw that the deities guaranteed a good and happy ending, corresponding to the tlemosyne and the sophrosyne (chastity) of the protagonists. In a period of ‘anxiety’, Greek novel prefigured the possibility of a permanent heorte, shared together with the beloved persons and under the guidance of the gods. Finally, it is very important to bear in mind that, despite the possibility of reducing many of the novels to a very simple scheme, each of them belongs to a different geographical and cultural context, being written by an author with a different aim (and, of course, narrative technique), and deserves more than a global analysis blurring its peculiarities. This is why we pass now to a quick analysis of each of the five ‘complete’ Greek novels, combining all the elements considered separately till now, in order to get a more precise idea of their concrete interplay and to reach some conclusions.

5 The Novels 5.1 Chariton and Xenophon of Ephesus The appearance of religious elements is a constant in both novels from the very beginning. a. The introductions of the main characters by Chariton and Xenophon have plenty of nuances related to the religious sphere. First of all, they emphasize their extraordinary beauty, comparable only to that of the gods (Chaereas and Callirhoe 1,1,1–2; 3; Ephesiaca 1,1,1–3; 2,5; 7). b. In the same way, the plot of the two novels is unleashed by a divine intervention, that of Eros. This is much more evident in Xenophon’s work, because in it the author stresses the arrogance of Habrocomes’ behaviour (Ephesiaca 1,1,3; 4; 6), which causes the wrath and the revenge of the god (Ephesiaca 1,2,1). On the other hand, Chariton does not develop that motif much, although he remarks that, if Callirhoe falls in love with Chaereas, in spite of the rivalry between their families and the existence of other suitors, it is because of Eros (Chaereas and Callirhoe 1,1,2; 1,4).

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The importance of the theme of Eros – and also of Aphrodite in Chariton’s text – is justified not only by its literary roots but also by the great significance of love in the genre.13 The novel is the culmination of a very long and slow process – already suggested in Euripides and in Menander’s New Comedy – in which the conception of love becomes more and more romantic. It is unquestionable that this process involves a very deep change, but we must take into account that many of the resources used in the novel’s descriptions of love and its effects and consequences have their roots in the literary (especially lyric poetry) and philosophic tradition (Plato). For instance: – The contrast between two clearly opposite models of love: a pure one – that of the main characters – and a violent and lascivious one – represented by the suitors. – The commonplace of love as sickness and the use of warlike metaphors (Chaereas and Callirhoe 1,1,7 ff.; Ephesiaca 1,3–5). The power of jealousy and the suffering of contradictory feelings (Chaereas and Callirhoe 5,3,3 ff.; Ephesiaca 5,14). – The satisfaction of love: Ephesiaca 1,8–9. d. The religious ceremonies represent another element in which the use of religion can be seen as a motif integrated into the plot’s development. They afford the opportunity for the first meeting of the boy and the girl (Chaereas and Callirhoe 1,1,4 ff.; Ephesiaca 1,2,2 ff.) and they are used as the frame for some of the more decisive moments in the story (Ephesiaca 1,12,1–2; 5,13,4; Chaereas and Callirhoe 8,8,15–16). e. It is also very interesting to see the different use that each author makes of some motifs with a big potential for religious symbolism. For instance, in both novels the hero must face the threat of crucifixion, but whereas Chariton solves the dangerous situation by means of human intervention, Xenophon turns to the aid of gods when the hero gets into difficulties (Ephesiaca 4,2; compare with Chaereas and Callirhoe 4,2,5–8). Is it a sign, as Merkelbach suggests, of some kind of religious intentionality in the work of the Ephesian author? We think it must be borne in mind that, on the one hand, divine help is constant all throughout the plot, no matter where the protagonists are (prayers and offering of presents are closely linked, almost always, to the place where the action is), and that, on the other hand, the literary tradition of the deus ex machina – especially in a genre very related to dramatic forms – increases the frequency of divine presence in the novel. c.

13 On the characteristics of the experience of love in the Greek novel, see Konstan 1994.

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5.2 Longus It is beyond any doubt that Daphnis and Chloe is a very idiosyncratic novel, and one of the most amenable to symbolic analysis. Merkelbach (1988) has dedicated to it an important book, where he tries to prove that it is possible to follow alongside the plot, step by step, a process of Dionysiac initiation. It would be, of course, very easy for us to consider that in fact this is a novel where, because of its detailed analysis of the process of ‘discovering love’, what happens is described as an initiation14 adapted to the awakening of the awareness of love and the revelation of its ‘mysteries.’ This is of course nothing new. But things are never so simple and, even if it were so, we must ask why. To begin with, there is an important difference between this novel and the rest in the presentation made by the author in the prologue. He states, in very clear terms, the purpose of his work, written – having been inspired by a picture representing a ‘love story’ – to become, on the one hand, an anathema to Eros, the Muses and Pan; and, on the other, a ‘delicious possession’ (ktema terpnon), with four supposed effects: to heal the sick, to console the afflicted, to awake memories in those who have known love, and to introduce the ignorant to its knowledge. This proclamation includes the principles of a conception of literature that aims at having a social impact (and this is not mere rhetoric). It goes beyond the Ovidian formula docere et delectare, since it aims at a psychological dimension that slightly reminds one of the Aristotelian theory of the tragic katharsis, though with a very different, more Platonic, basis: the reader can identify himself with the characters, feel pleasure, forget pain, recover old sensations and experience new ones. The originality of the novel is also manifest in the muted presence of the divine. Superficially, the direct intervention of the divinities is less than in other novels. We do not find the frequent prayers or oaths sworn to the gods, nor is there any trace of oracular consultations or great festivals. In fact, the number of divinities directly mentioned is very small: Eros, Dionysus, the Nymphs and Pan. Of course, this quantitative difference is not a symptom of lack of importance. The latent presence of Eros, his control – directly or through intermediaries – is constantly at work. The author emphasizes the ignorance at first of the identity of the god (as, for instance, in the dreams of the two shepherds [1,7,2] and in Philetas’ tale [2,3,3 ff.]) until the moment of the revelation of both, his true nature and his name.

14 See Chalk 1960 and Berti 1967.

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In contrast, other aspects of the novel are fully in accordance with the conventions of the genre. The discovering of the beauty of the other fits into the usual pattern, as much in the description of Daphnis (1,13,1–3) as in that of Chloe (1,17,3). The vision of the beloved and the contact through the kiss unleash devastating effects on both partners. The topic of love as sickness is likewise exploited by Longus (1,13,5 ff.; 1,17,2 ff.), not to mention the allusions to the god as pirate, warrior, or master of sophists (4,18,1). The philosophical traditions are also detectable, with Plato in the first place, most especially in the conception of love and beauty. However, there is again a novelty in the introduction of an opposition between a conventional (urban) love, and a natural one, that of Daphnis and Chloe. This love calls for a natural environment also. Hence the important symbolism of Lamon’s garden, whose destruction represents the threat of conventional love.15 However, the crucial problem in this novel is how to interpret the numerous allusions to love as an experience assimilated to that of the mystery cults, along with the recurring comparison of the main characters to divine figures, and the Orphic-Dionysiac reminiscences scattered along the narration. In fact, Dionysism is more than evident here and there. And after the detailed study of Merkelbach, it is necessary to adopt a position concerning these substantial elements of the novel. If we consider not only the quantity, but also the nature of these Dionysiac elements, it is obvious that Longus is using consciously the symbolic capacity of those elements, and that he is looking for a clear effect on the readers.

5.3 Achilles Tatius It has been generally accepted that Achilles Tatius composed a beautiful exemplar of sophistic prose, with a very original development and personal style. Here our main arguments can find a very clear model, thanks to the transparent presentation of the action and of the vicissitudes of the characters. The occurrence of poetical, Platonic and religious motifs is perfectly equilibrated within the narration, entwined in a very clear structure. In the first book a strong accumulation of these motifs prepares the way for the beginning of the pathos erotikon: local cults (Astarte), pictures, landscape, Sapphic evocations, Ovidian tones, Platonic remembrances and myths. The author resorts to a wide range of expressions describing the effects of beauty, among them the well-known formula kallous aporrhoe and the theory of ‘images’ created by the eyes. Vegetation, birds, and so on create

15 On gardens in Longus, see Forehand 1976 and Zeitlin 1994.

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a special atmosphere around the experience of falling in love. After the preparation of Book 1, Book 2 sets the ground for the development of the plot with very few motifs. The chapter opens with the process of courting Leucippe, passing then to the feast of Dionysus Trygaios, which prompts some opinions on the origins of wine, the relation of Eros and Dionysus, etc. But the idyllic seduction, with its ‘Ovidian’ motifs, is broken by the first unsettling event, the arrival of Callisthenes. Cleitophon tries to have sexual intercourse – Aphrodite is here described as the mystagogos16 – but finally the lovers must run away. The hard trials have begun, but the final scene of the chapter, with the peculiar agon of arguments between Cleitophon and Menelaos, in defence, respectively, of homo- and heterosexual love (including Platonic arguments) fashions a kind of ‘ring composition’ inside the chapter (Eros – peripeteiai and flight – Eros). In Book 3, which contains the narration of the subsequent peripeteiai, references to love are absent, but, from the point of view of religion, there is the interesting episode of the arrival at Pelousion and the visit to the temple of Zeus Casios. The book concludes with the next trial to which the protagonists are submitted: the attack of pirates and the false death of Leucippe. Book 4, with Egypt as the scene, introduces a very important religious theme: the dialectics between Artemis and Aphrodite (through different dreams), concentrated on the preservation of Leucippe’s virginity. And, of course, the peripeteiai continues, as, for instance, the sickness of Leucippe, caused by the philtron used by Gorgias, who has also fallen in love with her. The thread of the external dangers does not cease, particularly the harassment by alternative lovers. Book 5 takes us to Alexandria. It begins again with a religious motif: the hieromenia of Serapis. And the fourth peripeteia (the kidnapping of Leucippe) begins, announced by bad omens. But now a complementary story is embedded in which the effects of love are again described in detail. It includes a new description of the consequences of the kallous aporrhoe, the theory of the apomagma, the mystic fire, a particular wedding with a promise (in the temple of Isis), many reflections on love, and a final, full sexual relation, but far from the usual one in the ‘nuit de noces.’ Book 6 opens with the hieromenia of the Ephesian Artemis. And it displays a more complicated action, in which sexual harassment has again an important role and where the resistance of the heroine will awake the brutal reaction of Thersandros, with an interesting final agon. Note that he has begun his failed seduction in the context of the Artemis festival.

16 On the role of Aphrodite and other deities in this novel, see Bouffartigue 2001.

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The two last books complete the climax of this process. In them, both lovers will be submitted to different trials and ordeals that will restate ‘the normal state of things.’ Note the important roles of Artemis (in the first place) and Aphrodite. One more consideration. As will be the case with Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius links the different moments of the action to particular places, and it does not seem a haphazard choice. So, the ‘navel’ of the action (the start and conclusion – we could translate, segregation and final reintegration) takes place at Tyre and Sidon, the Phoenician towns. Egypt becomes, at the same time, a mysterious, dangerous and prodigious land. Ephesus, Artemis’ town, is decisive for the resolution of the ‘crisis’ and for marking the beginning of the reintegration to normality, through human and divine law. Finally, there is a kind of ‘outside world’, with menaced frontiers: Byzantium, which, at the same time, is the town of Leucippe and of one of the characters who threaten the stability of the main couple.

5.4 Heliodorus Theagenes and Charicleia is an extraordinary specimen of the genre and would deserve a longer treatment than the others because of the importance of its religious elements and many other particular traits. We will try now to focus on the more general characteristics. To begin with, two important qualities of this work are (a) the masterful exploitation of the visual component and (b) the creation of environments conveyed by ‘speech’, i.e. in non-authorial narration and memories. We could say that in this work there is a skilful combination of ta legomena, ta dromena and ta deiknumena. When we say ‘visual’ component, we are alluding, on the one hand, to assessments of the power of vision, of ‘gazing at’ and of being the subject of this gaze (primarily but not exclusively) with its effects in the process of falling in love; and, on the other hand, to the frequent description of varied scenes within which a ‘performative’ situation, mostly an actual spectacle, is being developed, with special impact on the action. As for the narrative element, it is indeed more important in the first books, due to the particular narrative structure, with its beginning in medias res, and the efforts of the author to offer complete information on each character and his or her previous adventures, a recurrent feature every time someone meets other people after a period of separation. The role of religion in this novel is a fundamental one, as has been generally acknowledged, but which kind of religion? This is not a superfluous question. It would be very easy to label it as ‘example of solar religion.’ In fact, the author firmly establishes his identity with priestly ancestors. Of course, there is ‘solar religion’, but something more. If we reconstruct the action linearly, everything

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begins in far-away Meroe in Ethiopian, i.e. Nubian, country at the moment of the marvelous conception of Charicleia, after the prophetic dream of her father and under the prodigious effects of Andromeda’s picture (something we know for the first time in Book 4). But, concerning the genesis of the action, that is, the moment when Theagenes and Charicleia meet and fall in love, then the origins of the central action must be placed at Delphi. Then, following this ‘linear’ description, the geographical settings of the episodes are: Meroe – Delphi – boukoloi’s camp – Chemmis – Bessa – Memphis – Siene – Meroe. Thus, Delphi and Meroe are the axial points in which love and religion converge. But, why? In the first place, there are the syncretistic analogies Helios-Apollon-Osiris and Selene-Artemis-Isis;17 and we must bear in mind the proclamation of the ‘local Gods and heroes.’ But this is not a mere syncretism. It becomes a display of henotheism, made by a member of an Emesan family linked to the cult of the Sun, and re-defining some significant traits of a very important contemporary religious cult, emphasizing a ‘religious model’ vs. other contemporary trends, pagan as well as Christian.18 This religious model is basically a cultural pattern. And in this cultural pattern, proclaimed vigorously throughout the narration, the experience of love is integrated, under a well-established philosophical paradigm, into a mysteric and initiatic process competing with other models. Note, for instance, that Theagenes and Charicleia exhibit physical and moral qualities that allow us to assimilate them to heroes (Achilles) or gods (Artemis, Apollo). Note also the fundamental character of Calasiris, who shows a kind of condensation of Greek and Egyptian cultural and religious traditions: sometimes he is assimilated to Odysseus, sometimes to the most venerable type of prophet. There is a confrontation between this GraecoEgyptian-‘Aethiopian’ paradigm, with all the religious practices and values it includes, and other parallel trends: ‘official’, ‘old-fashioned’ Greek polis religion, magical operations (manganeia), Christian beliefs, Roman or/and Persian rites and traditions, and so on.

6 Conclusions Contemporary cults are the basic frame constructing the experience of love, by means of the underlying structure created by the mystery religions and by means of the theoretical schema inherited from Plato.

17 See Bierl 2007, esp. 291–292. 18 See John Morgan’s paper at the ICAN IV Conference: ‘Heliodoros’ Aithiopika: Paganism’s Last Stand’.

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Religious elements are subordinated to the narration of a ‘love story’, unfolded and structured according to a paradigm shared by the potential readers and whose roots lie deep in the way social and religious practices are ritualized, and in the literary (mostly poetical) and philosophical traditions. The ideal reader is one who can appreciate all those elements. But the reality of a diversified public, with different levels of perception, must be accepted. Visual, narrative and other elements typical of contemporary literary and rhetorical movements contribute to the particular style of the genre and fit an atmosphere of readers, or better, ‘listeners’, who mimetically share the feelings and emotions of the characters of the novels. Among the characteristics of the novel which contribute to its appeal the following should be first put in place: (a) the fact that the works focus on youth experiencing first love; (b) the adaptation of this process of falling in love to a cultural pattern to which a long literary and philosophical tradition has contributed, based on the assumption of a particular psycho-physical process affecting the appreciation of beauty; (c) the sublimation of this elementary process through philosophical theories and religious beliefs; (d) the introduction of a familiar cultural and religious pattern, that conveys and articulates the process of consolidation of love. The story symbolizes, in fact, the core of a vital experience of mankind: personal stability is constantly threatened, and to reach maturity or, better, its development through ‘lifelong learning’, many trials must be endured. However, each novel creates a particular religious atmosphere. Common elements, such as festivals, processions, oracles, dreams, etc., contribute to this atmosphere. The presence of deities varies, though Eros and his powers are ubiquitous. In Chariton, Aphrodite presides over events, and the world that Xenophon depicts seems dominated by the power of Artemis, Isis19 and Helios, although Tyche makes her presence felt in both novels, as she does in most of the genre. Longus, for his part, shows in accordance with the bucolic frame of his novel a divine world much more reduced, but no less intense than in the other authors. Eros is again the most conspicuous figure, displaying his power either by himself or through the intervention of the Muses or Pan. In Achilles Tatius, the intervening deities form a coherent picture compounded of local and Panhellenic cults: Astarte, Dionysus and Eros. From a theological point of view perhaps the most original is Heliodorus, who combines tradition and innovation in the best possible culmination of the novelistic genre.

19 See Griffiths 1978.

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Bibliography Beck, R. 1996. ‘Mystery Religions, Aretalogy and the Ancient Nove’, in: G. Schmeling (ed.), The Novel in the Ancient World, Leiden, New York and Cologne: Brill. 131–150. Berrens, S. 2004. Sonnenkult und Kaisertum von den Severen bis zu Constantin I (193–337 n. Chr.) (Historia Einzelschriften 185), Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Berti, M. 1967. ‘Sulla interpretazione mistica del romanzo di Longo’, SCO 16, 343–358. Bierl, A. 2007. ‘Mysterien der Liebe und die Initiation Jugendlicher. Literatur und Religion im griechischen Roman’, in: A. Bierl, R. Lämmle and K. Wesselmann (eds.), Literatur und Religion II. Wege zu einer mythisch-rituellen Poetik bei den Griechen, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 239–334. Bierl, A., R. Lämmle and K. Wesselmann (eds.) 2007. Literatur und Religion I-II. Wege zu einer mythisch-rituellen Poetik bei den Griechen (MEP I.1–2), Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. Bouffartigue, J. 2001. ‘Un triangle symbolique: Eros, Aphrodite et Artémis dans la Roman de Leucippé et Clitophon’, in: A. Billault (ed.), OPÔRA: La belle saison de l’hellénisme. Études de littérature antiques offertes au Recteur Jacques Bompaire, Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne. 125–138. Chalk, H. H. O. 1960. ‘Eros and the Lesbian Pastorals of Longus’, JHS 80, 32–51. Dowden, K. 1999. ‘Fluctuating Meanings: “Passage Rites” in in Ritual, Myth, Odyssey, and the Greek Romance’, in: M. Padilla (ed.), Rites of Passage in Ancient Greece: Literature, Religion, Society, Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, Toronto: Associated University Presses. 221–243. Edsall, M. 2000–2001. ‘Religious Narratives and Religious Themes in the Novels of Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus’, Ancient Narrative 1, 114–133. Fauth, W. 1995. Helios Megistos. Zur synkretistischen Theologie der spätantike, Leiden, New York and Cologne: Brill. Forehand, W. 1976. ‘Symbolic Gardens in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe’, Eranos 74, 103–112. Griffiths, J. G. 1978. ‘Xenophon of Ephesus on Isis and Alexandria’, in: Margreet B. de Boer and T. A. Edridge (eds.), Hommages à Maarten J. Vermaseren. Recueil d’études offert par les auteurs de la Série Études Préliminaires aux Religions Orientales dans l’Empire Romain, I, Leiden: Brill. 409–437. Hidalgo de la Vega, M. J. 1990. ‘La novela griega como vehículo de propaganda religiosa’, in: J. Alvar, C. Blánquez and G. Wagner (eds.), Formas de difusión de las religiones antiguas (Segundo encuentro-coloquio de ARYS. Jarandilla de la Vera), Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas. 197–214. Kerényi, K. 1927. Die griechisch-orientalische Romanliteratur in religionsgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 19733 (Tübingen: Mohr 19271). Konstan, D. 1994. Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lalanne, S. 2006. Une éducation grecque: rites de passage et construction des genres dans le roman grec ancien, Paris: La Découverte. Merkelbach, R. 1962. Roman und Mysterium in der Antike, Munich: Beck. Merkelbach, R. 1988. Die Hirten des Dionysos: Die Dionysos-Mysterien der romischen Kaiserzeit und der bukolische Roman des Longus, Stuttgart: Teubner. Riedweg, C. 1987. Mysterienterminologie bei Platon, Philo und Klemens von Alexandrien, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter.

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Sandy, G. 2001. ‘A Neoplatonic Interpretation of Heliodorus’ Ethiopian Story’, in: A. Billault (ed.), OPÔRA: La belle saison de l’hellénisme. Études de littérature antiques offertes au Recteur Jacques Bompaire, Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne. 169–178. Zeitlin, F. I. 1994. ‘Gardens of Desire in Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe: Nature, Art, and Imitation’, in: J. Tatum (ed.), The Search for the Ancient Novel, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 148–170.

Aglae Massima Valeria Pizzone

The Tale of a Dream: Oneiros and Mythos in the Greek Novel Abstract: In the Greek novel dreams often function as mise en abyme of the narration, in that they foreshadow events, as in Longus, reflect the circularity of narration, as in Chariton, are associated with omens or with the prophetic description of works of art, as in Achilles Tatius, or conceal enigmatic meanings, as in Xenophon Ephesius. The main characters’ dreams often share an ambiguity with the novels themselves that puts the dreams halfway between truth and imagination. Not unlike literary creation (above all poetic), dreams are generated by the imaginative faculty of the mind (phantasia). As dreams fluctuate between onar and hypar, so novels oscillate between mythos and logos. In my paper, I want to argue that for ancient readers dreams were likely to share with novelistic narration a common ‘phantastic’ background, which fully accounts, along with literary tradition, for their pivotal narrative function. As is well known, in Greek novels, dreams often function as mise en abyme of the narration, in that they foreshadow events, as in Longus,1 reflect the circularity of narration, as in Chariton,2 are associated with omens or with the prophetic description of works of art, as in Achilles Tatius,3 or conceal enigmatic meanings, as in Xenophon Ephesius.4 I will argue that for ancient readers dreams were likely to share with novelistic narration a still more crucial feature, one that fully accounts, along with literary tradition, for their pivotal narrative function. My argument will rest upon three main points: a) popular tales and fables, that is mythoi, are traditionally associated with dreams, and such an association is found in hellenistic novels as well; b) dreams and literary creation share a common ‘phantastic’ background;5 c) novelists are well aware of such a link. Evidence for such an awareness is especially abundant in Achilles Tatius.

1 2,27–28; 2,30,4; 3,17,1–2. See Pattoni 2005, 24–26. 2 See Auger 1983. 3 See Morales 2004. 4 See Plastira-Valkanou 2001 and Liatsi 2004. 5 Since this paper has been presented the role of imagination (phantasia) in ancient fiction has been investigated more thoroughly: see above all Webb 2009, 93–100 and 168–191; Whitmarsh 2011, 171–176.

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Destabilizing Reality: Myths and Dreams Let us begin with the first point. A passage from Polybius best exemplifies the somehow obvious analogy between fictitious and untrustworthy myths on the one hand, and oneiroi on the other (12,24,5):6 For while he [Timaeus] exhibits great severity and audacity in accusing others, his own pronouncements are full of dreams, prodigies, incredible tales, and to put it shortly, craven superstition and womanish love of the marvelous. (transl. W. R. Paton)

In other words, an overwhelming presence of dreams, myths, marvellous prodigies, unbelievable deeds and premonitory signs makes Timaeus’ work similar to a phantastic tale, which falls short of ‘serious’ history and seems to be in tune with the taste of a less refined audience. Polybius’ account is not isolated. As a matter of fact, from Hellenistic and Roman times through the Christian era, dreams, womanish tales and myths (or, at a higher level, even literary creation as such) are frequently associated with one another. A paradigmatic example is found in Aelius Aristides, who questions the reliability of the myth he has recounted in In Platonem 99,32 ff. Jebb, concerning the divine origin of rhetoric (101,20–24 Jebb7): Let our myth end here, with a conclusion, I think, in no way dishonorable. From the matter itself it is clear that this is no vain myth or a dream, but reality and a factual account. (transl. C. A. Behr)

This tradition reaches its peak in the fourth century AD. According to Synesius of Cyrene (De insomniis 19,154D–155A, Terzaghi, pp. 186,15–187,2), mythoi (i.e. fairy tales) ultimately rest on dreams. As a consequence, he argues that dream-centred compositions might supersede the common practice of myth-centred progymnasmata8 (which, incidentally, exerted a well known influence upon novelistic patterns and techniques): I think that faboulous tales, in which peacocks or foxes or even the sea are speaking, take their subjects from dreams as well. To be sure, the dream world, in itself, is much wider. Fairy tales are just the least part of dreams, nevertheless they were sophists’ favorite choice for rhetoric training. Thus, if myth represents the beginnings of rhetoric art, dream would be a convenient accomplishment of it.

6 More generally, Polybius’s judgement on Timaius’ work is also quoted as a possible reference to the fiction-making process of the novel. See Graverini 2006b, 61. 7 Cf. also Plut. Aud. Poe. 15b–c or Gr. Nyss. C.Eun. 2,1,190. 8 See Webb 2009, 42.

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To cut a long story short, novels are mythoi pretending to be logoi. Qua logoi, conversely, they are so implausible as to be mistaken for mythoi.9 The very same ambiguity characterizes dreams, which in the Greek novel often feature in the form of an onar (hollow image) eventually proving to be hypar (real phenomenon). Moreover, inasmuch as they are unreliable, novelistic mythoi are somehow to be taken as popular tales, not unlike the fables favored by old women.10 At the beginning of Achilles Tatius’ novel, Cleitophon declares that his story is like a fictitious tale: ‘“You are stirring a whole swarm of stories (logon)”, said he; “my adventures are really like fiction (mythois)”’ (1,2,2). Concerning Xenophon Ephesius, Bierl has even suggested that the central books of his romance follow dream-like associative patterns.11 Chariton describes Callirhoe’s Syracusan past as a ‘mythic tale’ very similar to a dream.12 Moreover, Callirhoe’s old servant comments on her last dream as follows (5,5,6, compare 3,1,4): ‘Take courage, madam – You should be glad, that is a good dream that you have had; you will be freed from all your worries; what you dreamed is what will happen in reality [hosper gar onar edoxas, houtos kai hypar].’13

The ominous dream and Plangon’s words come after a long monologue by Callirhoe, a kind of synopsis – we have to do here with a logos, an objective report of her own sufferings and deeds – of the girl’s journeys, so full of unbelievable adventures14 that the virgin became the ‘diegema of Asia and Europe’, i.e. the hero of the tale on two continents.15 And now a dream, only seemingly false (that is an oneiros, i.e. non-predictive dream) foreshadows the real, unexpected happy ending. 9 Ach. Tat. 1,2,1–2; Chariton 4,2,13; 5,8,2; 6,3,6; Longus 2,7,1; 2,27,2; 4,20,1. See Hunter 1983, 47– 48; Laplace 1991; Whitmarsh 2007. 10 According to Ach. Tat. 5,5,1, women are particularly philomythoi. Plato often dwells on the dissemination of such stories: R. 376d–377a; Lg. 887c–e; Hp.Ma. 286a1–2. On this topic and on the relationship between old women’s tales and novels, see Renger 2005 and Graverini 2006a (both with further literature). 11 Bierl 2006. 12 Callirhoe describes her own story as ‘myth and dream’ (2,5,6–7): ‘Sir’, she said, ‘please do not make me talk about what has happened to me. What happened before is a dream, a fable. Now I am what I have come to be – a slave, and a foreigner.’ Callirhoe’s claim is echoed by Polycharmus at 4,2,13 (to Mithridates): ‘Sir, it is a long story … and it will not do me any good now. This is not the time, to bother you with my chatter.’ The same description of Callirhoe’s fabulous past will occur at the end of the novel (6,3,6). 13 All translations from the Greek novels are Reardon’s 1989. 14 5,5,2: ‘I have died, and been buried, I have been stolen from my tomb; I have been sold into slavery – and now, Fortune, on top of that I find myself on trial!’ 15 5,5,2–3. Cf. also 5,8,2.

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The Challenges of Imagination I come now to my second point. Literary creation and dreams are both linked to the psychological power of phantasia, or imagination. From the later Hellenistic period, phantasia becomes an increasingly important concept in literary and art criticism. Classic mimesis-theory is replaced by a sort of phantasia-theory: far from being exclusively focused on the imitation of reality, artistic creation now transcends sense perception. This change has been widely investigated in the last twenty years.16 According to the classic statement of Pollitt (1974, 53), where and how the ‘phantasia theory’ … arose is a complex question. One can point to elements in it that are Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic. … There is latent in Plato’s treatement of art and imitation a conception of good mimesis, whereby an artist might imitate not external nature but rather the ‘ideas’ of which external nature itself is a copy. Plato himself … would probably have denied that this was actually possible, but it is not difficult to see how in a later age, increasingly inclined to mysticism and reverence for the past, the idea might have come to be applied to the great artists of the Classic era.

Thanks to phantasia, artists (painters, scultors and poets) are no longer realitybound. Instead of reproducing tangible, universally visible objects, artists now reproduce the archetypes that are located in their own souls. Insofar as it improves upon nature, human art becomes superior to nature itself. Philostratus’ celebrated maxim is based precisely on this belief: ‘Phantasia is a wiser artist (demiourgos) than mimesis’ (Life of Apollonios, 6,19).17 As we shall see, novelists were well aware of the power of such a skilled artist.18 Yet phantasia also plays a crucial role in the genesis of dreams, a philosophical locus communis since Plato19 and Aristotle.20 Moreover, the close association between artistic creation and the insubstantiality of oneiric visions is already found in Plato (both are second level realities: R. 599a2; 602c10-d4), to

16 See above all Pollitt 1974; Rispoli 1985; Watson 1988 and 1994; Goldhill 2001, 162; Koortbojian 2005; Tanner 2005, 283–295; Webb 1997 and 2009, 115 ff. 17 See Rispoli 1985; Platt 2009; Platt 2011, 293–332. 18 As far as Heliodorus is concerned, the role of phantasia in his narrative has already been investigated by Nunez 2004–2005. I could add here en passant that the entire fate of Charicleia is determined by the phantasia of her mother observing a painting. From this point of view, Heliodorus represents a sort of symbolic bridge between late antique pagan aesthetics and early Christian art-criticism. But this topic deserves a discussion of its own and will be the treated in my next monograph on imagination in late-antique and Byzantine aesthetics. 19 Ti. 71a–b. 20 Cf. e.g. Arist. Insomn. 459a-460b; Metaph. 1024b21–24.

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the extent that divine (if not artistic) inspiration displays itself in dreams.21 Under the aegis of phantasia, dreams enjoy a peculiar status that can be described as intermediate between invention and reality and between subjectivity and objectivity, and they are therefore very similar to the novel as mythos. Equally, the correlation between mythos and oneiros is comparable to that between tale and ekphraseis. Let us look at a brief but paradigmatic example we are all familiar with, namely the Prooemium of Daphnis and Chloe. At the very beginning of his romance, Longus offers to the reader an accurate and detailed description of a painting22 in which imitation overcomes nature (Prooem. 1,1 and compare 4,2,5); the romance itself is referred to as pendant of the picture (Prooem. 1,2: ‘I had the desire to write something as an answer to that picture’). Obviously, we are here in the realm of the ‘skilled artist’ whom Philostratus designates as phantasia. There is evidence for the existence of such an analogy. In the proem of the Imagines, Philostratus the Younger attempts to establish a method and a theory for ekphrasis, pointing out the analogies between writing and figurative art. The same rules that enable communication from the painter to the viewer can be seen at work in the case of the writer and the reader as well. In fact, phantasia is common to both forms of expression (Imagines, Prooemium 6):23 If one reflects upon the matter, however, one finds that the art of painting has a certain kinship with poetry, and that an element of imagination [phantasia] is common to both. For instance, the poets introduce the gods upon their stage as actually present, and with them all the accessories that make for dignity and grandeur [hosa onkou kai semnotetou] and power to charm the mind [psychagogias]; and so in like manner does the art of painting, indicating in the lines of the figures what the poets are able to describe in words. (transl. A. Fairbanks)

Through the power of phantasia, the novel comes to challenge the visual arts and becomes a form of poetry in its own right.24 Not unlike painting (and of course poetry itself), the novel can generate myths, and at the same time it shares with oneiros a common ‘phantastic’ background.

21 22 23 24

R. 599a2; 602c10-d4; Ti. 71d5–72e. See Zimmermann 1999, 73–79. See Lange 1969; Thein 2002. See Graverini 2007, 1–55, on Apuleius.

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Reading as Day-Dreaming This affinity emerges with special force in Achilles Tatius, which brings me to my third point. Helen Morales has already pointed out the role played by phantasia in the sub-plot of Callisthenes’ adventures, but we should remember that dream-visions are shaped by phantasia as well. Let us read the long oneiric description from 1,6. While dreaming, Cleithophon re-enacts his feelings for Leucippe over and over again. The account of his suffering is introduced by a kind of brief oneiric theory, whereby enypnion appears as an outcome of daily worries (1,6,3–4): During the day the eyes and ears are absorbed in many activities and help take the edge off illness by giving the soul no leisure in which to suffer. But once the body is constrained in quietude, the soul is set adrift in a sea of troubles. For then begins to stir all that till then slept, woes of the sorrowing, worries of the careworn, imperiled men’s fears, the fires of men in love.

Dream is somehow a ‘specular’ version of reality, an alternative dimension where wishes are fulfilled. After falling asleep, Cleitophon can fulfill his feverish imagination.25 No less than hesychia binding the sleeping body and exalting the movements of the soul,26 this is a well established locus communis, one that is widespread in ancient treatises about dreams.27 However, Achilles Tatius’ text conceals here a further, more specific, allusion. A verb like pedao, in connection with sleep (a poetic iunctura), may suggest a reference to a well known passage from the Odyssey (23,15–17): Why dost thou mock me, who have a heart full of sorrow, to tell me this wild tale, and dost rouse me out of slumber, the sweet slumber that bound (epedese) me and enfolded my eyelids? (transl. A. T. Murray)

We are near the end of the poem, when Euricleia wakes Penelope to inform her of Odysseus’ extraordinary return. Although citations from the Odyssey are rarely found in Achilles Tatius,28 it is a well known fact that the Odyssey exercised a

25 At 1,9,1 he says to Cleinias: ‘I can’t continue in such pain. Eros has attacked me with all his forces and drives the very sleep from my eyes. Fantasies of Leucippe face me everywhere [phantazomai].’ 26 Cf. e.g. Arist. Div.Somn. 463a; Ph. Spec.Leg. 219; Plut. Is. et Os. 383f; Iamb. Myst. 3,2,1. 27 Artem. Onirocriticus 1,1. 28 See Fusillo 1989, 32–33. Luca Graverini touches on this problem in his paper, ‘Crying for Patroclus: Achilles Tatius and Homer’s Iliad’, at ICAN 2008.

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deep influence upon Greek novelists.29 Moreover, in this case Penelope and Cleitophon are involved in similar circumstances, in that they are both longing for a meeting with their beloved. Nonetheless, as dream reverses reality, so Achilles Tatius reverses his literary pattern: if Penelope has to wake up in order to see her prayer fulfilled, Cleitophon has to fall asleep in order to take his darling girl in his arms. So the hero assumes the same perspective of the reader and becomes a spectator of his own emotional ups and downs. Cleitophon’s hopes are reflected in his dream like in a mirror, which reverses reality (‘all the sensations which were lately at rest are then aroused’).30 To be sure, mirrors are quite common in ancient dream-theories31 and ever since Plato they are linked with phantasia.32 Elsewhere, the idea of a mirror-like vision belongs to what is usually referred to as the ‘poetics of the vision’, typically marking the very moment when the two heroes fall in love. Just like in dreams, the image of the beloved is impressed in the lover’s soul in the form of durable beauty, bringing about pleasure and relief. So, in Cleitophon’s dream (1,6,5): But even then the girl would not leave my soul: all my dreams were of Leukippe [panta … moi Leukippe ta enypnia]. I spoke with her, played with her, ate with her, touched her – I had more good sensations than during the day – Yes, I even kissed her, and truly it was a kiss – so that when the servant roused me, I snapped at him for his untimely interruption, that lost me so sweet a dream.

Daily illusions (phantasiai) are replaced by dreams (enypnia). Otherwise, just like novels and ekphraseis, dreams (and lovers’ dreams and feelings above all) become a very good substitute for direct vision, and are therefore absolutely comparable to poetic phantasiai (Plutarch, Amatorius 759c):33

29 On this topic, see the papers of Stephan Tilg, ‘The Idea of Homer in the Ancient Novel’, and Nicola Nina Dümmler, ‘Constructing Self: Leucippe’s Personae in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon’, given at ICAN IV (2008). 30 Cf. also S. Aj. 675–676: sleep binds and solves at the same time. 31 See Pizzone 2009. The Church Fathers will also use that metaphor; cf. Bas. Caes. Ep. 210,6: ‘When the mirror is broken, it cannot receive the traces of images, and not even the soul, bound by daily worries and obscured by passions that keep her away from rationality, can receive the reflexes of the Holy Spirit. Not every dream is prophecy, as Zacharias says (10,2).’ 32 It is no coincidence that in the 12th century Eumathios Macrembolites, when imitating Cleitophon’s dream (on dreams in the Byzantine novel, see Pizzone 2010), deploys the mirrormetaphor. Note how Hysminias speaks about his oneiric experience (3,5,1): ‘When sleep caught me, the girl was with me, the night anticipated the day and the dinner, and all that I wished to see, to experience and to act, I saw and experienced in dream, like in a mirror; but God didn’t give me the opportunity to act as well.’ On mirror imagery in Byzantium, see Papaioannou 2010. 33 On Plutarch’s Amatorius, see Rist 2001, with further bibliography.

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Someone has said that the images entertained by the poetic imagination (phantasiai poietikai), because they impose themselves so vividly, are dreams of those wide awake; but this is much more true of the images entertained by the imagination of lovers who speak to the beloved and embrace him or chide him as if he was present. For our sight seems to paint its other pictures on wet plaster: they fade away quickly and slip from mind; the images of the beloved, however, burned into the mind by sight, as if using encaustic technique, leave behind in the memory shapes that move and live and speak and remain for ever and ever. (transl. W. C. Helmbold)

By using equivalent ‘specular’ and representative means, dreams achieve the same results as psychological phantasia. Cleinias explains quite explicitly (1,9,4) how Leucippe’s picture, as preserved in his soul, provides Cleitophon with a kind of union with the girl,34 although she is out of sight (hos pros parontas, as Plutarch would have it): You have no idea how marvellous a thing it is to look at one’s beloved. This pleasure is greater than that of consummation, for the eyes receive each others’ reflections and they form therefrom small images as in mirrors. Such outpouring of beauty flowing down through them into the soul is a kind of copulation at a distance. This is not far removed from the intercourse of bodies – it is in fact a novel form of intimate embrace, and soon (I predict) you will experience the act itself.

Not unlike the lines from Plutarch’s Amatorius, this passage is clearly influenced by ancient speculation about phantasia. Although Cleinias does not mention imagination in his speech, such mirror-imagery is peculiar to phantasia theories, and we find here the very same elements of the long dream description of 1,6. Despite this philosophical aura, I am rather skeptical about the possibility of allusions to specific tenets. Cleinias’ speech is saturated with an eclectic jargon, that sounds ‘philosophical’ and gathers up the most widespread topics about vision, memory, longing, desire and ‘imagination.’35 He is playing the ‘expert’ with the ‘virginal’ and unexperienced Cleitophon.36 So, even if there is an undeniable ‘stoic flavour’, I do not think we can detect in his words a precise account of stoic or atomistic theories.37 As a matter of fact, imagination theories (whether Aristotelian, Stoic, or (Neo)platonic) are far too subtle for a common reader; what is more such a theory, in Achilles Tatius’ version, would result in something so oversimplified as to be almost beyond recognition. Last but not least, far from being the hallmark of Stoicism, the image of the seal impressing itself in the soul 34 35 36 37

The same idea will occur to Melite, at 5,13,4, when she tries to conquer Cleitophon. See Bartsch 2007. Morgan 2007, 26 and n. 12. See Goldhill 2001, 179–180.

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is common to Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Neoplatonic and even Christian doctrines about sight, memory, imagination and dream.38 In other words, the imagery employed by Cleinias seems to be a kind of pseudophilosophical vulgata. Similarly, mirror imagery is widespread, as we said, in ancient theories about dreams and phantasia. As we have seen, the same images occur in a Platonizing author like Plutarch, and are found later in the Church Fathers.39 Moreover, hope, desire and pleasure are linked with phantasia at least since Aristotle (Rhetorica 1326a26 ff., De anima 3,9–10).40 Be that as it may, by the end of the novel Cleitophon’s love-dream is bound to come true. In his oneiros Cleitophon ‘experiences’ his future rather than his false hopes, as the reader is likely to believe. Dreams and novels are slippery products of phantasia, and the former can easily anticipate (or interfere with) the latter. The same narrative device is to be found in the well known dream of Panthea.41 When at last Cleitophon manages to enter Leucippe’s room, her mother is woken by a nightmare, in which she sees the girl ripped up with a robber’s sword. Panthea runs into her daughter’s room, just in time to catch a glimpse of the fleeing Cleitophon (2,24,3–4): Wretched girl! This way you loose your reputation along with your happiness. My dream [phantasmata: see also 4,10,6; enypnion] misled me: the truth was worse than I saw. That incision in your stomach is much more serious: he pricked you deeper than a sword could have. But I didn’t see the man who did it; I don’t know how the disaster happened.

In spite of the woman’s complaints, the reader is likely to trust her dream, as if it were only a matter of correct interpretation: after all, the symbolism of the dream seems quite obvious, provided that one is able to associate it with the girl’s alleged defloration. As a matter of fact, however, the dream brings about a twofold deception: the enypnion proves a real oneiros, in that it foreshadows the girl’s tragic death after the kidnapping (or even a threefold deception, since her death is of course an apparent one). Once more, the novel’s mythos is foreshadowed by a dream, which proves no less tricky, unpredictable and ever-changing. The link between tale and phantasia is crucial to another passage from Book 6. Here Sosthenes performs a rhetoric tour de force. In a bombastic tone, the slave tells his master about the latest developments of Leucippe’s story (the kidnap-

38 See Sassi 2007, 27–28; D’Ancona 2007, 68–71. The same is true for the verb apomattoenapomatto, first found in Democritus and later in Theophrastus (Sens. 49–50). Cf. also Eus. Eccl. Theol. 3,21,1. 39 See Pizzone 2011. 40 See Labarrière 1997. 41 See Hägg 1983, 49; Goldhill 1995, 36, 80–81.

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ping, her settling down in a country house, the offer to become the master’s concubine), and embellishes his tale with a praise of the maiden’s beauty – according to a well known novelistic trope (6,4,3–4): At this unexpected twist of fate, Leucippe was stunned and silent. Sosthenes returned to Thersander and told him what he had done, meeting him just at the moment when he was returning to the house. At Sosthenes’ account of Leucippe’s situation [ta peri Leukippes], which included lyrical descriptions of her beauty [katatragodountos], Thersander was filled by his words with a sort of image of beauty [kallous phantasmatos]; and since it was an allnight festival and the fields some four stades distant, he bade Sosthenes to lead the way to her.

Thersander is seduced by Sosthenes’ rhetoric and imaginative representation:42 the slave is a trickster-storyteller. Like Chariton’s Thero, another guileful figure,43 Sosthenes retells the ‘facts’ of the novel. He becomes a substitute narrator. Subtle plans by treacherous figures are often seen as literature-like expressions in the novels. So, for example, the ploys of the slave from Akragas are repeatedly depicted by Chariton as drama (1,4). Along with the reader, Chaireas is driven by the trickster’s lies to elpis, phobos, polypragmosyne. In the same way, Sosthenes’ words instill in Thersander a kind of vision, a narrative outline, something that is akin to both the novel and the images of dreams. Like the reader, Thersander will visualize in his phantasia the beauty of Leucippe and her turns of fortune. Moreover, Sosthenes’ words, no less than dreams, become trigger-events.44 Thersander’s reaction to his slave’s tale closely parallels the way Heliodorus’ characters interpret their own dreams: following his own wishes, he takes the story as an invite to visit Leucippe immediately. In the Aethiopica, Cnemon sharply condemns such an attitude as foolish (2,16,7): But we really do seem to be in a dreamworld! Here we are analyzing dreams and figments of the imagination and not pausing for a moment to think how to solve our own problems!

However, this attitude seems to be a narrative device designed to postpone Charicleia’s recognition to the end of the novel. Let us concisely review the facts: the night before the victory sacrifices, king Hydaspes dreams he has a daughter with Charicleia’s face, so when he finally meets the girl he is left wondering about the meaning of the likeness. Nonetheless, his courtiers persuade him that ‘this

42 On the theatrical quality of ekphrasis, see Webb 2009, 104–105. 43 Kasprzyk 2001. 44 Ekphraseis as well can produce narratives: see Nimis 1998.

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was an image generated by the soul [phantasia], which frequently prefigured the future and gave it form in dreams’ (9,25,2). In this case, too, the hero is misled by a fallacious interpretation of an oneiros, only seemingly false.45 Let us return to Sosthenes’ tour de force. As we have pointed out, imagination determines the course of action by means of representation, which is in turn powerfully evoked through words. In fact, phantasia has a rhetoric character too – and here we have another point of resemblance between phantasma and mythos in the novel. Ps.-Longinus46 explains very accurately the nature of tragic style as displayed by Sosthenes.47 This text, moreover, helps us understand how we should read Sosthenes’ whole account, and proves the fact that by Longinus’ times phantasia had become a very flexible notion (15,1–2, transl. W. H. Fyfe): Weight, grandeur [onkou kai megalegorias] and energy in writing are very largely produced, dear pupil, by the use of ‘images’ (that at least is what some people call the actual mental pictures). For the term imagination [phantasia] is applied in general to an idea which enters the mind from any source and engenders speech, but the word has now come to be used of passages where, inspired by strong emotion, you seem to see what you describe and bring it vividly before the eyes of your audience. That imagination means one thing in oratory and another in poetry you will yourself detect, and also that the object of poetry is to enthral, of prose writing to present ideas clearly, though both indeed aim at this latter and at excited feeling.48

Ps.-Longinus then praises Euripides’ skill in ektragodesai pathe of both madness and love. Elsewhere, Sosthenes’ tragic elocution is connected with baroque onkos, which is mentioned both in the aforementioned passage from Philostratus’ Prooemium of the Imagines and in the anonymous treatise On the sublime. Ps.Demetrius’ De elocutione shows the peculiar characteristics of the ‘tumid elocution’ in a section devoted to the epistolary style (226–232). He criticizes Plato’s epistles for breaking the laws of sapheneia, and in this context he makes an allusion to the lexis hypokritike, which he had already described in 192–193 (226: ‘Indeed this sort of elocution and imitation is more appropriate for actors than for written epistles’). Two paragraphs later, he qualifies bombastic epistles as ‘excessively tumid (onkodesterai)’ (228). Makrologia, aulic poetic language, excessive megaloprepeia: all of these features are typical of onkos in the rhetoric tradition

45 See Bartsch 1988, 80 ff.; Goldhill 1995, 35–36; Said 1997; Whitmarsh 2011. 46 See Morales 2004, 90; Zimmermann 1999, 62–64. 47 In this regard Sosthenes’ speech is somewhat comparable to the rhetorical piece performed by Socrates in Apul. Met. 1,8,4–5 (on the tragicomic flavour in Socrates’ words, see Graverini 2006c, 8–9). 48 Webb 2009, 118.

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beginning from Aristotle.49 According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus,50 onkos refers to a kind of degeneration in prose style, inasmuch as it tends both to poetic elocution51 and declamatory rhetoric. However, references to epic and tragic poetry, along with a peculiar mimetic attitude, are also typical of the novel, usually referred to as drama by ancient and medieval readers.52 The lexis hypokritike, as mentioned by Ps.-Demetrius, refers precisely to this dramatic element. Already in Aristotle’s classic definition (Rhetoric 1413b), the lexis hypokritike is tantamount to ‘agonistic’ rhetoric: one that is independent from writing and knows how to express all kinds of feelings in a dramatic form (that is through pathos and ethos, according to the relevant definitions of tragedy and comedy). We may conclude by saying that there is a specific rhetorical definition fitting the kind of situation we find in Achilles Tatius’ novel, where mythos becomes phantasia in Thersander’s eyes. Moreover, the novelist – or his substitute narrator – ‘enthralling’ the mind of the reader, creates a new form of ‘poetry written in prose’, that, thanks to phantasia, shares with dreams an enticing power and is able to create new myths53. This is hardly surprising: on triggering his master’s daydreams, Sosthenes is not unaware of his own rhetorical know-how, or of his master’s soft spots, as becomes clear a few paragraphs later, when he openly boasts about his achievement (6,11,3–4): Thersandros is in love with you and he is driven to destruction, so much so that quite probably he will even make you his wife. This victory is mine, for it was I who repeatedly revealed to him the marvels of your beauty and filled his mind with fantasies of you [ten psychen autou phantasias egemisa].

49 Rh. 1407b26; and cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who severely condemn onkos as a fault: Lys. 12,3; Dem. 306,9. Demetrius and Longinus seem less hard in condemning onkos and they do not connect it with makrologia; Ps.-Longin. Subl. 12,3, although not negativley, describes onkos as a hallmark of a redundant and artificial style. 50 Pomp. 2,13; Lys. 3. See Gutzwiller 1969, 54. 51 In Lys. 3, the orator is praised because he gives up onkos and the usual rhetorical tricks. On that genus dicendi and related problems, see Nicolai 1992, 242–243. 52 For mimetic illusion in Heliodorus’ narratives, see Morgan 1991. As to the novel viewed as ‘drama’ in post-classical times, see Agapitos 1998. Regarding the use of tragi-comic style in the novels, see also Morales 2004, 90 and Zimmermann 1999. 53 Moreover Thersandros subverts the correct way to react to ‘phantastic’ descriptions or ekphraseis according to stoic aesthetics (cf. Epict. Disc. 2,18,24 with Bartsch 2007): the hearer should protect himself from a too hasty assent or a too strong emotional involvement. Thersandros, on the contrary, falls instantly into Sosthenes’ verbal trap. This moral weakness is of course in tune with his connotation as the ‘villain of the story’. On this perspective, see Webb 2009, 183; Whitmarsh 2011, 170 ff.

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In my opinion, such daydreaming is precisely the kind of reaction that Greek novelists were expecting from their readers.

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Koortbojian, M. 2005. ‘Mimesis or Phantasia? Two Representational Modes in Roman Commemorative Art’, ClAnt 24, 285–306. Labarrière, J.-L. 1997. ‘Désir, phantasia et intellect dans le De anima, III, 9–11’, Les études philosophiques 1, 97–124. Lange, G. 1969. Bild und Wort. Die katechetischen Funktionen des Bildes in der griechischen Theologie des sechsten bis neunten Jahrhunderts, Würzburg: Echter-Verlag. Laplace, M. 1991. ‘Achilles Tatius Leucippé et Clitophon: des fables au roman de formation’, GCN 4, 35–56. Liatsi, M. 2003. ‘Zur Theorie der Traumfunktion bei Achilleus Tatios’, Hermes 131, 372–379. Liatsi, M. 2004. ‘Die Träume des Abrokomes bei Xenophon von Ephesos’, RhM 147, 151–171. Mac Alister, S. 1994. Dreams and Suicides. The Greek Novel from Antiquity to the Byzantine Empire, London and New York: Routledge. Manieri, A. 1998. L’immagine poetica nella teoria degli antichi. Phantasia ed enargeia, Rome and Pisa: Giardini. Morales, H. 2004. Vision and Narrative in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morgan, J. R. 1991. ‘Reader and Audience in the Aethiopika of Heliodorus’, GCN 4, 85–104. Morgan, J. R. 2007. ‘The Representation of Philosophers in Greek Fiction’, in: J. R. Morgan and M. Jones (eds.), Philosophical Presences in Greek Novels (Ancient Narrative, Suppl. 10), Elde: Barkhuis. 23–51. Nicolai, R. 1992. La storiografia nell’educazione antica, Rome and Pisa: Giardini. Nimis, S. 1998. ‘Memory and Description in the Ancient Novel’, Arethusa 31, 99–122. Nunez, L. 2004–2005. ‘Fantaisie d’une voix narrative: Heliodorus’, Incontri triestini di filologia classica 4, 81–97. Nussbaum, M. C. 1978. ‘The Role of Phantasia in Explanation of Action’, in: ead. (ed.), Aristotles’s De motu animalium, Princeton University Press: Princeton. 221–269. Papaioannou, S. 2010. ‘Byzantine Mirrors: Self-Reflection in Medieval Greek Writing’, DOP 64, 1–21. Pattoni, M. P. 2005. Longo Sofista, Dafni e Cloe, Milano: Rizzoli. Pizzone, A. M. V. 2006. Sinesio e la sacra ancora di Omero. Intertestualità e modelli tra retorica e filosofia, Milano: LED. Pizzone, A. M. V. 2009. ‘Ex epiboulês phantazesthai. Dal divino inganno di Timeo alla phantasia plotiniana’, Methexis 22, 127–150. Pizzone, A. M. V. 2011. ‘Sulle nere ali dei sogni: ambiguità onirica e romanzo bizantino. Costantino Manasse, Aristandro e Callitea, fr. 47’, ByzZ 103/2, 679–698. Plastira-Valkanou, M. 2001. ‘Dreams in Xenophon Ephesius’, SO 76, 137–149. Platt, V. 2009. ‘Virtual Visions: Phantasia and the Perception of the Divine in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana’, in: E. L. Bowie and J. Elsner (eds.), Philostratus, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 131–54. Platt V. 2011. Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature and Religion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pollitt, J. J. 1974. The Ancient View of Greek Art: Criticism, History, and Terminology, New Haven & London: Yale University Press. Reardon B. P. 1989. Collected Ancient Greek Novels. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press. Renger, A. B. 2005. ‘Geschichte eines Topos: Von μῦθοι γραῶν/τιτθῶν über fabulae aniles/ nutricularum zu “Altweibergeschwätz” und “Ammenmärchen”’, in: W. Kofler and K. Töch-

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terle (eds.), Pontes III. Die antike Rhetorik in der europäischen Geistgeschichte, Innsbruck, Wien and Bozen: Studien Verlag. 64–76. Rispoli, G. M. 1985. L’artista sapiente. Per una storia della fantasia, Guida: Napoli. Rist, J. M. 2001. ‘Plutarch’s Amatorius: A Commentary on Plato’s Theories of Love?’, CQ 51, 557–575. Saïd, S. 1997. ‘Oracles et devins dans le roman grec’, in: J.-G. Heintz (ed.), Oracles et prophéties dans l’antiquité, Paris: de Boccard. 367–403. Sassi, M. M. 2007. ‘Aristotele fenomenologo della memoria’, in: ead. (ed.), Tracce nella mente. Teorie della memoria da Platone ai moderni, Pisa: Edizioni della Scuola Normale. 25–46. Silverman, A. 1991. ‘Plato on phantasia’, ClAnt 16, 129–132. Tanner, J. 2005. The Invention of Art History in Ancient Greece, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thein, K. 2002. ‘Gods and Painters: Philostratus the Elder, Stoic Phantasia and the Strategy of Describing’, Ramus 31, 136–45. Veloso, C. W. 2004. ‘Phantasia et mimesis chez Aristote’, REA 106, 455–476. Watson, G. 1988. Phantasia in Classical Thought, Galway: Galway University Press. Watson, G. 1994. ‘The Concept of “Phantasia” from the Late Hellenistic Period to Early Neoplatonism’, ANRW II.36–37. 4765–4810. Webb, R. 1997. ‘Imagination and the Arousal of the Emotions in Greco-Roman Rhetoric’, in: S. Morton Braund and C. Gill (eds.), The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 112–127. Webb, R. 2009. Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice, Burlington: Ashgate. Whitmarsh, T. 2007. Review of E. P. Cueva, The Myths of Fiction. Studies in the Canonical Greek Novels (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004), Ancient Narrative 5, 117–124. Whitmarsh, T. 2011. Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel. Returning Romance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zimmermann, B. 1999. ‘Poetische Bilder. Zur Funktion der Bildbeschreibung im griechischen Roman’, Poetica 31, 61–79.

Anton Bierl

From Mystery to Initiation: A Mytho-Ritual Poetics of Love and Sex in the Ancient Novel – even in Apuleius’ Golden Ass? Abstract: As far as myth and ritual are concerned, we have only recently witnessed a hermeneutical shift from R. Merkelbach’s allegorizing view of the novel as a mystery text to the paradigm of initiation where young people experience the rite of passage to adulthood. On the basis of a new bio-ritual, psycho-anthropological model, it will be argued that the ancient novels, which are built on traditional wondertales, focus upon, rework, revolve around and help to overcome the central crisis of puberty, very often from the vantage point of the girl. The change of focus will be explored through Apuleius’ Golden Ass, a rather atypical novel that, due to Lucius’ initiation into the secret rites of Isis in Book 11, has served as the model for mystery interpretation until now. However, despite all the differences from the ideal romances, Apuleius, too, deals with the crucial threshold of adolescence. It will be shown that Lucius, the young protagonist, acts out his male obsessions with love and sexuality, while the narration is similar to a dream sequence on the level of a fairy-tale folk structure. Furthermore, the ‘girl’s tragedy’ coming of age is also debated through the medium of the ass: within the texture of the narrative the sexual nightmare is particularly highlighted in Charite’s drama, which is again refracted in the inlay tale of Cupid and Psyche.

Theoretical Introduction to Myth and Ritual in the Novel Religion, myth and ritual are ubiquitous features of the novel. Everywhere, we meet reflections of ancient myths, cults and mysteries. Reading the novels, we come across theological syncretism, epiphanies and integrations of the traditional and the new, foreign gods, superstition, magic, oracles and visions.1 The meaning of these discourses depends on the modern definitions which we apply.

1 See Bierl 2007 and Zeitlin 2008. For Apuleius, see Harrison 2007.

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Myth and ritual tend to be seen in a universalizing, totalizing and reductionist manner. When considering religion in the novel, different readings tend to be applied. Either (1) the novel is used as a source for the history of religion, and a serious religious intention is postulated, a good example in this respect being Reinhold Merkelbach’s allegorizing view of the novels as ‘mystery texts’2 which provide literary entertainment only ‘on the surface level’, while their ‘deeper meaning’3 would have been understood only by initiates. According to this approach, literature serves to convey an extra-literary content,4 and religion is thus the serious intention or message of the genre.5 Alternatively (2) these elements are interpreted as being only material within the imaginative plot.6 To some extent, I share the latter position. First of all, we have to recognize the interpenetration and interdependence of literature and religion.7 Myth and rituals serve, according to Stephen Greenblatt, as centers of ‘circulation of social energy’,8 and become, according to Gerhard Neumann, ‘generators of patterns of action and narration in poetic texts.’9 As a megatext, they are part of a cultural machine which constantly brings forward new forms by variation and combination. Everybody refers to them, and all literary and aesthetic concretisations constantly debate, affirm, reshape and undermine these discourses. In order to yield new insights, one has to realize that myth and ritual are modes of expression that mediate binary opposites. We have to build on more flexible models which include performance, reception, folktale and magical wondertale, cultural studies, biology and narration, as Margaret Alexiou (2002) refreshingly does. For my new eclectic and holistic approach to the ancient novel, I have learnt much from her. Metaphors and metonymies are interrelated with ritual and myth and serve as their vehicle.10 A metaphor can generate a ritual by putting in motion other

2 Merkelbach 1962, esp. the Preface; 1988; 1995. 3 Merkelbach 1962, 90, 125 n. 2, 295, 298; 1995, 335–339, esp. 337–338; see also 1988, 4, 138–139. 4 See Merkelbach 1962; 1988; 1995. See also Kerényi 1927; for a mediating position, see Beck 1982, who identifies the mysterious with the quest for salvation. Reardon 1991, 169–180 suggests that socio-political, psychological and religious factors are responsible. For a typological and ‘allegorical’ modern-life mythology, see Dowden 2005. 5 For Apuleius, see e.g. Dowden 1998. 6 Winkler 1982; 1985. 7 Bierl 2007. 8 Greenblatt 1988, 1–20. 9 Neumann 2000, 19. 10 See Alexiou 2002, esp. 317–319.

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metaphors which are activated by similarity or contiguity.11 Metaphors and rituals refer to action. Due to their iconic qualities, metaphors understood literally can be transformed in action and narration. They are movers and shifters which trigger actions: ‘Metaphor shapes ritual (conventional action), just as ritual gives body to metaphor.’12 Myths often have to do with dreams and resort to the fantastic, the uncanny and the miraculous. Myth and ritual generate the material of the ancient novel – both the ideal Greek novel of love and adventure and the more parodic and satirical Latin novel. Both have to be associated with the imaginary and fantastic.13 And the dividing line between the ideal and the satirical novel is much more transparent than has been assumed. Even in ideal Greek novels, we find breaches of the norm, parodic and ironic twists, and comic perspectives. Myth and ritual also underlie the oral forms of folktale and popular stories. With the dominance of literacy, oral and performative elements of myth and ritual do not disappear, as one normally assumes, but are transformed and live on. In the novel they have the same functions of dealing with, playing with, affirming, undermining, deferring and transferring threatening elements in order to better cope with life. Myth and ritual therefore have many elements in common with novels which occur less frequently or typically in other forms of literature: violence, terror, miracles, contact with gods, heroes, the super- and supranatural, excess, excrements, corporeal fluids, food, sex, the foreign or the ‘Other.’14 By entering into this world of the ‘Other’ – and by ‘emerging from it’ – the novel shares with myth and ritual the structure of the rite de passage. Only quite recently has there been a shift away from reading novels as mystery texts – in exaggerated allegorical readings à la Merkelbach, who has always met with considerable scepticism – to interpreting them in terms of the initiation of age groups. The underlying theme of a rite de passage seems to be so obvious that it is astonishing that it has only been associated with the novel within the last few years.15 One can, however, postulate a structural and perhaps even a genetic affinity between the two paradigms of religion and of a rite de passage. The tripartite pattern of action detected by Arnold van Gennep (separation, liminality, reintegration) forms the basis of almost all stories.16 Thus, there

11 See Fernandez 1977; 1986; 1991. 12 Alexiou 2002, 318, and, in general, 317–410. 13 See Alexiou 2002, 211–314. 14 Alexiou 2002, 317–348. 15 See now Lalanne 2006 and Bierl 2007. For the initiation structure of the novel, see Burkert 1987, 66–67; Whitmarsh 1999; Dowden 1999; 2005. 16 Gennep 1960. For Apul. Met., see Habinek 1990.

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is a certain danger that such a pattern might be used as a passe par tout.17 In the love novel, it is almost self-evident: boys and girls act in their years of puberty, and the goal – the telos – of their initiation story, is marriage.18 Both youths are introduced into adulthood through the celebration of wedlock. In the discourse of the love novel, we see a separation from the former condition of life, a transition, while travelling through the world of the ‘Other’, and then a return into society. However, even in this new ritual paradigm, we find again a tendency to project serious intentions onto the texts: the novel is read as a means of paideia, as a Bildungsroman.19 The first monograph to advance the initiation thesis, the recent work by Sophie Lalanne, understands the novel as a historical and socio-political source. According to her, these fictional texts served the Greek elites in Asia Minor by redefining their identity under the domain of Rome: they provided a medium for self-assertion and gender-modelling.20 From such a perspective, we are again in danger of forgetting the special status of literature, the alteritive character of the novel. Therefore, I want to focus on the literary, ritual and ironic aspects, as well as the playful and imaginary character of these texts based on puberty rites. In what follows, I would like to introduce a new model for reading the ancient novel, using a ritual and mythical poetics linked to puberty initiation. I contend that both discourses – the religious modes of expression, and the novel, based on orally transmitted traditional wondertales – focus upon, rework, circulate around, retract and help to overcome the central crisis of marriage as well as of the discovery of sexuality. This is very often presented from the vantage point of the girl. Novels as well as popular Greek stories deal with these issues in a dreamlike manner in positive and negative ways. Fears, nightmares of monsters and scenarios of blood and sacrifice are mingled with euphoric phantasies. Love, thus, becomes decisive for the genre. Very young adolescents are the protagonists. The objective, or telos, of the fictions is marriage, but between the frame of a beginning and an ending, we find the young lovers during their phase of marginality in a loop of destabilizing thoughts and adventures in liminal spaces.21 This means that behind the novelistic plots and traditional tales, we see a ‘biological track’, a psycho-anthropological basis.22 We have to do with the ‘maiden’s tragedy’, but less in the sense of Walter Burkert, who tries to establish a

17 18 19 20 21 22

See Versnel 1993, 51–74. See also Bierl 2001, index s.v. ‘Hochzeit’. E.g. Morgan 1996; Lalanne 2006. Lalanne 2006, 183–274. Bierl 2007 (with a summary of the indicative themes and motifs of initiation, 265–276). See Neumann 2007; 2010.

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structural program of action in these terms,23 than as a loose set of motifs which can be freely associated in various combinations. Love and the irritating sentiments connected with it are the motor of the genre. Erotic feelings, as disease and nosos, express desire. The sense of absence gives way to miraculous fantasies of loss, fear, sexual threats by third parties, death and rebirth; they are transformed into stories of separation, sacrifice, rape and violence. In a Lacanian sense, the quintessential absence, the deep longing, leads to a gliding concatenation of signifiers in a metaphorical and metonymical process.24 In modern Greek culture, such wondertales are called paramíthia, stories that go in between, transform, transgress and, by telling, provide paramythía, relief, reassurance and consolation.25 I would argue that for the ancient love novel, the erotic discourse as a texture of literature and narrative is constitutive and dominant. Love and sex set the parameters of the genre.26 The ritual poetics of the novel, where puberty initiation functions as a sort of master discourse, is based on love, since the adolescents become aware of the feeling of love, are affected by intense erotic bewilderment as if by disease and pathos, and have to find a means of coping with it. Marriage, as telos, is the happy ending: love has to be transformed into socially acceptable forms of cohabitation. The severe crisis of sudden puberty and the awakening of erotic feeling, of menstruation and potential pregnancy, is acted out as a pathological experience of the ‘Betwixt and Between.’27

Apuleius’ Golden Ass – an Atypical Novel? I have begun to analyze the main Greek novels in other places on the premises of such a new bio-ritual approach.28 An interesting test case is the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, an atypical representative of the genre, insofar as it is a non-ideal, Latin, and a rather satirical novel. In the standard love novel, the arousal of interest results in the act of falling in love, while in further novel-like textual productions, i.e. the so-called fringe novels, such a pothos can also be presented as curiosity, desire for knowledge, justice, piety, or mystery-like

23 24 25 26 27 28

Burkert 1996, 69–79 (on the model of Psyche in Apul. Met.). Bierl 2006; 2007, 244–245. Alexiou 2002, 151–171, esp. 162–167, 211–265; Bierl 2007, 255–258. Bierl 2002; 2006; 2007. Turner 1967, 93–111. Bierl 2006; 2007.

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knowledge.29 Apuleius has partly worked within this tradition. Curiosity is a key issue in the plot construction of the Golden Ass.30 To advocate an interpretative paradigm shift from mystery to initiation is perhaps the more striking, since, due to Lucius’ initiation into the mysteries of Isis in Book 11, the Metamorphoses has until now been the model par excellence for any serious religious interpretation of mystery initiation. Merkelbach took Apuleius as the starting point for his Roman und Mysterium,31 and many critics have considered the novel either as serious, religious propaganda or as a story of conversion.32 Jack Winkler (1985, esp. 204–247), however, shattered this reading and replaced it with a postmodern openness, while Stephen Harrison (2000, 210–259) pleads for an explicitly satirical interpretation of the last book as well.33 Nonetheless, the decisive question remains, how to link Book 11 with Books 1 to 10.34 In what follows, I will argue that the connection runs over clusters of images, over a web of metaphors and metonymies within the basic realm of love.35 In the ideal novels (the ‘Big Five’), too, the themes of religion, philosophy, myth and mystery have been used to convey dignity and grandeur.36 In the vein of authors of the Second Sophistic, the novelists want to display their knowledge. The pepaideumenoi tend to elevate corporeal love and base sexual instinct to something sacred, to associate it with the initiation into mysteries, with alignment to and convergence with mythical beauties and ritual contexts.37 In many respects, the Golden Ass is an atypical novel. It does not begin with an experience of love at first sight, there is scarcely a couple, apart from Lucius and Photis – and even this love episode is more instrumental than central; there is no intense feeling between them, but only a physical relationship. The usual oath of mutual faithfulness is also missing. The long Apuleian text consists not only of one clear-cut plot, but also of many inserted tales.38 We are familiar with this feature through Xenophon or Longus, but in Apuleius, the entire story is

29 Compare the so-called fringe novels, the utopian travel narratives, the novel-like fictional biography, and the early Christian novel-like literature; for this see Holzberg 1995, 11–26. 30 Schlam 1992, 48–57. 31 Merkelbach 1962, 1–90; 1995, 266–303, 417–484. 32 See Shumate 1996, esp. 285–328; Bradley 1998. 33 See also Mal-Maeder 1997. 34 Hidden and profound, deeper allegorical meaning: e.g. Merkelbach 1962, 1–90; 1995, 266– 303, 417–484; Walsh 1970, 176–184; Griffiths 1978; Sandy 1978. No real unity and clumsy addition: e.g. Perry 1967, 242–245. 35 See now Krabbe 2003: on love, sex and food, 149–216; on love, the ass and religion, 437–471. 36 Bierl 2007, esp. 256, 260–262, 289, 306. 37 Harrison 2000, esp. 220–235. 38 Tatum 1969.

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presented as a web of different interwoven stories for the sake of entertainment. The longest inserted story is the bella fabella (6,25,1), the novella of Amor and Psyche told exactly at the center of the longer narrative (4,28–6,25).39 Although there is no real couple, and no separation is resolved in reunion and marriage in this novel, Apuleius nevertheless plays, in all respects, with the canonical norms of the genre. The ideal love novel is a tropological manifestation of love, which is constituted by a typical experience of absence. In the Metamorphoses, this is projected onto a spatial axis as a series of terrible dangers and syntagmatically transferred onto episodes of robbery, victimization, violence, death, shipwreck and fire. The emptiness, the yearning for the absent person, is thus externalized and unfolds in space.40 In contrast to the ‘ideal’ motifs, the narrative begins with a journey, and with an emphasis on the miraculous and magic; curiosity makes the protagonist anxious to experience wonders in Thessaly, the country of witches par excellence. The journey of adventures with attacks by robbers does not extend over the oikoumene,41 but is restricted to a small circuit between Corinth and Thessaly. The usual trip over the sea, in combination with shipwrecks and amorous misadventures, violence and apparent deaths, are all missing. In Apuleius, the dream-like wanderings resemble more an inner nightmare once Lucius has been transformed into the form of an ass. In this disguise, the young man becomes a witness of the corrupted morals of humanity. He is beaten, maltreated by robbers and his owners alike, and he observes human sexual perversion firsthand. At the end, there is no anticipated reunion. Instead, we hear about an initiation into the mysteries of Isis and Osiris in Cenchreae and Rome. The longing for sex and magic is projected onto a desire for a mystic union with a goddess and religious mysteries.42 The perspective is often satirical, the text often looks like a distanced comment on the world, and the identity of the author somehow merges with that of the protagonist. Apart from the differences, however, we also have here many things in common with the ideal love novel. Apuleius, too, deals with the important biographical threshold of puberty which was ritually acted out in ancient Greece as a special turning point in life.43 The fictional text mirrors exactly this liminal experience and the sexual situation of a ‘Betwixt and Between’. Suppressed fears

39 See e.g. Binder and Merkelbach 1968; Neumann 1979; Mantero 1973; Fehling 1977; Schlam 1993; Dowden 1998. 40 See Bierl 2006. 41 For robbers, love, folklore and initiation, see Alimonti 1986. 42 Bierl 2010. 43 See Dowden 1999; Lalanne 2006; Bierl 2007.

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and pathe are acted out in a kind of dream sequence on the level of a fairy-tale folk structure.44 In the Metamorphoses we find many of the features we have spoken about above. The hero Lucius is a young man on the threshold of adulthood. He is shy, almost girlish (de ista corporis speciosa habitudine deque hac virginali prorsus verecundia 1,23,3; see 2,2,7–9), but with an interest in miracles and magic. The latter plays a decisive role. Magic is the link to religion, to Isis and her mysteries in Book 11, as well as to love and sex, and, last but not least, to metamorphosis, which is foregrounded already in the title. Every detail is subordinated to love. The witches are lewd and voluptuous females who yearn for young men. For their charms and incantations they need magical materials, particularly fingernails, body parts, hair from their victims or from other male persons, even from corpses. They try to cast sexual spells on young men with their love enchantments (agogai). In real life, such practices were accomplished by males in order to win over and bind women. In literature, this relationship is proverbially reversed.45 Isis is the divine mistress of all magic. Beyond that, she constantly creates connections on all levels, in language and ritual. Magic and mysteries presuppose a special closeness to the gods, and their practitioners have very direct contact with the divine.46 We can see already how the twist in Book 11 has a thematic link. Moreover, magic itself has to do with metamorphosis – the lewd Pamphile changes shape into a bird in order to reach her lovers. Changes from humans into animals occur repeatedly. Transformation and manipulation of forms is an integral element of the primarily miraculous oral folktale, and conforms to the norms of the paramithia.47 In these tales, the metaphors are movers and shifters, the borders between every classification are fluid – between hero and villain, good and evil, man, animal and plant. Such continuous oscillation moves the web of the narrative by means of metaphors and metonymies from one episode to the next. Metamorphosis itself can also be understood as an image of the fundamental transition from adolescent to adult. The folktale of the ass transformed in literature acts out the most critical phase in the life of every man.48 The crisis of adolescence in the experience of girls is also reflected and debated, through the

44 For the dream-like element in Apul. Met., see Winkler 1985, 9; Franz 1980, 13, 60; in Xen. Eph. and in the novel in general, Bierl 2006, esp. 82–93; 2007, 245. For Apul. Met., see e.g. Annequin 1996; Hunink 2006. 45 Graf 1997, 175–204. 46 Graf 1997, 96–117. On magic and love, see Schlam 1992, 67–81. 47 For metamorphosis in modern Greek tales, see Alexiou 2002, 249–253. 48 See e.g. Mantero 1973; Schlam 1993 (Fehling 1977 is exaggerated), and in general Alexiou 2002.

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medium of the ass: within the texture of the narrative, we observe this experience particularly in Charite’s drama, which is again refracted in the tale of Cupid and Psyche. The interpenetration of stories, themes and images in a wonderful act of weaving and sewing together of tales (varias fabulas conseram 1,1,1) is held together by the common theme of initiation, by the treatment of this fundamental crisis of liminality.49 Sex, magic and metamorphosis serve as image and text generators. Strangely enough, hardly anybody has really seen this.50 This might be due to the apparent disjunction between Books 1–10 and Book 11, as well as to the distorting parodic, satirical, and sometimes slightly moralistic perspective. I want to stress the aspect of narrative texture in the Golden Ass and in all similar folktales. By listening to and reading such mythic paramithia, which move between the various possible categories, we find a certain consolation. The telling is in itself a sort of ritual act of staging, confronting and dealing with this crisis. It reminds people of their own liminal adolescence. The para-mithi provides consolation (paramythía) (solaretur 4,24,2) and, through images, themes and symbols, succeeds in deferring the opposites of true and fictitious/miraculous, written and oral.51 In this novel everything is sexualized.52 Twisters and shifters move the narration along the trajectory in a permanent interweaving process. By performative strategies of involving, embracing and including the listener and reader, the ritual effect is enhanced. At the same time, the perspective is sometimes inverted by comic upside-down techniques. The central metamorphosis of the hero into an ass has to be understood primarily in sexual terms. The ass is a phallic animal,53 and thus the adolescent man is ‘reduced’ to the consciousness of his phallus, and acts out his hypertrophied sexuality through this image. The focus of the narration

49 See Papaioannou 1998. 50 A slight exception is Dowden 1982, 342 (centering on puberty initiation in Cupid and Psyche, but in allegorical terms). Some hints of an application of the initiation paradigm can be found in the interpretation of the fable of Cupid and Psyche by non-literary scholars, particularly by representativs of depth psychology and folklore analysis, esp. à la Propp; in most cases these approaches are idiosyncratic, origin-centered, archetypical and too narrowly focussed. See Neumann 1979; Hoevels 1979, 230–286; Franz 1980, esp. 84 (‘typisches Stadium eines verzögerten Pubertätsüberganges’). See also Alimonti 1986. From a broader, holistic perspective, Alexiou 2002; Neumann 2010. For a view on the sexually based motifs, see Puccini-Delbey 2003 (but with an allegorical, moralistic and philosophical twist). 51 See Alexiou 2002, 152–155. 52 Thiel 1971, 203–204; Schlam 1992, 67–81; Puccini-Delbey 2003, 15–160. 53 Winkler 1985, 174. For a phallic interpretation and a psychological view on masculinity (‘male fear of being debased into the penis’ 118), see Doody 1996, 117–121.

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makes this evident. Lucius is transformed into his sexual organ and witnesses or participates in many sexual episodes. Initially, he only looks on as human beings copulate, but then, he becomes increasingly involved himself in sexual acts. He is accused of sexually harassing women, he tries to kiss and caress Charite, then he is threatened with castration, and finally he virtually reverts to his human identity – he has always remained a man behind the asinine disguise – and has intercourse with a lady, whereupon he is scheduled to perform again in public with a woman criminal in the theater. Yet, like many of Apuleius’s symbols and images, the donkey is also ambiguous and polyvalent. As many scholars have pointed out, the ass is also the symbol of Seth, the very enemy of Isis – thus, the retroactive and allegorical interpretation of Mithras (11,15,4–5) would be symbolically confirmed.54 At the same time, the ass often stands for inversion, for comic distortion, in particular in the realm of Dionysus, for stupidity and stubbornness.

Apuleius’ Golden Ass as a Test Case: A Bio-Ritual Close Reading Let us look more closely at the plot of the Golden Ass, taking a bio-ritual approach.55 We have seen that the story of Lucius is constructed on the model of the boy’s tragedy. In the time remaining to me now, I can only focus on the double inlay-story, the girl’s tragedy as reflected by Charite and Psyche. Situated at the center of the narrative, this story reflects the central theme in a complementary perspective. After being warned not to engage in magic and sex, Lucius indulges in both – he enjoys Photis and is transformed into an ass by the application of the wrong magical substance. He immediately falls into the hands of brigands – usually a metaphor for others’ sexual appetite for the heroine. The ass is maltreated by them, he has to carry their loot and is taken to the robbers’ nest high in the mountains. A drunken old woman serves them there. After the tragic deaths of three robbers is reported, other members of the gang return with a beautiful kidnapped victim (4,23), Charite, a virgin abducted just before her wedding, torn from the gremium of her mother (4,26). The girl is attractive – even for an ass (puellam mehercules et asino tali concupiscendam 4,23,3). The story reflects the crisis of the marriage. Charite is desperate and the old woman undertakes to

54 Winkler 1985, 306–315; Münstermann 1995, 36–37, 50–56. 55 See Neumann 2007.

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console her (4,24,1–2). In a dream, the girl relives her abduction from the wedding feast and sees her young husband killed by a robber (4,27). Now the anus really wants to console and distract her with a charming fairy tale (4,27,8), the tale of Cupid and Psyche (4,28–6,24). This inserted tale told at the second remove is a variation on and an analogous account of another girl’s tragedy.56 It is a ‘novel within the novel’ and again tells the story of a death-wedding (funereus thalamus 4,33,1).57 The youngest of three daughters is so beautiful that she is worshipped as Venus. Her beauty, the quintessential value and precondition for marriage of young girls, is problematized. Due to her excess of beauty, people assimilate her to the goddess of beauty and love. In the manner typical of novels, the real Venus is outraged and asks Cupid to ensure that the girl be seized by passion for the ugliest and most degrading man (4,31,3). All the men are eager to marry her, but no one dares to propose marriage because of her loveliness. In this unfortunate situation, her father consults the Milesian oracle of Apollo. The oracle says that she should be placed on a cliff and will marry a terrifying monster (4,33,1–2). Her parents comply with the oracle and she heroically accepts her destiny (4,34,3–6). On the cliff, no monster appears, but a gentle West wind carries her down to a blossoming valley. Every detail engages and plays with the psychological crisis of the girl at the liminal declivity of the wedding. Death and marriage are interrelated in ritual expressions. This cluster of images is transferred into the dense web of a story put in motion by shifters of metaphors and metonymies. She wakes up in a beautiful palace and is surrounded by voices which provide her with every comfort (5,1–3). At night, she hears a sweet murmur – she becomes afraid for her virginity and experiences terror (virginitati suae pro tanta solitudine metuens et pavet et horrescit et quovis malo plus timet quod ignorat 5,4,2). Yet, the mysterious husband (ignobilis maritus 5,4,3) comes, slips into her bed and takes her as his wife. It is rape, but the voices console her for her lost virginity. She becomes accustomed to the strange male who returns to her every night, and she feels pleasure (5,4,5). The first sexual encounter is associated with danger, risk and violence. The girl oscillates in her feelings between horror and attraction. Marriage also means separation from her family, which she misses. She asks her unknown husband to be allowed to see her sisters; at first he refuses, but then he allows her to receive them, on condition that she does not give in to their pressure to discover his identity. The sisters come to visit and become jealous, and when

56 See e.g. Binder and Merkelbach 1968; Neumann 1979; Mantero 1973; Fehling 1977; Schlam 1992, 82–98; 1993; Dowden 1982; 1998. 57 For the interpenetration of the motifs of death and marriage, see Alexiou 1974; Seaford 1987.

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they ask her about her husband, she describes him as a handsome young huntsman with downy cheeks (5,8,4) – the typical description of the ephebe on the verge to adulthood. The unseen bridegroom warns Psyche again and tells her about her pregnancy with a divine child. It is a secret she should keep to herself (5,11,5–6). The girl is happy about the consolation of a divine offspring and counts the days and months (5,12,1–2). She is proud and wonders about the biological miracle of her metamorphosis into a mother. Psyche asks herself how her womb could swell out so after a brief ‘pricking’ (de brevi punctulo 5,12,2). Amor repeats his warning. The sisters come again, and this time she tells them that her lover is an already grey merchant (5,15,4). The sisters lie to her that perhaps a huge serpent comes to sleep with her, and they remind her of the monster the Pythic oracle had mentioned; after the birth of the child, they say, she will be devoured (5,17,2–18,3). The young husband is turned into a dragon by means of such speculations. The pricking penetration might come from a serpent. She is again horrified (5,18,4). Does she really sleep with a monster? The sisters trick her into the fateful plan to hide a knife and an oil-lamp (5,20,1–2): while he is asleep after their nightly intercourse, she should light the lamp and cut off the head of the dragon. They will then help her to find a human husband (5,20,3–6). Torn by a storm of mixed feelings, she both hates and loves her mysterious partner (5,21,3–4). Yet, she decides to uncover the secret and look at his face. Then she sees that the alleged monster is really Cupid, and she gazes at his face and his splendid body (5,22). She sees his bow and arrows – metaphors of the sexual organ, and incautiously pricks her skin with one – another symbolic penetration. Now she irresistably falls in love with him (5,23,1–3). Bending over him, she lets fall a drop of the burning oil. He wakes up and prepares to leave her, she grabs his leg and flies with him over the clouds, but falls to earth (5,24,1). Amor is injured and burnt – love burns! He takes deadly revenge on the sisters. Venus, informed about everything, is furious with both of the lovers (5,28,7–5,30). All of these events rework the ambivalence of feelings of the liminal phase of puberty, the crisis of marriage and defloration, the sentiment of loss and desperation, love and the forging of a new bond, the feeling of not knowing enough about the identity of the partner, the horror and the attraction. And this ‘crisis’ is also reflected on the side of family – the sisters, and the mother. The sisters are potential rivals and could endanger the bond of marriage by infidelity. The mother – Venus – has to pardon her son. Psyche now searches for her lost lover in vain. Finally, she surrenders to Venus, who sets her almost impossible tasks. The final task is to go to the Underworld to get Proserpina’s box, which she succeeds in doing. Out of curiosity, she opens it and falls into a deadly sleep (6,21,1–2). Amor comes and rescues her and is finally allowed to marry her.

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Before her marriage, Psyche undergoes trials, confronts death, and accepts the consequences of beauty. Marriage is death – she has experienced this from the beginning. In a self-referential loop the story acts out the cultural images and psychological strains associated with marriage. Marriage and sex are linked with secrets. As soon as the girl breaks the taboo of sexuality, she ‘dies’, falls asleep and accepts her new role as wife and mother. Curiosity is a vice, but it is also necessary in order to cross thresholds in a rite de passage. On the wedding night, the Horae scatter roses over everything, the symbol of sex and love (6,24,3). Their daughter is Joy, Voluptas, a metonymy of Charite herself, Charm. This long inlay narrative weaves together all the motifs of the crisis of puberty initiation and mirrors the framing story of Charite and Tlepolemus. Psyche is not necessarily just an allegory of the soul reascending to heaven or an educated meditation on the Platonic soul,58 but rather a fairy tale reworking the psychological tribulations of girls at the transitional state of ‘Betwixt and Between’, the soul being exhaled (see 2,17,4) and fused with the lover on their first night of love. The ass listens to the story – like the reader, he is fascinated and drawn into the sphere of love. Being himself threatened with death by being thrown from a cliff, he decides to flee. The captive girl jumps on his back. The ass loves her at first sight, and with the pretence of scratching his back, he kisses the tender feet of the girl (6,28,2). The phallic animal loves again, while the beautiful girl, in the same manner as Photis (2,17,4), rides on him. The girl promises to caress and adorn the ass’s body, including his tail (6,28,5). Is the faithful and virtuous girl about to fall prey to the phallic animal? Or is it a new abduction from the altar? As a result of indecision at a crossroad – a symbol of sexual encounter and of a moralistic decision against it – the pair is recaptured, because the girl does not go where the lewd ass would like (6,29,6–7). A dire fate is planned for them: the ass is to be killed and disembowled, the naked girl will be sewn up in the carcass, and they will be exposed on a high mountain cliff (6,31,5–32,3). This is a gruesome union, a fantastic sexual interpenetration of the naked female and male bodies, an encounter with death with the heat of sun leading quickly to putresence and fetor. Furthermore, dogs and vultures will tear at the belly and the girl enclosed within it. This is another image of the sexual violence of others against the new pair. Corporeal images take over and scenes of sexual atrocities and inversions are woven into the tale. Later, he looks at his belly and imagines himself already ‘pregnant’ with the girl (7,4,1), as Psyche had contemplated her belly. This terrible plan is deferred by a stranger who claims to be the famous robber Haemus, also with downy cheeks (7,5,2), i.e. the young man on the threshold to adulthood.

58 Merkelbach 1962, 1–90; Münstermann 1995; Dowden 1998.

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Haemus, the supposed noble brigand, is told of the girl’s attempted escape on the back of the ass, but he advises the robbers to execute their vengeance instead by selling her to a brothel. Heroines sold as prostitutes are a common feature of the novel. This motif expresses the depths of female infidelity and sexual excess. In the perspective of the play-within-a-play, the girl becomes quite happy, so that to the ass, the entire female sex seems to be worth reprimanding (7,10,3), because it is as if she has only pretended to be the puella casta. However, Haemus turns out to be Tlepolemus, drugs the robbers, rescues the girl and puts her back on the ass (virginem asino triumphantem 7,13,2). The couple is married, but the catastrophe materializes which the girl has dreamt about previously. The ass is again mistreated, this time by the herdsman’s wife and by a cruel boy who uses him to collect wood. The boy tortures him with thorns and fire, metaphors of love. Interestingly, he also claims, apparently unreasonably, that Lucius would sexually assault any girl or boy (7,21). Although this scenario of sexual harassment is fabricated, the claim nevertheless has some truth in it. Apuleius uses the blunt language of sexual attack on the body. We have already witnessed the ass being sexually aroused by Charite, and later on, he will indeed have intercourse with a rich woman in Corinth. Since he is a man – an adolescent – behind the mask, he naturally desires women; his mind is reduced to phallic behavior and sex. The later course of events is ironically encapsulated and anticipated in the ‘false’ accusation. The boy wants to incite the other workers to agree on sacrificing the ass (7,22,1), but one of them suggests that it might be better just to castrate the lascivious animal. Exsectis genitalibus (7,23,2) – he would not sexually assault women any more; even wild stallions are tamed by such a procedure. The man goes to get his instruments (7,23,4), while the ass Lucius considers this a terrible punishment and laments that with the removal of his male organ he would die completely (in novissima parte corporis totum me periturum deflebam 7,24,1). We realize again that in his estimation, his identity lies, in effect, precisely in his phallus. At this point, a slave arrives and announces that Tlepolemus and Charite are dead. Thrasyllus, a ‘brave’ man, killed Tlepolemus on a boar hunt, a typical motif of initiation and ephebeia.59 The false friend hamstrung the horse carrying Tlepolemus – the horse is the metaphor for virility – he tried to protect his crura – and also his male parts – (8,5,10), but Thrasyllus struck his lance into his thigh; this is normally done by the boar.60 Tlepolemus, the man ‘who is good in suffering war’ ironically failed in his trial of initiation, in this case, after the wedding!

59 For a whole set of initiation motifs, see Bierl 2007, 274–276. 60 For an interpretation in terms of Isis, see Merkelbach 1962, 72–79.

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Thrasyllus pays court to the still grieving widow, again an attack on fidelity and marriage. He persists, and, after her husband has appeared to her in a dream, she fabricates a plot, letting in the evil man for a secret wedding. He should come into her darkened bedroom – which we may compare to the dark room of Psyche. For Thrasyllus, it becomes a scaena feralium nuptiarum (8,11,1) – an expression we also know from Psyche. Death at a wedding is an awful threat. Charite punishes him with the Oedipal revenge of hacking out his eyes (8,12,2–13,1). In recent decades, some critics have stressed the satiric and comic-parodic side even of Book 11. Indeed, the Golden Ass is not so much a triumph of religion; rather, from the perspective of an active young man full of desire for mirabilia, magic and sex, this ending is somehow ironic and bitter.61 Even after his retransformation into human form, he makes an ass of himself, being duped into religious dependence by still clinging to a dominant female figure, Isis, the goddess of magic and love. When we compare this with the ps.-Lucianian Onos, the probable epitome of a popular Greek novel and model for the Golden Ass, we recognize Apuleius’ innovation. The Onos merely reflects the fairy-tale level of basic human instincts: Lucius comes back to the rich lady and wants to repeat his sexual experience with her, but when she sees the small size of his penis, she loses interest in him and expels him. Under the influence of the Second Sophistic, which tended to an ostentatious display of learning, Apuleius wants to enrich this plot line with religious and philosophical meaning. However, behind this allegorizing coloring, we still detect the continuous web of motifs woven into a plot which has its roots in ordinary life and folk tale. It deals less with initiation into mystery cults than with pubescent initiation into adulthood. Within its surface structure, the Golden Ass debates, reworks and acts out the crisis of the liminal phase of adolescence. The texture of the plot interweaves images of the boy’s tragedy and the maiden’s tragedy and draws heavily on metaphors and metonymies which are all linked to this fundamental crisis of puberty. This interpretation, however, does not overlook the fact that Apuleius, as a religious man and philosophus Platonicus, enriches this bio-ritual plot with all sorts of allegorizing material. He applies such a polyvalent perspective in order to appropriate a higher meaning which he simultaneously deconstructs. He plays with and displays educated discourses by projecting the telos of initiation and of the sight of the eternal forms onto the substrata of the plot. These ideal and exalted goals can be reached only after a difficult ascent through a hierarchy of grades. And yet, the playful auctor pokes fun at an actor striving hard to reach a permanently deferred ideal of Love.

61 See Mal-Maeder 1997; Harrison 2000, 210–259.

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Bibliography Alexiou, M. 1974. The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, revised by D. Yatromanolakis and P. Roilos, Lanham et al.: Rowman & Littlefield 20022 (Cambridge 19741). Alexiou, M. 2002. After Antiquity. Greek Language, Myth, and Metaphor, Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press. Alimonti, T. 1986. ‘Letteratura e folclore: I latrones di Apuleio e i briganti di Propp’, CCC 7, 59–76. Annequin, J. 1996. ‘Rêve, roman, initiation dans les Métamorphoses d’Apulée’, DHA 22, 133–201. Beck, R. 1982. ‘Soteriology, the Mysteries, and the Ancient Novel: Iamblichus Babyloniaca as a Test-Case’, in: U. Bianchi and M. J. Vermaseren (eds.), La soteriologia dei culti orientali nell’impero romano, Leiden: Brill. 527–537. Bierl, A. 2001. Der Chor in der Alten Komödie. Ritual und Performativität (unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusen und der Phalloslieder fr. 851 PMG), Munich and Leipzig: Saur. Bierl, A. 2002. ‘Charitons Kallirhoe im Lichte von Sapphos Priamelgedicht (Fr. 16 Voigt). Liebe und Intertextualität im griechischen Roman’, Poetica 34, 1–27. Bierl, A. 2006. ‘Räume im Anderen und der griechische Liebesroman des Xenophon von Ephesos. Träume?’, in: A. Loprieno (ed.), Mensch und Raum von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Munich and Leipzig: Saur. 71–103. Bierl, A. 2007. ‘Mysterien der Liebe und die Initiation Jugendlicher. Literatur und Religion im griechischen Roman’, in: A. Bierl, R. Lämmle and K. Wesselmann (eds.), Literatur und Religion II. Wege zu einer mythisch-rituellen Poetik bei den Griechen, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 239–334. Bierl, A. 2010. ‘Antike Mysterien – ein Weg zur Vollkommenheit und die literarische Verarbeitung in Apuleius’ Metamorphosen’, in: A. Assmann and J. Assmann (eds.), Vollkommenheit (Archäologie der Literarischen Kommunikation X), Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. 83–106. Binder, G. and R. Merkelbach (eds.) 1968. Amor und Psyche, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Bradley, K. 1998. ‘Contending with Conversion: Reflections on the Reformation of Lucius the Ass’, Phoenix 52, 315–334. Burkert, W. 1987. Ancient Mystery Cults, Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard Press. Burkert, W. 1996. Creation of the Sacred. Tracks of Biology in Early Religions, Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Doody, M. A. 1996. The True Story of the Novel, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Dowden, K. 1982. ‘Psyche on the Rock’, Latomus 41, 336–352. Dowden, K. 1998. ‘Cupid & Psyche. A Question of the Vision of Apuleius’, in: M. Zimmerman, V. Hunink et al. (eds.), Aspects of Apuleius’ Golden Ass, II, Groningen: Egbert Forsten. 1–22. Dowden, K. 1999. ‘Fluctuating Meanings: ‘Passage Rites’ in Ritual, Myth, Odyssey, and the Greek Romance’, in: M. W. Padilla (ed.), Rites of Passage in Ancient Greece. Literature, Religion, Society, Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. 221–243. Dowden, K. 2005. ‘Greek Novel and the Ritual of Life: An Exercise in Taxonomy’, in: S. Harrison, M. Paschalis and S. Frangoulidis (eds.), Metaphor and the Ancient Novel (Ancient Narrative, Suppl. 4), Groningen: Barkhuis & Groningen University Library. 23–35. Fehling, D. 1977. Amor und Psyche. Die Schöpfung des Apuleius und ihre Einwirkung auf das Märchen, eine Kritik der romantischen Märchentheorie, Mainz: Franz Steiner Verlag.

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Fernandez, J. W. 1977. ‘The Performance of Ritual Metaphors’, in: J. D. Sapir and J. C. Crocker (eds.), The Social Use of Metaphor. Essays on the Anthropology of Rhetoric, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 100–131. Fernandez, J. W. (ed.) 1986. Persuasions and Performances. The Play of Tropes in Culture, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Fernandez, J. W. (ed.) 1991. Beyond Metaphor. The Theory of Tropes in Anthropology, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Franz, M.-L. von 1980. Die Erlösung des Weiblichen im Manne. Der goldene Esel von Apuleius in tiefenpsychologischer Sicht, Frankfurt a. M.: Insel Verlag. Gennep, A. van 1960. The Rites of Passage, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (French orig. Paris 1909). Graf, F. 1997. Magic in the Ancient World, translated by F. Philip, Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Greenblatt, S. 1988. Shakespearean Negotiations. The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Griffiths, J. G. 1978. ‘Isis in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius’, in: B. L. Hijmans Jr. and R. T. van der Paardt (eds.), Aspects of Apuleius’ Golden Ass, Groningen: Bouma’s Boekhuis. 141–166. Habinek, T. N. 1990. ‘Lucius’ Rite of Passage’, MD 25, 49–69. Harrison, S. J. 2000. Apuleius. A Latin Sophist, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harrison, S. 2007. ‘Parallel Cults? Religion and Narrative in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses and Some Greek Novels’, in: M. Paschalis, S. Frangoulidis, S. Harrison and M. Zimmerman (eds.), The Greek and the Roman Novel. Parallel Readings (Ancient Narrative, Suppl. 8), Groningen: Barkhuis & Groningen University Library 2007. 204–218. Hoevels, F. E. 1979. Märchen und Magie in den Metamorphosen des Apuleius von Madaura, Amsterdam: Rodopi. Holzberg, N. 1995. The Ancient Novel. An Introduction, translated by C. Jackson-Holzberg, London and New York: Routledge. Hunink, V. 2006. ‘Dreams in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, in: A. P. M. H. Lardinois, M. G. M. van der Poel and V. J. C. Hunink (eds.), Land of Dreams. Greek and Latin Studies in Honour of A. H. M. Kessels, Leiden and Boston: Brill. 18–31. Kerényi, K. 1927. Die griechisch-orientalische Romanliteratur in religionsgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 19733 (Tübingen: Mohr 19271). Krabbe, J. K. 2003. Lusus iste: Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, Dallas et al.: University Press of America. Lalanne, S. 2006. Une éducation grecque. Rites de passage et construction des genres dans le roman grec ancien, Paris: La Découverte. Mal-Maeder, D. van 1997. ‘Lector, intende: laetaberis. The Enigma of the Last Book of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, GCN 8, 87–118. Mantero, T. 1973. Amore e Psiche. Struttura di una ‘fabia di magia’, Genoa: Università di Genova. Merkelbach, R. 1962. Roman und Mysterium in der Antike, Munich and Berlin: Beck. Merkelbach, R. 1988. Die Hirten des Dionysos. Die Dionysos-Mysterien der römischen Kaiserzeit und der bukolische Roman des Longus, Stuttgart: Teubner. Merkelbach, R. 1995. Isis Regina – Zeus Sarapis. Die griechisch-ägyptische Religion nach den Quellen dargestellt, Munich and Leipzig: Saur 20012 (Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner 19951). Morgan, J. R. 1996. ‘Erotika Mathemata: Greek Romance as Sentimental Education’, in: A. H. Sommerstein and C. Atherton (eds.), Education in Greek Fiction, Bari: Levante editori. 163–189.

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Münstermann, H. 1995. Apuleius. Metamorphosen literarischer Vorlagen. Untersuchung dreier Episoden des Romans unter Berücksichtigung der Philosophie und Theologie des Apuleius, Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner. Neumann, E. 1979. Amor and Psyche. Deutung eines Märchens, Olten and Freiburg i. Br.: WalterVerlag (19711). Neumann, G. 2000. ‘Begriff und Funktion des Rituals im Feld der Literaturwissenschaft’, in: G. Neumann and S. Weigel (eds.), Lesbarkeit der Kultur. Literaturwissenschaften zwischen Kulturtechnik und Ethnographie, Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. 19–52. Neumann, M. 2007. ‘Die fünf Ströme des Erzählens. Zur Ökologie des Narrativen’, in: K. Eibl, K. Mellmann and R. Zymner (eds.), Im Rücken der Kulturen, Paderborn: Mentis Verlag. 373–394. Neumann, M. 2010. ‘Danae, Rapunzel und ihre Schwestern. Zu Walter Burkerts Konzept der Mädchentragödie’, in: A. Bierl and W. Braungart (eds.), Gewalt und Opfer. Im Dialog mit Walter Burkert, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 317–341. Papaioannou, S. 1998. ‘Charite’s Rape, Psyche on the Rock and the Parallel Function of Marriage in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, Mnemosyne 51, 302–324. Perry, B. E. 1967. The Ancient Romances. A Literary-Historical Account of their Origins, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Puccini-Delbey, G. 2003. Amour et désir dans les Métamorphoses d’Apulée, Brussels: Éditions Latomus. Reardon, B. P. 1991. The Form of Greek Romance, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sandy G. N. 1978. ‘Book 11: Ballast or Anchor?’, in: B. L. Hijmans Jr. and R. T. van der Paardt (eds.), Aspects of Apuleius’ Golden Ass, Groningen: Bouma’s Boekhuis. 123–140. Schlam, C. C. 1992. The Metamorphoses of Apuleius. On Making an Ass of Oneself, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Schlam, C. C. 1993. ‘Cupid and Psyche: Folktale and Literary Narrative’, GCN 5, 63–73. Seaford, R. 1987. ‘The Tragic Wedding’, JHS 107, 106–130. Shumate, N. 1996. Crisis and Conversion in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Tatum, J. 1969. ‘The Tales in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, TAPhA 100, 487–527 (repr. in: S. J. Harrison (ed.), Oxford Readings in the Roman Novel, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999, 157–194). Thiel, H. van 1971. Der Eselsroman, I. Untersuchungen, Munich: Beck. Turner, V. W. 1967. The Forest of Symbols. Aspects of Ndembu Ritual, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Versnel, H. S. 1993: Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion, II. Transition and Reversal in Myth and Ritual, Leiden et al.: Brill. Walsh, P. G. 1970. The Roman Novel. The Satyricon of Petronius and the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitmarsh, T. 1999. ‘The Writes of Passage. Cultural Initiation in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica’, in: R. Miles (ed.), Constructing Identities in Late Antiquity, London and New York: Routledge. 16–40. Winkler, J. J. 1982. ‘The Mendacity of Kalasiris and the Narrative Strategy of Heliodoros’ Aithiopika’, YClS 27, 93–158. Winkler, J. J. 1985. Auctor & Actor. A Narratological Reading of Apuleius’s Golden Ass, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford: University of California Press. Zeitlin, F. I. 2008. ‘Religion’, in: T. Whitmarsh (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 91–108.

Giovanni Solinas

From the Legend of Cupid and Psyche to the Novel of Mélusine: Myth, Novel and Twentieth Century Adaptations Abstract: The medieval legend of Mélusine is strongly linked to Greek and Latin literary imagination. This is not only because of the presence of the metamorphosis topic, but also due to a specific similarity with the myth of Cupid and Psyche, narrated in The Golden Ass of Apuleius. The article analyzes and compares the two stories and takes a brief look at the theme of Mélusine in two twentieth century authors: André Breton and the Italian poet Antonio Porta, author of Melusina. Una ballata e un diario (1987). Through this relationship between mythological and fictional contents of the Melusinian theme, the above mentioned writings might be considered as an outcome of the indirect influence exerted by the classical story of Cupid and Psyche in the following centuries. I will immediately put forward the hypothesis that lies at the basis of my interpretation. It is an objective fact that between the famous medieval tale of Mélusine and the fairy tale of Psyche and Cupid, exists a relationship of inverted reflection. Obviously that doesn’t mean they are identical, but there is a close relationship in their central motives, as well as in the specific ways of their narrative realization (I will briefly summarize the two stories in a moment). However, this connection between the two texts is not easy to demonstrate, as no document exists, to my knowledge, that states that only one of the versions of the tale of Mélusine recaptures explicitly the events told in Apuleius. Nevertheless, it is difficult to deny the profound link that relates the two legends, and I believe that it is possible to consider the medieval fairy tale as one way in which the principal thematic links and the significant symbols of the Latin fairy tale have developed: a development in which mythological suggestions, elements from popular stories and old novels became inter-mixed. All of these elements were drawn not only from the Greek and Latin worlds but also from the area of the Celtic culture. Following the destiny of the character of Mélusine, therefore, also means following – although indirectly – the route, the re-adjustments and the remakings of the story of Apuleius. This represents a particular way of observing the still radical presence of the imaginary related to the myth of Cupid and Psyche in the years up to now. In order to do this, I shall next present two recent twentieth century re-elaborations, examples of the numerous re-adaptions of the story of Mélusine.

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To demonstrate the tight relationship between the two tales, I need to trace the figure of the fairy Mélusine back to a Greek and/or Latin cultural sphere. There are different ways to show the relationship. The first is by tracing the origin of the name: there are several hypotheses made by scholars which look into the origins of the name of Mélusine. Among these are those which trace it back to the area of Lusingnan,1 where the fairy named Mélusine appeared for the first time, and others which show a link to Celtic origins,2 but probably more convincing are those which trace it back to the Latin language. Particularly worthy of attention, it seems to me, is that which derives the name ‘Mélusine’ from the epithet ‘mater Lucina’ or ‘mala Lucina’.3 Juno was called Lucina when she was invoked as a divinity that presided over birth. To reinforce the connection it is important to note the central place that the theme of maternity has in the story of Mélusine. Secondly, the strong likeness of the fairy to some famous mythological figures pushes us to consider a link between Mélusine and the Greek-Roman world. The obvious similarity between the medieval fairies and the sirens – Mélusine is a figure of water and sky4 – scarcely needs to be mentioned. The fairies, like the sirens, are above all singing beings and their sphere of action is that of seduction.5 Other female characters also exist in Greek mythology, which are like Mélusine in their stories. I will limit myself to mentioning just two of these,6 both of whom are telluric: Echidna, a being, half nymph and half monstrous serpent, who lives in a cave a long way away from mortal men and the immortal gods, feeding on raw meat; Lamia, the beautiful mortal lover of Zeus, who becomes queen of the Laestrygones. Hera is jealous of her, and because of this she kills nearly all of Zeus’s and Lamia’s children, after which Lamia hides 1 That is, we could identify the fairy with a sort of local divinity, the protector of the family of Lusignan. See Markale 1983, 114 and Lecouteux 1989, 28. 2 Markale 1983, 114 notes how Henry Dontenville sees a relationship between the first three letters of the name Lusignan and the names of the Celtic divinity Lug, which ‘a donné effectivement le nom à quantité de localités, des Luzy notamment, des Lyon, Loudun, Laon et Leyde, pour ne parler que des principaux.’ See also Lecouteux 1989, 35. 3 ‘Il semblerait bien que le deuxième élément du nom soit celui de la déesse romaine Lucine, cognomen donné a Junon quand elle fait fonction d’accoucheuse. Par contre, le premier terme est discutable’ (Markdale 1983, 129). 4 Several textual and iconographic references, from the Greek age or Hellenistic, not only do they attribute to the Sirens a double nature, aquatic and human, but they also describe a double, successive metamorphosis: that led them, before becoming women-fish, to transform into beings similar to birds, or at least winged. See Bettini and Spina 2007, 55–61 and Clier-Colombani 1991b, 101–105. 5 Also the Nymph, another supernatural female and aquatic being, has very similar characteristics to the others two. See Harf-Lancner 1989, 9–17. 6 See Markale 1983, 133–142 and Clier-Colombani 1991b, 94–97.

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herself in a deep cave, where she becomes a monstrous being, who is greedy for newborn humans. Once again, we confront a reference to birth, and there is a strong connection not only between the figure of Lamia and that of Mélusine but also between the characteristics of their children: both women give birth to monstrous beings. There are other parallels: for example the connection between the Mélusine legend and other mythological tales that have undergone a literary and cultural treatment, e.g. the Ovidian tale in which the nymph Salmacis causes the double sexuality of Hermaphrodite.7 But it may be more appropriate, at this point, to abandon outside references, to go directly into the matter and to try to illustrate the extreme proximity of the two tales, a proximity that may alone represents a strong argument in favor of a direct relationship between the two texts. Here is a brief summary of the story of Mélusine as told in its best known version, the medieval romance of Jean d’Arras: Mélusine meets the cavalier Raymond on the banks of the ‘fountain of the Fairy’ in the forest of Coulombiers, where she finds Raymond wandering, feeling sorry because he has just accidentally killed his uncle, while they were hunting. Mélusine saves him from his desperation by seducing him; she offers to marry him and promises that, if he accepts her proposal of marriage, she will make him rich and powerful. There is however a condition which must be respected: the cavalier has to give up almost all contact with his lady, and above all not see Mélusine on Saturday night, during which she transforms into a Siren. Her husband obviously doesn’t know her secret, and he respects this taboo. The breaking of the pact would signify a permanent separation. The marriage goes ahead, and the next few years see prosperity and the birth of ten children. The central part of the tale deals with the events of war (and victory) that keep them busy, but the story then returns to Raymond and Mélusine. Spurred on by his jealous brother, the cavalier goes against the prohibition, he spies on Mélusine during her transformation, and after just a few days she flies away in the form of a dragon. Before disappearing she flies around the castle three times, letting out a mournful scream when passing the window. The apparition vanishes and with it the prosperity and happiness. However her children stay with the man. From time to time Mélusine returns, at night, never seen by her husband or anyone else, to see her children. This continues over the following years, and every time the castle changes owners she reappears on the tower of the fortress three days beforehand. Apart from the fact that there is a fundamental inversion, in that here the human is male, the fabula of Mélusine, in its central part follows perfectly the

7 Ovid, Metamorphoses 4,285–388.

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outline of the folk tale of Cupid and Psyche: love between a supernatural being and a mortal; the union of the two conditioned by a taboo, linked to the nature of the supernatural being; the breaking of the pact; the escape of the supernatural being. Not only is there a similarity between the individual motives or the iconographic features of the characters, but also the whole narrative string is identical: that is, the whole combination of motives and the sequence of basic elements of the tales. The events occur in the two stories in the same order. Naturally, the similarity doesn’t demonstrate anything from a philological point of view: the two legends are historically very distant, and even though they use the same reasons and identical functions, this doesn’t allow us to be sure that one has taken directly from the other. However, I believe that we can put aside the question of the transmission and philological reconstruction; firstly because, although it would be interesting to determine an exact parentage, I do not have the expertise to do this; secondly because I think it is justifiable to put forward a different idea that goes past, or simply alongside, the historical reconstruction. So, I propose to follow the theory of Claude Bremond (1985), who suggests a particular way of interpreting tales that have an identical narrative structure, even if they belong to different legendary areas: the basic framework of each tale is the same while each version has its own variations. That is to say, the base outline remains the same (to take the example of Bremond: a young woman loses something, e.g. a lock of her hair by a river; then downstream it is picked up by a king, who sends his men to seize the woman), but the particulars change, that is the superficial narrative details that make the story unique: a ring instead of a lock of hair, a queen instead of a king, an ocean instead of a river, etc. Therefore, it is the scholar who must identify the common facts and the similarities, to arrive at the core framework of the different tales. In doing so (s)he decides, or chooses, that all these variations belong to a unique thematic type. And it is exactly one of these thematic types that I believe unites Cupid and Psyche not only to The Beauty and the Beast, but also to Mélusine. I would now like to move on to the twentieth century re-interpretations of the Mélusine tale. In the legend of Mélusine and the Cavalier, one of the fundamental motives is that of irreconcilability: the impossibility of the complete and unconditional life together for the human and the supernatural lovers, arising from the fact that, from the beginning, the former is forbidden full knowledge of the latter. The existence of this restriction, of this constant, unavoidable limit and distance, present in the shared lives of the two lovers, shows itself completely in their final separation. It seems like the story of Mélusine suggests that the two beings were not destined to live together. Their union was undermined by a veto, and their separation, the final disappearance of Mélusine, is the natural consequence of the fateful, overwhelming impossibility of living together. The cavalier loses Mélu-

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sine, the dream vanishes and with it the illusion of gaining a higher life, or, if you want, the possession of the mystery, from which man is prohibited. Both Breton and Porta strongly accentuate this element; but it seems even more relevant that in both stories the motifs provide above all a starting point to reflect on the idea of time and of renewal and re-birth. Let us start with Arcane 17, by André Breton. In his work of 1944, he mixes an account of a journey with a political-philosophical pamphlet, a prophetic-allegoric vision with the writing of the dreamlike imagination typical of the surrealism movement. Breton wrote in 1944. In 1940 he moved to America, in order to escape the war, and it is the description of his visit to the island of Bonaventure, along the Canadian coast, where his story starts. The description of the journey along the coast quickly leaves the historical events, and moves on to the problems of western humankind and the possibility of its finding a new way of thinking, a new vision of the world. In doing this it would make it possible to overcome the catastrophe in which he finds himself, and to finally close his account with his tendency towards creating violence in the form of war and destruction. Still referring to his surrealistic principles, Breton invokes the idea of the final abandonment of the positivistic logic, which he considers much too rigid, and of the stereotypical ideas and prejudices of determinism. In the central and more important part of his discourse, he expresses the wish that women, or better still the principle of femininity, should take on a more central role in western civilization. According to him this female principle, the way women understand and live their existence, should be a new model that humanity has to follow. It is at this point that he brings out the figure of Mélusine as a symbol of the complexity and strength of the female and of woman’s destiny of suffering. The human species could save itself and be reborn only if the exiled Mélusine manages to return. Like Mélusine after the violation of the pact, the woman (who Breton refers to as the femme-enfant8) is deprived of her ‘human balance because of the impatience and jealousy of the man.’9 The latter can only get her back, by a ‘long penitence proportionate to the suffering that has fallen on him.’10 The man has taken away from his existence the female figure, her ‘ways of feeling’, and because of this he is punished with suffering, threatened with emptiness and insignificance. Only if he starts to recognize the importance of the woman, that is, if he begins to listen to her voice, in its ‘two irresistible inflections which are given to her without cost, one to talk in love to the man, the other to have the complete trust of 8 Breton 1988–99, 67. 9 ‘La femme privée de son assiette humaine par l’impatience et la jalousie de l’homme’ (ibid. 66). 10 ‘longue pénitence proportionnée au malheur qui en résulta’ (ibid.).

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the child’,11 would the rebirth of Mélusine be accomplished: ‘Mélusine no longer under the weight of the fatality set loose on her by man, Mélusine liberated.’12 When Breton talks about the rebirth of Mélusine, he talks in present time: ‘From her head to her feet Mélusine has become woman again.’13 However, her returning to the human condition doesn’t mean that her feral, supernatural part, the mystery that connects her to the forces hidden in nature, are abandoned. Even if Breton argues with certain stereotypical and banal visions, based on the model of the ‘supposed irrationality’ of the female, the idea of the woman’s link with a natural dimension and with birth is still present in his description of her. Mélusine ‘becoming woman again’ means Mélusine’s return to the human community, and exactly because she is woman, this also means she still has her duplicity, the profundity of a being at the same time human and magical (it’s not an accident when Breton uses the term assiette – ‘balance’); she is no-longer a winged monster, but still has her wild part, those racines mouvantes (‘roots that move’) that imprisoned her but at the same time put her in ‘heaven-sent communion with the elementary forces of nature.’14 Breton already used the figure of Mélusine as a female paradigm in his book Nadja, where he linked the supernatural nature of the fairy to the complexity and the differences of women. In Arcane 17 however it is the element of the return, the rebirth, or the desired regeneration of the fairy – and maybe the man acknowledging her importance – that is expressed in the book. Thus the birth of Mélusine is the rebirth of a new time, and finally the declaration of the new,15 of the new life and the end of war, of the immortality of the vital forces, that can’t be destroyed and against which no force of death has any power. Breton clearly explains this, writing in regards to liberty: ‘Les aspirations de l’homme à la liberté doivent être maintenues en pouvoir de se recréer sans cesse; c’est pourquoi elle doit être conçue comme force vive.’16 Liberty here means life, the propulsive force of existence. And it is of this great vital force that Mélusine seems to be a symbol. So Breton recalls the story of the fairy in the central part of his work, but it is just a fragment: he uses some of Mélusine’s characteristics in an allegorical way,

11 ‘deux inflexions irrésistibles et sans prix qui lui sont données, l’une pour parler à l’homme dans l’amour, l’autre pour appeler à elle toute la confiance de l’enfant’ (ibid.). 12 ‘Mélusine non plus sous le poids de la fatalité déchaînée sur elle par l’homme. Mélusine délivrée’ (ibid.). 13 Ibid. 68. 14 Ibid. 66. 15 On this see Brunel 1991. 16 Breton 1988–99, 67.

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putting them into a story that deals with another subject. Porta, instead, essentialy has really rewritten the story in his own way. In 1980 Porta wrote a poem in which he retells the story of Mélusine and Raymond. In his treatment of the central motifs of the tale, he doesn’t move far away from the book of D’Arras. From an outside point of view, the most evident difference in his re-elaboration of the story is his multiplication of the main characters of the tale: Porta actually talks about three couples, ‘three cavaliers’ and ‘three ladies’; however their stories are identical, and the author limits himself to telling only one story, merely referring to his characters in the plural (the dames promised to the cavaliers … the three cavaliers accept, etc.). Apart from this, the verses of the poem create a linguistic picture and narrative extremely simple and clear, that contains all the events of the story we know by now. Firstly, Porta describes the meeting between the cavaliers and the dames, and the complex game of glances, anticipation, modesty and homage that form their seductive dance, a minuet that lasts for several days, during which the three cavaliers make appointments with their respective dames for the next day. The night before the scheduled second meeting, all three knights dream of meeting with the women the moment they go back together to their respective castles. The dreams can be defined as premonitory. The poetic tale goes on to describe the marriages, the conditions which constrain their union, and the following years of prosperity. Then we come to the sudden, unexpected violation of the taboo and the vanishing of the fairy after her transformation into a monster. The interesting thing to notice here is that the author no longer speaks of three dames, and that, for the first time in the text, the characters become only two beings, the fairy and the cavalier, and the fairy is called by her name, Mélusine. Porta, still faithful to the fourteenth century version, tells of how, after her disappearance, Mélusine continues periodically to return secretly to give milk to her children. In this way the text culminates, the point where Porta moves away from his reference to the text of d’Arras, to give his own original re-interpretation, and to characterize his poem as a true and new variant of the tale of Mélusine. The poem goes on to show the aged cavaliers who have arrived after many years ‘on the threshold of death’.17 They prepare to abandon their lives and find themselves once more on the banks of the river where they had met the three dames. After drinking some wine they fall asleep, but when they wake up, at sunrise of the next day, they find themselves in a world apparently suspended, shrouded by mist, by silence, and immersed in a strange grey light. Slowly, the ‘thick and smoky sky’ vanishes, and life starts to reanimate itself: ‘the dream of

17 ‘alle soglie della morte’ (Porta 1987, 26).

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life starts secretly again / time is reborn in fluid, the fingers / entwine themselves and strongly tighten.’18 The three of them realize at this point that they have returned to their previous existence, to their lives together with their three dames, to their Mélusines. Everything restarts, it seems, from the moment preceding their break-up. The men find their women again and their lost happiness, as if they have awoken from a dream. And this continues up until the three violate the pact again and the cycle comes full circle. After you have read the story, the idea of the reawakening creates the suspicion that the preceding events were all only a dream. That they were a part of the lucid vision which the cavaliers had while they were sleeping the night before their union with the women. So did the cavaliers really continue sleeping, and is it only now that they find themselves really awakening? There are clear textual signals that nourish this suspicion. However, this second awakening, as the first, has the incontestable signs of a dream (the mist, the silence); and the expression ‘the dream of life’ that starts again is explicit in the text. So maybe this is also a dream, this new beginning? Or maybe it is the same happy life? What is produced is a type of vertigo that makes it impossible to decipher the relationship between the two dimensions. Or, better still, the inevitable asymmetry between dream and reality is another form of the theme of the two lovers’ impossible life together. Most interesting for me, however, is the idea of the re-birth of time even after it has seemingly finished, of the return to life after its disappearance. There is never an end, death is followed by re-birth and the cycle goes on. It is easy to see the similarity with the motif of re-birth already expressed by Breton: in his work too Mélusine returned – and returned as a woman, not as a winged serpent, not secretly – after the catastrophe of war, to affirm life, to give a new impulse to existence. And maybe in Porta the cyclic course of time tries to reach, as a goal, the conciliation between reality and desire projected in dream. The same final conciliation between reality and desire for a higher existence is what Breton wishes humanity could reach, expressed in the moment in which Mélusine returns. Apuleius gives the same reconciliation to Psyche and Cupid at the end of his tale. It is the thing which modernity seems to have lost.

18 ‘Il sogno della vita ricomincia in segreto, / il tempo rinasce nei fluidi, le dita / si intrecciano e stringono forte’ (ibid. 28).

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Bibliography Bettini, M. and L. Spina 2007. Il mito delle sirene, Torino: Einaudi. Bremond, C. 1985. ‘Concept et thème’, Poétique 64, 415–423. Breton, A. 1988–1999. Oeuvres complètes, Paris: Gallimard. Brunel, P. 1991. ‘Mélusine dans Arcane 17 d’André Breton’, in: J. P. Boivin and P. MacCana (eds.), Mélusine continentales et insulaires (Actes du colloque international tenu le 27 et 28 Mars à l’Université Paris II et au Collège de Irlandais), Paris: Honore Champion. 329–342. Clier-Colombani, F. 1991a. ‘La nymphe Salmacis: une prototype ovidien de Mélusine?’, in: J. P. Boivin and P. MacCana (eds.), Mélusine continentales et insulaires (Actes du colloque international tenu le 27 et 28 Mars à l’Université Paris II et au Collège de Irlandais), Paris: Honore Champion. 43–65. Clier-Colombani, F. 1991b. La fée Mélusine au Moyen Âge. Images, mythes et symboles, Paris: Léopard d’or. Harf-Lancner, L. 1989. Morgana e Melusina. La nascita delle fate nel medioevo, Torino: Einaudi (French orig. Les fées au moyen-age. Morgane et Mélusine. La naissance des fées Morgana et Melusina 1984). Lecouteux, C. 1989. Lohengrin e Melusina: una leggenda medioevale contro la paura della morte, Milano: Crocetti (French orig. Mélusine et le Chevalier au Cygne 1982). Markale, J. 1983. Mélusine ou l’androgyne, Paris: Ed. RETZ. Porta, A. 1987. Melusina: una ballata e un diario, Milano: Crocetti.

Apuleius and Cupid and Psyche: Anthropological, Christian and Philosophical Perspectives

Joanna Atkin

Puella Virgo: Rites of Passage in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses Abstract: This paper considers whether there is a difference in meaning between the gender terms virgo and puella as used to describe the characters Psyche and Charite in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, and discusses how this affects our viewing of the text. It also examines whether this movement from one tag to another together accompanied by a gender switch acts as a rite of passage from childhood or adolescence to adulthood and marriage for these two characters. The anthropological concept of rite of passage, with its attendant notion that it is a liminal experience that provides a state of ambiguity for the ‘passenger’, is crucial to my reading of the text. Much modern scholarship on the Metamorphoses has concentrated on the roles of two of the young women that form such a crucial part of the narrative: Psyche, the heroine of the central inset tale of Cupid and Psyche, and Charite, the archetypal young woman and tragic protagonist of the framing tale, who as a captive hears the wondrous story from the mouth of the anus storyteller. In this paper, I look at these young girls through a study of the terminology that Apuleius uses to describe them. This paper evolved from work undertaken for my doctoral dissertation on the presentation of women in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, in which I use age, rather than social type, to classify generic female types.1 Here I consider whether there is a difference in meaning between the gender terms virgo and puella as used to describe the characters Psyche and Charite. I consider not only the movement from puella to virgo, but also what meaning these transformations have when they are accompanied by a change of sex role. Both Psyche and Charite not only act like men but are described in masculine terms when they are forced to take on more dominant roles. Thus we need to consider whether these movements from female to male cause a generic shift at points in the text where they occur, moving from a fabula anilis – an old wives’ tale – to that epitome of androcentricity, the epic, or whether some other interpretation for this change can be adduced.

1 Thanks are due to my supervisors Dr. Emily Gowers (Cambridge) and Professor William Fitzgerald (King’s College, London) who have read and commented on various versions of this paper.

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Charite and Psyche span two of Ovid’s ages – from girlhood through to maturity. However, it must be said that there is blurring between each of the life stages, so that the precise status of an individual at any time might be considered ambiguous. Indeed, these gender terms are not so strictly age-regulated: the puella of love elegy for instance, need not necessarily have been in the first flush of youth. Sharon James (2003, 236), for instance, considers the age of the puella of elegy to be wide ranging and far greater in any case than that which we would consider today to be denoted by the term ‘girl’. For, as she says, ‘She (a puella) may be anywhere from approximately 17 to 45 years, if she has managed to stave off signs of old age.’ Maybe our derogatory colloquial term ‘old girl’ is the equivalent.2 I shall start in the first instance by making some general remarks about the use of puella/virgo and then look at what inferences can be drawn from my observations by making a close reading of Apuleius’ text. I should state at the outset that for the purpose of this exercise I am concentrating solely on two characters: Charite and Psyche.3 I aim to demonstrate that virgo and puella are not just used by the author as simple synonyms to provide variety in language, but imply a specific difference in meaning. This differentiation includes factors such as differences in social class, as well as difference in character type. A close examination of the dictionary definitions of these two nouns does in fact point up to important differences and nuances in their meanings, although there is clearly an overlap too. Puella is derived from puellus, the diminutive of puer, meaning a little boy. From this we can see that the feminine counterpart of this male form is not only able to signify in its meaning a maiden or sweetheart, but also a young girl child. It can also be used to denote a young woman or a young wife. Virgo, however, although having some similar meanings, has different connotations. Virgo as well as meaning maiden, or virgin, can not only describe a young unmarried woman, and is sometimes even used to signify an unmarried daughter but can also denote a young wife. Patricia Watson, drawing on many examples from different genres in Latin literature,

2 In English, terms like ‘girl friend’ and ‘the girls’ (as in ‘a night out with the girls’), are similarly ambiguous: in both cases the girl(s) in question can be well into middle age. 3 Photis the servant girl, first referred to as adulescentula quaedam (Met. 1,22), is also frequently referred to as puella so that she might qualify for the regular meaning of ‘young girl’. However, as I feel that her role is more akin to the ancillae or meretrices of New Comedy, and as her appellation is more on account of her lower social status, she is not included for consideration in this paper.

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suggests that the newly-married Hypermnestra of Ovid Heroides 14,55 fits this category of the term.4 However, it is usually social status that is the all-important factor in the choice of terminology. In New Comedy, for instance, the term virgo is generally applied to characters of citizen birth, even if initially they appear otherwise. Thus depending on the given context, each of these words can ambiguously signify either the unmarried or married status of a character. However, this blurring of terms to describe ‘young women’ is not confined to the Latin terminology alone, but is also apparent in ancient Greek with the corresponding words κόρη and παρθένος for young women, as well as the Hebrew term almah. Writers often provide variety in their prose style with the use of synonyms, and Apuleius’ use of rich and varied language has been the subject of interest for many scholars. As Vincent Hunink says (1997, 13), ‘All [his] works show his great mastery in handling Latin, inventing new words or resuscitating archaic ones, building elaborate periods, or powerful brief lists and exploiting rhythm and sound by means of all possible forms of rhyme, assonance and alliteration.’ Thus it would seem unlikely that this master wordsmith would leave anything to chance, even though his use of puella and virgo can sometimes be seen to be interchangeable within the text. These terms, however, may sometimes be used by Apuleius either as direct synonyms to provide variety and rhythm in any given phrase, or to replicate the usage found in the now lost Greek original. Although Apuleius uses both puella and virgo of both Charite and Psyche, the incidence of the term puella is far greater, and the use of puella over virgo in general throughout the text is more common.5 However, as Patricia Watson states (1985, 434), ‘… the word-pair puella/virgo must be treated with great caution in any discussion of vocabulary selection, since (unlike uxor/coniunx, for instance) they are not exact synonyms.’ Therefore, it would seem that in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses the actual use of these particular words is much more deliberate. One must note too that our author is Apuleius, the Platonist, and consider the theme of duality and the dichotomous nature of man that is explored by Plato in the Symposium and subsequently used by Apuleius in his depiction of both Venus and Cupid in the story of Cupid and Psyche. It is therefore quite possible that, by using the dual terms virgo and puella, Apuleius is choosing to depict the dual nature of young women, and it should not be surprising that these dual terms exist alongside each other in the text. Moreover, as with all things Apuleian, 4 Watson 1983, 127. ‘femina sum et virgo, natura mitis et annis’. She touches only briefly on Apuleius’ use of the gender terms puella/virgo. 5 Watson 1983, 141. Psyche as virgo 6 occurrences, as puella 8; Charite as virgo 12, as puella 22. In the entire text puella (and its inflected forms) occurs 64 times, virgo 30.

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nothing is straight forward and it should come as no surprise, therefore, that there is a blurring of definitions of vocabulary, as we encounter the unexpected – a virgo who is not necessarily a virgin, and a puella who is not necessarily young. I have noted earlier that puella is the term used to denote a young girl, and that my discussion so far has been to try and resolve the issues of the distinction used between that word and the alternative term used for girl or maiden – virgo. The use of the term virgo can suggest a more elevated genre, such as epic, or it can imply that the character being described was from a higher social position. While puella denotes a girl from a lower background, or lower genre, it can also denote a child, so that well-born women would be referred to in such a way in their childhood. Thus, virgo, according to Patricia Watson (1983, 122), is ‘an unmarried girl of respectable morals’, emphasizing that it was basically a term that defined a girl’s social position and the concerns with physical virginity were a later phenomenon. However, childhood was short-lived in ancient societies: early marriage brought with it entry to mature status. In a study of marriage patterns amongst Roman women, it has been noted that the marriage for upper class girls often took place before puberty had been reached, while non-elite girls married later. Thus it is not surprising that the term puella can apply to a young woman beyond childhood. A woman’s life was shaped by marriage, this formed a symbolic rite of passage into womanhood. Consideration was often given to the youth of recently married women, introducing them only gradually to adult sexual and social responsibilities and providing special caregivers for their protection and guidance. Thus Charite, even as a second-time bride and wife following her marriage to Thrasyllus, has a nurse (Met. 8,11), and for Psyche, ‘voices-in-waiting in the bedchamber cared for the new bride whose virginity was ended’ (5,4). Thus it is unsurprising that a different word would be used to signify the move towards this change of state: puella becomes virgo on the cusp of marriage. Its use specified that certain terms had been satisfied for progress to marriage. Once they were married the vocabulary used to describe all these girls changes completely – they became, irrespective of age, uxor or mulier. I now return to Apuleius’ Metamorphoses to apply the criteria that I have discussed concerning the use of puella and virgo to determine whether this alters our reading of the text, using Charite and Psyche as my prototypes. These girls are no mere nameless bystanders to the plot, but are active protagonists in their own right. I am only examining the terminology used to describe these young women prior to marriage as post marriage the terminology changed to that of mulier/ femina. However, Charite’s status as a ‘double’ bride will necessitate exploration of the terms used post marriage. Charite and Psyche feature in two of the main and longest inserted tales in the Metamorphoses. The story of Cupid and Psyche is placed in the middle of the

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work, and runs from Book 4,28 to Book 6,24. It is placed within the story of Charite, which is placed in instalments through four books: Book 4,23–27 – an introduction to Charite and her captivity, Book 6,25–32 – liberation, Book 7,1–14 – introduction to Tlepolemus and false happy ending, Book 8,1–14 – introduction to Thrasyllus, Charite’s death and unhappy ending.6 Both the Latin words virgo and puella are used to describe them at different times within their stories. Both Charite and Psyche are described using both terms together – puella virgo. We first meet Charite in the robbers’ cave, where it is quickly established that she is a girl from a good family (4,23), and in the same sentence she is described as first a virgo and then as a puella: unicam virginem, filo liberalem et, ut matronatus eius indicabat, summatem regionis, puellam mehercules et asino tali concupiscendam one poor maiden, of refined qualities and, as her ladylike bearing showed, from one of the district’s foremost families. She was a very desirable girl, by Hercules, even to an ass like me.

Here, her status as virgo denotes that she is a well-born young woman, who is on the cusp of marriage having been betrothed since young childhood. Indeed, it transpires that she has been snatched away on her very wedding day. That Apuleius uses the term matronatus to denote her social status is key, as this hapax legomenon looks forward to the time when her status will change on marriage to matrona and thenceforward supposedly to mater. This also supports the notion that the term virgo is the younger version of the matrona.7 Parallels can be drawn throughout the story of Charite with that of Psyche, as it mirrors the tale of that other unhappy young girl, and the language used is at times very similar. There can be no mistaking the links between them, if any further reinforcement is needed, when Charite is finally named by Tlepolemus at 7,12 Charite dulcissima, with the exact term of endearment used by Cupid of Psyche at 5,5, and again at 5,12 Psyche dulcissima. Charite’s extreme youth is indicated in the description of her abduction: she is still young enough to be sitting on her mother’s lap even as she is being bedecked in her wedding finery. She is also receiving mellitisque saviis – honeysweet kisses from her mother – in another parallel reference to the tale of Cupid and Psyche: an echo of Venus’ behaviour with her son Cupid at 4,31.

6 Nicolini 2000, 41. 7 Watson 1985, 433.

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At 6,25 the drunken old woman finishes telling her story to the captive young girl, captivae puellae. She and Lucius then make their escape, and once again she is described as both virgo and puella in the same passage. However, Lucius’ desire to kiss Charite’s feet – pedes decoros puellae basiabam (6,28) may be construed as a sexual advance in his asinine state, and thus this appellation puella might have a different interpretation – perhaps signifying that he is transferring his sexual attraction from Photis to Charite. In Charite’s subsequent speech, in which she describes the honors she will shower on her savior, Lucius, she describes herself as virgo regia, and the term here surely denotes her status as a high-born maiden. It is only with the arrival of Tlepolemus (disguised as Haemus) at 7,9 that Charite reverts to her proper status once more: that of a virgo, a girl of high birth, on the cusp of marriage. At 7,10 Lucius refers to her as puella, but again this is in the context of her behavior towards Tlepolemus which Lucius, mistaking their relationship, feels is inappropriate. It is thus unsurprising that the gender term puella is used here: in so doing Lucius once again associates the ‘high born’ Charite with the sexy wench Photis. At 7,11 the expression puella virgo is used by Lucius in a rhetorical aside to himself in another verbal and situational echo of the Cupid and Psyche story (the parallels between the disguised and therefore unknown Haemus/Tlepolemus and Cupid/Psyche’s unknown husband are clear): Hem oblita es nuptiarum tuique mutui cupitoris, puella virgo et illi nescio cui recenti marito, quem tibi parentes iunxerunt, hunc advenam cruentumque percussorem praeponis? What! Have you forgotten your wedding and the man who shares your desires, young lady? Do you prefer this stranger, this bloody assassin, to that new husband of yours, whoever he is, to whom your parents wed you?’

Here there is no mistaking in the juxtaposition of both of these words that the full force of both meanings of these terms is implied: the very young girl, as well as the one who is high-born and pre-marital. However, the tenor of Lucius’ speech suggests that he is questioning what or who Charite actually is – is she the chaste young maiden, the well-born virgo, snatched away on her wedding eve and on the ‘cusp’ of womanhood? Or is she the sexy, knowing puella of elegy? Or is she perhaps still just an unknowing and unseeing child? Importantly, it is at this juncture that she is actually named for the first time. Francesca Santoro L’Hoir (1992, 195), writing about gender terms in Latin prose in general, notes that, ‘[As Tatum and others have demonstrated], every word written by Apuleius was carefully calculated for nuance and significance.’ Thus the use of puella virgo here, just at the point when Charite is named, must therefore be of supreme significance. No longer is she puella misera but she is

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now triumphantly Charite dulcissima, at 7,12. Returned to hearth, home and spouse she now moves to her new ‘adult’ state of matrona (7,14). However, later in Book 8, the story of her unhappy demise is recounted in a style very similar to the opening of Cupid and Psyche. This return to former type continues when she becomes once more puella … misera on Tlepolemus’ death (8.7). Perhaps this can be explained by supposing that here Charite reverts from widow back to young, and importantly, innocent girl. This further change is not just on account of her status but also on account of her still extreme youth. Charlotte Methuen discusses the Christian concept of the ‘virgin’ widow. She makes a case for an adult version of a παρθένος, who need not even have been married before, to categorize a woman who lives without a man. Thus both the ‘virgin’ and the ‘widow’ living sexually chaste lives in parallel lead to a blending of categories. She proposes (1997, 288) that ‘a woman who has chosen to live apart from her husband or not to remarry after his death’ and living life as sexually chaste could be considered to have ‘regained [her] virginity’. Could this perhaps go some way to explaining Charite’s changed status? Later, in a dream, Charite’s dead husband warns his wife, calling her coniunx; at 8,9 she describes herself as a femina, the appropriate term for a woman of her class, and it is only in her duplicitous actions as she seeks revenge against Thrasyllus that she becomes a mulier, the more common term for an adult woman. Finally, at 8,11, she changes her sex completely (Charite masculis animis); only in death does she breathe forth her manly spirit, perefflavit animam virilem, and she reverts in death to the state of coniunx (8,14). If we trace the terminology used about Psyche we find similar ambiguities. She is introduced at 4,28 as the youngest daughter of three, puellae iunioris, which here denotes not only her youth, but sets her in terms of status furthest away from the goddess Venus, with whom she is being compared in beauty. At 4,32 Psyche has become a virgo vidua, a ‘husbandless virgin’, implying that she has become a widow whilst still on the ‘cusp’ in age terms, that is, of marriage. In the description of Psyche’s funereal marriage, a parallel in many ways to the marriage sequence in Charite’s dream, Psyche too is called first virgo and then puella: the about-to-be-married-girl is still a child, as she enters into a wretched marriage with death. And again, as she is led to the place decreed in the prophecy for her sacrifice to supposed death, she goes as virgo to the appointed place where the girl-child is left, as bride for her unknown fate. Of course, Psyche’s unknown ‘husband’ is none other than the God of Love, Cupid, himself, and at 5,4 he makes Psyche his wife: Tunc virginitati suae pro tanta solitudine metuens, et pavet et horrescit et quovis malo plus timet quod ignorat. Iamque aderat ignobilis maritus, et torum inscenderat, et uxorem sibi

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Psychen fecerat … statim voces cubiculo praestolatae novam nuptam interfectae virginitatis curant. Now being all alone she feared for her virginity. She trembles and shudders, and fears worse than anything the thing she is ignorant of. Now her unknown husband had arrived, had mounted the bed, had made Psyche his wife … At once voices-in-waiting in the bedchamber cared for the new bride whose virginity was ended.

Cupid now calls Psyche dulcissima et cara uxor (‘his dearest Psyche, his darling wife’), providing a verbal link to the scene where Haemus/Tlepolemus and Charite are once more reunited at 7,12. However, the legal marriage of Cupid and Psyche does not take place until 6,23, with Zeus pronouncing that Cupid having deflowered the maiden must possess her legitimately in accordance with the law. This could explain why she still possesses child-like status, i.e. is still a puella until the official rites are carried out: sic rite Psyche convenit in manum Cupidinis (‘Thus in proper form Psyche was given in marriage to Cupid’ 6,24). And even when pregnant with Cupid’s child Voluptas (‘Pleasure’) her womb is that of a young girl (5,11): Nam et familiam nostram iam propagabimus et hic adhuc infantilis uterus gestat nobis infantem alium, si texeris nostra secreta silentio, divinum, si profanaveris, mortalem. You see, we are now about to increase our family, and your womb, still a child’s, bears another child for us, who will be a god if you guard our secret in silence, but a mortal if you profane it.

Thus before the ‘happy ending’ Psyche reverts back to girlhood and the status of puella. This is first noted when she is abandoned by Cupid for having broken her promise not to look at him. Desolate and abandoned, she meets Pan, whose greeting to her, ‘puella scitula’, demonstrates her regression to this former status of ‘girl child’. But, the use of the adjective scitula here, is significant. For, if the word scitula implies a certain connotation of sexual experience, has Psyche in this section of the story metamorphosed not only from the chaste virgo puella, from girl-child, to the girl on the cusp of marriage, to bride, and thence, on rejection by her spouse, to the knowing puella of elegy – or is this just a nod to her sexual awakening by Cupid?8 Apart from these movements from puella to virgo and back again, another change also seems to occur: both Psyche and Charite, both at moments of tension

8 But perhaps this is the ‘come-on’ way Pan would address any likely girl!

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within the plot and as they move from one state to the other, are forced to take on male roles. Does this also affect the move from puella to virgo? Psyche, having been goaded into action by her false sisters, takes on a ‘male’ role as she sets out to kill the monster that she has been led to think is her husband, and in doing so changes ‘her sex’, moving from being a weak female, a mere pawn in the proceedings, to the strong protagonist, as if she were a man (5,22): Tunc Psyche, et corporis et animi alioquin infirma, fati tamen saevitia sumministrante viribus roboratur, et prolata lucerna et arrepta novacula sexum audacia mutatur. Then Psyche, although naturally weak in both body and spirit, was fed with strength by the cruelty of Fate. She brought out the lamp, seized the razor, and in her boldness changed her sex.

However, here this proves to be her downfall, as on account of her actions Cupid leaves her. She reverts back to female type at this point, helplessly lamenting her loss. And yet, a certain character change has taken place, for through a newfound cunning, she is able to dispose of her duplicitous sisters. Later, when another impasse in the story is reached, Psyche decides that the only way forward is to give herself up to Venus. Here too, she is forced to become the protagonist. Once again, the polarity in Psyche’s character is revealed. No longer is she the supplicating female shown appealing to Ceres and Juno, but by taking on male attributes she has the courage to take control of her deeds. Similarly, Charite, initially portrayed as a ‘victim’ by having been snatched by the robbers at the very point of her marriage, acts in manly fashion as she makes an escape from the robbers with Lucius the Ass (6,27): sumptaque constantia virili facinus audet pulcherrimum ‘the girl summoned up a man’s courage and performed a bold and beautiful feat’. However, although initially finding resolution in a seemingly traditional ‘happy ending’, her story subsequently takes on a darker turn, when she again simulates male behavior as she wreaks revenge on Thrasyllus, her husband’s assassin (8,11): masculis animis impetuque diro fremens invadit … ‘with manly spirit and furious force the girl came raging to the attack’. This episode becomes more brutal in tone, finally concluding with Charite’s suicide by the sword. Her last breath is manly too: perefflavit animam virilem (8,14). Thus both Psyche and Charite have reversed their roles within the course of these stories, moving from the image of a stereotypical ‘heroine’ to that of ‘avenging warrior’. By taking on a ‘male role’, they are both able to propel the action of their stories forward, with this transition in roles occurring at a point of tension or crisis within the story, and as they move from one gender term to

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another. This movement to male also seems to happen when they reach full adult status, and acts as a kind of rite of passage. Thus by demonstrating masculine virtus both Charite and Psyche can in every sense be considered ‘elite’ citizens. JoAnn Shelton suggests that Charite and the loyal wife of Book 7, Plotina, ‘assumed masculine traits only when their husbands were no longer present to defend them’.9 This is true for Psyche as well. Both she and Charite have not only moved from their status of puella/virgo on marriage, but they have become quasi-men in the process. A similar rite of passage accompanied by a gender change takes place when the young Achilles in Statius’ Achilleid 1,823–40, takes part in a public performance dressed as a woman on Scyros. This event is seen by Peter Heslin as a liminal moment that marks a form of initiation ceremony, ‘… these dances … are unambiguous indications of dramatized status transformations in the course of either mystery cults or puberty rites’.10 However, this gender switch is even more complicated. The young Achilles is acting out a female role in a kind of initiation ceremony before reverting to his true gender on reaching male adulthood, when he takes up weapons that for him marks a rite of passage. Perhaps the movement from one gender term to another also suggests some kind of rite of passage. Sophie Lalanne (2006) has argued that the ancient Greek novels represent this rite of passage because they mirror historical changes in the development of Greek city states at the time the novels were written. I propose, however, that Victor Turner’s (1969) established anthropological model for the rite of passage provides an alternative and maybe more appropriate approach when applied to my observations about Charite and Psyche.11 The first stage consists of symbolic behavior signifying detachment of the individual from an earlier fixed point or from a set of cultural conditions. This equates to Psyche being led to her ‘funereal marriage’ as Psyche is left on the rock. The second ‘liminal’ stage occurs when she enters the kingdom of Cupid as she ‘passes through a cultural realm that has few or none of the attributes of the past or coming state. In the third phase the passage is consummated: the individual is in a stable state once more and by virtue of this, has rights and obligations vis à vis others of a clearly defined “structural” nature’.12 Both Charite and Psyche initially are unable to attain this third stage: they remain in stage two in a limbo-like state of liminality. This state can therefore be

9 Shelton 2005, 315. Since Plotina is a married matrona who is not switching between different gender terms, her case is not examined in this paper. 10 Heslin 2005, 231; see also 231–236. 11 Used also by Habinek 1990, to argue that Lucius undergoes not just a rite of passage but a religious conversion. 12 Turner 1969, 94–95.

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said to be responsible for the switching from puella to virgo and back, and only in the case of death (Charite) and on Psyche’s marriage to Cupid following her trials by Venus, do they have closure, and can thus move forward. They both end up in a different community from the one in which they began: Psyche amongst the pantheon of the Gods, and Charite in death separated from both her family and Tlepolemus. Furthermore, the movement from one stage to another is marked by a change of gender, perhaps performing the function of a kind of initiation rite, in a role inversion similar to that shown by the young Achilles in Statius’ Achilleid, who only asserts his manhood by throwing off his guise as a woman on entering puberty and thence adulthood. This example further illustrates how ‘passage’ for Psyche and Charite is both a structuring principle and a privileged theme in the Metamorphoses.13 The movement from puella to virgo marks a rite of passage, proleptically signaling the one that Lucius himself will have to undergo before he can reach salvation at the book’s closure.

Bibliography Adams, J. N. 1972. ‘Latin Words for “Woman” and “Wife”’, Glotta 50, 234–255. Habinek, T. N. 1990. ‘Lucius’ Rite of Passage’, MD 25, 49–69. Hanson, J. (ed. and trans.) 1989. Apuleius Metamorphoses (Vol. 2), Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Heslin, P. J. 2005. The Transvestite Achilles: Gender and Genre in Statius’ Achilleid, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hunink, V. (ed.) 1997. Apuleius Pro se de magia, Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben. James, S. 2003. Learned Girls and Male Persuasion: Gender and Reading in Roman Love Elegy, Berkeley: University of California Press. Lalanne, S. 2006. Une éducation grecque: rites de passage et construction des genres dans le roman grec ancient, Paris: Éditions La Découverte. Lelis, A. A., W. A. Percy and B. C. Verstraete 2003. The Age of Marriage in Ancient Rome, Lewiston, Queenston and Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press. Methuen, C. 1997. ‘The “Virgin Widow”. A Problematic Social Role for the Early Church?’, HThR 90 (3), 285–298. Nicolini, L. (ed.) 2000. Apuleio: La novella di Carite e Tlepolemo, Naples: M. D’Auria editore. Santoro L’Hoir, F. 1992. The Rhetoric of Gender Terms: ‘Man’, ‘Woman’, and the Portrayal of Character in Latin Prose, Leiden, New York and Cologne: Brill. Shelton, J.-A. 2005. ‘Putting Women in their Place: Gender, Species, and Hierarchy in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, in: W. W. Batstone and G. Tissol (eds.), Defining Genre and Gender in Latin Literature: Essays Presented to William S. Anderson on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday, New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc. 301–330.

13 Habinek 1990, 53.

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Turner, V. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. Watson, P. 1983. ‘Puella and Virgo’, Glotta 61, 119–143. Watson, P. 1985. ‘Axelson Revisited: The Selection of Vocabulary in Latin Poetry’, CQ 35, 430–448.

Chiara O. Tommasi Moreschini

Gnostic Variations on the Tale of Cupid and Psyche Abstract: In this paper the Apuleian tale of Cupid and Psyche is compared to a version of the story preserved in a Gnostic text from the Nag Hammadi Library (NHC 2,5, ‘On the origins of the world’, or ‘Untitled treatise’), as well as to the Valentinian myth of the fallen Sophia and to the interpretation of Psyche and Eros developed by Plotinus (Enn. 6,9,9). The author reassesses the vexata quaestio of Platonic inspiration and allegorical significance in Apuleius, by showing that Platonism had undergone many significant changes during the second century AD, as for example the incorporation of numerous religious and mysteriosophical elements. Per noi iniziati Psiche è l’anima, e il suo nome che ha il significato fisico di soffio e di alito, ha anche il senso di quel soffio ineffabile che è la parte immortale di noi Alberto Savinio (1892–1952), La nostra anima

The ‘tale of Cupid and Psyche’ is undoubtedly one of the most important sections of Apuleius’ novel.1 This is certainly due to its length, to its location in the narrative frame, but, much more, to its plot, which at first glance, is modelled on the general vicissitude of Lucius’ fall and subsequent redemption. In addition, this tale very soon acquired its own independent success, as is testified in late antiquity by the well-known exegesis of Fulgentius, and perhaps already by some hints in Martianus Capella,2 not to mention its ‘afterlife’ during the following centuries. This is not the place to reconsider the different scholarly interpretations that were proposed by the interpreters. All these interpretations, sometimes diverging, sometimes intermingling, are of some merit and deserve the interpreter’s atten-

1 The Groningen series of Apuleius’ Commentaries has been recently completed for this section: see Zimmerman et al. 2004, with an extensive survey of previous literature (in the present paper, for the sake of brevity, bibliography is reduced to the indispensable contributions). 2 Not only is Martianus’ narrative section modelled on this story, but there are also minor details that draw inspiration from an allegorical interpretation (Psyche as daughter of Endelechia in 1,7 ff.). For further references see Tommasi 2012, 54 ff.

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tion, for they underline or stress a peculiarity of the whole text, which, in its final result, can be considered as a creation of Apuleius’ own genius.3 Nonetheless, my personal predilection is for the religio-historical approach, which I find the most convincing one for many ancient novels, considering that most of the ‘highbrow’ readers could be aware of a deeper meaning concealed in the text (in Apuleius this appears even more striking because of the Isiac finale).4 The relationships between Apuleius and the mystery cults have been largely exploited, especially those concerning the Isis mysteries. However, it is worth hinting at the lesser known connection between Apuleius and the mysteries of Mithras. According to Filippo Coarelli and Roger Beck5 the Apuleius recorded as the owner of a house in Ostia near the Mithreum of the Seven Spheres is one and

3 As is well known, such exegetes ranged from those who suggested a purely literary reading (Helm 1914 and in recent times Moreschini 1994, who, however, in a long forthcoming essay slightly changes his mind, nuancing this approach and placing more weight on the Platonic/ Gnostic background), to those who preferred to throw light on the manifold folkloric patterns and their recurrence in popular tales (Friedländer 192110; Mantero 1973). On this interpretation, see also Hoevels 1979 and the criticism put forward by Fehling 1977. Other suggestions of common patterns pertaining to various cultures and folktales and therefore retraceable in Apuleius (e.g. the beautiful girl hated because of her beauty; the mysterious husband; the labors she has to perform; the animals as helper, and so on) can be found in the ‘classical’ essay of Propp 1968. Another ‘comparative’ approach is that of Weinreich 1930. It might be worth noting also a parallel drawn from a Tibetan folktale, which seems to combine motifs from both the Cupid and Psyche story and that of Cinderella: see Gianotti 2003. The theme of a girl forced to marry a person believed to be a monster, but who actually reveals himself as a young handsome man, recurs in the Italian tale ‘Bellinda e il Mostro’ (collected by Calvino 1993, 341 ff.). The famous English author C. S. Lewis took also direct inspiration from the Cupid and Psyche story for his novel Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (1956). A deeper interpretation, influenced by Platonic philosophy, was also proposed (Schlam 1970; Kenney 1990a; 1990b; De Filippo 1990; Panayotakis 2001. See also the interesting perspective offered by Dowden 1982. Besides, a Platonic reading of this tale had been provided already by Thomas Taylor in 1795). Reitzenstein 19222; Kerényi 1927; and, most of all, Merkelbach 1962 outlined the links with religious mysteriosophy (see, however, the critical discussion by Turcan 1963). Neither psychoanalytical nor anthropological interpretations are lacking, such as that of Neumann 1971. The author largely relies on Jung’s theories, as well as Bachofen’s idea of a ‘matriarchal’ aspect in religion and, to a greater extent, human thinking. A similar perspective is offered by Katz 1976 and already Jeanmaire 1930 is to be set in the same line, with a ‘religious’ nuance. In recent times Psyche’s winged nature has been read under the lens of psychoanalysis by James and Keynes 1998. 4 See the still invaluable commentary by Gwyn Griffiths 1975. Neumann 1971, 116 already stressed this aspect. 5 Coarelli 1989; Beck 2000 argues that some Mithraists could interpret the story of Cupid and Psyche as an initiatory tale reflecting their own gradual initiation. Martin 2009 collects other probable evidence of the links between Apuleius and Mithraism. It is worth remembering the invocation to Psyche in the magical papyrus of the ‘Mithrasliturgy’, a text which, however, is not

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the same as the author of the Metamorphoses. Furthermore, a small marble relief depicting the Tale of Cupid and Psyche (CIMRM186) adorns the southern wall of the Mithreum in Santa Maria Capua Vetere. According to interpreters it dates back to the second century AD, namely to an early stage of the cult and of the building. It has therefore been suggested that the Capuan Amor-Psyche relief represents a conscious and intentional re-representation of a classical mythic theme in a Mithraic context. I hope the arguments I am going to propose in this paper sustain the reliability of the religio-historical reading.6 In fact, I wish to present a Gnostic version of the tale of Cupid and Psyche, which is preserved in a Coptic text from the so-called ‘Nag Hammadi Library’.7 Though widely known among scholars of Gnosticism, mainly thanks to the seminal and invaluable inquiries by Alexander Böhlig and Michel Tardieu,8 not to mention the critical edition provided in recent times by Louis Painchaud,9 this text is still passed over almost in silence by the majority of classical philologists. So far, no one has called the deserved attention to that passage. At the same time I will consider other late antique versions of this myth, in order to provide further hints supporting the ‘mystic’ interpretation. The presence of so many variations on the theme and their massively religious allegory leads one to postulate a mysteriosophic background of that tale, which allows a general reconsideration of the inspiration pervading ancient novels, at least in some of their sections. As far as we know, it was the nineteenth century theologian Georg Heinrici, professor of New Testament studies in Marburg and Leipzig, who first suggested a parallel between the Apuleian tale and the vicissitudes of the fallen aeon Sophia in Valentinian Gnosticism, as is narrated by the heresiologists and the Fathers of

strictly speaking purely Mithraic, but witnesses the syncretistic attitude of the late antique mentality (see Betz 2003). 6 This paper, however, will not deal with the question of whether Apuleius alludes to Christianity or mocks it in his novel. This is no doubt one of the most alluring topics of the current research on Apuleius, albeit it introduces a good deal of speculation and any answer is highly hypothetical. Whereas scholars have long since recognized a polemic against Christian exclusive monotheism in 9,14 (the lascivious miller’s wife: see Simon 1974), other passages scrutinized by the interpreters are Charite’s flight on an ass, considered as reminiscent of the flight into Egypt (Shanzer 1990); or some allusions to the virgin birth of Jesus from Mary in the Cupid and Psyche story (Sick 2005). See recently Bradley 2012, chapter 10. 7 For a brief survey of this outstanding collection of Gnostic primary sources, see Doresse 1958; Edwards 1989; Painchaud and Pasquier 1995; Turner and McGuire 1997. These are, of course, only a few titles in an ever more increasing mass of secondary literature. 8 Böhlig and Labib 1962; Tardieu 1974. 9 Painchaud 1995.

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the Church.10 This insightful suggestion was later refined and further argued by Richard Reitzenstein. He stated that some antecedents of the story of Cupid and Psyche can be found in Hellenistic visual art and literature, as well as in the magical papyri,11 all sources issuing from an Egyptian milieu: in this way, he tried to explain the ‘missing link’ between Apuleius and the mythical account of the fall and redemption of the human soul, as is preserved in Gnostic writings. The main objection against Reitzenstein concerned the supposed Iranian background of that myth, for none of the extant texts of Iranian religion contain a similar account. It must be said, however, that the ‘Iranian’ thesis, maintained by the so-called Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, one of whose prominent supporters was Reitzenstein himself, was by that time the one most credited as an explanation of the origins of Gnosticism.12 Though nowadays both the idea of the Iranian origins and of a pre-Christian form of Gnosticism have been dismissed13 (not to mention the questioning of the authenticity of the Naassene Psalm),14 it is all the same possible, I think, to outline general parallels between the tale of Cupid and Psyche and Gnostic writings. Moreover, this idea was lately reinforced by Mark Edwards and Ken Dowden with further suggestions.15 In particular, we owe to Edwards one of the most perceptive and finest contributions on this subject. Reitzenstein’s death in 1931 did not allow him to enjoy one of the chief discoveries of the past century – namely the finding of a large collection of Gnostic original writings in the Egyptian locality of Nag Hammadi, which represents a priceless source for reconstructing Gnostic doctrines and shedding light on one of the most prominent religious and philosophical trends of the first centuries of our era.

10 Heinrici 1897. This suggestion was further developed by Quispel 1974, 107. See also Sick 2005, 95. 11 See especially Reitzenstein 1912; 1914; 1917; 1930a; Schlam 1976. 12 Rudolph 2005 provides a detailed reconstruction of this scholarly group, which originally spread out of the theological Faculty in Göttingen, and of its later developments. See also Lüdemann and Schröder 1987; Lüdemann 1996. 13 Although the central thesis of Reitzenstein and Bousset was sharply criticized by subsequent scholarship (with the important exception of Geo Widengren), these scholars outlined some crucial tenets of the Gnostic Weltanschauung, such as the motif of a Savior, that of a divine spark fallen in a human body, and that of a maternal goddess. 14 A full account is offered by Lancellotti 2001. This long passage has been extensively investigated by Marcovich 1981. 15 Edwards 1991a; 1992; Dowden 1981; 1998. Some tenets common to both Apuleius and Gnosticism were outlined also by Mahé 1972 (who, however, does not take into account the tale of Cupid and Psyche).

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Together with the Sophia myth, which I am going to discuss in further detail shortly, I would like to look briefly at two other Gnostic texts sharing affinities with the Cupid and Psyche story. They both narrate vicissitudes of fall and redemption and it is possible to argue that they are meant as a paradigm of the human soul (and in particular of the elected soul) longing to get free from the constraints of earthly life, depicted as a prison. Eventually the soul is successful in reawakening the divine spark so that the true Gnostic can realize his divine nature and obtain communion with his or her inner Self. A good starting point is represented by a brief account (ten leaves in the manuscript) modelled on both Greco-Roman and Jewish narrative, in which the Soul plays the role of the main character. I am referring to the Exegesis on the Soul (NHC 2,6), a text probably composed in Alexandria or in its surroundings and dating back to the early third century. It cannot be traced back to a precise Gnostic system, as pervaded as it is by a strong mythological flavor. However, it shares many common patterns with the story of Sophia as presented in Valentinian Gnosticism,16 insofar as it describes the vicissitudes of the wretched Soul wandering throughout the world, where she is degraded to the level of a whore, her troubles, and her final salvation. Conversely, in the so-called ‘Hymn of the Pearl’ contained in the apocryphal Acts of Thomas (chapters 108–113) and dating back to the early third century AD, it is described how a prince is finally able to rescue a precious pearl from demons and evil spirits. Due to the openly allegorical meaning of the pearl itself and of the wicked dragon which takes it prisoner, the text has been interpreted as the quest of human soul for self-salvation and redemption against the darkness of this alien world. Therefore, the very image of the pearl and that of the prince symbolize humankind and the final regaining of its original luminous nature after a long series of vicissitudes. Because of the peculiar nature of the Acta Thomae in which many sources seem to fuse together, it is not possible to ascertain the origins of this story: scholars have traced it back to an Encratite Christian group, rather than seeing it as a genuine Gnostic document. At the same time it is obviously possible to indicate earlier elements, drawn either from Iranian religion or from Babylonian sources, without forgetting the fortune it would later enjoy in Manichean literature.17

16 The text has been edited and commented on by Scopello 1985, one of its greatest experts. 17 See the text edited by Poirier 1981; among secondary literature, it is worth quoting Klijn 1960; Quispel 1965; 1967 (the strongest champion of encratism); Parpola 2001 (dealing with Mesopotamian sources); a recent reassessment is provided by Russell 2001–2002.

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At this point it would be useful to recall the famous Valentinian myth of Sophia,18 which shares many patterns with the backbone of the Apuleian tale. Before discussing it in detail, I should mention that Sophia was sometimes considered the female counterpart of God and that the final union achieved between her and the Savior is clearly to be understood as a hierogamy or sacred marriage19 – a pattern that already appears in the story of Simon Magus and the rescued harlot Helena.20 But in some respects the fall of Sophia and her later regaining the heavenly beatitude is similar to the long and complex Sumerian account of the goddess Inanna (Isthar in Akkadian mythology), who has to descend into hell and the underworld and suffer a long series of trials before completing her ascent, passing through seven gates and returning to her original state.21 In addition, it is worth remembering that the Church Fathers already compared an earlier (namely, Sethian) version of the Gnostic myth to the wellknown story of Isis seeking her lost husband Osiris.22 In order to summarize the Sophia myth, I will quote some abridged passages from Tertullian’s treatise against the Valentinians, and in particular those relating the so-called variant B of the myth (chap. 10):23 Some of the Valentinians have dreamed up another fall and redemption for Sophia: after her fruitless attempts and the disappointment of her hopes, she was all bent out of shape

18 The system described does not belong actually to Valentinus himself, but to his disciple Ptolemy (for a discussion, see Sagnard 1947, and, more recently, Thomassen 2006). According to some scholars Valentinus’ own doctrines and teachings have to be considered not properly heretical and in some respects closer to those of the so-called ‘Great Church’, whereas the actual ‘schismatic’ innovation is due to Valentinus’ followers: Markschies 1992. For a recent survey of Ptolemy, see also Markschies 2000. 19 See Sfameni Gasparro 1977 and De Conick 2003. Neumann 1971, 144 ff. interprets the end of the Cupid and Psyche tale in the same way. Further bibliographic references about feminine images in Gnosticism can be found in Tommasi 1998. 20 Quispel 1951, 45 ff. 21 For further information on this goddess, see Wolkstein and Kramer 1983; Pettinato 2005. This is not the place to recall at greater length the complex account of Inanna and her companion (paredros) Dumuzi, the prototype of the ‘gods in vicissitude’, who symbolizes the cycle of death and resurrection. In some respects he shares many parallels with the Gnostic Savior. In spite of the suggestions put forward by W. Anz at the end of the nineteenth century, the idea that the roots of Gnosticism are to be found in Mesopotamian religion are, by now, largely abandoned. It is true, however, that some Gnostic patterns already occur in Babylonian mythology and one has to reckon with them: see Rudolph 1967. 22 Hippol. Haer. 5,7,22. The parallel between Eros and Osiris is outlined also by Reitzenstein 1930b. 23 Translation: Riley 1971. For a detailed commentary, see Fredouille 1980–81 and Tommasi 2010.

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(because of her paleness, thinness and neglect, I suppose. In this quite suitable way she grieved that she was denied access to the Father, a denial that was no less painful than his loss). Next in her grief she has conceived – with no help from her mate – and gives birth to a female offspring. … Finally, the Father moved at last by her prayers sends the abovementioned Horos to her. … They say that with his help Sophia was turned aside from her crooked ways, cleansed of evil, and finally strengthened and restored to her mate. They add that Sophia remained in the pleroma, but that her Enthymesis and its accompanying suffering was banished by Horos, crucified and thrown out; as they say, ‘evil begone’. The Valentinians define this Enthymesis as a spirit-like substance, since it is a natural outgrowth of an aeon, but one which is without form or shape, since it had grasped nothing. Consequently, they call it ‘sterile fruit’ and ‘female’.

It is noticeable that the scheme curiosity/audacious desire of knowledge – fall – repentance and longing for lost beauty – redemption through a divine Savior, sent from the heaven to rescue Sophia by an (uncalled for) act of grace, can be considered the same in the two accounts, namely in that of Psyche and in that of Sophia. Sophia, the lowest female aeon is expelled from the Pleroma after a culpable sin of arrogance and seeks in vain not her lost husband, but the unknowable and unutterable Father, until he sends her a rescuer.24 There are, of course, some differences as well, which it is impossible to omit or dismiss. These differences are obviously due to the different literary genre and ultimate purpose of the two texts, not to mention the differences in the cultural traditions and heritages of Apuleius and the Gnostic version respectively.25 However, Tertullian carries great importance for our purpose in other respects as well. Living about one and a half generations after Apuleius in the same African province, Tertullian shares with his pagan forerunner many stylistic features and mannerist tastes. In addition, even though the treatise Against the Valentinians cannot be counted among its author’s masterpieces, it is nonetheless an important witness to the presence in Africa of Gnostic sects. In all likelihood they had been flourishing in Africa, as elsewhere, for many decades.26 Finally, as has been remarked, Tertullian makes constant efforts to explain Gnostic ideas by superimposing sometimes vulgar or ludicrous Roman realities or details from daily life on them. In doing this, the writer is well aware that Gnostic tales will

24 The implications of this account and the motif of a ‘duplication’ of Sophia meant to represent a higher goddess and a lower, fallen, one are extensively investigated by Stead 1969; Zandee 1967; MacRae 1970; Orbe 1977. 25 On the idea of curiosity and its general significance in Apuleius’ novel, see Lancel 1961; Schlam 1968; Moreschini 1978, chapters 2 and 3; De Filippo 1990. 26 Quispel 1982.

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appear ridiculous and, therefore, discredited.27 One of these passages is particularly interesting for our present topic. In de Anima 23,4, Gnostic myths are explicitly paralleled to Milesian tales, namely the same genre Apuleius employs for his stories and for Cupid and Psyche too: Examen Valentini semen Sophiae infulcit animae, per quod historias atque milesias aeonum suorum ex imaginibus uisibilium recognoscunt. Doleo bona fide Platonem omnium haereticorum condimentarium factum. Illius est enim et in Phaedone, quod animae hinc euntes sint illuc, et inde huc; item in Timaeo, quod genimina dei delegata sibi mortalium genitura accepto initio animae immortali mortale ei circumgelauerint corpus; tum, quod mundus hic imago sit alterius alicuius.

This means that for Tertullian, Gnostic myths were to be considered lascivious stories, meant to delight a low-brow audience fond of intrigue and sex. While I am not convinced by the suggestion of a peculiar ‘Punic’ Milesian tale, originating from Africa, put forward on the basis of a passage in the Historia Augusta,28 it can nonetheless probably be concluded that in Africa this genre was particularly fertile and appreciated. On all the evidence, readers liked such stories. Therefore, Gnostic myths could easily be compared to Milesian tales because of their lascivious and absurd contents. In spite of Tertullian’s criticism and polemic attitude, comparison between Milesian tales and Gnostic myths is perhaps a way to address a concern outlined in different words by modern scholars. They have long noticed the reemployment of novel features or patterns in the description of Gnostic heroes or heroines, and in particular of Sophia, Psyche, and so on. Though on a metaphysical level, their adventures and vicissitudes are modelled on those depicted in many novels.29 This passage shows another meaningful detail: that the doctrine of Valentinus and his disciples was perceived as Platonizing by the Fathers of the Church.30 By using an essentially comparative method and examining the religio-historical setting of this Gnostic version, which intermingles Platonism, Orphism, and various elements of non-Greek origin (e.g. Babylonian), Mark Edwards concludes that ‘if any myth of this kind is to be aligned with the Apuleian fable, it is that of Valentinus.’ Of course the British scholar is very cautious in dealing with the

27 Quispel 1948. I put forward further considerations in the introduction to my edition and commentary (Tommasi 2010). 28 Mazzarino 1950. The whole question is discussed by Moreschini 1990; 1994, 86 ff. The passage I am referring to is Clod. 12,12. 29 See Scopello 1988, with the perceptive observation of her respondent (Parrott 1988). 30 We also owe to Tertullian the famous labelling of Valentinus as a ‘Platonic’ in Praescr. 7; cf. also Iren. Adv. Haer. 2,10,2; 14,4. For further considerations, see Tommasi 2010.

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question of sources and influences; nonetheless he suggests that perhaps Apuleius was aware of such myths and probably took some inspiration from them, without, however, attributing them a deeper significance. I agree with Edwards’ final judgment: the object of this essay … was to show that we find convergent tendencies in the disparate speculations of the Empire, that the systematic interpreters of Plato could both feed and feed upon the interpretation of the mysteries, that philosophers were not debarred from reading other books, nor other books from citing them. Apuleius – sophist, Platonist, novelist and humorist – has devised an entertainment that does not preclude all serious constructions, an arbitrary fiction that does not shun all affinities with myth.31

Dowden takes it further. Parallels with Valentinian Gnosticism can support both his thesis of an earlier chronology of the Metamorphoses, which were written in Rome about 150,32 and of a cultural dialogue centered on Platonic ‘mysteries’ and figurative exegesis. Dowden also outlines literary models and themes, which could be susceptible to an allegorical interpretation (it is worth remembering, as he does, that by that epoch Homeric exegesis was undergoing a massive philosophical and Platonizing nuance). Since Gnosticism was the most intellectualized fringe of Christianity – sharply Hellenized Christianity in the famous words of Adolf von Harnack – it is possible that Apuleius was aware of some of its doctrines and perhaps they appeared to him as the only acceptable face of Christianity. In my opinion, however, it is not necessary to suppose that he became acquainted with them in Rome, for Valentinus himself was an Alexandrian and, furthermore, Tertullian (a few decennia after Apuleius) testifies that Africa pullulated with heretic conventicles and groups. Though the story of Sophia shares many details with the tale of Cupid and Psyche, I think another Gnostic account can be closely and profitably compared with the Apuleian tale: the treatise On the Origin of the World (NHC 2,5),33 which is one of the most coherent and consistent accounts of Gnostic anthropology and cosmogony. As for its contents, however, there are some irregularities, or idiosyncrasies, and its unevenness does not permit tracing it back to a precise system (be it Sethian or Valentinian). They are an eloquent witness of what has been labelled as Gnostic ‘syncretism’. As with the other writings in the collection, the place

31 Edwards 1992, 92–93. 32 Dowden 1998, 4. The same scholar maintained the thesis of an early composition in Dowden 1994. See now the further remarks by Hunink 2002 (he argues for an early redaction and a later diffusion). 33 According to the conventional title, though the text has been transmitted without a title and therefore is sometimes labelled as ‘Untitled Treatise’. See Painchaud 1995, 6 ff.

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where it originated can reliably be considered Alexandria, the ‘great Lodge’ of Late Antiquity, in Quispel’s provocative definition.34 At the same time, some passages in the Coptic version, the only one preserved to us,35 suggest this may be an unfinished or provisional stage of the translation. However, according to its last editor (Painchaud 1995), who also provided a careful reconstruction of the rhetorical structure and framework, the present text is the result of a redaction at an earlier stage, perhaps already affecting the Greek original. Such re-working was probably due to the different intent of the original text. Once these ‘concretions’ are removed, the original can be reconstructed so that a coherent structure emerges. The text is, in fact, carefully structured: chiasms, parallelisms and the reprises of key-words (mots crochets, in Painchaud’s words) are the best demonstration of formal carefulness and mark the various transitions of the story and the development of its concepts from the prologue to the epilogue. As for the chronology, the majority of interpreters incline towards setting the Greek redaction at an early date, namely at the end of the second century AD.36 In some respects, On the Origins of the World can be linked to the brief text immediately preceding in the Nag Hammadi collection, the Hypostasis of the Archons:37 both present an esoteric interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis by combining in their peculiar syncretism Jewish (particularly from the Enoch literature) and, to a lesser degree, early Christian speculations on the creation of the world, angelology and eschatology with late Hellenistic tenets concerning analogous doctrines. The main bulk of the text deals with the creation of earthly man by the arrogant Archons, while a second line of development is represented in a soteriological part by the figure of Sophia (or her ‘hypostases’). This insistence on redemption is the key to understanding the final apocalyptic section, which describes the final collapse of the evil creation together with its wicked creator and, conversely, the salvation of the ‘elected’, true Gnostics. In this sense, in spite of some inconsistencies,38 this work can be regarded as a paradigmatical account of conversion and redemption.39

34 See Quispel 1998. 35 However, as is well known, all the Nag Hammadi texts derive from a Greek original, redacted at least two centuries earlier. This conclusion can be inferred from internal matters like lexical borrowings or grammatical errors (Painchaud 1995, 4). 36 The hypothesis of a late chronology (originally suggested by Bethge) seems now rejected: Painchaud 1995, 103 ff. and 117. 37 Last edited by Barc 1980. 38 Painchaud 1995, 14: ‘tout cela suscite chez le lecteur l’impression paradoxale d’une oeuvre composée avec soin et en même temps, truffée d’incohérences de toutes sortes.’ 39 Painchaud 1995, 92.

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Notwithstanding the massive presence of Jewish elements (even greater than Christian ones, largely pertaining to the second redaction), there are some passages that are patently influenced by Greek culture and imagery and testify to the heterogeneity of sources.40 The section most influenced by Hellenistic elements is the story of Eros and Psyche; it is narrated in full account at 109,1 ff., right in the middle of the entire work (a striking parallel with Apuleius). This passage, which I quote in H. G. Bethge and O. S. Wintermute’s translation,41 was perhaps perceived as a self-contained block, for it was not subjected to the redactional rearrangement. Out of that first blood Eros appeared, being androgynous. His masculinity is Himireris,42 being fire from the light. His femininity, that is with him a soul of blood – is from the stuff of Pronoia. He is very lovely in his beauty, having a charm beyond all the creatures of chaos. Then all the gods and their angels, when they beheld Eros, became enamored of him. And appearing in all of them he set them afire: just as from a single lamp many lamps are lit, and one and the same light is there, but the lamp is not diminished. And in this way Eros became dispersed in all the created beings of chaos, and was not diminished. Just as from the midpoint of light and darkness Eros appeared and at the midpoint of the angels and mankind the sexual union of Eros was consummated, so out of the earth the primal pleasure blossomed. The woman followed earth. And marriage followed woman. Birth followed marriage. Dissolution followed birth. After that Eros, the grapevine sprouted up out of that blood, which had been shed over the earth. Because of this, those who drink of it conceive the desire of sexual union. After the grapevine, a fig tree and a pomegranate tree sprouted up from the earth, together with the rest of the trees, all species, having within them their seed from the [110] seed of the authorities and their angels. … And the first soul (psyche) loved Eros, who was with her, and poured her blood upon him and upon the earth. And out of that blood the rose first sprouted up, out of the earth, out of the thorn bush, to be a source of joy for the light that was to appear in the bush. Moreover after this the beautiful, good-smelling flowers sprouted up from the earth, different kinds, from every single virgin of the daughters of Pronoia. And they, when they had become enamored of Eros, poured out their blood upon him and upon the earth. After these, every plant sprouted up from the earth, different kinds, containing the seed of the authorities and their angels. After these, the authorities created out of the waters all species of beast, and the reptiles and birds – different kinds – containing the seed of the authorities and their angels.

As we said, this digression cuts the main text in two and represents the middle of the story. Scholars therefore suggested that the presence of Eros is a Platonizing 40 Painchaud 1995, 90. 41 Contained in Robinson 1996, 178 ff. 42 The form ‘Himireris’ is probably an erroneous reading or a scribal error and ought to be read ‘Himeros’.

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insertion in the paraphrase from Genesis, which is the keynote of this Gnostic writing. Some attributes of Eros show a patent Greek heritage and share patterns with the way this god is already described in literary sources, such as Hesiod, or mysteriosophic texts, such as the Orphic fragments.43 In particular, recent interpreters underlined how Eros is presented here as a counterbalance to the immortal Man; they notice a sharp contrast between the representations of an ascetic kind of love, strongly influenced by encratite tendencies, and an ‘earthly’ one, ruled by passions and sexual desires. This interpretation can be maintained in considering Eros’ origin. In fact he is depicted here as the offspring of an illicit passion, namely that of Pronoia (the female partner of the supreme God) who fell in love with the Form of the immortal man, once he had appeared. This means that for the Gnostic writer love is, yes, a universal driving force, but also an uncontrolled desire: therefore he introduces an ascetic theme that sounds as a leitmotiv throughout the whole treatise.44 A further confirmation of the ascetic tone is perhaps offered by the myth of the phoenix, which was considered an asexual bird and was counted among the symbols of chastity.45 The story of Eros is an example of how marriage and procreation lead inevitably to death – a current tenet among some Gnostic groups. Notwithstanding some differences, this text can be compared with Poimandres 1,18 (but generally speaking, many Gnostic doctrines share some patterns with Hermetism).46 How-

43 See especially Tardieu 1974, 141 ff.; Perkins 1980; Mansfeld 1981. Fliedner 1974, Fasce 1977 and Rudhardt 1986 deal with some different aspects of Eros in myth and cult. For further bibliography on Eros as a mediator, see Tommasi 1998. According to Hes. Theog. 118 ff., Eros was a sort of cosmic principle. The procreative might of Eros is stressed also by Parmenides (fr. 13 D.-K.). The Gnostic writer repeats some stereotype details in the classical description of Eros, such as his fiery nature and his beauty. According to the detailed commentary of Painchaud 1995, there are some reminiscences of Jewish ideas, such as the ‘bloody soul’ of Psyche (which he compares to Lev. 17); he underlines also a probable connection with the famous theme of the fallen angels and their intercourse with women. On the contrary, I find his connection between Eros, the flame and Christ’s crucifixion as it is narrated in Ign. ad Rom. 7,2 or with the emanative theory of the undiminished flame (Phil. Gig. 25; Iren. 2,17,4) to be somewhat forced. 44 For the function of sexual differentiation in this text, see now Dunning 2009. Encratism as a tendency of some Gnostic groups has been extensively investigated by Sfameni Gasparro 1984. Two fragments of Clement’s Excerpta ex Theodoto might usefully be recalled in this context, namely chapters 21 and 67. Tardieu 1974 proposed a more ‘optimistic’ reading of this portion of text. 45 It is worth noticing that in the revised version this theme is developed by superimposing on it an allusion to Christ. For an extensive inquiry about the symbolism of the phoenix, see van den Broek 1971; Festugière 1967. See also the considerations I put forward in Tommasi 1998. 46 The comparison between Gnosticism and Hermetism, along with many related themes, was already a favorite of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, but see now van den Broek 1996; Peste

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ever, though employing a Greek myth, the author essentially wants to discredit the terrestrial Eros and, conversely, to extol heavenly love. Indeed, Eros is closely associated with the ruinous tyranny of the Archons (who are equated, as usually in Gnostic writings, with the evil Creator of Genesis). Eros’ archontic origin and nature, i.e. carnal, witness the domination of the Archons over humankind. Through the Archons, in fact, birth and death perpetuated themselves among humans, who are enslaved by lust and passion. Generally speaking, the progressive degradation from heavenly beings to earthly realms has been considered a way to explain in mythical terms a concern that was likewise much debated in the contemporary philosophical schools, mainly in Middle-Platonic milieus, namely the passage from unity to multiplicity.47 Apuleius’ text and the Gnostic one cannot, of course, be compared line by line. It can be clearly seen how different they are in length, tone and literary texture. They share many patterns, however, and probably the general inspiration is the same, if we accept John Penwill’s interpretation, according to which the tale of Cupid and Psyche is not an account of redemption but of fall and enslavement to sexual desires.48 Penwill suggested a reading of Apuleius’ tale which goes against the mainstream. He maintains that a real redemption comes only at the end of the novel, thanks to the intervention of Isis, who grants the sole acceptable form of salvation, noting how it is not by chance that Apuleius describes the goddess by alluding to and sublimating the stereotypes of feminine beauty which had earlier attracted and lost Lucius.

2002. It is not my purpose here to deal with the question of whether Apuleius is actually the author of the Asclepius (as recently suggested by Hunink 1996) or not (as earlier maintained by the majority of scholars). 47 As stated in the challenging book by Corbin 1981, every speculation about God and the progression of beings can be traced back to Plato’s Parmenides and to its Neoplatonic exegesis, since this dialogue clearly shows an attempt at connecting plurality to Being, or, in other words, at explaining how the diversity of creatures, as images of being, can be integrated in the supreme Unity. For further information, see Tommasi 2002. This problem became crucial to Plotinus’ speculation and to his anti-Gnostic tetralogy (Enn. 3,8; 5,8; 5,5; 2,9), on which see, among others, Cilento 1971, who provides a critical edition of this Grossschrift. An up-to-date bibliography is provided by Soares Santoprete 2009. 48 Penwill 1975, 59: ‘We are not dealing with a redemption, but a fall … The fate of Psyche is the fate of the soul under the control of false religion … Cupid and Psyche is the myth which tells how Voluptas came into the world through the enslavement of the soul to sexual appetite and thus accounts for the present state of unregenerate man’; Penwill 1990, 10: ‘The liberation effected by Isis brings into focus the enslavements of the soul that ‘Cupid and Psyche’ allegorizes’; Penwill 1998, 161: ‘Cupid and Psyche is centrally placed as an explanatory myth … the story is thus the narrative of a fall, a fall from which Isis alone can redeem.’

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Nonetheless, when he comes to a deeper analysis of the central tale, Penwill denies the very idea of a mise en abîme49 and, in his opinion, the tale of Cupid and Psyche ought to be read in opposition to the final book (I would suggest labelling this a sort of antiphrastic mise en abîme). Not only has Cupid ‘in no way assisted Psyche in growing her own wings and making the intellectual leap into the intelligible world that love is envisioned as enabling one to do in Plato’,50 but the wrath of Venus is also an example of the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ that pursue Lucius throughout the novel. A sharp contrast is shown between the two goddesses, Venus and Isis whose benign figure emerges in the last book. The Metamorphoses and its striking end are therefore to be read as an abrupt shift from a world dominated by magic, sexual desires, capricious fortune, pleasure and lust to an ordered and providential universe, ruled by an almighty and benevolent divinity. Finally, it is precisely the birth of Voluptas, daughter of Cupid and Psyche, coming to the end of the long vicissitude of these two lovers, which symbolizes this negative attitude towards earthly love. One might be surprised to notice that in the Gnostic text the offspring of Psyche and Eros is called Hedone.51 All this leads to a possible conclusion: the vexata quaestio of the Platonic inspiration and allegorical significance in Apuleius, can be reframed by observing that Platonism had undergone many significant changes and a gradual evolution in a religious sense during the second century AD. It would be possible to suggest that Apuleius and the anonymous Gnostic author both derived their story from a Platonic source, which combined the famous ‘myths’ of the fallen soul in the Phaedrus and that of Eros in the Symposium, though conferring a pessimistic

49 Penwill 1975, 51: ‘the thematic links are not there to create a parallel but to point up a contrast.’ The consideration put forward by him (1998, 173), ‘Our uplifting myth has degenerated into Roman comedy’, comes astonishingly close to the vitriolic irony in Tertullian’s Against the Valentinians, when, skilful rhetorician that he is, he parallels Sophia’s childbirth to the illegitimate childbirths so usual in classical comedies (10,2: see above, n. 27). In a paper presented to the ICAN Conference in Lisbon (July 2008) Penwill again challenged the idea of mise en abîme in the context of a discussion of modern literary theory. 50 Penwill 1998, 168. Along this line one must read also the episode of the oil-lamp accidentally spilled by Psyche that hurts her sleeping lover. 51 According to Painchaud 1995, 117 and comm. ad loc., the Gnostic writer chose this name drawing inspiration from Apuleius – a statement which seems to me highly speculative (I am not sure whether a Greek-speaking Christian or Jewish author was aware of a Latin, deeply paganized and in some respects anti-Christian work like the Metamorphoses, and therefore I consider more persuasive Parrott’s 1988 hypothesis of a common source). Painchaud, however, nuances this statement by connecting lust to Gen 6,1–4. Penwill 1975, 51 is right in comparing the use of voluptas to Cic. Fin. 2,4,13. See also Moreschini 1994, 74.

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nuance to these passages. Moreover, these two dialogues, especially the Phaedrus and its doctrines about the immortal soul, enjoyed a certain fame among the Middle Platonists.52 A Platonic reassertion of this myth is provided by the different version of the Psyche/Eros story which is conveyed in Plotinus (Enn. 6,9 [9],9).53 These passages show significant differences from the Apuleian narrative, which are worth noting and discussing. Plotinus in particular relies on Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus, offering a converging reading of these two dialogues as far as the figure of Aphrodite and Eros are concerned.54 As usual in Plotinus the soul is assimilated to Aphrodite. Nor is there lacking the distinction between the celestial, Uranian Aphrodite and the vulgar, terrestrial one, which is derived from the well known passage of Plato, Symp. 180. But Plotinus blends this image with Symp. 203c, where the birth and nature of Eros are described. He develops the same ideas further on in Enn. 3,5 (50),55 2–3, where it is stated how the Soul directs its acts towards heaven (that is Kronos) in order to bring forth Eros through whom it continues to look towards Kronos. In this respect, Eros is a mediator, for he acts as a link between desire and the object of desire. Furthermore, Eros embodies the love that Psyche feels towards the Good. The ultimate goal of vision corresponds to the loving embrace. After having stated that all individual souls emanate from a supreme principle, and are therefore eternal and imperishable and in no way separate from it, the philosopher goes further in affirming that this Principle is the only source of Good and only there can the soul find peace and rest: That our good is There is shown by the very love inborn with the soul; hence the constant linking of the Love-God with the Psyches in story and picture; the soul, other than God but sprung of Him, must need love. So long as it is There, it holds the heavenly love; here its love is the baser; There the soul is Aphrodite of the heavens; here, turned harlot, Aphrodite of the public ways: yet the soul is always an Aphrodite. This is the intention of the myth which tells of Aphrodite’s birth and Eros born with her.

52 See Trapp 1990. For the difference between Beauty and Good among Middle Platonists, see Beierwaltes 1986; Edwards 1991b. A negative attitude of Platonic philosophy towards love, or, in other words, an encratite attitude, does not seem improbable: see, for example, the well known case of Julian the Emperor in the fourth century (with the insightful analysis by Cosi 1986). 53 Hadot 1994 provides an excellent introduction and commentary of this text, which is the treatise devoted to beauty and to the ecstatic contemplation of the One. Not by chance Porphyry placed it at the climax of his arrangement of the Enneads. I quote the text in the classical translation by S. McKenna. 54 The Enneads, moreover, show cross-references to these two dialogues. In 5,5 (32), 12 there is a long passage, inspired by Agathon’s eulogy in the Symposium, which describes the feelings of the Soul in front of the supreme Good and echoes Phaedrus 250d-252b. 55 Edited and commented by Hadot 1998.

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The soul in its nature loves God and longs to be at one with Him in the noble love of a daughter for a noble father; but coming to human birth and lured by the courtships of this sphere, she takes up with another love, a mortal, leaves her father and falls. But one day coming to hate her shame, she puts away the evil of earth, once more seeks the father, and finds her peace. Those to whom all this experience is strange may understand by way of our earthly longings and the joy we have in winning to what we most desire – remembering always that here what we love is perishable, hurtful, that our loving is of mimicries and turns awry because all was a mistake, our good was not here, this was not what we sought; There only is our veritable love and There we may hold it and be with it, possess it in its verity no longer submerged in alien flesh.

This passage in Plotinus has been compared to the Gnostic work Exegesis on the Soul, whose affinities with Valentinianism we have already underlined. All these texts are modelled on the same scheme: a situation of primal happiness is disrupted by the fall of the soul, which ends safe and sound with the return to its origin.56 At the same time it is possible to compare it also to the passage in On the Origins of the World through the common denominator of metaphors such as desire, passionate love, flowing and emanation, which are meant to develop the erotic foundation of creating.57 This suggestion is very challenging and can be reinforced if we consider that this treatise is a juvenile one and that in the chronological order it is immediately followed by Enn. 5,1 (10), which shows meaningful connections with the Valentinian Tripartite Tractate.58 Besides, Plotinus recalls Greek myths (and also their artistic iconography), allegorizing them so that they become suitable to his philosophical speculation, as he does in many other passages. In a comparable case, that of the triad Ouranos-Chronos-Zeus in Enn. 5,5 (32), 3, scholars have plausibly suggested that the philosopher aimed at presenting himself as the champion of Hellenism against the ‘barbarian philosophy’ of his Christian and Gnostic adversaries, just by means of the rearrangement and reinterpretation of classical mythology.59 The

56 Hadot 1994, 34 ff., who describes Psyche in terms very close to the prodigal son (‘fille oblieuse, perdue et retrouvée’), suggests a common source lying behind these two writings. Cazelais 2007 provides a detailed analysis of them, calling attention to the Apuleian tale as well. 57 See the considerations by Cox Miller 1992. Plotinus ‘erotic’ doctrine is investigated by Rist 1964. See also Beierwaltes 1986. 58 See Zandee 1961. Soares Santoprete 2009 suggests, however, that some passages of Enn. 5,1 are to be read as a polemic against the Gnostics as well. 59 See Hadot 1981 and Soares Santoprete 2009, 394–425. I would like to thank Giovanni Casadio, Stephen A. Cooper, Carlo Martino Lucarini, Claudio Moreschini, Danuta Shanzer and Luciana Gabriela Soares Santoprete for hints and suggestions, as well as Pauline Tucker for revising the text. I would also like to thank Professor Roger Beck, who provided a thorough editorial and

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positive evaluation of the ascension of the soul and, at the same time, the celebration of Eros could perhaps be interpreted in the same way, without, however, denying the general intent of that passage in Plotinus’ system. They could be read as a criticism of the Gnostics for not having understood the beauty of this world, could they not?

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linguistic revision, helping to clarify some points. Professor Luther H. Martin deserves a special mention for having allowed me to read an early draft of his article ‘The Amor and Psyche Relief in the Mithraeum of Capua Vetere: An Exceptional Case of Graeco-Roman Syncretism or an Ordinary Instance of Human Cognition?’, in: Mystic Cults of Magna Graecia I, eds. P. A. Johnston and G. Casadio, Austin: Texas University Press 2009, 277–289. Finally, this paper is devoted to the lasting memory of Prof. Renzo Sacchi, ché ’n la mente m’è fitta e or m’accora / la cara e buona imagine paterna / di voi quando nel mondo ad ora ad ora / m’insegnavate come l’uom s’etterna.

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Helm, R. 1914. ‘Das ‘Märchen’ von Amor und Psyche’, NJb f. Kl. Alt. 33, 170–209 (repr. in: Binder and Merkelbach 1968, 175–234). Hoevels, F. E. 1979. Märchen und Magie in den Metamorphosen des Apuleius von Madaura, Amsterdam: Rodopi. Hunink, V. 1996. ‘Apuleius and the Asclepius’, VChr 50, 288–308. Hunink, V. 2002. ‘The Date of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, in: P. Defosse (ed.), Hommages à Carl Deroux, II, Prose et linguistique, Médicine, Bruxelles: Latomus. 224–235. James, P. and M. Keynes 1998. ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Levis Amor in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius’, in: M. Zimmerman, V. Hunink, T. D. Mc Creight, D. van Mal-Maeder, S. Panayotakis, V. Schmidt and B. Wesseling (eds.), Aspects of Apuleius’ Golden Ass, II: Cupid and Psyche, Groningen: Egbert Forsten. 35–49. Jeanmaire, H. 1930. ‘Le conte d’Amour et Psyché’, Bull. Inst. Franç. Sociologie 1, 29–48 (repr. in: Binder and Merkelbach 1968, 313–333). Katz, P. B. 1976. ‘The Myth of Psyche. A Definition of the Nature of the Feminine’, Arethusa 9, 111–118. Kenney, E. J. 1990a. ‘Psyche and Her Mysterious Husband’, in: D. A. Russell (ed.), Antonine Literature, Oxford: OUP. 175–198. Kenney, E. J. (ed.) 1990b. Apuleius, Cupid and Psyche, Cambridge: CUP. Kerényi, K. 1927. Die griechisch-orientalische Romanliteratur in religionsgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung, Tübingen: Mohr. Klijn, A. F. J. 1960. ‘The So-Called Hymn of the Pearl’, VChr 14, 154–164. Lancel, S. 1961. ‘Curiositas et préoccupations spirituelles chez Apulée’, RHR 160, 25–46. Lancellotti, M. G. 2001. The Naassenes. A Gnostic Identity among Judaism, Christianity, Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Traditions, Münster: Ugarit Verlag. Lüdemann, G. and M. Schröder 1987. Die Religionsgeschichtliche Schule in Göttingen: Eine Dokumentation, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Lüdemann, G. (ed.) 1996. Die ‘Religionsgeschichtliche Schule’. Facetten eines theologischen Umbruchs, Frankfurt: Lang. MacRae, G. W. 1970. ‘The Jewish Background of the Gnostic Sophia Myth’, NT 12, 86–101. Mahé, J. P. 1972. ‘Quelques remarques sur la religion des Métamorphoses d’Apulée et les doctrines gnostiques contemporaines’, RSR 46, 1–19. Mansfeld, J. 1981. ‘Hesiod and Parmenides in Nag Hammadi’, VChr 35, 174–182. Mantero, T. 1973. Amore e Psiche. Struttura di una fiaba di magia, Genoa: Istituto di Filologia Classica e Medievale. Marcovich, M. 1981. ‘The Naassene Psalm in Hyppolitus (Haer. 5,10,2)’, in: B. Layton (ed.), The Rediscovery of Gnosticism. Proceedings of the International Conference on Gnosticism at Yale, New Haven, Conn. March 28–31 1978, II, Sethian Gnosticism, Leiden: Brill. 770–778. Markschies, C. 1992. Valentinus Gnosticus? Untersuchungen zur valentinianischen Gnosis: mit einem Kommentar zu den Fragmenten Valentins, Tübingen: Mohr. Markschies, C. 2000. ‘New Research on Ptolemaeus Gnosticus’, ZAC 4, 225–254. Martin, L. H. 2009. ‘The Amor and Psyche Relief in the Mithraeum of Capua Vetere: An Exceptional Case of Graeco-Roman Syncretism or an Ordinary Instance of Human Cognition?’, in: P. A. Johnston and G. Casadio (eds.), Mystic Cults of Magna Graecia, Austin: Texas University Press. 277–289. Mazzarino, A. 1950. La Milesia e Apuleio, Turin: Chiantore. Merkelbach, R. 1962. Roman und Mysterium in der Antike, Munich: Beck. Moreschini, C. 1978. Apuleio e il Platonismo, Firenze: Olschki.

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Moreschini, C. 1990. ‘Le Metamorfosi di Apuleio, la fabula milesia e il romanzo’, MD 25, 115–128. Moreschini, C. 1994. Il mito di Amore e Psiche in Apuleio, Naples: D’Auria. Neumann, E. 1971. The Psychic Development of the Feminine: A Commentary on the Tale by Apuleius, Engl. tr. Princeton: University Press. Orbe, A. 1977. ‘Los Valentinianos y el matrimonio espíritual. Hacia los orígenes de la mística nupcial’, Gregorianum 58, 5–53. Painchaud, L. 1995. L’Écrit sans titre: traité sur l’origine du monde (NH II,5 et XIII,2 et Brit. Lib. Or. 4926[1]), avec deux contributions de P. W. Funk, Québec, Louvain, Paris: Les Presses de l’Université Laval et Peeters. Painchaud, L. and A. Pasquier 1995. Les textes de Nag Hammadi et le problème de leur classification (Actes du Colloque tenu à Québec du 15 au 19 sept. 1993), Québec, Louvain, Paris: Les Presses de l’Université Laval et Peeters. Panayotakis, C. 2001. ‘Vision and Light in Apuleius’ Tale of Psyche and her Mysterious Husband’, CQ 51, 576–583. Parpola, S. 2001. ‘Mesopotamian Precursors of the Hymn of the Pearl’, in: R. M. Whiting (ed.), Mythology and Mythologies, Melammu Symposia II, Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project. 181–194. Parrott, D. M. 1988. ‘Response to Jewish and Greek Heroines in the Nag Hammadi Library by M. Scopello’, in: K. L. King (ed.), Images of Feminine in Gnosticism, Philadelphia: Fortress Press. 91–95. Penwill, J. 1975. ’Slavish Pleasures and Profitless Curiosity: Fall and Redemption in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, Ramus 4, 49–82. Penwill, J. 1990. ‘Ambages reciprocae: Reviewing Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, Ramus 19, 1–25. Penwill, J. 1998. ‘Reflections on a “Happy Ending”: The Case of Cupid and Psyche’, Ramus 27, 160–182. Perkins, P. 1980. ‘On the Origin of the World (CG II,5): A Gnostic Physics’, VChr 34, 36–46. Peste, J. 2002. The Poimandres Group in Corpus Hermeticum: Myth, Mysticism and Gnosis in Late Antiquity, Göteborg: Göteborgs Universitet. Pettinato, G. 2005. ‘Inanna’, in: L. Jones (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion 7, Detroit, etc.: Thomson. 4402–4406. Poirier, P. H. 1981. L’hymne de la perle des actes de Thomas. Introduction, Texte, Traduction, Commentaire, Louvain-la-Neuve: Centre d’histoire des religions. Propp, V. 1968. Morphology of the Folktale, Engl. tr. Austin: University of Texas Press. Quispel, G. 1948. ‘De humor van Tertullianus’, NTT 2, 280–290. Quispel, G. 1951. Gnosis als Weltreligion, Zurich: Artemis. Quispel, G. 1965. ‘Gnosticism and the New Testament’, VChr 19, 65–85. Quispel, G., 1967. Makarius, das Thomasevangelium und das Lied der Perle, Leiden: Brill. Quispel, G. 1974. Gnostic Studies, I, Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut in het Nabije Oosten. Quispel, G. 1982. ‘African Christianity before Minucius Felix and Tertullian’, in: J. den Boeft and A. H. M. Kessels (eds.), Actus. Studies in Honour of H. L. W. Nelson, Utrecht: Instituut voor Klassieke Talen. 257–335 (repr. in: id., Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica. Collected Essays of Gilles Quispel, Leiden: Brill 2008, 389–459). Quispel, G. 1998. ‘The Asclepius: From the Hermetic Lodge in Alexandria to the Greek Eucharist and the Roman Mass’, in: R. van den Broek and W. J. Hanegraaff (eds.), Gnosis and Hermetism from Antiquity to Modern Times, Albany: State University of New York Press. 69–78.

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Reitzenstein, R. 1912. Das Märchen von Amor und Psyche bei Apuleius, Leipzig: Teubner 1912. 1–89 (repr. in: Binder and Merkelbach 1968, 87–158). Reitzenstein, R. 1914. ‘Eros und Psyche in der ägyptisch-griechischen Kleinkunst’, SB Heidelberger Akad. d. Wiss., phil.-hist. Kl., 3–15 (repr. in: Binder and Merkelbach 1968, 159–174). Reitzenstein, R. 1917. Die Göttin Psyche in der hellenistischen und frühchristlichen Dichtung (SB Heidelberger Akad. d. Wiss., phil.-hist. Kl.), Heidelberg: Winter. Reitzenstein, R. 19222. Hellenistische Wundererzählungen, Leipzig: Teubner (repr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1963). Reitzenstein, R. 1930a. ‘Noch einmal Eros und Psyche’, ARW 28, 42–87 (repr. in: Binder and Merkelbach 1968, 235–292). Reitzenstein, R. 1930b, ‘Eros als Osiris’, Nachr. v. d. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. z. Göttingen, 396–406 (repr. in: Binder and Merkelbach 1968, 301–312). Riley, M. T. 1971. Q. S. Fl. Tertulliani Adversus Valentinianos: Text, translation, and commentary, Diss. Stanford University, available at http://www.tertullian.org/articles/riley_adv_val/ riley_00_index.htm Rist, J. M. 1964. Eros and Psyche: Studies in Plato, Plotinus, and Origen, Toronto: University Press. Robinson, J. M. 1996. The Nag-Hammadi Library in English, 4th rev. ed., Leiden, New York and Cologne: Brill. Rudhardt, J. 1986. Le role d’Eros et d’Aphrodite dans les cosmogonies grecques, Paris: PUF. Rudolph, K. 1967. ‘Zum Problem Mesopotamien (Babylonien) und Gnostizismus’, in: U. Bianchi (ed.), Le origini dello Gnosticismo. Colloquio di Messina 13–18 aprile 1966, Leiden: Brill. 302–306. Rudolph, K. 2005. ‘Religionsgeschichtliche Schule’, in: L. Jones (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion 11, Detroit, etc.: Thomson. 7706–7709. Russell, J. R. 2001–2002. ‘The Epic of the Pearl’, Rev.Et.Arm. 28, 29–100. Sagnard, F. 1947. La gnose valentinienne et le témoignage de S. Irénée, Paris: Vrin. Schlam, C. C. 1968. ‘The Curiosity of the Golden Ass’, CJ 64, 120–125. Schlam, C. C. 1970. ‘Platonica in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius’, TAPhA 101, 477–487. Schlam, C. C. 1976. Cupid and Psyche: Apuleius and the Monuments, University Park, PA: The American Philological Association. Scopello, M. 1985. L’exégèse de l’âme. Nag Hammadi Codex II,6, Leiden: Brill. Scopello, M. 1988. ‘Jewish and Greek Heroines in the Nag Hammadi Library’, in: K. L. King (ed.), Images of Feminine in Gnosticism, Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1988. 71–90. Sfameni Gasparro, G. 1977. ‘Il personaggio di Sophia nel Vangelo secondo Filippo’, VChr 31, 244–281 (repr. in: Ead., Gnostica et Hermetica. Saggi sullo gnosticismo e sull’ermetismo, Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo 1982, 73–119). Sfameni Gasparro, G. 1984. Enkrateia e antropologia. Le motivazioni protologiche della continenza e della verginità nel cristianesimo dei primi secoli e dello gnosticismo, Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum. Shanzer, D. 1990. “Asino vectore virgo regia fugiens captivitatem’. Apuleius and the Tradition of the Protevangelium Jacobi’, ZPE 84, 221–229. Sick, D. 2005. ‘Apuleius, Christianity, and Virgin Birth’, WS 118, 91–116. Simon, M. 1974. ‘Apulée et le Christianisme’, in: Mélanges d’histoire des religions offerts à H. C. Puech, Paris: PUF. 299–305. Soares Santoprete, L. G. 2009. Plotin, Traité 32 (V, 5), Sur l’Intellect, que les intelligibles ne sont pas hors de l’Intellect et sur le Bien. Introduction, traduction, commentaire et notes, Doctoral

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Dissertation directed by P. Hoffmann and discussed in Paris (École Pratique des Hautes Études) on June 17th, 2009. Stead, G. C. 1969. ‘The Valentinian Myth of Sophia’, JThS 20, 75–104. Tardieu, M. 1974. Trois mythes gnostiques: Adam, Eros et les animaux d’Egypte dans un écrit de Nag-Hammadi (II,5), Paris: Institut d’Etudes Augustinennes. Thomassen, E. 2006. The Spiritual Seed: the Church of the ‘Valentinians’, Leiden: Brill. Tommasi, C. O. 1998. ‘L’androginia divina e i suoi presupposti filosofici: il mediatore celeste’, SCO 46, 973–998. Tommasi, C. O. 2002. ‘Viae negationis della dossologia divina nel medioplatonismo e nello gnosticismo sethiano (con echi in Mario Vittorino)’, in: F. Calabi (ed.), Arrhetos Theos. L’inconoscibilità del primo principio nel medioplatonismo, Pisa: ETS. 119–154. Tommasi, C. O. (ed.) 2010. Tertulliano, Contro i Valentiniani, Rome: Città Nuova. Tommasi, C. O. 2012. The Bee Orchid. Religione e Cultura in Marziano Capella, Naples: D’Auria. Trapp, M. B. 1990. ‘Plato’s Phaedrus in Second-Century Greek Literature’, in: D. A. Russell (ed.), Antonine Literature, Oxford: OUP. 141–174. Turcan, R. 1963. ‘Le roman ‘initiatique’: à propos d’un livre recent’, RHR 163, 149–199. Turner, J. D. and A. McGuire 1997. The Nag Hammadi Library after Fifty Years. Proceedings of the 1995 Society of Biblical Literature Celebration, Leiden: Brill. van den Broek, R. 1971. The Myth of the Phoenix According to Classical and Early Christian Tradition, Leiden: Brill. van den Broek, R. 1996. ‘Gnosticism and Hermetism in Antiquity: Two Roads to Salvation’, in: id., Studies in Gnosticism and Alexandrian Christianity, Leiden: Brill. 3–21. Weinreich, O. 1930. ‘Eros und Psyche bei den Kabylen’, ARW 28, 88–94 (repr. in: Binder and Merkelbach 1968, 293–300). Wolkstein, D. and S. N. Kramer 1983. Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer, New York: Harper & Row. Zandee, J. 1961. The Terminology of Plotinus and of Some Gnostic Writings, Mainly the 5th Treatise of the Jung Codex, Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Institut in het Nabije Oosten. Zandee, J. 1967. ‘Die Person der Sophia in der vierten Schrift des Codex Jung’, in: U. Bianchi (ed.), Le origini dello gnosticismo (Colloquio di Messina, 13–18 aprile 1966), Leiden: Brill. 203–214. Zimmerman, M., S. Panayotakis, V. C. Hunink, W. H. Keulen, S. J. Harrison, T. D. McCreight, B. Wesseling and D. van Mal-Maeder 2004. Apuleius Madaurensis, Metamorphoses. Books IV 28–35, V, and VI 1–24. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Text, Introduction and Commentary, Groningen: Egbert Forsten.

Ilaria L. E. Ramelli

Apuleius and Christianity: The NovelistPhilosopher in front of a New Religion Abstract: I investigate the presence of allusions to Christians and Christianity in the novel of Apuleius and in other writings by him, on the basis of a critical examination of the available sources. I argue that he picked up some of the most widespread anti-Christian accusations that were current in his time. Attention is also paid to the fact that in the late first and through the second century AD three novels seem to have seen the light in which the protagonist is an ass-man; precisely in that period, the Christians were accused of worshipping an ass-man. It is certainly possible that Apuleius, who lived in Africa and Rome in the time of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, knew of Christians, and it is probable that he alluded to them,1 although it is definitely not the case that he was a Christian, as L. Herrmann assumed.2 In the areas and times in which he lived, Christianity was widespread and discussed, e.g., in Madaura, where he was born around AD 125, in Carthage and Athens, where he studied, in Rome, where he travelled, and in Africa, to which he returned. In that epoch, Christianity was a religion not recognized by the Roman Empire, but Hadrian’s legislation favored the Christians;3 the situation changed under Antoninus Pius and further worsened under Marcus Aurelius, under whom there was a persecution.4 It was a time of widespread anti-Christian accusations and of Christian apologies, concentrated precisely under the above-mentioned emperors. In this light, special attention may be given to the fact that, beginning in the late first through the second century AD, three novels seem to have seen the light in which the protagonist is an ass-man, and exactly in the same period the charge was spread against the Christians of worshipping an ass-man. Tertullian and a graffito attest to this accusation, as I shall show. In fact, Apuleius’ Asinus aureus (or Metamorphoseon libri) is included in a triad of novels on an ass-man: Apuleius’ own novel, the Metamorphoses ascribed to Lucius of Patrai and the Λούκιος ἢ ῎Ονος ascribed to Lucian. The relations

1 See Ramelli 2001a/2012, chap. 9 and Ramelli forthcoming. 2 Herrmann 1952; 1959; Apuleius turned to Christianity after his marriage (see Herrmann 1953); contra Mortley 1972 and Simon 1974. 3 See, most recently, Ramelli 2008a. 4 It was the first in which the Christians were systematically sought out, although it was then revoked; see Ramelli 1999a; 1999b; 2002a; 2002b; 2009a introductory essay.

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between each Eselsroman and the two others are problematic.5 Photius suggests that the novel ascribed to Lucian6 cannot be simply regarded as the Greek source of Apuleius (sermone isto Milesio varias fabulas conseram … fabulam Graecanicam incipimus, Met. 1,1,6). For, in Bibl. cod. 129, Photius mentions a third Eselsroman, the Metamorphoses attributed to Lucius of Patrai, whom he distinguishes from Lucian. He assimilates the contents of the first two books of their two novels, and, although he does not know with certainty which of the two came first, he hypothesizes that Lucian drew materials from Lucius, but he abbreviated his novel and introduced an element of derision of Greek religion which, according to Photius, was absent in Lucius’ novel.7 Some scholars, such as Bürger, believe, with Photius, that the novel ascribed to Lucian is an epitome of that ascribed to Lucius of Patrai,8 and point to narrative lapses in support of this hypothesis. Such lacunae, however, might also be considered to be a clue to an expansion, by the author of the novel ascribed to Lucius, of the novel ascribed to Lucian,9 as e.g. Wieland hypothesized.10 Photius declares that Lucius’ and Lucian’s novels are similar to each other only in the first two books, and it is difficult to establish whether he says so because he has read only these books, as Perry believes – although Photius usually warns the reader whenever he has not read a work in its entirety –, or because only these two books in Lucius’ novel dealt with the ass story, whereas the subsequent books included other kinds of metamorphoseis, which were absent in Lucian’s narrative.11 It is impossible to determine the number and contents of the other books in the novel ascribed to Lucius, and, as a consequence, to verify the supposition that the parts of Apuleius’ novel that do not derive from the novel ascribed to Lucian may have been inspired by Lucius.12

5 See Anderson 1976; Mason 1978; James 1987, 7–24; Mason 1997; Harrison 2000, chap. 6; Nimis 2000, ix; Graverini 2009. 6 Luciani Opera, II, ed. M. T. Macleod, Oxford 1974. 7 Photius, Bibliothèque, I, ed. R. Henry, Paris 1960, 103–104. 8 Some scholars assume that Lucian abridged the Lucius narrative ‘of necessity’. See Mason 1997, 1677–1678 with bibliography. 9 Bürger 1887, followed e.g. by Perry 1920, 8–12; contra Bianco 1971, 163. Mason 1997, 1674–1675 follows Photius’ idea that the novel ascribed to Lucian is an epitome. 10 David Konstan (who communicated this per litteras, and to whom I am very grateful also for reading and discussing my study) thinks that Lucian’s Onos as we have it is not an abridgement; there may be just a few paragraphs missing, scattered throughout the text. 11 E.g. Helm 19706, 14; Hall 1981, 414–432, also against the supposition that Photius read only the first two books of Lucius’ narrative; Dowden 1982, 419–435. According to Perry 1920, 21–31 the whole novel ascribed to Lucian deals with the ass story; he is followed by Scobie 1969, 32–33; 1975a, 2. Mason 1997, 1671–1674 is uncertain. 12 This hypothesis by Salmasius (XVII cent.) is rejected by Mason 1997, 1683.

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According to Photius, the author of the narrative whose protagonist is Lucius of Patrai is Lucius himself. Some scholars, such as Perry, deny this, arguing that it is improbable that an author should present himself as an ass in his own narrative; the use of the simple praenomen, Lucius, which indicated, like Caius, the typical Roman citizen, may imply that the author did not wish to be recognized.13 The author of the novel ascribed to Lucius has been identified with many writers, from Lucian to Apuleius himself,14 from Hadrian of Tyre to Flavius Felix or Lucius Ampelius, up to Lucius Sisenna, who translated Aristides’ Milesiaka.15 Similarly, although the Λούκιος is ascribed to Lucian by both Photius and the cod. Vaticanus 90 which includes the novel (Λουκιανοῦ Ἐπιτομὴ τῶν Λουκίου Μεταμορϕώσεων), it is not at all certain that this novel is due to Lucian, mainly because of stylistic and linguistic divergences.16 Anderson’s isolated but interesting hypothesis is that Lucian epitomized his own work, or created a second version of it, perhaps changing its perspective and tone.17 At any rate, it seems that the Lucius novel is anterior to both Ps.-Lucian’s and Apuleius’ novels; the latter is particularly attentive to the religious theme. Lucian, according to Photius, was sceptical;18 in fact, he appears hostile to propagators of new religions in other writings of his, such as Alexander or Peregrinus, where references to the Christians are transparent.19 In the Eselsroman ascribed to Lucian, the only attack on religion is the satire against Syrian priests (chapters 36–41), which, however, is to be found also in Apuleius (8,24–30),

13 Perry 1920, 14–15; 1967, 212. On the identification of author and protagonist in ancient Greek satire, see Beck 1982, 213; Hall 1981, 128–130. Browne 1978, 442–446 identifies Lucius of Patrai with the author of the metamorphosis novel. Mason 1997, 1670–1671 distinguishes Lucius of Patrai, the protagonist, from the unknown author. 14 Attribution to Lucian by Pauly 1827, 1045 and Holzberg 1984; Sullivan 1989; Mason 1997, 1687–1691. 15 Hadrian is said by the Suda to have written seven books of Metamorphoses, whose fragments, however, do not suggest parallels with the novel ascribed to Lucian. For the attribution to Hadrian, see Thiel 1971, 38–39; Hall 1981, 429–431; Jones 1972, 483 n. 44. Felix was proposed as the author by Thiel 1971, 40–42, and Ampelius by Herrmann 1972, 573–599, but see Mason 1997, 1691. 16 Mason 1997, 1679–1681, with on overview of scholarship, vs. Perry 1926; Anderson 1976, 43. 17 Anderson 1976, 46, with examples of Lucian’s re-elaborating his own material. In any case, apart from Lucian, it is impossible to indicate any other author. 18 Werner 1918, 229 does not find traces of hostility to the Greek religion in Lucian’s novel; see Griffith 1975; Mason 1997, 1676 thinks that Photius was mistaken. Likewise, Kussl 1990, 379–388 thinks that Photius, while writing chap. 129, did not have the Greek Metamorphoses in front of him. He writes on the basis of his memories, which reduces his reliability as a source. 19 See Ramelli 2005c and Pilhofer et al. 2005, esp. the essay by Pilhofer for the relation to Christianity.

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which suggests that it derives from the novel ascribed to Lucius. Nevertheless, many have followed Rohde in assuming that the author of the novel ascribed to Lucian intended to parody that ascribed to Lucius.20 Since, however, the latter is lost, uncertainty must remain about these hypotheses. In all three Eselsromane the protagonists are the object of irony; the perspective, if not necessarily parodic, is certainly comic.21 As for the dating of these Eselsromane, we have some certainty only regarding that of Apuleius. The terminus post quem for the novel ascribed to Lucius is the foundation of a Roman colony in Patrai in 14 BC, and the terminus ante quem is the publication of Apuleius’ novel, probably around AD 170.22 More precise hypotheses, on the grounds of historical23 and literary24 elements, are uncertain, although the most probable time seems to fall between the end of the first century and the beginning of the second (according to Effe, the author of the Greek Eselsroman knew and parodied Achilles Tatius, which would imply a dating rather early in the second century).25 Indeed, for Apuleius’ references to the novel ascribed to Lucian to have been intelligible, it is necessary to hypothesize not too long an interval between the two novels.26 So, the most probable period for the composition of the three Eselsromane is between the end of the first century and some time in the second. One may wonder why there was such a concentration of three novels focused on an assman over a brief stretch of time, without anterior models or significant subsequent imitations. Now, there is a close chronological and thematic coincidence – maybe fortuitous, but worth considering – with one of the most virulent accusations against the Christians: that of adoring an ass-man. This charge, deriving from the accusation of onolatry against the Jews (attested in the late first century BC),27 was alive precisely in the second century, and aroused a lively polemic, whereas subsequently, in the third century, it vanished (a Greek spell on a lead tablet from the fourth century AD, edited in Jordan 1999, 159–170, includes some

20 E.g. Schlam 1992, 18–28. 21 Hägg 1983, 178. 22 Summers 1973, 365–383; Walsh 1970, 248–251. V. Hunink, the editor of Apuleius’ Apologia (Apuleius: Pro se De magia I and II, Amsterdam 1997) and of Florida (Apuleius of Madauros: Florida, Amsterdam 2001), suggests, prudently, that the Metamorphoses were written after the Apologia (158–159). 23 Bianco 1971, 171–173; Mason 1997, 1681–1684. 24 The theatrical episode in chap. 51 is related by Perry 1920, 62 to similar episodes that occurred in a circus in AD 80 (Mart. Spect. 5) and under Nero (Suet. Ner. 12.3). 25 Effe 1976, 362–375. 26 Bianco 1971, 157, 171–174; Mason 1997, 1685. 27 See Ramelli 2001c.

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magical words and a drawing of an ass-headed figure holding a whip and staff, but we do not know whether there is any connection with Christianity). More interesting is the ass-tale recorded by Augustine in CD 18,18, an oral version of which seems to have inspired later Eastern variants (Scobie 1975a). Directly related to Augustine’s tale are two broadly contemporary tales taken from apocryphal Christian texts. Fulgentius, Myth. 6, attests that another author narrated the same story as Apuleius, although it is uncertain whether he is referring only to the Cupid and Psyche episode or to the whole ass story.28 Justin around the middle of the second century, Celsus in the day of Marcus Aurelius (ap. Orig. C. Cels. 7,40), Tertullian between the end of the second and the beginning of the third century, Minucius Felix (28,7) in about the same period, a graffito in the Paedagogium on the Palatine in the time of Tertullian, all attest that the anti-Christian accusation of adoring an ass-man was widespread in the second and the early third centuries. Two pieces of evidence are iconographic. The Palatinus graffito, between the end of the second and the beginning of the third century, represents a crucified ass-man, with human body and asinine head, and its legend, ‘Alexamenos adores his God’, reveals that the ass-man is Christ. The other iconographic source is described by Tertullian (Apol. 16,12; Ad nat. 1,14,1),29 who refers to a recent statue (nuper) representing an ass-man with asinine ears (auribus asininis) and its left foot in the form of a hoof (altero pede ungulatus), holding a book in his hand (librum gestans) and wearing a toga; its legend was Deus Christianorum onocoetes, ‘The God of the Christians is of asinine breed.’ Tertullian reports that the Christians laughed at this derision of them, of their God, depicted as a biforme numen (probably in reference to the double nature of Christ, human and divine), and of their doctrine, presented as an asinine science, thus as foolishness. This is an approach shared by Lucian, for instance,30 or even Galen,31 who appreciated the Christians’ courage, but regarded them as gullible and ignorant. Tertullian testifies again that the anti-Christian accusation of onolatry was widespread in his time in Apol. 16,1 and Ad nat. 1,11,1: somniastis caput asininum esse deum nostrum. The ass-man novel ascribed to Lucian, which has the ass-man motif in common with the anti-Christian charge of that epoch, also contains elements from

28 It is improbable that a fragment of Sophron derives from a metamorphosis story involving an ass-man, as Cataudella 1966 rightly argues. On the reception of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses from the third to the seventeenth century, see Carver 2007. 29 For Tertullian in the context of pagan and Christian society in Africa Proconsularis, see Wilhite 2007, with my review in RBL 2009. 30 See Ramelli 2001a/2012, chap. 7, and 2005b. 31 See Ramelli 2003.

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the fabula Milesia, the literary typology that, in Petronius’ novel, probably includes ironic allusions to Christianity.32 His novel in the Historia Augusta (12,12,12) is designated as Milesiae Punicae. Apuleius too, of course, included the ass-man motif in his novel, which also contains Isiac elements.33 Now, in Egypt, where the anti-Jewish accusation of onolatry probably arose, the ass was linked to Typhon-Seth, the enemy of Osiris (Plut. Is. et Os. 30), and represented as insane (ibid. 50). Thus, it is Isis, hostile to Seth, who makes the ass disappear and restores his human form to the protagonist.34 Besides the accusation of adoring an ass-man, it is likely that other antiChristian charges too are reflected in Apuleius’ novel. Here, in fact, as perhaps already in Petronius, there are probable allusions to the Christians in a parodic form. The most remarkable example is the portrait of the miller’s wife at 9,14. Despite some objections,35 several scholars, such as Anarratone, Baldwin, Dowden, Ilušečkin, Ruggiero, Rinaldi and MacDonald, have proposed considering this portrait to be a caricature of a Christian woman.36 Baldwin points out similarities between the story of the miller’s wife and an episode that occurred in Rome toward the middle of the second century AD, involving a pagan man and his Christian wife; it was known also to Justin, who was in Rome at that time. Baldwin hypothesizes that Apuleius met Justin in Rome, also because the story of Lucius’ conversion in Met. 11,1, with traits of lonely meditation by the sea, resembles the story of Justin’s conversion as recounted in his Dial. 2,3. On the other side, Apuleius’ Middle Platonism has affinities with that of Justin.37 Elsewhere, the same scholar hypothesizes that for his portrait of the miller’s wife Apuleius was inspired by Tacitus (Ann. 15,44).38 Tacitus does not offer portraits of Christian women; he does, however, mention the supposed flagitia of which the Christians were accused. I shall return to this very soon. Dowden accepts Baldwin’s hypothesis, which strengthens his own theory that Apuleius’ Metamorphoses were composed in Rome around AD 155; he also notices that Apuleius’ myth of Psyche

32 Ramelli 1996; 2001a/2012, chap. 8; 2005d. 33 On the interconnection between the comic and the religious elements in Apuleius, see Graverini 2007. 34 See Bousset and Gressmann 1926, 76; Hopfner 1943, 58–59; Hospers-Jansen 1949, 122 ff.; Stern 1976, 97–101; moreover, see Vischer 1951, 15–16; Albrile 2004; Ramelli 2001c, 245–274. 35 E.g. S. Rizzo, ‘Premessa’ to Merkelbach 19919, 35. 36 C. Anarratone, in Merkelbach 19919, 517 n. 1; Baldwin 1989; Ruggiero 1992, 65–70; Dowden 1994, 429–433; Ilušečkin 1998; Rinaldi 1998, 1, 99–100; 2, nos. 125 and 649; 1995, 99–100; MacDonald 1996, 7. 37 Barnard 1967, 35; 96–98; Whittaker 1987, 105, 109, 115, 118; see Keresztes 1965, 826–865; Moreschini 1983; 2004, 25–36, 65–77; Ramelli 2006a. 38 Baldwin 1984, 1–3.

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is close to the analogous Valentinian myth of Sophia, and Valentinus taught in Rome in the Forties and Fifties of the second century AD.39 These suppositions are very interesting, but impossible to demonstrate. There are, however, other grounds that prove that Apuleius is presenting a parody of a Christian woman, and I shall endeavor to show this in a moment. According to Tripp, the old woman who every day visited the miller’s wife was a deaconess or priest who brought her the Eucharist. Apuleius offers a very negative image of this sacrament.40 Simon pointed out affinities between the description of the miller’s wife and 1Cor 5:9–11, with a catalogue of vices – promiscuity, avidity, prevarication, thievery, idolatry, malice – that partially corresponds to those vices attributed by Apuleius to his character; he believes that Apuleius wishes to parody Paul.41 Ruggiero does not systematically analyze all the accusations leveled against the miller’s wife – he only indicates the rejection of traditional divinities, obstinacy, lack of reasonableness – and does not offer a comparative analysis, but provides a helpful methodological hint, which I shall examine shortly.42 Ruggiero also calls attention to the portrait of the Christian woman, depicted as a simpleton and as by no means blameless from the moral point of view, in Miniucius Felix’ Octavius; now, it is well known that Minucius, while constructing Caecilius’ discourse, was inspired by a lost oration by Fronto, who was active also when Apuleius was composing his novel.43 I intend to demonstrate that Apuleius’ portrait of the miller’s wife, in all its details, provides a real list of anti-Christian charges that were current in Apuleius’ day, such as saevitia, ebrietas, pertinacia, impietas, impudicitia, magia, etc.; the old woman who is presented as a mediator may be a female Christian minister indeed. I am going to offer a detailed demonstration of this, and to the correspondences already traced by several scholars and by myself44 I am going to add further parallels. Practically all of the characteristics attributed to this woman correspond to a contemporary set of anti-Christian accusations. A good explanation – although not necessarily the only one – may be that Apuleius probably knew Fronto, the anti-Christian polemicist, in Rome.

39 Dowden 1994, 431–432; for Psyche’s myth Dowden 1981; see McCreight 2006, 123–167; also Ramelli 2004a, chap. 7. 40 Tripp 1988, 245–254. On women deacons and presbyters in early Christianity, see Madigan and Osiek 2005, with my review in Orpheus 28, 2007, 338–346, and Ramelli 2010. 41 Portolano 1972; Simon 1974. 42 Ruggiero 1992, 68–69. 43 Frassinetti 1949; Cristofori 1978. 44 Ramelli 2001a/2012, chap. 9.

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Let us consider the portrait of the miller’s wife in Met. 9,14: Pessimam et ante cunctas mulieres longe deterrimam … Nec enim vel unum vitium nequissimae illi feminae deerat, sed omnia prorsus ut in quandam caenosam latrinam in eius animum flagitia confluxerant: saeva scaeva viriosa ebriosa pervicax pertinax … in sumptibus foedis profusa, inimica fidei, hostis pudicitiae. 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 corpum manciparat. A horrible wife, definitely the worst of all women … indeed, she did not lack a single vice, that nefarious woman, but really all crimes were gathered together in her soul as in a kind of filthy latrine; cruel, malign, exuberant, a drunkard, obstinate, obdurate … prodigal in indecent expenses, averse to loyalty, an enemy of modesty. Moreover, she despised and trod the divinities, and instead of a serious, established, and true religion, she entertained a false and impious conception of a god whom she professed to be the only one, making up meaningless observances, fooling everyone and deceiving her poor husband, and spoilt her body with wine taken in the morning and continual adultery.

I have highlighted the most important charges in relation to my argument. What is said to make this woman the worst in the world (pessima, deterrima and nequissima: three superlatives in just two lines!) is her flagitia. Now, flagitia in general were attributed to the Christians already in the first century, as is attested by Tacitus (Ann. 15,44). The apologists will engage in an effort to refute these accusations, first of all Justin, who insists on the virtues requested of the Christians by Christ himself (Apol. 1,15) and returns the accusation of flagitia to the pagans (Apol. 2,12). Tertullian, too, refutes the charges of flagitia and scelera (Apol. 2,4), and tries to separate the nomen Christianum from the scelera (Apol. 2; 4; 7); he too returns accusations to the pagans (ibid. 9). The first specific charge against the miller’s wife is that of saevitia, which was widespread at that time against the Christians together with that of odium generis humani (already used against the Jews, as especially Tacitus attests in Hist. 5,5: adversos omnes alios hostile odium). Now, in Ann. 15,44 he connects the same charge with the numerous Christians who were condemned in Rome in AD 64 on the false charge of arson, but in truth because they were guilty of odium generis humani.45Saevitia is also ascribed to the Christians in a Pompeii graffito that describes them as saevos Solones.46 This accusation was also confuted by the

45 Probably this is an objective genitive, indicating the Christians’ hatred for the human race, as the parallel with the anti-Jewish accusation (adversus omnes alios hostile odium) suggests; some scholars, however, take it as a subjective genitive, meaning ‘the hatred of the human race for the Christians’. 46 See documentation in Ramelli 2001d.

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apologists, especially Justin and Tertullian, who turned it against the pagans. Justin in Apol. 1,24,1 and 36,3 claims that it is the pagans and Jews who hate the Christians, who, for their part, have the rule not to hate anyone, not even those who hate them (57,1). Tertullian, too, denies that the Christians are hostes generis humani, cruel and full of hate (Apol. 37), and calls attention to the hatred of which, on the contrary, they are victims (Apol. 2,3; 3,5; 4,1; 39,8; 40,1–2). As for the description of the woman as ebriosa, this too was a typical antiChristian charge. Deep misunderstandings of the Eucharist produced accusations of murder and anthropophagy, attested, again, especially by Justin and Tertullian.47 Perhaps the latter is reflected already in Petronius.48 The accusation of being drunkards is similarly due to a misunderstanding of the Eucharistic wine.49 It is interesting that the woman is accused of drinking wine in the morning (matutino mero): Pliny attests that eucharistic celebrations were usually carried on in the morning (Plin. Ep. 96,7). Moreover, already in Acts 2:15 Peter defends the other Christian disciples against the accusation of being drunk at nine in the morning, which is likely to reflect a charge circulating in the time of Luke, in the last decades of the first century or the beginning of the second. Schmidt agrees with me that the accusation of ebrietas corresponds to that which was widespread against the Christians along with that of cannibalism because of the Eucharist.50 The trait of being in sumptibus foedis profusa might also have a special explanation in reference to a Christian matrona: these expenses may be donations to the Christian community and the poor. Such charitable donations are underlined also by a contemporary of Apuleius such as Lucian in his Peregrinus, in his portrait of the Christian community that supports Peregrinus when he belongs to it.51 The woman is then said to be pervicax pertinax. The accusation of obstinacy, too, was alive against the Christians in the day of Apuleius, as is attested by Pliny and Marcus Aurelius. The former in his letter to Trajan (Ep. 10,96) asserts that the Christians are characterized by pertinacia et inflexibilis obstinatio, which ends up being simple amentia. Marcus Aurelius, under whom Apuleius’ novel was probably composed, describes the Christians’ attitude as ψιλὴ παράταξις (11,3), maybe also due to the influence of Montanism.52

47 48 49 50 51 52

Apol. 1,26,7: ἀνέδην μίξεις and ἀνθρωπείων σαρκῶν βοραί, refuted in 66,2–3. See Ramelli 2001a/2012, chap. 8; 2005a. See Wilken 2003, 41–47. Schmidt 2003. See already Ramelli 2001a/2012, chap. 9. Analysis in Ramelli 2005c. See Ramelli 1999a; 1999b; 2002a, 101–112; 2003.

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The miller’s wife is also accused of being inimica fidei, out of contempt for the traditional deities (spretis atque calcatis divinis numinibus): she has turned to a religion made out of vain practices and observances (confictis observationibus vacuis) and professes a form of monotheism: in vicem certae religionis mentita sacrilega praesumptione dei, quem praedicaret unicum. First of all, Apuleius seems to be the first pagan author who calls the Christian God unicus. Now, the only strictly monotheistic53 religions in the time of Apuleius were Judaism and Christianity. But only the former was legally recognized by Rome, whereas the second was a superstitio illicita.54 This is why the accusation of atheism55 was indeed directed at the Christians from the beginning, in that they did not believe in the traditional deities. Under Domitian, many Christians were condemned, according to Dio Cassius (67,14), for ἀθεότης and Ἰουδαίων ἤθη, but not for Judaism, which by no means could be a crime, since it was a religio licita in the Roman Empire at that time: this charge of ‘atheism and Jewish customs’ was rather directed against Christians. That the accusation of atheism was widespread against the Christians around the middle of the second century is attested by Justin, who in Apol. 1,6,1, is willing to admit that the Christians are ἄθεοι, but only in respect to the traditional pagan deities, not to the true God (cf. 1,24,1–3). Other traits of the miller’s wife are her lascivia and impudicitia: hostis pudicitiae … fallens omnis homines et miserum maritum decipiens, et continuo stupro corpus manciparat. In the days of Apuleius, the charges of lascivia and impudicitia were also used against the Christians, just as they had been deployed against the Jews. This is attested by Justin, Dial. 134 and Apol. 1,26,7 (who refutes this charge in Apol. 1,15) and Tert. Apol. 8–9. Tertullian mentions the accusations of infanticide and incest in chap. 8; then he argues that it is rather the pagans who are culpable of such scelera, as Jupiter demonstrates with his adulteries (9,8), whereas the Christians pursue chastity (9,19).56 Again in chap. 15, in Apuleius’ novel, the miller’s wife is characterized by pessimae feminae flagitia. She is said to have a lover (quendam iuvenem) and to frequent every day an old woman, presented as a kind of conspirator. In the subsequent chapters these supposed machinations are described at length, as well as the scene in which the miller discovers his wife’s lover hiding under a

53 On pagan henotheism and Jewish-Christian monotheism, see my ‘Monoteismo’, Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichità Cristiane, dir. A. Di Berardino, II, Genoa 2007, 3350–3358, and now Mitchell 2010. 54 Perhaps it began to be illegal in AD 35 with a senatus consultum. See Ramelli 2004b. My thesis is accepted by Tornielli 2005, 84–86. 55 Nestle 1950, 886–870; Rüpke 2004, 20. 56 See Ioh. Chrys. In Matth. 43,3; C. Iud. et gent. 16; Euagr. Alterc. 30; Cyrill. Alex. C. Iud. 9.

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basket. As I have mentioned, this woman may represent a Christian minister who brought the Eucharist to the miller’s wife; the accusations of ebrietas and impudicitia against the Christians were precisely related to Eucharistic celebrations. The woman is finally accused of having recourse to magic. This too was an anti-Christian accusation that was widespread in the time of Apuleius, as is attested especially by Suetonius, who notoriously defines Christianity a superstitio malefica, by Justin in Apol. 1,14,2, who defends the Christians against this charge, and 1,30,1, where he attests that this charge was directed against Jesus himself, and by Celsus ap. Orig. C. Cels. 1,6b: 7,69, who ascribes γοητεία to Jesus and the Christians. Other witnesses are the Ps. Epistula Pilati ad Claudium, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Recognitiones 1,58,1, and Lactantius, Inst. 5,3,19, and later authors, but particularly significant for his African setting in the late second century is Tertullian, Ad ux. 2,4,5.57 The juridical value of the anti-Christian accusation of magic is confirmed by the Passio Anastasiae, where the Christian heroine is denounced by her pagan husband precisely on this charge and imprisoned, supposedly under Diocletian.58 This is another charge that was already circulating against the Jews (cf. ibid. 3,1; Iust. Dial. 69,7; 108,2) and then passed on to the Christians.59 It is interesting to notice that in Celsus this imputation comes not only from the pagans, but also from the Jewish character introduced in his ᾽Αληθὴς λόγος.60 Indeed, Rabbinic texts confirm the accusation of magic against Jesus.61 The coincidence between the accusations against the miller’s wife in Apuleius and those which were current against the Christians in the time of the composition of the Metamorphoses strongly suggests that Apuleius wished to present a parody of a Christian woman. In considering this passage in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses and his philosophical works, Schmidt and Hunink also find clear elements of anti-Christian polemic in Apuleius, which strongly confirm my own hypotheses. Schmidt believes that Apuleius deliberately advanced the Isis cult as an alternative to Christianity: this is a thesis that was first proposed in 1968 by

57 See Ramelli 2001c and Teja 2008a, 130–131; 2008b, 77–79. 58 On this Passio, see Moretti 2006, with my review in Ancient Narrative 7, 2008 [2009]. 59 On ancient Jewish magic, see Bohak 2008. 60 Troiani 1999, 76–77, 79, 81. 61 ‘Jesus was crucified on the Eve of Passover … the crier had announced: he will be stoned to death because he has practiced magic’ (J. Bonsivern, Textes rabbiniques, Rome 1955, n. 1885). A similar polemic seems to me to be implied in the Slavonic version of Josephus’ Bellum Iudaicum, where it is emphasized that Jesus worked miracles by means of mere words; see Ramelli 1998.

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Walsh;62 Schmidt offers a lexical analysis of some terms employed by Apuleius in the episode of the miller’s wife in connection with Christian apologetics and antiChristian polemics. This provides an excellent complement to my arguments regarding this character in Apuleius. For example, praesumptio was a term used by the pagans against Christianity (Tert. Apol. 49,1); the woman’s observationes vacuae also find a good parallel in the anti-Christian polemics reflected in Tert. Orat. 15,1.63 Further linguistic analyses carried out by Schmidt64 reveal that Apuleius employed several terms with a religious connotation which is often to be found in Christian contemporary authors such as Tertullian, who, moreover, belonged to the same geographical area (e.g. curiositas and revelare). Hunink65 analyzes Apuleius’ minor works,66 such as De magia, Asclepius and Florida, where the opening scene is parallel to Minucius Felix, Oct. 3,1. Hunink’s interesting and, I think, correct hypothesis is that Apuleius is replying to the attacks of Christian apologists on paganism. This is the case also in De deo Socratis, given that the daimones were attacked by the Christians; Justin and Clement also considered the pagan deities to be φαῦλοι δαίμονες.67 The hypothesis that Apuleius may have known Fronto in Rome is proposed again on the basis of Apol. 55,8–9, and it could help to explain the knowledge of contemporary antiChristian accusations on the part of Apuleius. Another interesting observation is that Apuleius in Apol. 2,11 (AD 158) cites Lollius Urbicus, the praefectus urbi mentioned also by Justin Martyr in Apol. 2,2, for an episode which occurred in AD 152, when he put Lucius and Ptolemaeus to death on the charge of Christianity. Apuleius’s attacks on Christianity may be understood in the light of his own theological conceptions, which answered common questions, but differently from Christianity. For he was not only a Middle Platonist, but also a person initiated into pagan mysteries. It is especially from De deo Socratis – written either in Rome or in Carthage around AD 160–that an awareness emerges of the problem of the

62 Walsh 1968, 151–153 interprets the transition, in the Metamophoses, from the adventures to the final Isiac episode as a sign of composition over a long stretch of time; the final conversion may reflect a change in the North-African religious situation due to the spread of Christianity; Walsh 1994, xxxviii. See also MacDonald 1996, 67–73. 63 Schmidt 1997, 51–71: another example is praedicare, for which a parallel is indicated with Tert. Idol. 6,2; Test. 2,1. 64 Schmidt 1995, 127–135; on the relation between Apuleius’ Latin and the Christians’ Latin, see also Giacomelli 1994. 65 Hunink 2000a. 66 See also Apuleius of Madauros, Pro se de Magia (Apologia), ed. by V. Hunink, Amsterdam 1997, i-ii; in favor of the authenticity of the Asclepius Hunink 1996. 67 See Ramelli 2006a; 2006b. Cf. also Tert. Apol. 22 ff.; Min. Fel. 26,28; Aug. Civ. Dei, 8; Moreschini 1972, 588–596.

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mediation between the divine – transcendent, unknowable, ineffable, inalterable – and the human plane. Apuleius for his solution followed Middle-Platonism, which in turn depended on the systematization of Plato’s hints offered by Xenocrates. Apuleius did not propose any innovation, but gives clear expression to the Middle-Platonic solution, also drawing inspiration from Plato’s Symposium.68 Especially in chapters 3–5, Apuleius, while treating the parens qui omnium rerum dominator atque auctor est, observes that, since it is impassible (see also chapter 12) and, according to Plato, endowed with a maiestatis incredibilis quaedam nimietas et ineffabilis, and since there exists no relationship between God and humans, the question arises as to whom one should address one’s prayers. Plato’s answer, in chap. 6, is the very core of the small treatise: it is not the case that the deities overlook human vicissitudes, but they do not directly intervene therein, because there are quaedam divinae mediae potestates inter summum aethera et infimas terras … per quas et desideria nostra et merita ad eos commeant; these daemones also bring divine messages to humans through dreams and presages of all sorts. The mediation question could certainly lead the Middle-Platonist Apuleius to an interest in the figure of Christ. Among the virtuous men divinized Apuleius cites the same examples as Justin does, when he stresses the parallels between Christ’s double nature and the pagan gods who were also human (De deo Socr. 15). Apuleius’ curiosity about different religious practices is evident in De deo Socr. 14 and is motivated by the different characters of daemones; rituals, too, and the iconographical representations of the deities, are all different, but they are equally worthy of respect. It is precisely for his systematic treatment of daemones that Apuleius is praised by Augustine, Civ. Dei 8,14. Apuleius, however, who was a Middle Platonist like Plutarch,69 and was proud to be a philosophus Platonicus (Apol. 10,6; 39,1),70 was not sympathetic to a doctrine that focused not only on the incarnation and passion of God, but also on the resurrection of the dead – on which Paul’s dialogue with the Athenian philosophers had come to grief,71 although it is notable that the philosophers who first invited Paul to expound his ideas in Athens and then were struck when he

68 See Donini 1979, 160–161. On Aristotelianism and Stoicism in Apuleius, see the commentary by Beaujeu 1973. On Middle Platonism, see e.g. Lilla 1992; Dillon 1977; Zintzen 1981; Opsomer 1998; Dörrie and Baltes 1990; Joyal 1997; Ophuijsen 1999; Calabi 2002; Bonazzi 2003; Gioè 2003; Reale 2004, 87–184; Fronterotta 2004; Bonazzi and Celluprica 2005. 69 See Ramelli 2002–03, 95–118; 2009e with bibliography. 70 See Hijmans 1987. Scholars often ascribe to Apuleius the inscription ILAlg 2115 on the basement of a statue erected by the Madaurenses for an unnamed philosophus Platonicus. 71 See Ramelli 2009e.

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mentioned the resurrection were Stoics and Epicureans: no Platonist is mentioned on that occasion in Athens, either Academic or Middle Platonist. And indeed Paul’s speech – whether it is substantially his own or totally built up by the author of Acts – does contain references to Stoicism, including even a quotation from Cleanthes or Aratus, but none to Platonism. This may indeed suggest that Luke is really reporting the historical situation in which Paul’s discourse was delivered, prior to the Platonic revival of the late first century AD in Athens, with Ammonius, the teacher of Plutarch. (As for the Epicureans, they were interested in Paul’s theological discourse, since, despite accusations of atheism against them, they were no atheists, but only denied divine providence).72 Apuleius, at any rate, is a Middle Platonist, belonging to the second century, and the mediators between God and human beings are for him daemones, genere animalia, ingenio rationabilia, animo passiva, corpore aeria, tempore aeterna (chap. 13: Apuleius embraces the Platonic distinction between intellect, soul and body, which is found also in Paul and in several Neostoics and Middle Platonists, including some Christians). It is remarkable that in his classification of the daemons Apuleius places those linked to the body among the inferior daemons (chap. 15), for matter and spirit are impossible to reconcile.73 In this connection, the Christian teaching of the resurrection of the body risked appearing absurd and despicable. Christian Platonists such as Origen, Athenagoras of Athens and Gregory of Nyssa were well aware of such a risk; this is why they all felt the need to write treatises De Resurrectione where they tried to provide a philosophical explanation of the resurrection, so that even refined Platonizing philosophers might accept this apparently repugnant theory.74 Glen Bowersock called attention to a passage in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses in which the novelist-philosopher seems to be somewhat interested in the resurrection. In 10,12 an apparently dead boy, who was given a powerful narcotic, rises again from the tomb ‘recovering the rights of life’ (surgentem postliminio mortis): the ius postliminii allowed the prisoner, after his return from captivity, to recover his former rights.75 But the topic of apparent death and ‘resurrection’ is present in the novels from Petronius, Chariton and Xenophon of Ephesus onward.76 The scene of Met. 10,12, in which the father of the apparently dead young boy runs to his

72 See Ramelli 2008c. 73 See Onians 1998, 345–366 on body, soul and spirit; my ‘Tricotomia’, Enciclopedia Filosofica, XII, Milan 20062, 11772–76. 74 See Ramelli 2007. 75 Bowersock 1994, 109. 76 See Létoublon 1993; Ramelli 2001a/2012, and now Perkins 2009, 45 ff., with my review in RBL 2009.

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tomb together with the whole city and finds the boy alive resembles that of Callirhoe’s apparent death in Chariton, where her father and the whole city run to her tomb and the father is the first to enter it and finds it empty, so that her fiancé concludes that she has returned to life and has become a goddess.77 What is interesting is that this motif seems to make its first appearance in the novels precisely when the Christian stories concerning the death and resurrection of Jesus were spreading, in the second half of the first century AD.78 If Apuleius had any interest in the Christian doctrine of the resurrection, it was a polemical interest, like all of his interest in Christianity. Indeed, there are two other cases in which Apuleius applies the expression, postliminium mortis, to the return from death to life, as though death were a sort of imprisonment and the recovered life a liberation, but in both cases he is not speaking of a true resurrection. In Met. 2,28 he is dealing with a temporary vivification of a dead man by means of an Egyptian priest’s magic, with the aim of making the circumstances of his death known. And in 3,25, again, there is no question of resurrection, but the novelist is rather speaking of the metamorphosis of the ass into Lucius. Not only the description of the miller’s wife in the Metamorphoses, but also the negative portrait of Aemilianus in Apuleius’ Apologia 56 seems to reveal allusions to Christianity: in this case, too, the elements already noticed by other scholars, such as Griset, Birley and Hunink,79 and by me,80 will be supplemented here with further arguments. Upon his return to Africa after his Roman sojourn, Apuleius married a rich widow, Pudentilla, whose relatives accused him of having forced her will by means of magic. The relevant trial was held under Antoninus Pius, between 155 and 159,81 in Sabratha. Apuleius’ self-defence is reflected in his Apologia or Pro se de magia liber. As I mentioned, the accusation of magic, together with that of dealing with daemons, was widespread at that time, and Apuleius himself adopts it in his portrait of the Christian woman whom he parodies in his novel. What is more, under Antoninus Pius Christianity was attacked precisely with a rescript

77 See the analysis in Ramelli 2001a/2012, chap. 1, also for parallels with the Gospels. 78 This was rightly noticed by Bowersock 1994, and has been widely investigated and deepened by Ramelli 2001a/2012. 79 Birley 1971, 32; Hunink 2000a, 89–90. 80 See Ramelli 2001a/2012, chap. 9. 81 Hunink 2000b proposes a dating to AD 158–159 for the Apology and argues for the presence of allusions to the Apology in the Metamorphoses; AD 158 is also accepted by Montemayor Aceves 2008, who argues that the laws that could condemn Apuleius as a magician were the Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficiis and laws of the Twelve Tables, 7–8. In Apuleius’ day, the penalty was deportation for the honestiores and death for the humiliores.

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formally directed against magic and astrology. Indeed, Antoninus did not formally persecute the Christians, but recommended not altering the existing legislation concerning them, as is attested by the apologist Melito (ap. Eus. HE 4,26,10), who wrote one or maybe two apologies82 under Marcus Aurelius. Yet, in Rome, precisely during the first year of Antoninus Pius’ reign, the martyrdom of Telesphorus, bishop of Rome, took place, and under the same emperor, also in Rome, the above-mentioned trial against Ptolemaeus and Lucius took place, of which Justin speaks in Apol. 1,2. The jurists Ulpian and Paul attest that the emperor addressed a rescript83 to C. Prastina Pacatus Messalinus, legate of Gallia Lugdunensis, which established the death penalty for the humiliores and deportation for the honestiores who were proved guilty of introducing ‘new sects and religions unknown to reason’. The rescript formally aimed at fighting the spread of magic and astrology, but it was applied against the Christians. For they were accused of magic, irrationality and novelty, as is attested by Aelius Aristides (Orat.46,402 Dind.) and Lucian (Peregr. 11). In respect to the accusation of irrationality, another charge that was current against the Jews and passed on to Christianity,84 it is no accident that Christian apologetics of that time – including Justin and other apologists, but also Bardaisan85 – endeavored to demonstrate the rationality of Christianity.86 The period of Apuleius’ trial before the proconsul Claudius Maximus, between AD 155 and 160, was that during which the trial of Polycarp of Smyrna took place: he was condemned as a Christian around AD 155. Apuleius was accused by Pudentilla’s son, Sicinius Pudens, of having had recourse to magic to induce her to marry him. Apuleius utterly denies this, and in Apol. 72–73 he turns the same charge against Pudentilla’s other son, Pontianus, who had died not long before the trial: Apuleius claims that it was Pontianus who deceived him and induced him to marry his mother. Precisely in some passages of the Apologia or De magia, especially chapters 56 and 90, there are probable allusions to Christianity. In chap. 56 Aemilianus’ atheism is described; an allusion to Christianity is likely. He is accused of atheism, to the point of being surnamed ‘Mezentius’, because he did not worship

82 For the first apology, see Ramelli 1999b; 2009c with further hypotheses concerning this mysterious apology, different from the one that is fragmentarily preserved in Greek. 83 See Ramelli 2002a with documentation. 84 See Ramelli 2001c, § 1. Only as an anti-Christian charge: Ruggiero 1992. 85 Although this Syriac Christian philosopher (154–222) is not generally regarded as an apologist, he did defend the rationality of Christian belief, much in the way Origen did a little later. See Ramelli 2009a; 2009d. Specifically for Origen, see Tloka 2006, with my review in Adamantius 14, 2008, 641–645. 86 Moreschini 2004, 64–89 on apologetic and its interaction with philosophy.

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the traditional deities, did not frequent the temples and offer sacrifices, did not show sacred symbols in his estate or house, and deemed the adoratio of pagan gods a nefas: nonnullos et cum primis Aemilianum istum facetiae sibi habere res diuinas deridere … nulli deo … supplicauit, nullum templum frequentauit, si fanum aliquod praetereat, nefas habet adorandi gratia manum labris admouere. Iste uero nec dis rurationis … segetis ullas aut uitis aut gregis primitias impertit. Nullum in uilla eius delubrum situm, nullus locus aut lucus consecratus. Ecquid ego de luco et delubro loquor? Negant uidisse se qui fuere unum saltem in finibus eius aut lapidem unctum aut ramum coronatum. Some people, and especially this Aemilianus, enjoyed ridiculing religion [sc. pagan cults]: he never addressed a supplication to any deity, never frequented any temple; if he passes by a sanctuary, he deems it impious to move his hand to his lips for a gesture of veneration. This individual, indeed, offers no first-fruits of his crops, or vines, or sheep, to the deities of the countryside. In his property there is no shrine, no consecrated place or wood. But what am I saying? ‘Wood’, ‘shrine’? Those who have been in his premises claim that they have not even seen a single anointed stone, or a single branch adorned with a wreath.

The same behavior is said to be characteristic of others, nonnullos, who may be taken to be Christians as well. As I mentioned, the accusation of atheism was a typical anti-Christian charge, already attested in the first century under Domitian and in the second by Justin, who refutes it (Apol. 1,6,1; 13,1). Again in the second century, Christians and Epicureans were accused of being ‘atheists,’ as is attested by Lucian, Alex. 38,87 although the Epicureans, unlike the Christians, did not deny the existence of the gods88 and did not adhere to a superstitio illicita. These alleged atheists were held responsible for the breakdown of the pax deorum. This also emerges from accusations of pagan authors such as Aelius Aristides and in the Christian apologists’ replies, above all Tertullian, around AD 200 (Apol. 10; cf. 11–13 and passim). He vigorously rejects the charge of atheism and rather turns it against the pagans. But other clues suggest that Aemilianus’ atheism conceals a reference to Christianity. One of the most significant, although unnoticed so far by scholars, is that he was nicknamed ‘Charon’ because of the diritas of his face and soul: Igitur agnomenta ei duo indita: Charon, ut iam dixi, ob oris et animi diritatem, sed alterum, quod libentius audit, ob deorum contemptum, Mezentius. It seems to me remarkable that the accusation of tristitia, in one’s expression and soul, was a

87 See Ramelli 2001a/2012, chap. 7 on Lucian. 88 Full documentation in Ramelli 2008b.

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typical anti-Christian charge from the second half of the first century onward, as I have demonstrated elsewhere.89 Similarly, Aemilianus is also described as lucifugus, another anti-Christian charge attested by Minucius Felix, Oct. 8,4. As for the other nickname, Aemilianus is said to hear it ‘more willingly,’ in that it derived from ‘contempt for the gods’ (cf. Virg. Aen. 7,648: contemptor divom Mezentius). A Christian would have been happy to hear that he despised the pagan deities. Thus, there are several other elements that suggest that Apuleius knew the Christians and criticized them. And probably yet other hints are still lurking in Apuleius’ works and it will be our task to detect them. In one point the possibility is not entirely excluded of finding the name of Jesus among those of famous magicians: Si una causa vel minima fuerit inventa cur ego debuerim Pudentillae nuptias ob aliquod meum commodum appetere … ego ille sim Carmendas vel Damigeron vel † his vel Moses vel Iohannes vel Apollobex vel ipse Dardanus vel quicumque alius post Zoroastren et Hostanen inter magos celebratus est … quem tumultum suscitarint, quoniam ego paucos magorum nominatim percensui! … Doceam rursum haec et multo plura alia nomina in bybliothecis publicis apud clarissimos scriptores me legisse, an disputem longe aliud esse notitiam nominum, aliud artis eiusdem communionem, nec debere doctrinae instrumentum et eruditionis memoriam pro confessione criminis haberi. (Apol. 90) Should a single reason, even tiny, be found why I should have wished to marry Pudentilla for any advantage of mine … may I be that famous Carmendas or Damigeron or † his or Moses or John or Apollobex or Dardanus himself or whoever else is celebrated among the magicians after Zoroaster and Hostanes … what a mess they have made, just because I have mentioned a few magicians by name! … I should explain that I read these names and many others in public libraries in works of very famous authors, or I should argue at length that one thing is to know their names, and another thing is to adhere to this art of theirs, and if one is learned and remembers what he or she has learnt, this should not be regarded as a confession of a crime.

Among the ‘magicians’ quoted by Apuleius are Moses and Iohannes: the accusation of magic and sorcery was one of the charges that, as I mentioned, were addressed to both Jews and Christians.90 Moses was often described as a ‘sorcerer’91 and the Jews themselves were accused of magic, as is shown by Posidonius ap. Strabo, Geogr. 16,2,43, who calls the Jews γόητες (FGH 2,A87,F70); Lysimachus ap. Iosephus, C. Ap. 2,145 (FGH 3,C621,F4), who calls Moses γόητα καὶ ἀπατεῶνα; Pompeus Trogus ap. Iust. Hist. Phil. 36,2,7–8, who says that Moses magicas artes 89 See Ramelli 2001d. 90 Herford 1903, 35–41; 56; Smith 1978; Aune 1980, 1523–1526; Hamman 2007; on the relationship between Solomon’s name and magic, see Perea Yébenes 2000, 20–21. 91 Blau 19142; Simon 1964, 394–416; Gager 1972, 134–171; Ruggiero 1992, 78.

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percepisset; Pliny, NH 30,11: magices factio a Mose et Ianne et Lotape ac Iudaeis pendens; Juvenal, who at the beginning of the second century presents them as charlatans, and, a few decades later, Celsus, ap. Orig. C. Cels.1,26a, who called the Jews γόητες and said that Moses was their initiator. It is notable that in Pliny’s and Trogus’ passages, just as in Apuleius’, Moses is expressly cited as a magician together with Iannes, whose name resembles Apuleius’ Iohannes. Other sources that mention this Iannes say that he was an Egyptian, and associate him with another Egyptian sorcerer, Iambres, not mentioned in Apuleius (Numenius ap. Eus. PE 9,8,1–2).92 It is interesting that the association between Moses and Iannes and Iambres as two magicians who opposed themselves to Moses is present only once in the Bible, and not in the Old Testament, where in the episode with Moses and the sorcerers in Egypt these sorcerers are unnamed, but in the New, in one of the so-called Pastoral Epistles (2 Tim 3:8):93 ὃν τρόπον δὲ ᾽Ιάννης καὶ Ἰαμβρῆς ἀντέστησαν Μωϋσεῖ, in the Vulgate quemadmodum autem Iannes/Iamnes et Iambres/Mambres restiterunt Mosi.94 It is again Numenius – a Middle Platonist like Apuleius and well versed in the Bible – who, shortly after, presents the triad ‘Moses-Iannes-Iambres’, in a fragment (10a Des Places) preserved by Origen, C. Cels. 4,51: ‘He [sc. Numenius] also recalls Moses’, Iannes’ and Iambres’ story, and, even though we are not at all exalted in it, nevertheless we appreciate Numenius more than Celsus and the other Greeks.’ A fragmentary version of the apocryphal story concerning these two magicians is found in Pap. Chester Beatty XVI,95 where they are supposed to be brothers and share the same mother, whereas Philostorgius in his Church History, 9,2, says that Moses ‘brought about the death of the mother of one of the two.’ In Apuleius’ passage concerning these sorcerers Hunink96 proposes an emendation: immediately before Moses vel Iohannes, instead of the corrupt reading vel

92 See Stern 1976, nr. 221, 498–499 on Pliny; 1980, nr. 361 on the Apuleius passage I am discussing; on Iannes and Numenius ibid., nr. 365. 93 The Pastoral Epistles are usually thought to stem from c. 120–140. They seem to have been absent from the earliest copy of Paul’s collected letters, P46, and from Marcion’s canon c. 130– 150. They are first quoted by Irenaeus c. 180. See Wilson 1979; Koester 1982, 305; McDonald 1983, 54; Collins, 1988; Quinn 1990, 20; Bassler 1996, 20 and 24–25; Richards 2002; Collins 2002; Neste 2004; Krause 2004; Stepp 2005; Klauck 2006, 324; Meeks and Fitzgerald 2007, 303–318; Fiore 2007, 13 and 71–79; Marshall 2008; Aageson 2008, 87; 154. Campenhausen 1964, 10–252 proposed Polycarp as the author of the Pastorals; Merz 2004, esp. section 2, concludes that Polycarp was using these letters in the conviction that they were Paul’s. 94 Iannes appears in codd. G F c b, Iamnes in the others; likewise, Iambres is the reading of mss. R K L b, Mambres is the variant reading of the others. 95 See Pietersma 1994. 96 Hunink 2000a, 91–92.

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† his, one should read vel Iesus, which, from the paleographical point of view, is a likely conjecture. In this way, the list of sorcerers would read: Carmendas vel Damigeron vel Iesus vel Moses vel Iohannes vel Apollobex etc. It is notable that Apuleius, just after this list, reports that, in hearing these names, the public raised a terrible tumult. This surely wasn’t provoked by the mention of Zoroastres, Hostanes, or Dardanus: presumably, among those names there were some that aroused strong feelings in the hearers. The mention of Moses and Jesus may better explain such a reaction. Another remark that is worth highlighting in Apuleius’ passage is that he asserts that in public libraries he read books concerning those magicians written by clarissimi scriptores and containing at least the names of those sorcerers. This should be read in the framework of Apuleius’ well-known display of learning: ‘Apuleius is concerned to present himself as the master of literary paideia both Greek and Latin’ (Harrison 2008, 3); Rives 2008 points out that Apuleius’ display of erudition brings about apparent digressions such as anecdotes, quotations, erudite disquisitions, etc., which are so massive, especially in the first two sections of the speech, that Gaide 1993 argued that these sections were added after the trial. Rives, on the contrary, contends that Apuleius’ displays of learning are not gratuitous, but are central to his strategy in countering the charge brought against him in what Rives considers to have been a cognitio extra ordinem (21). He thinks that Claudius Maximus, who presided over the trial, may have been a philosopher himself and Marcus Aurelius’ former teacher (28–29). Apuleius aimed at distinguishing a philosopher from a magus. In Apol. 1,3 and 3,5–6 Apuleius ‘presents himself as the defender of philosophy, the reputation and dignity of which are at stake’ (Riess 2008, 53 n. 9). Given that among these sorcerers Apuleius includes Moses and maybe even Jesus, one may wonder whether he had access to Biblical texts. There is good evidence of a knowledge of the Bible among pagans already in the early imperial age,97 probably also among novelists; the author of Περὶ ῞Υψους (9,9) refers to Genesis;98 in the second century, Numenius not only knew the Bible, but also went so far as to allegorize it (ap. Orig. C. Cels. 4,51); Celsus, in the time of Marcus Aurelius, knew the Bible and attacked it,99 just as Porphyry in the third century; one century later, another pagan Platonist who claimed that he read the Old Testament and who praised it is Themistius.100 It is very interesting, also, that in Apol. 30,1–4 the accusation of magic against Apuleius assumes a particular character and is related to the search for fish 97 Rinaldi 1998, with wide-ranging documentation. 98 The author even refers to Moses as ‘no ordinary person’. Rhys Roberts 1897. 99 Maybe the dedicatee of one of Lucian’s writings: see Ramelli 2005c. 100 See Ramelli 2005e; 2006c, commentary.

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(Apuleius also wrote a De piscibus).101 In fact, not only was the accusation of magic used against the Christians, but also the fish symbol was characteristically Christian, as is attested by Tertullian (De bapt. 1) and, toward the end of the second century AD, by the epitaph of Abercius, where the fish is a Christian symbol.102 It is significant that Apuleius hastens to deny any association between fish and magic, whereas such an association was present in the accusation levelled against him. The name of Apuleius’ wife, Pudentilla, may be related to one of the most ancient Christian families in the Roman empire. That a Pudens belonged to the first Christian community in Rome is indicated by 2 Tim 4:21, where the greetings of Pudens, Linus and Claudia are given to Timothy. Likewise, the Acts of Peter, stemming from the second century, mention Pudens along with Marcellus among those who kept Peter in their houses during his sojourn in Rome, and archaeology has given a confirmation of the relationship between Pudens’ family and the earliest spread of Christianity in Rome: under the church of St. Pudentiana in Rome excavators found a noble domus which was inhabited until after the Neronian age, and then a fourth-century church.103 This does not imply, however, that Apuleius’ wife must have been a Christian. On the contrary, in a passage of a letter of hers to his son, she uses the phrase deum voluntate (70,7), which would hardly have been used by a Christian.104 However, as e.g. several apocryphal Acts of Apostles and epigraphic evidence show, there were mixed families, where pagan and Christian members alike were present, which helped at least to promote knowledge and awareness of the new religion. I also think that Apuleius may have had in mind the torments of some Christian women who were put to death. Their tortures were spectacular, as Tacitus confirms in Ann. 15,44 for AD 64, and the martyrs were disguised as mythological heroines under Nero, in particular as Dirce, as attested by Clement of Rome in his Letter to the Corinthians,105 but also precisely in Africa, around AD 200, as proved by the Passio Perpetuae, where the heroine, martyred in Carthage, obtains the favor that both she and her fellow-martyrs may not be disguised to die in a spectacular representation.106 Apuleius alludes to a spectacular torment of this kind, albeit in a comic context, in Met. 6,27: memorandi spectaculi scaenam, non tauro, sed asino dependentem Dircen aniculam. Moreover, the association of

101 102 103 104 105 106

Apol. 29–41. See Harrison 2000, 65–69. See Ramelli 2000b. See Ramelli 2000a; on Pudentilla and Christianity, also Hunink 2000a, 80–94. This is rightly pointed out by Hunink 2000a, 93–94. See analysis and documentation in Ramelli 2001b; 2005b. See Ramelli 2005a; Bremmer 2002; 2003; 2004; Waldner 2004.

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this kind of spectacular and ‘theatrical’ torment, historically applied to the Christians, with the ass, in light of the anti-Christian accusation of onolatry, suggests a possible reference to the Christians, in which case the torment would be joined with derision. Soon after, in the same episode with the ass and the bandits, the mention of feras, cruces and ignes as possible ways of putting a prisoner to death again may echo torments often used against the members of this superstitio illicita when they were condemned. Precisely for the immediate aftermath of the scene with the Dirce anicula (Met. 6,28–29), an interesting hypothesis has been put forward by Shanzer,107 who proposes to read in that passage – where a girl who was a prisoner flees on the back of the ass and returns home – a parodic revisiting of Mary’s flight from Egypt according to the Protoevangelium Jacobi. This is possible, all the more so in the light of the probable reference, immediately before, to the torments to which the Christians were actually exposed. Apuleius, who surely knew the Christians and very probably included parodic allusions to them in his writings, was in turn well known to Christian authors. Lactantius speaks of him in Inst. 5,37 and Augustine, who came from the same region, abundantly cites him (CD 8,14 and 19; Epp. 102,32; 13,1; 138,19). He shows a good knowledge of Apuleius’ life and work, and also attests one title of his novel in CD 18,18: Apuleius in libris quos Asini aurei titulus inscripsit. Apuleius was a Middle Platonist, initiated into pagan cults, and a pagan priest. He studied in Carthage (Flor. 18) and in Athens, where he learned the liberal arts and philosophy, and in Greece he was initiated into several cults (Flor. 20; Apol. 55). He was also in Rome (Flor. 17; Met. 11,30) and, after the favorable conclusion of his trial, around AD 160 he was invested with an important priesthood (Flor. 16; cf. Aug. Ep. 138,19). He did not esteem the Christians and seems to have accepted many current accusations against them, although in his very own day precisely Middle-Platonism was the first philosophy that was being adopted by the earliest Christian philosophers, from Justin onwards. In fact, among Middle- and Neoplatonists we find both strong opponents of Christianity (e.g., Celsus, Porphyry, Julian) and the best representatives of Patristic philosophy (e.g., Justin, Clement, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa).108 Thus, it is opportune to speak of a pagan Platonism and a Christian Platonism, which began to be differentiated precisely in the time of Apuleius. Our novelist-philosopher surely belonged to the former kind of Platonism.109 107 Shanzer 1990, 221–229. 108 See Ramelli 2007, ‘integrative essay’ on Christian Platonism; 2009b. 109 Indeed, even in Apuleius’ novel a conformity to Neoplatonic aesthetic theories is detected by Kahane 2008. I am grateful to Frederick Brenk, William Fitzgerald, Luca Graverini, David

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Hunink, V. 2000b. ‘Apology in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, in: M. Zimmerman, S. Panayotakis and W. H. Keulen, ICAN 2000. The Ancient Novel in Context. Abstracts of Papers to be Read at the Third International Conference on the Ancient Novel to be Held at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, 25–30 July, 2000, Groningen: Department of Latin and Greek Rijksuniversiteit G. 48. Ilušečkin, V. 1998. ‘The Peculiarity of Controversy between Paganism and Christianity in the Second Century A.D., Apuleius’s Story about the Lewd Wife of a Miller’, JHPhCS 5, 111–116. James, P. 1987. Unity in Diversity: A Study of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, Hildesheim: Olms. 7–24. Jones, C. P. 1972. ‘Two Enemies of Lucian’, GRBS 13, 465–487. Jordan, D. R. 1999. ‘P.Duk. inv. 230: an Erotic Spell’, GRBS 40, 159–170. Joyal, M. A. (ed.) 1997. Studies in Plato and the Platonic Tradition, Aldershot: Ashgate. Kahane, A. 2008. ‘Disjoining Meaning and Truth: History, Representation, Apuleius’ Metamorphoses and Neoplatonist Aesthetics’, in: J. R. Morgan and M. Jones (eds.), Philosophical Presences in the Ancient Novel, Groningen: Barkhuis. 245-269. Keresztes, P. 1965. ‘The So-Called Second Apology of Justin’, Latomus 24, 826–865. Klauck, H. J. 2006. Ancient Letters and the New Testament, Waco: Baylor. Koester, H. 1982. Introduction to the New Testament, Berlin: de Gruyter. Krause, D. 2004. 1 Timothy, London: T&T Clark. Kussl, R. 1990. ‘Die Metamorphosen des Lukios von Patrai’, RhM 133, 379–388. Létoublon, F. 1993. Les lieux communs du roman. Stéréotypes grecs d’aventure et d’amour, Leiden: Brill. Lilla, S. 1992. Introduzione al Medio Platonismo, Rome: Augustinianum. MacDonald, M. I. 1996. Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion, Cambridge: CUP. Madigan K. and C. Osiek 2005. Ordained Women in the Early Church, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University. Marshall, J. W. 2008. ‘I Left You in Crete’, JBL 127, 781–803. Mason, H. J. 1978. ‘Fabula Graecanica. Apuleius and His Greek Sources’, in: B. Hijmans and R. van der Paard (eds.), Aspects of Apuleius’ Golden Ass, Groningen: Bouma’s Boekhuis. 1–15. Mason, H. J. 1997. ‘Greek and Latin Versions of the Ass-Story’, ANRW II.34.2, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 1665–1707. McCreight, Th. 2006. ‘Psyche’s Sisters as Medicae?’, in: W. H. Keulen, R. R. Nauta and S. Panayotakis (eds.), Lectiones Scrupulosae. Essays on the Text and Interpretation of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses in Honour of M. Zimmerman, Groningen: Barkhuis. 123–167. McDonald, D. 1983. The Legend and the Apostle, Philadephia: Westminster. Meeks,W. A. and J. T. Fitzgerald 2007. The Writings of St. Paul, New York and London: Norton. Merkelbach, R. 19919. Apuleio, Le Metamorfosi o l’Asino d’Oro, Milano: Rizzoli. Merz, A. 2004. Die fiktive Selbstauslegung des Paulus, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Mitchell, S. (ed.) 2010. One God: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire, Cambridge: CUP. Montemayor Aceves, M. E. 2008. ‘Leyes contra el crimen de magia (crimen magiae)’, Nova Tellus 26,2, 203–222. Moreschini, C. 1972. ‘La polemica di Agostino contro la demonologia di Apuleio’, ASNP 3,2, 588–596. Moreschini, C. 1983. ‘Monoteismo cristiano e monoteismo platonico’, in: H. H. Blume and F. Mann (eds.), Platonismus und Christentum. Festschrift H. Dörrie, Münster: Aschendorff. 133–161.

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Moreschini, C. 2004. Storia della filosofia patristica, Brescia: Mocelliana. Moretti, P. F. 2006. La Passio Anastasiae, Rome: Herder. Mortley, R. 1972. ‘Apuleius and Rhetoric Theology’, AJPh 93, 584–590. Neste, R. van 2004. Cohesion and Structure in the Pastoral Epistles, London: T&T Clark. Nestle, W. 1950. ‘Atheismus’, in: Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, I, Stuttgart: Hiersemann. 886–870. Nimis, S. 2000. ‘Book I and Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, in: J. Ruebel (ed.), Apuleius, Metamorphoses Book 1, Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci. vii-xvi. Onians, R. B. 1998. The Origins of European Thought, about the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fate, tr. it. by L. Perilli, Milan: Mondadori. Ophuijsen, J. M. van (ed.) 1999. Plato and Platonism, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. Opsomer, J. 1998. In Search of the Truth: Academic Tendencies in Middle Platonism, Bruxelles: Paleis der Academien. Pauly, A. F. 1827. Lukians Werke, IX, Stuttgart: Metzler. Perea Yébenes, S. 2000. El sello de Dios. Nueve estudios sobre magia y creencias populares greco-romanas, Madrid: Signifer. Perkins, J. 2009. Roman Imperial Identities in the Early Christian Era, London: Routledge. Perry, B. E. 1920. The Metamorphoses Attributed to Lucius of Patrae, New York and Lancaster, PA: Press of the New Era Printing Co. Perry, B. E. 1926. ‘On the Authenticity of Lucius sive asinus’, CPh 21, 225–234. Perry, B. E. 1967. Ancient Romances. A Literary-Historical Account of Their Origins, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Pietersma, A. 1994. The Apocryphon of Jannes and Jambres the Magicians, Leiden: Brill. Pilhofer, P., M. Baumbach, J. Gerlach and D. Hansen 2005. Lukian: Der Tod des Peregrinos, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Portolano, A. 1972. Cristianesimo e religioni misteriche in Apuleio, Naples: Federico & Ardia. Quinn, J. 1990. The Letter to Titus, New York: Doubleday. Ramelli, I. 1996. ‘Petronio e i Cristiani: allusioni al Vangelo di Marco nel Satyricon?’, Aevum 70, 75–80. Ramelli, I. 1998. ‘Alcune osservazioni circa il Testimonium Flavianum’, Sileno 24, 219–235. Ramelli, I. 1999a. ‘Montanismo e Impero Romano nel giudizio di Marco Aurelio’, in: M. Sordi (ed.), Fazioni e congiure nel mondo antico, Milan: Vita e Pensiero. 81–97. Ramelli, I. 1999b. ‘L’apologia siriaca di Melitone ad ‘Antonino Cesare’, VetChr 36, 259–286. Ramelli, I. 2000a. ‘Annotazioni critiche su Aquila e Priscilla, il Titulus Priscae e le Catacombe di Priscilla a Roma’, ETF 13, 243–253. Ramelli, I. 2000b. ‘L’epitafio di Abercio’, Aevum 74, 191–206. Ramelli, I. 2001a/2012. I romanzi antichi e il cristianesimo: contesto e contatti, Madrid: Signifer. New edition Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. Ramelli, I. 2001b. ‘Nota per le fonti della persecuzione anticristiana di Nerone e le sue conseguenze’, ETF ser. II, Historia Antigua, 14, 59–67. Ramelli, I. 2001c. ‘Elementi comuni della polemica antigiudaica e di quella anticristiana fra I e II sec. d.C.’, Studi Romani 49, 245–274. Ramelli, I. 2001d. ‘Tristitia’. Indagine storica, filosofica e semantica su un’accusa antistoica e anticristiana del I secolo’, InvLuc 23, 187–206. Ramelli, I. 2002a. ‘Protector Christianorum (Tert. Apol. V 4): il ‘miracolo della pioggia’ e la lettera di Marco Aurelio al Senato’, Aevum 76, 101–112.

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Ramelli, I. 2002b. Preface to S. Perea Yébenes, La Legión XII y el prodigio de la lluvia en época del emperador Marco Aurelio. Epigrafía de la Legión XII Fulminata, Madrid: Signifer. 11–14. Ramelli, I. 2002–03. ‘Plutarco e il suo silenzio sui Cristiani’, Sileno 28–29, 95–118. Ramelli, I. 2003. ‘Galeno e i Cristiani: una messa a punto’, InvLuc 25, 199–220. Ramelli, I. 2004a. Allegoria, I, L’età classica, Milan: Vita e Pensiero. Ramelli, I. 2004b. ‘Il senato consulto del 35 contro i Cristiani in un frammento porfiriano’, prefaced by M. Sordi, Aevum 78, 59–67. Ramelli, I. 2005a. ‘La Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis come dossier storiografico’, Rendiconti dell’Istituto Lombardo 139, 105–142. Ramelli, I. 2005b. ‘Dione di Prusa, Giovenale e l’impressione probabilmente suscitata da alcuni supplizî delle prime persecuzioni anticristiane’, Augustinianum 45, 35–45. Ramelli, I. 2005c. ‘Tracce di Montanismo nel Peregrinus di Luciano?’, Aevum 79, 79–94. Ramelli, I. 2005d. ‘The Ancient Novels and the New Testament: Possible Contacts’, Ancient Narrative 5 (www.ancientnarrative.com, printed issue Groningen: Barkhuis 2007), 41–68. Ramelli, I. 2005e. ‘“Vie diverse all’unico mistero”: la concezione delle religioni in Temistio ed il suo atteggiamento verso il Cristianesimo’, Rendiconti dell’Istituto Lombardo, Accademia di Scienze e Lettere 139, 455–483. Ramelli, I. 2006a. ‘San Giustino Martire: il multiforme uso di μυστήριον e il lessico dell’esegesi tipologica delle Scritture’, in: A. M. Mazzanti (ed.), Il volto del mistero, Castel Bolognese: Itaca. 35–66. Ramelli, I. 2006b. ‘Mυστήριον negli Στρωματεῖς di Clemente Alessandrino: aspetti di continuità con la tradizione allegorica greca’, in: A. M. Mazzanti (ed.), Il volto del mistero, Castel Bolognese: Itaca. 83–120. Ramelli, I. 2006c. ‘L’inedito Pròs basiléa di Temistio’, in coll. with E. Amato, ByzZ 99, 1–67. Ramelli, I. 2007. Gregorio di Nissa Sull’anima e la resurrezione, Milan: Bompiani-Catholic University. Ramelli, I. 2008a. ‘Nuove osservazioni per lo studio del rescritto di Adriano sui Cristiani’, Aevum 81, 137–148. Ramelli, I. 2008b. ‘Dione di Prusa filosofo: teologia e provvidenza nell’Olimpico e nel Caridemo’, Stylos 17, 55–106. Ramelli, I. 2008c. ‘Alle radici della filosofia patristica’, InvLuc 30, 149–176. Ramelli, I. 2009a. Bardaisan of Edessa: A Reassessment of the Evidence and a New Interpretation, Piscataway: Gorgias. Ramelli, I. 2009b. ‘Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism’, VChr 63, 217–263. Ramelli, I. 2009c. ‘Bardesane e la sua scuola, l’Apologia siriaca ‘di Melitone’ e la Doctrina Addai’, Aevum 83, 141–168. Ramelli, I. 2009d. ‘Origen, Bardaisan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation’, HThR 102,2, 135–168. Ramelli, I. 2009e. ‘Philosophen und Prediger. Pagane und christliche weise Männer: der Apostel Paulus’, in: E. Amato, R. Burri, S. Fornaro, I. Ramelli and J. Schamp (eds.), Dion von Prusa. Der Philosoph und sein Bild, Tübingen: Mohr. 183–210. Ramelli, I. 2010. ‘Teosebia in ministerio Ecclesiae’, in: Diaconia, Diaconie (XXXVIII Incontro di Studiosi di Antichità Cristiane, Rome, 8–10 May 2009), Rome: Augustinianum. 217–231. Ramelli, I. forthcoming. Stoicismo romano e Cristianesimo, Milan: Vita e Pensiero. Reale, G. 2004. Storia della filosofia greca e romana, VII, Milan: Bompiani. Rhys Roberts, W. 1897. ‘The quotation from Genesis in De Sublimitate’, CR 11, 431–436.

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Richards, W. A. 2002. Difference and Distance in Post-Pauline Christianity, New York: Lang. Riess, W. 2008. ‘Apuleius Socrates Africanus?’, in: id. (ed.), Paideia at Play: Learning and Wit in Apuleius, Groningen: Barkhuis. 51–73. Rinaldi, G. 1995. ‘Donne autonome e innovative: le donne cristiane viste dai pagani’, in: A. Valerio (ed.), Donna, potere e profezia, Naples: D’Auria. 97–119. Rinaldi, G. 1998. La Bibbia dei pagani, I-II, Bologna: EDB. Rives, J. B. 2008. ‘Legal Strategy and Learned Display in Apuleius’ Apology’, in: W. Riess (ed.), Paideia at Play: Learning and Wit in Apuleius, Groningen: Barkhuis. 17–49. Ruggiero, F. 1992. La follia dei cristiani. Su un aspetto della ‘reazione pagana’ tra I e V secolo, pref. M. Simonetti, Milan: Mondadori. Rüpke, G. 2004. Die Religion der Römer, tr. it. Turin: Einaudi. Schlam, C. C. 1992. The Metamorphoses of Apuleius: On Making an Ass of Oneself, London: Duckworth. Schmidt, V. 1995. ‘Revelare und curiositas bei Apuleius und Tertullian’, GCN 6, 127–135. Schmidt, V. 1997. ‘Reaktionen auf das Christentum in den Metamorphosen des Apuleius’, Vigiliae Christianae 51, 51–71. Schmidt, V. 2003. ‘Is There an Allusion to the Christian Eucharist in Apuleius, Met. 9, 14–15?’, Latomus 62, 864–874. Scobie, A. 1969. Aspects of the Ancient Romance and its Heritage, Meisenheim: Hain. Scobie, A. 1975a. Apuleius Metamorphoses I, Meisenheim: Hain. Scobie, A. 1975b. ‘Ass-Men in Middle, Central, and Far Eastern Folktales’, Fabula 16, 317–323. Shanzer, D. 1990. ‘Asino vectore virgo regia fugiens captivitatem’, ZPE 84, 221–229. Simon, M. 1964. Verus Israël, Paris: de Boccard. Simon, M. 1974. ‘Apulée et le Christianisme’, in: Mélanges H. C. Puech, Paris: PUF. 299–305. Smith, M. 1978. Jesus the Magician, New York and London: Harper and Row. Stepp, P. L. 2005. Leadership Succession in the World of the Pauline Circle, Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press. Stern, M. 1976. Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, I, Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Stern, M. 1980. Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, II, Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Sullivan, J. P. 1989. ‘Translations of Pseudo-Lucian, The Ass’, in: B. P. Reardon (ed.), Collected Ancient Greek Novels, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 589–618. Summers, R. G. 1973. ‘A Note on the Date of the Golden Ass’, AJPh 94, 365–383. Teja, R. 2008a. ‘Cultos y ritos terapéuticos cristianos en la hagiografía de Oriente’, in: E. Dal Covolo and G. Sfameni Gasparro (eds.), Cristo e Asclepio, Rome: LAS. 129–159. Teja, R. 2008b. ‘La quema de libros de magía como forma de represión’, Bandue 11, 73–100. Thiel, H. van 1971. Der Eselsroman, I, Munich: Beck. Tloka, J. 2006. Griechische Christen, Christliche Griechen, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Tornielli, A. 2005. Inchiesta sulla resurrezione. Misteri, leggende, verità, Milan: Società Europea di Edizioni. Tripp, D. 1988. ‘The Baker’s Wife and Her Confidante in Apuleius, Met. IX,14ff.’, Emerita 56, 245–254. Troiani, L. 1999. ‘Il Giudeo di Celso’, in: id., Il perdono cristiano e altri studi, Brescia: Paideia. 76–94. Vischer, L. 1951. ‘Le prétendu ‘culte de l’âne’ dans l’église primitive’, RHR 139, 15–16.

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Ritual, Myth and Intertextuality

Sonia Sabnis

Donkey Gone to Hell: A Katabasis Motif in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses Abstract: The mill episode in Book 9 of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses forms a figurative katabasis in the journey of Lucius the ass. In the depiction of the mill Apuleius alludes to Homer and Virgil to mark the metamorphosis of Lucius from an Aeneas-like hero to an Odysseus-like storyteller. Lucius the ass engages the unique observational powers and discourse of slaves, while the literary refinement of the description further indicates that Apuleius is staking a claim for the material of everyday life, raising mundane to mythic and fabular to epic. The mill scene in Book 9 of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses has long been of interest to literary critics and social historians alike. In this essay, I argue that Lucius’ stay in the mill functions as a figurative katabasis in his mock-epic adventure of donkeyhood. Though the parallels between epic katabaseis and the mill are more thematic than allusive – the allusive katabasis in the novel is obviously Psyche’s – I aim to show that Apuleius’ techniques in depicting the mill serve not only to define the genre of his work but also to level social critique. Taking Ellen Finkelpearl’s observation that ‘there could be no serious descent to an underworld by an ass, but structurally an Odyssean novel of travel and travail requires one’1 as my point of departure, I argue that the slavery of the mill is so infernal that the supernatural technologies employed by epic heroes would be more than just out of place in a novel of everyday life: they would be superfluous.2 Consider the following observations of Achille Mbembe on plantation slavery: As an instrument of labor, the slave has a price. As a property, he or she has a value. His or her labor is needed and used. The slave is therefore kept alive but in a state of injury, in a

1 Finkelpearl 1990, 345. Except for a few comparisons here and there, I will not discuss the katabasis of Psyche in this essay. 2 I am aware that to note an absence of the supernatural in this episode is both misleading and ironic; perhaps it would be better to say that the ‘serious’ magic employed by Odysseus and Aeneas for their katabaseis is parodied by the everyday magic that leads to Lucius’ transformation and the miller’s death. The narrator’s recollection of Photis (9,15) suggests that that connection between Photis and Circe is more than just turning men into beasts; Circe’s instructions initiate the Nekyia, and Photis’ ointment leads Lucius to this hell.

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phantom-like world of horrors and intense cruelty and profanity. … Slave life, in many ways, is a form of death-in-life.3

The abject conditions for slaves and animals in the mill bring Lucius to the depth of ‘death-in-life’ that characterizes his entire experience as an ass. Through routine torments and observations, Lucius reaches a turning-point in his journey and narrative similar to those achieved only through dreamlike and divinelyassisted maneuvers by epic heroes. The depiction of the mill is deeply influenced by two of the most famous katabasis-narratives in classical literature: Book 6 of the Aeneid and the Nekyia of Odyssey Book 11. The labyrinthine structure of the mill and the stupor of the hero form a connection to the former, while the explicit comparison that Lucius makes between himself and Homer’s hero suggests a thematic link between the characters of Odysseus and Lucius. I argue that the mill turns from Virgilian allusion to Homeric, transforming Lucius from a stupefied Aeneas into an Odyssean storyteller. To that end I will first explore the spatial and temporal aspects of the mill and Lucius’ response to them in order to connect the mill to Aeneid 6; then I will demonstrate how confrontation with the living dead incites Lucius to reinvent himself as an Odysseus, to find both refuge and power in storytelling. That the mill signifies a new low in Lucius’ servitude is apparent from the beginning of the episode. The ass arrives at the mill after he is confiscated from the corrupt priests of the Syrian goddess and purchased at auction by the pistor.4 statimque uinctos in Tullianum conpingunt cantharoque et ipso simulacro quod gerebam apud fani donarium redditis ac consecratis altera die productum me rursum uoce praeconis uenui subiciunt … (Met. 9,10) And immediately they chained them and threw them in prison, and the cup and the very statue that I was carrying were restored to the gift table at the shrine and consecrated. The next day they took me out and again put me up for sale by auction.

3 Mbembe 2003, 21. Throughout this essay I am indebted to the observations of the following works on the Metamorphoses and Roman slavery: Annequin 1997; Ávila Vasconcelos 2009; Bradley 2000; Facchini Tosi 1991; Fitzgerald 2000. 4 The verb denoting this action, praestinauit, is the only perfect-tense verb in this passage. The ability to transact financially is an obvious but marked difference between Lucius as a man and Lucius as an ass. Furthermore, it distinguishes the ass from Psyche, who carefully keeps her coins and transacts her passages in and out of the Underworld. Pistor connotes both miller and baker; for simplicity’s sake, and to maintain the shared root in pistor and pistrinum, I opt for the former.

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While Tullianum is used metonymically for a local prison, its literal association is important: this Roman prison, memorably described by Sallust, is a classic locus horridus where criminals awaited capital punishment.5 Lucius the ass is separated from the priests, but he is taken to a place as gloomy and penal as their prison. The parallel suggests that the ass as well as the priests is on the verge of capital punishment, on the threshold of death. Though the villagers may be taking the law into their own hands, Tullianum creates at least the illusion of institutional, empire-wide, Roman justice, which is notably absent from the mill – there is no justice for the abject and animal. The ablative absolute that separates the priests from the ass, describing the recuperation and re-sanctification of the objects, shows the opposite pole of blessedness. This opposition, which appears to be the restoration of moral order, highlights the morally ambiguous status of Lucius the ass. The ass occupies a place somewhere between the priests and the stolen items, between accomplice (agent) and corrupted victim (object). Though throughout his servitude to the priests he clings fast to his moral superiority, his posturing benefits him little: unlike the sacred objects he is a thing to be bought and sold. The indignation of the ironic quod gerebam – the first-person verb here emphasizes the failure of the donkey to benefit from his contact with the divine simulacrum – looks forward to Lucius’ continued experience of injustice in the mill. The mill is not only the final prison for feeble animals and unfortunate slaves, but also the venue for the careful judgments of terrestrial and subterranean powers to be parodied viciously. Tullianum thus establishes a historically significant and culturally specific hellish place to contrast the universal horror of the mill, but also initiates literary agonism in which a mundane locale is set against historical and mythical infernos. Apuleius establishes the hellish aspects of the mill with spatial and temporal terms that suspend the progressive aspects of Lucius’ adventure, bringing the ass into an intricate knot of repetition and intrigue – it is in the mill that three tales of uxorial infidelity are woven together, parodying the catalogues of famous women in Odyssey 11 and Aeneid 6. However, before the ass reaches the depth of Tartarean suffering that will transform his storytelling, Apuleius foreshadows both the literary allusion and the horrors of the mill in his description of the road: iter arduum scrupis et cuiusce modi stirpibus infestum (‘a steep road littered with sharp stones and all kinds of stumps,’ 9,10). On the one hand this rocky road 5 Cat. 55,3. The gloom of the famous Roman prison (incultu tenebris odore foeda atque terribilis eius facies est, ‘it gives a foul and terrifying impression of filth, darkness and putrefaction’) is appropriate to the condition of the mill-prison to which the ass is sent. For the usage of Tullianum here, see GCA 1995, 103.

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merely continues a motif established by earlier episodes, focusing the hardships of the ass where he is most likely to feel it.6 On the other, the specific diction here speaks also to the poetic path, which is just as hazardous as the road traveled by the donkey – the katabasis-motif is well worn, and the irreverent casting of a donkey as the epic hero is dangerously insubordinate.7 Apuleius’ irreverence towards his venerable models and his veneration of the abject inhabitants of the empire emerge from specific comparisons between the mill episode of the Metamorphoses and the Aeneid. The difficulty of the path to the mill reverses the cliché of Aeneid 6, uttered by the Sibyl to Aeneas: facilis descensus Auerno noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis; sed reuocare gradum superasque euadere ad auras, hoc opus, hic labor est … (Verg. A. 6,126–129) The descent to Avernus is easy, the door of dark Dis is open night and day, but to retrace one’s way and escape to the upper air, this is the work, this is the toil …

The immediate difficulty of the rocky path leading to a labyrinth of toil signifies the katabasis-experience for Lucius and for Apuleius. For the former, the mill is the most hellish of his animal experiences, the lowest point of his servitude and drudgery; for the latter, the mill is an opportunity to stretch his ample descriptive skills and to engage with literary precedents of horror in a way that is more challenging than merely inserting a conventional katabasis. The space of the mill itself is described with rich detail in which intricate diction supersedes reportage: though the scene is often cited in works on Roman slavery and related social-historical subjects, the Groningen commentators conclude that ‘[t]he affective picture (labyrinth) painted by the narrator is not wholly consistent with … historical reality.’8 Though the motion of a millstone is a simple circuit, in the narration of Lucius the whole mill becomes strangely labyrinthine, due in part to the multiplicity of moving millstones that the reader first encounters. While such intricacy may be difficult to align with archaeological remains, it

6 Cf. uiam … longe peiorem in 9,9 and GCA 1995, 92–93. 7 I understand scrupis and stirpibus in metaphorical senses (‘sticking-points and predecessors’) as well as literal. Psyche’s katabasis, by contrast, comprises a relatively smooth path (canale directo in words of the tower, 6,18). 8 GCA 1995, 106.

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nonetheless contributes to our understanding of the ‘reality’ in which slaves coped with slavery, asserting their personhood through language in spite of their physical abjection. Following the seminal work of Fergus Millar, I am not casting Apuleius as a ‘proto-Engels’ in his pity for slaves and beasts of burden; instead I argue that narrative authority and allusion are ways in which the ass-narrator asserts his humanity in spite of his slavery.9 Apuleius thus recognizes, however comically, the extraordinary discourse to which slaves had unique access: In spite of the terror and the symbolic sealing off of the slave, he or she maintains alternative perspectives towards time, work, and self. … Treated as if he or she no longer existed except as a mere tool and instrument of production, the slave nevertheless is able to draw almost any object, instrument, language, or gesture into a performance and then stylize it.10

This ability is perhaps one reason why the narrating ass’ wish for stylus and tablets at the end of the Psyche fabula is not as incongruous as some would say, and why in the mill he draws attention to his saliently bestial features (enormous ears, social invisibility) that authorize his narrative. Apuleius turns the mill into a labyrinth, setting the stage on which multiple dramas of adultery, betrayal and violence can play. The labyrinthine effect is apparent in the first sentence describing the mill: ibi complurium iumentorum multiuii circuitus intorquebant molas ambage uaria nec die tantum, uerum perpeti etiam nocte prorsus instabili machinarum uertigine lucubrabant peruigilem farinam. (Met. 9,11) In this place the overlapping (repeated) circuits of varied circumference trodden by a great number of beasts kept the mills turning; not only by day, but also by night without end they kept producing all-night flour by the inconstant (ceaseless) rotation of the millstones.

The impressive accumulation of diction suggests beasts and mills of various sizes working in tandem. The Groningen commentators argue that multiuii ‘must refer to the many rounds the animals make in contrast with ambage uaria which presumably refers to the differing lengths of each round at the different mills.’11 This explanation is possible, for the paths are certainly well trodden, but I suggest also that we are to imagine that the millstones are so close together that the path

9 Millar 1981, 65. Millar instead makes a convincing comparison to Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, ‘which by a similar device offers a rather underestimated portrait of the different levels of Victorian society, from the point of view of bourgeois sentimentality.’ 10 Mbembe 2003, 22. 11 GCA 1995, 107. The repetition of the adjective in 9,13 (ungulas multiuia circumcursione in enorme uestigium porrecti) supports this interpretation.

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of one animal intersects with the next; however impractical the proximity, the essential synchronicity of these circuits would give the impression of a single unified process, like a system of gears perpetually in motion. If this interpretation is correct, then prorsus instabili … uertigine would signify not just the continuity of motion, but also the different speeds, needing precise control, that would be required in order for the beasts to turn mills of different sizes at close quarters and simultaneously. The complexity of this system results in an effect that is almost cosmic.12 Anyone who found himself in the midst of such an operation would indeed find himself trapped in a labyrinth, constantly moving to navigate a narrow way through. Ambage uaria reinforces the labyrinthine image. Previously in the Metamorphoses the wretched Socrates uses the word to preface the story of his misfortunes after Aristomenes confronts him (note also the use of instabilis): ‘Aristomene,’ inquit ‘ne tu fortunarum lubricas ambages et instabiles incursiones et reciprocas uicissitudines ignoras.’ (‘Aristomenes,’ he said, ‘clearly you do not know the slippery twists and sudden assaults and alternating fluctuations of fortune,’ 1,6).13 The verbal correspondence between this description of fortune’s vicissitudes and the turning of the millstone contributes to my understanding of the mill as an underworld, for Socrates is responding to Aristomenes’ allegations that he was dead and now looks like a ghost (laruale simulacrum, 1,6).14 The convoluted motions of the mill microcosmically represent the changes of fortune that control Lucius throughout the novel as well as the social death brought about by his metamorphosis; both aspects are foreshadowed here by the example of Socrates.15 The affinity between the activity of the mill and the labyrinth enables reflection on the ekphrasis of the temple doors, also the work of Daedalus, at the

12 See also GCA 1995, 111, noting certus error for planetary motion in several authors. Also Weyman 1926, 89 on error for the labyrinth. 13 Compare the Isiac priest’s words to Lucius in 11,15: quid asperrimorum itinerum ambages reciprocae, quid metus mortis cotidianae nefariae Fortunae profuit (‘how did the back-and-forth fluctuations of the harshest journeys and the daily fear of death serve wicked Fortuna?’). 14 Ambages also appears in 7,15 (the first mill), 8,12 (Charite describing the ‘deceitful ambush’ [fraudulentas ambages] contrived by Thrasyllus), 9,15 (the miller’s wife’s deceptions of her husband, to be discussed shortly) and 10,29 (the Pyrrhic dance, which also has an elusive and mesmerizing motion: discursus reciproci multinodas ambages). Other less relevant instances occur in 9,32; 10,6; 10,28 and 11,1. 15 Compare the network of millstones to Maud Gleason’s memorable description of the Metamorphoses: ‘The world of the Golden Ass is the imaginative analogue of a pinball machine. The institutions of society are the fixed plastic pathways, while paranormal transformations and arbitrary acts of political authority are the trapdoors, swinging levers, and springs that propel the spinning protagonist all over the map’ (Gleason 1999, 288).

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beginning of Aeneid 6, the katabasis book. William Fitzgerald has demonstrated that the labyrinth, an image that also appears in the lusus Troiae in Book 5, carries for both Daedalus and Aeneas a ‘pivoting function … where it both freezes the past in a discrete spatial configuration and allows this pattern, through repetition, to become a path along which history may progress.’16 This is an apt description of the mill’s function in the Metamorphoses, for nowhere else is the past life of Lucius-actor (and Lucius-auctor) so prominent in its role as establishing the pattern of storytelling that follows in Books 9 and 10. The mill does not enable Lucius to break with his past entirely, but the reflection of his own shabby conditions that he observes in the mill animals and slaves prompts him to assert a greater narrative control over the ensuing stories, all of which treat themes connected to the the family of Minos and the labyrinth. The visual labor and error that characterize the deceptive turnings (ambages) of the mill have moral equivalents in the dramas that play out upon such a scene. hic labor ille domus et inextricabilis error; magnum reginae sed enim miseratus amorem Daedalus ipse dolos tecti ambagesque resoluit (Verg. A. 6,27–29) Here that famous suffering of the house, the insoluble mess, But having pitied the great passion of the queen Daedalus himself solved the tricks and mysteries of the home.

Virgil’s lines on Crete are fraught with ambiguities, entangling the entire household of Minos in the knot of sacrilege and deception that is signified by the labyrinth. Lurking behind Virgil’s architectural labyrinth is forbidden passion as well as moral error, for the story of Daedalus’ arts is inextricably bound to his own moral failings and those of the Cretan royals he served. Amor of one queen, Pasiphae, is the force that drives the construction of the labyrinth, to conceal and confine the monster produced by Pasiphae’s illicit liaison with a bull. Whereas it is the pitiable amor of Ariadne that drives Daedalus to solve the mystery of his own labyrinth, the labyrinth of the mill is undone by a perverse version of amor, a nexus of lust, adultery, jealousy and revenge. The mill’s queen, like Pasiphae, is depicted as wholly surrendered to her adulterous passions, and her debauchery is further aligned with her cruelty towards Lucius the ass. She is also depicted as the architect of the mill and its knotty entanglements (ambages again), both in her violent controlling of the ass’

16 Fitzgerald 1984, 215.

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movements and in the metaphorical meanderings she weaves for her hapless husband (scaenas fraudulentas in exitium miserrimi mariti subdolis ambagibus construebat, ‘she kept designing deceptive stages with clever traps to bring about the destruction of her wretched husband,’ 9,15). Her several references to the shabby physical condition of the donkey, which lead to her dissatisfaction with her current trepid lover (ecce illius scabiosi asini faciem timentem familiarem, ‘a boytoy afraid of the face of that mangy ass over there,’ 9,22), speak to Lucius’ place among the animals and slaves he observed and described. Either he is just as tortured and decrepit as they are (or worse, since miller’s wife singles him out for especial torment), and his description of their bodies merely holds a mirror on his own condition, or he is not yet reduced to their spectral existence, and thus presents a special problem for the miller’s wife and her adulterers. As in the case of the Minotaur, the very hybridity of man and beast threatens established hierarchies and must be contained. It is Lucius’ curiosity and ingenuity and the donkey’s determined yet fortuitous intervention, the trampling of the concealed lover Philesitherus’ fingers, that reveal the adulterer to the miller, initiating the chain of events that stops the rotations of the mill and offers exit to its wretched inhabitants. Substituting non-elite inhabitants of Roman Greece for legendary heroes and queens, Apuleius takes Virgil’s association of labyrinth and katabasis further, questioning the relationship between the containment of the past and the progress of the future that these motifs so often bespeak. The motions of the mill are many-journeyed (multiuii), yet there is no forward progress. Thematically, this labor without a discrete beginning or end recalls the punishments meted out to mythical sinners like Tityos and Sisyphus (cf. saxum ingens uoluunt alii, radiisque rotarum / districti pendent, ‘others roll an enormous rock, and are strung up, splayed on the spokes of wheels,’ Verg. A. 6,616–617). Moreover, whereas Virgil’s labor aligns Daedalus’ artistic achievement with the physical and psychological trials of Aeneas, Apuleius reduces labor to its basest incarnation: onerous, repetitive, physical work (cf. leuiorem laborem, ‘a lighter toil,’ 9,11). sed die sequenti molae, quae maxima uidebatur, matutinus adstituor et ilico uelata facie propellor ad incurua spatia flexuosi canalis, ut in orbe termini circumfluentis reciproco gressu mea recalcans uestigia uagarer errore certo. (Met. 9,11) But early the next morning I was set to the millstone that seemed to be the largest, and blindfolded I was driven forward into the curving space of the sinuous course, so that in the circle of the surrounding boundary I wandered, tracing my steps with repeated ambulation in a directed meander.

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The richness of this description leads the Groningen commentators to suggest that Apuleius ‘wishes to give the reader a whiff of the ass’s vertigo.’17 Errore certo picks up on Virgil’s inextricabilis error cited above, yet the difference in modifiers is significant: While on the surface inextricabilis underscores the confusion and danger of the Knossian palace and labyrinth, the impact of the word is compromised by the fact that a solution, an extrication, immediately presents itself: Daedalus himself resolves the trap of the labyrinth. By contrast, the apparently oxymoronic expression errore certo in the passage above is extremely powerful: it not only reinforces the labyrinthine image, bringing the reader into sympathy with the ass’ assured physical disorientation, but also enables the pistrine labyrinth to transcend its metaphor: the mill presents a more confounding, more distressing, more dangerous trap than the mythical labyrinth. Daedalus’ labyrinth is ultimately a soluble puzzle; the mill wanderings are continuous but varied (ambage uaria) and surely inescapable (errore certo). Paul Allen Miller analyzes the labyrinths of the Aeneid in Lacanian terms: [T]he labyrinth would be analogous to the symbolic itself, the social realm of language and ideology whose role is to subsume and contain the monsters of the imaginary. The labyrinth as the symbolic functions as a mechanism of repression, which makes a controlled, socially sanctioned desire possible.18

Apuleius’ labyrinthine mill is a concrete, mundane mechanism of repression – not psychic but social. The mill represses and contains not the monsters of the imaginary but the hideous and hybridized creatures of everyday life – recalcitrant slaves and unfortunate animals – whose very deformity protects the economic and ideological structures of the Roman empire. By close contact with animals and slaves of his own status, Lucius the donkey may at last recognize himself for what he is, a shabby beast of burden, but he will emerge from the mill with an acute awareness of and a new astuteness and authority in his role as observer and storyteller. The symbolic force of the labyrinth in the Aeneid finds an analogue in

17 GCA 1995, 110. The commentators also note that the adjective flexuosus is used in Met. 10,29 and in Mar.Vict. gramm. 6,60,3 to describe the path of the labyrinth (intortum et flexuosum iter labyrinthi). A second labyrinthine image in the Metamorphoses occurs in the arena pageant in 10,29 when young men and women dance the Pyrrhic, a motif that connects to the lusus Troiae in Verg. A. 5,588–595. Following Fitzgerald’s argument, I would argue that the recurring labyrinth imagery marks the end of Lucius’ asinine past and foreshadows the physical and spiritual transformation that is to follow. 18 Miller 1995, 234.

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a non-mythical locus; the mill contains desires and monsters more gruesome than the imaginary Minotaur. The image of the labyrinth is one way in which Apuleius aligns the mill with the Underworld, and the repetition of hopeless, unending labor there makes the mill seem specifically like the abyss of Tartarus. Apuleius also achieves the hellish effect through a concentration on darkness and the instability of time. The Groningen commentators (GCA 1995, 123) note the difficulty of determining whether the spectacle here is outside or inside, an ambiguity that parallels the collapsing of day and night into a single and continuous darkness. The grinding of the mills continues day and night (nec die tantum uerum perpeti etiam nocte, ‘not only by day but also by night without end,’ 9,11).19 The most basic signifiers of time are obscured by the ceaseless labor of the mill, a trend that characterizes much of Lucius’ ass-life. Whereas the events in Lucius’ life prior to his metamorphosis are relatively circumscribed by the passage of days, culminating in the holiday of the Risus Festival, such cultural markers of time lose their significance for the ass; the fact that his re-entry into the human world in Book 11 comes on a holiday shows that his anamorphosis depends on the recuperation of a particular ordering of time. In the mill, the narrator tries to maintain control of temporal order, for he notes that he enjoyed one day of respite and marking his second day in the mill, but the narrative then dissolves into toil that is charted not by the passage of days or seasons, but often only by the time of day.20 Until the day on which the miller’s wife trysts with the renowned adulterer Philesitherus, the rotation of the millstone supplants the movement of the cosmos at the center of Lucius’ existence.21 As this day marks not only the beginning of the end for the miller and his wife but also a new mode of storytelling for Lucius the ass, the grandeur with which Lucius sets the time as well as the setting of this new adultery is significant. ergo igitur meridie propinquante helcio tandem absolutus refectuique secure redditus non tam hercules laboris libertate gratulabar quam quod reuelatis luminibus libere iam cunctas facinorosae mulieris artes prospectare poteram. sol ipsum quidem delapsus Oceanum subterrenas orbis plagas inluminabat … (Met. 9,22)22

19 Compare noctes atque dies patet ianua Ditis (Verg. A. 6,127), cited above. 20 E.g., matutinus (9,11), maxima diei parte transacta (9,12), matutino mero (9,14), antelucio (9,15), die quadam (9,16), uespertina regressione (9,22). 21 Thus the appearance of the moon in Book 11 is an apt signifier of Lucius’ anamorphosis; the moon is an obvious foil to the sun, showing that Lucius recovers a cosmic measure of time but in a way different from his prior human life. 22 The text meridie propinquante is disputed: see GCA 1995, 198 for a full discussion. It may seem strange for the donkey to be released by his tormentor at noon, but I do not think that the normal

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And so towards afternoon I was released at last from my harness and given over to carefree refreshment, I was grateful, by Hercules, not so much for the freedom from toil as the fact that now that my eyes were uncovered I could now freely observe all the schemes of that criminal woman. Then sun had slipped below Ocean itself and was throwing its light on the quarters of the world below the surface …

The elaborate way in which Lucius marks eventide follows from Lucius’ evocation of the hero known for his utmost prudence in 9,13. As Helios (Sol) espied the adulterous pair Aphrodite and Ares in the song of Demodocus (Hom. Od. 8,266–366), so does Lucius the ass become free to observe the treacheries of the miller’s wife and her accomplice. But the elaboration also marks a recuperation of a free person’s discourse of time and space, and the plot twists that enable the ass to escape the hell of the mill are foreshadowed by his limited freedom here. Having established the spatial and temporal aspects of the mill inferno into which the ass descends, I propose that this hell provides a fulcrum to balance the physical transformations that Lucius undergoes in Books 3 and 11: he changes from an Aeneas-like hero, obsessed by his former life and current torments, into an Odysseus, who banks on his trials as storytelling capital. In both parallels there is obviously an element of satire, since the hero is a lowly donkey. Still, this particular transformation is critical to the content and presentation of the many inset tales that follow in Books 9 and 10, in which through metanarrative catches or indirect discourse Apuleius ensures that the reader is always aware that the narrator is an ass. Lucius’ entry to the mill parodies the warm reception given to weary travelers in epic poetry: sed mihi, ne rudimentum seruitii perhorrescerem scilicet, nouus dominus loca lautia prolixe praebuit (‘but for me the new master rolled out the red carpet, lest, to be sure, I should begin to shrink from the harshness of the slavery,’ 9,11). The ironic reading of this hospitality is assured by the insertion of the subordinate clause and scilicet, a particle that draws attention to Lucius’ overconfidence regarding the kind of slavery he is about to experience and the master’s mechanisms of control.23 The joke of loca lautia – traditionally the entertainments of foreign dignitaries at Rome – supports Lucius’ threatened sta-

logic and language of time applies to the mill anyhow. The subsequent elegant description of the time after sunset marks Lucius’ freedom on several accounts: freedom from work, freedom from the blindfold, freedom to observe, to report and to embellish. 23 See GCA 1995, 108: ‘[T]he word not only marks the narrator’s inference … but also sounds a slightly ironic note (something like ‘as a clever ass of course I had an inkling of his thoughts’).’

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tus as an ambassador to this underworld, whereas the other animals and slaves he will soon observe appear to have no exit.24 That Lucius’ slavish existence as a donkey functions as a kind of social death comes across at many points in the Metamorphoses, but in this particular scene the oblivion that comes with the Roman underworld makes an unusual appearance: nec tamen sagacitatis ac prudentiae meae prorsus oblitus facilem me tirocinio disciplinae praebui (‘But I had not entirely forgotten my cleverness and foresight, so I did not make myself pliable to the new apprenticeship,’ Met. 9,11).25 This clinging to facets of his former self suggests that Lucius tastes a drop of Lethe in his entrance to the mill, that the worst slavery will utterly ruin his mental capacities. Compare the actions of the robber Thrasyleon in his final dramatic stand: quamquam enim uitae metas ultimas obiret, non tamen sui nostrique uel pristinae uirtutis oblitus iam faucibus ipsis hiantis Cerberi reluctabat (‘although he was passing the final turning-posts of life, he still did not forget the old courage that befitted him and all of us, and he struggled against the very jaws of Cerberus, agape,’ Met. 4,20). Forgetting one’s life and virtues is concomitant with approaching the threshold of death. The irony of Lucius’ strange assertion of memory becomes clear in what follows: trusting too much in his ability to remember and to psychologize his new master, when Lucius is first harnessed to the millstone, he decides to play the stubbornly immobile ass: sed quanquam frequenter, cum inter homines agerem, machinas similiter circumrotari uidissem, tamen ut expers et ignarus operis stupore mentito defixus haerebam, quod enim rebar ut minus aptum et huius modi ministerio satis inutilem me ad alium quempiam utique leuiorem laborem legatum iri uel otiosum certe cibatum iri. (Met. 9,11)

24 On loca lautia as entertainment for foreign dignitaries to Rome, see GCA 1995, 108 and their references as well as OLD s.v. lautia. 25 The Groningen commentators (GCA 1995, 111) note but are not enthusiastic about the possibility that nec tamen negates only praebui and not oblitus. This unpopular interpretation would seem to be supported by a similar use of nec tamen … prorsus in 9,37: nec tamen peremptus ac prorsum exanimatus adulescens ille terrae concidit (‘Nor still, though slain and thoroughly devoid of life, did that young man fall to the ground’). While I prefer the apo koinou reading, it does seem possible that Lucius is reflecting on his actions with the knowledge of the violent result. Indeed, what is still a common occurrence among domesticated donkeys – a stubborn unwillingness to move – is here excessively overlaid with psychological tactics and philosophical positions. So perhaps the Lethe of this figurative death has indeed taken effect here, and the subsequent auctorial memini (9,13) marks a reclamation of the faculty of memory, which is key to the subsequent coping, cleverness, and conversion whereby Lucius escapes his slavery.

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but although I had often seen machines turned in a similar way while I lived among men, nevertheless as though inexperienced and ignorant of the task I stood immobile, with a feigned stupidity, for the simple reason that I thought that once I showed myself hardly fit and sufficiently worthless for service of this type I would be designated for some other lighter toil or maybe even allowed to graze at my leisure.

Notably, the concessive clause quanquam … uidissem makes the scrupulous reader pause, both for the ambiguity of cum inter homines agerem and for the inconsistency – this is not the first time that Lucius the ass finds himself in a mill. In 7,15, after the marriage of Charite and Tlepolemus, Lucius is made to run a mill for the wife of Charite’s herdsman; this woman completely thwarts his happiness and hope for human restoration. The idiom inter homines agere is rare; it occurs poignantly in Tacitus’ Annals: nam deum honor principi non ante habetur, quam agere inter homines desierit (‘The honor of gods is not given to a princeps until his life among men has ceased,’ Ann. 15,74,3, trans. A. J. Woodman).26 Perhaps, then, these words in the narrating voice of the ass acknowledge that in a figurative sense, Lucius is no longer among the living. Moreover, the frame of memory and accumulated knowledge provides an explanation of the inconsistency: perhaps Lucius has forgotten his previous trauma with the millstone. The despair of his slavery has compromised his memory, such that once an ass, he cannot properly order new memories and must instead painfully recollect his human existence as a discrete episode. The incongruity of this recourse is apparent in the joke that follows, for the ass relies on human ingenuity to resist his labor. When his ploy results in a vicious beating, his claims on sagacitas and prudentia are undermined. The attempt at deceiving the mill workers with immobility parallels an attempt to deceive the reader into mistrusting her own reading, but instead of trying to explain the slip we should observe that the deception brings us closer to the psychological confusion of Lucius’ slavery, in which violence, not thought, generates action. The disingenuousness of the ploy of stupor in the mill is further transparent in the language used to describe his immobility. As Donald Lateiner has shown, Lucius is frequently stupefied and paralyzed by sights and events.27 Lateiner notes this passage as a ‘deceptive motionless event, intended as the inaction of ignorance’ but offers no further comment.28 When set next to the multiple occa-

26 See GCA 1995, 112, although the parallel phrasing in Tacitus is not noted. 27 Lateiner 2001, passim. 28 Lateiner 2001, 228 n. 21.

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sions in which Lucius is more genuinely stupefied, the ploy seems like a selfparody. The instances that are most similar verbally to the mill’s stupefaction occur in 2,7 (Lucius admiring Photis at the pot: isto aspectu defixus obstupui et mirabundus steti, ‘transfixed by this vision I was dumbstruck and stood there full of wonder’) and 3,22 (Lucius awestruck by Pamphile’s metamorphosis, praesentis tantum facti stupore defixus, ‘transfixed only by speechless wonder at her present action’).29 In these examples, stupor is a sign of erotic desire aroused by the remarkable corporeal shapes of women, described with stunning clarity. Photis’ sensuous culinary calisthenics comprise a mesmerizing gyration (rotabat in circulum, et in orbis flexibus crebra succutiens, ‘she kept turning in a circle, shaking frequently in sinuous turns,’ 2,7) whereby Lucius is hypnotized with desire. This hypnotism looks forward to the reaction triggered by the fixed and constant rotation of the millstone. Though Photis and Pamphile in these scenes are characterized by movement and transformation, Lucius’ dumbstruck wonder freezes himself and his vision – the virtuosic language creates a virtual ekphrasis.30 Though the motif of stupor is so common in Latin literature that it is dangerous to suggest allusion to a specific source, I note a particular resonance between defixus haerebam in 9,11 and the stupor of Aeneas at the sight of Juno’s temple: dum stupet, obtutuque haeret defixus in uno (‘in his astonishment, he stands transfixed in a single gaze,’ Verg. A. 1,495). But Lucius’ immobility differs from that of Aeneas in important ways: first, in the mill it is inauthentic. Moreover, Aeneas is overwhelmed by his own history of travails, some of which he himself will relate to Dido in the subsequent book; Lucius’ own memory of mills seems to fail him. These facts as well as the dramatic change in scene show that Apuleius colors the Aeneid intertext with parody. Aeneas is confronted with his own past, a past that is authenticated by vivid artistic and narrative representations of Troy’s fall. By contrast, Lucius’ apparent failure to remember his previous mill experience threatens to invalidate his entire past. The ploy in the mill alters the pattern of Virgilian stupor in several important ways. The immobility is feigned and precedes the ekphrasis that we would expect to trigger it. The ekphrasis itself describes bodies that are stunningly repulsive,

29 See Finkelpearl 1998, 46 ff., who unpacks the phrase at 2,7. If, as she argues, Lucius’ amazement specifically evokes Aeneas and Vergilian women, I would argue that Lucius’ feigned immobility at the beginning of the mill leaves him free not to wonder at but to despise the miller’s wife and her schemes. See also Nethercut 1969, 100. 30 The example of Actaeon (Met. 2,4) lends its taboo to the scenes of female bodies that Lucius describes. If his feigned stupor in 9,12 connotes divinely-inspired awe, the joke of sectae commutatione is all the more appropriate.

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not desirable.31 To emphasize the mill episode as distinct from Lucius’ other travails, and to contextualize the mill in the mock-epic adventure of the donkey, Apuleius transforms the katabasis-motif of epic into an elaborate spectacle of mundane activity. Such a transformation supports the parody of an ass as epic hero yet indicates that behind such parody there may be serious criticism, not just observation, of the way in which Rome’s most unfortunate slaves and animals were treated. Their experiences are elevated to those of storm-tossed, necromantic heroes. The verb that Apuleius uses to convey the donkey’s new compliance with his labor is especially meaningful; having elaborately described the mill workers surrounding and lavishing beatings upon him, still blindfolded, he quickly jettisons his plans (cunctis consiliis abiectis) and begins to move: discursus alacres obirem, ‘I accepted the maneuvers with vigor,’ 9,11). The verb obire has a variety of meanings, one of which is ‘to die.’ Though the syntax requires the meaning ‘take on, carry out,’ obirem, as with obibam at the close of the novel (11,22 and 11,30), includes a whiff of death.32 At the end of the Metamorphoses, Lucius surrenders to the priestly duties in service of the goddess to whom he owes his life. In the mill, this risible change of sect (sectae commutatione, 9,12) marks a similarly imperfect passage to a figurative death in the darkest depths of slavery. In contrast to the easy descent to the Underworld described at the beginning of Aeneid 6, Anchises notes the difficulty of the journey when Aeneas arrives in the Elysian Fields. uenisti tandem, tuaque exspectata parenti uicit iter durum pietas? (Verg. A. 6,687-688). You have come at last? Your piety, welcome to your father, has overcome the difficult journey?

31 Another example of stupefaction in which speechlessness precedes the sight that we would expect to cause it occurs in 3,9 at the climax of Lucius’ Risus trial; in this case, the punch-line, the revelation that the bodies are actually wineskins, must be postponed. I note that Lucius’ capital punishment is replaced by a kind of death by embarrassment. His stupefaction contrasts humorously with the concessive clause beginning the sentence, but also shows a displaced but appropriate reaction to the Underworld: quamquam enim iam in peculio Proserpinae et Orci familia numeratus, subito in contrariam faciem obstupefactus haesi (‘although I had already counted myself as the private property of Proserpina, in the household of Orcus, at the sudden reversal of fortune I was immobile and dumbfounded’). See Orpheus’ stupor in Ov. Met. 10,64 ff. and Heath 1996. 32 Laird 2000, 275–276.

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Anchises ascribes Aeneas’ appearance to his consistent characteristic pietas. Though iter arduum in Met. 9,10 may reflect Virgil’s iter durum here, it is notable that pietas plays no role in the ass’ katabasis; on the contrary, the change in sect indicates that Lucius’ character is much more variable than that of Virgil’s epic hero, that he is now prepared, like Odysseus, not only to endure torment but also to reap the benefits of a shabby disguise.33 In the context of the Metamorphoses, any transformation is meaningful; this particular one makes light of philosophical hyperbole and perhaps even previews in a two-word synopsis the content of Book 11.34 But here at the millstone there is also a critical transformation from a dumbstruck Aeneas, who rejoices in stories and images whose importance he does not fully understand, to a knowledgeable Odysseus, who takes control of the retelling of what he sees and hears and thus gains power, even without divine inspiration, over his audience. Like both heroes, Lucius the ass dies a virtual death. Like both heroes, Lucius the ass obtains from the ghosts of his underworld a glimpse of his future. Like Aeneas, Lucius enters his underworld as though entering a labyrinth, but his virtual death allows him to be reborn as an Odysseus-like observer and storyteller who builds his prestige through authority over narrative, an authority that controls the rest of the Metamorphoses. The transformation into Odysseus is explicit, even if its meaning is obscure. Released from his toil at the end of the day, Lucius the ass sets aside refreshment in order to feed on spectacle. The delayed eating here is unusual, since he often draws attention to his hunger. But if the mill is an underworld, there is no surer way of making one’s stay permanent than to partake of its abundant fare.35 By not eating, Lucius the ass distinguishes himself from the animals he describes.36 This 33 Similarly, it is worth noting that Psyche succeeds in her descent into the Underworld only by not exercising pietas; she is strictly forbidden from her natural sympathies by the vatic tower who directs her to Proserpina (nec tu tamen inclita adflectare pietate, 6,18). 34 See Winkler 1985, 152–153 and the objections of GCA 1995, 115. 35 Psyche is warned not to eat the lavish food offered by Proserpina and to satisfy her hunger with mere bread (panem sordidum, 6,19). The abundance of food is a lone benefit of the unpleasant workshop (inoptabilis officina, 9,12), and in the vivid description of the animals of the mill, submersion in the edible byproducts of the mill (capita demersi contrucabant moles palearum, ‘they were munching on the heaps of husks, their heads immersed,’ 9,13) signifies their complete submission and abjection. While a similar gesture accompanies Lucius’ mourning (summisso capite maerebam, ‘I hung my head and grieved,’ 9,13), it is important for his sense of self and his ability to find a way out of the funereal labyrinth that he refreshes himself on his curiosity rather than on fodder. 36 Though the vivid depiction of the ghastly inhabitants initiated this project, I will not analyze in detail the descriptions of slaves and animals. But the passage’s ecphrastic qualities lead me to think of social critique as well as Apuleian virtuosity. See Facchini Tosi 1991; Gianotti 1986; Schiesaro 1985.

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difference is one of several that keep Lucius from assimilating entirely to his new familia. Lucius instead fashions himself into Homer’s hero: Nec inmerito priscae poeticae diuinus auctor apud Graios summae prudentiae uirum monstrare cupiens multarum ciuitatium obitu et uariorum populorum cognito summas adeptum uirtutes cecinit. (Met. 9,13) Not without merit did the divine author of ancient poetry among the Greeks, wishing to show a hero of the utmost prudence, sing that by visiting of many cities and by coming to know various peoples he attained the highest virtues.

I suggest a correspondence here not just with the Odyssey in general, but with the Nekyia and the role of storyteller that Odysseus plays for Alcinous and Arete. The Phaeacians offer intratextual audience to Homer’s hero, but the narrating donkey must construct and control his own outside the text. We are not asked to believe in mythical beasts and lands, but only in the magic that transforms a man into animal and allows him to recount his experiences. The Nekyia is less of a journey than other katabaseis, but it was still imitated as such by Virgil and others.37 Apuleius does not specifically refer to Odysseus’ contact with the dead. Still, since it is the most extraordinary of his travels, the one in which he accesses the most arcane information, it is an important if implicit point in Lucius’ comparison (etsi minus prudentem, multiscium, ‘even if less foresighted, polymathic’ 9,13). Apuleius is fond of multi- compounds, and multiscius here is particularly appropriate since many of Odysseus’ epithets begin with the Greek equivalent poly-. In this particular use of multiscius, which is the only one in the Metamorphoses, I observe a play on polytropos (‘of many turns’), the programmatic epithet given to the hero in the first line of the Odyssey. Apuleius uses multiuius twice to describe the motion of the mill (multiuii circuitus, 9,11; multiuia circumcursione, 9,13); etymologically, multiuius is a better translation of polytropos than multiscius. While the many turns of the mill transform its animals and slaves into living ghosts, they are themselves transformed into the accumulated knowledge of Lucius. The rendering of the third line of the Odyssey (πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω, ‘he saw the cities of many peoples and came to know their minds’) into multarum ciuitatum obitu et uariorum populorum cognitu (‘by visiting many cities and coming to know various peoples’) is curious on several accounts. Obitus, similar to the verbs obirem a few sections earlier and obibam at the end of the novel, means both ‘visit, encounter’ and ‘death, decline.’ As in the case of

37 E.g., Deiphobus’ tale is similar to Agamemnon’s (Clark 1979, 165 ff.).

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obibam, we cannot go so far as to layer this meaning over the one demanded by syntax, but we can speculate on the overall resonance of the expression. It is only by approaching death that Odysseus, Aeneas, and even Isiac Lucius, who mystically dies in his initiation, achieve their full excellence in life. Virtutes is another loaded word that Apuleius uses in connection with Odysseus: summas adeptum uirtutes cecinit (‘[Homer] sang that he had attained the highest virtues’).38 In the Metamorphoses, uirtus is both self-fashioned and cumulative – the word occurs prominently in the robbbers’ own tales of their exploits, and Lucius uses it of himself only once, in his rejoinder to Photis’ explanation of his utricide: ‘ergo igitur iam et ipse possum’ inquam ‘mihi primam istam uirtutis adoriam ad exemplum duodeni laboris Herculei numerare, uel trigemino corpori Geryonis uel triplici formae Cerberi totidem peremptos utres coaequando.’ (Met. 3,19) ‘And so it is now the case that I can count this as my first achievement of uirtus in emulation of Hercules’ twelve labors, comparing those perished wineskins to the triple body of Geryon or to the three heads of Cerberus.’39

Importantly, uirtus is not a quality of character (as it may be for Aeneas) but a kind of social capital. The robbers’ heroic feats are essential to their profession; Odysseus’ storytelling, particularly of his katabasis, leads the queen Arete (Virtus in Latin) to proclaim him worthy of gifts (Od. 11,336–341). Lucius’ capital, as is clear throughout the Metamorphoses, consists almost entirely in stories and storytelling. Significant to my interpretation of the mill as a katabasis is the fact that this reverie regarding Homer’s Odysseus occurs in the mill.40 Odysseus likewise interrupts his catalogue of ghosts in the Nekyia, drawing attention to the richness of his material with a disclaimer:

38 To my knowledge, the only other occurrence of uirtus as an object of the verb adipisci occurs in Quintilian Inst. 8,3,1: nam emendate quidem ac lucide dicentium tenue praemium est, magisque ut uitiis carere quam ut aliquam magnam uirtutem adeptus esse uidearis. (‘For there is scant reward for those who speak correctly and clearly, so that it seems more the case that you lack faults than that you have attained some great virtue.’) 39 Nethercut 1969, 103 notes that this allusion to Hercules’ katabasis contributes to the initiatory function of the Risus Festival, marking the passage of Lucius from one life to another. 40 See Kenney 2003, 161: ‘This gruesome panorama was relished as grist to his literary mill which enables him to regale himself and his readers with another demonstration of a genre in which Lucius-Apuleius consciously excelled, the set-piece ekphrasis.’ Kenney continues on a philosophical bent, one that requires a nuanced reading of etsi minus prudentem. This is an important argument; nevertheless I persist in deeming storytelling valuable in and of itself, without service to a religious or philosophical lesson.

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πάσας δ’ οὐκ ἂν ἐγὼ μυθήσομαι οὐδ’ ὀνομήνω, ὅσσας ἡρώων ἀλόχους ἴδον ἠδὲ θύγατρας· πρὶν γάρ κεν καὶ νὺξ φθῖτ’ ἄμβροτος. ἀλλὰ καὶ ὥρη εὕδειν, ἢ ἐπὶ νῆα θοὴν ἐλθόντ’ ἐς ἑταίρους ἢ αὐτοῦ· … (Hom. Od. 11,328-332) I could not recount nor even name all the women whom I saw, the wives and daughters of heroic men, for immortal night would sooner perish; moreover it is time to sleep, either aboard the swift ship having returned to my companions, or here. …

Both Lucius the ass and Odysseus interrupt themselves in their narratives of their respective katabaseis. Both make recusationes – we can compare Odysseus’ words above to Lucius’ preface regarding the mill animals: iam de meo iumentario contubernio quid uel ad quem modum memorem? (‘And as for my comrade beasts, what can I say, to what limit can I describe them?’ 9,13). Odysseus has the benefit of an intradiegetic audience who evaluates and exhorts; the narrating ass must imagine and construct one: fabulam denique bonam prae ceteris, suaue comptam, ad aures uestras afferre decreui, et en occipio. (Met. 9,14) So I have decided to bring to your ears a story good beyond the rest, neatly turned out, and so I begin.

The singular fabulam is deceptive, since the story of the miller contains two others, the old woman’s story of Myrmex and the miller’s own story of the fuller. The structure of this storytelling, and the neatness whereby the ass positions himself strategically to listen and to act, indeed deserve the epithet suaue comptam.41 The material of the fabula, adultery and marital deception, is particularly appropriate to new epithet multiscius, not only because it requires intimate knowledge of private households, but also because such a tale is exactly what Odysseus offers when urged to continue his own katabasis-narrative: τὸν δ’ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς· ‘Ἀλκίνοε κρεῖον, πάντων ἀριδείκετε λαῶν, ὥρη μὲν πολέων μύθων, ὥρη δὲ καὶ ὕπνου· εἰ δ’ ἔτ’ ἀκουέμεναί γε λιλαίεαι, οὐκ ἂν ἔπειτα τούτων σοι φθονέοιμι καὶ οἰκτρότερ’ ἄλλ’ ἀγορεύειν,

41 The Groningen commentators also assign this remark to the whole cluster of tales from 9,14 to 9,31 (GCA 1995, 133).

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κήδε’ ἐμῶν ἑτάρων, οἳ δὴ μετόπισθεν ὄλοντο, οἳ Τρώων μὲν ὑπεξέφυγον στονόεσσαν ἀϋτήν, ἐν νόστῳ δ’ ἀπόλοντο κακῆς ἰότητι γυναικός …’ (Hom. Od. 11,377-384) Odysseus who knew many things answered, ‘Great Alcinous, renowned among men, there is a time for making speeches, and a time for going to bed; nevertheless, since you so desire, I will not refrain from telling you the still sadder tale of the sorrow of my comrades who perished later, having escaped the mournful warcry of the Trojans only to die on their return, through the treachery of a wicked woman …’

Odysseus’ contact with the dead gives him an authority similar to the kind that Lucius gains through his own social death. In the latter’s case, the resulting storytelling, whereby Lucius makes himself a silent but crucial character in the fabula bona of the miller’s wife, is paradoxical: as an ass, his vocal resistance has failed wholly.42 But the horror of the mill, paralleled only by that of imaginary underworlds, triggers this new model of storytelling. The miller and his wife form a proletarian foil to the tragic couple Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Like Clytemnestra, the miller’s wife commits adultery with an effeminate lover and then destroys her husband. In the Odyssey, Agamemnon reports his death as a mass murder – Aegisthus slays him, Clytemnestra kills Cassandra, and others are slain alongside. Even so, as in most accounts, Clytemnestra is painted as the most treacherous and culpable. The miller’s wife is likewise thoroughly condemned by the ass, who views her as his primary tormentor; her contrivance to conceal her lover and then to condemn her neighbor is told through Lucius’ moral outrage. Her last direct speech contains a dismissal of her current timid lover; here, the miller’s wife victimizes herself, depicting the mill as her own hellish prison. Moreover, through victimhood she claims the tag of narrative authority that Lucius-auctor so often uses for himself: at ego (9,22). As if to punish her for this cooptation, the ass reports all her subsequent speech in indirect discourse: her impudent and ironic cursing of unfaithful women is focalized through Lucius. We never learn the fate of the miller’s wife after her expulsion from the miller’s house, though her culpability is proven through the weird authority of her stepdaughter’s ghost vision.43 Moreover, the Areopagusstyle justice associated with the story of Clytemnestra has no parallel in the mill. The final fate of the adulteress, like that of the murderess condemned to the arena

42 See Finkelpearl 2003, 40. 43 The full report of this vision lends only dubious support to the narrator’s reply to his scrupulous reader (9,30).

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in Book 10, is left open; both cases suggest a system of justice that is dissatisfying yet in tune with the Fortuna-controlled lollapalooza of the novel as a whole. If we view the mill as an underworld, this hazardous justice parodies the fair and firm judgments meted out by the awesome arbitrators of Avernus.44 Katabasis, dying a virtual death, is a theme appropriate to a novel of metamorphoseis in which the protagonist dies a social death only to be reborn as a devotee. Apuleius adapts a common locale into a hell that rivals epic underworlds, not only validating the ordinary world as rife with material for literary extravagance, but also transforming his hapless first-person narrator into a firstclass storyteller. Like Psyche, Lucius encounters helpless creatures but resists the empathetic impulse characteristic of pietas. His concern is for himself when he realizes that he could easily identify with and become the virtually dead slaves and animals he sees (talis familiae funestum mihi etiam metuens exemplum, ‘fearing the deathlike example of such a household for myself as well,’ 9,13).45 While this self-concern is not out of character, it is logical; historically, the Roman mill seems to have been a dead end for slaves, a final punishment from which escape was difficult.46 In other words, the ghostly slaves and animals are beyond the point of return; their death-in-life is depicted as death itself.47 But Lucius resists complete degradation by seeing new things and decking them out as good tales, transforming himself from a caricature of Aeneas into a caricature of Odysseus, giving himself a way out of hell by comparison to both. Though his tortured misadventures as an ass continue further before he meets his savior, after the mill Lucius focuses more on the advantages of his animal disguise, playing Odysseus both in his tactics of clandestine observation and in his masterful control of narrative. While the mythic lens may distort the image of a Roman mill that we have from other sources, the poetic qualities of this episode need not detract from its value as a historical source.48 In fact, by applying otherworldly

44 See Od. 11, 568–571. Justice is carried out, however, in the case of the lover Philesitherus. The miller’s reaction to the lover Philesitherus may seem perverse, but the sharing of the youth, which is spelled out in legal terms, seems to have an Underworld parallel: I am thinking of Adonis, who (according to some sources) is shared by Aphrodite and Persephone. See Reed 1995, 330–331, who also notes legal resonances specific to Greek society. 45 See discussion in GCA 1995, 129. 46 E.g., Bacch. 781: in pistrino aetatem conteras (‘may you spend the rest of your life in the mill’). 47 Thus the comment on the dispersal of the household is especially apt: tunc unum larem uarie dispergit uenditionis incertae licentiosa Fortuna (‘then Fortune by her own whim of uncertain exchange scattered a single household in different directions,’ Met. 9,31). In the world of the Metamorphoses, the power over death, literal and metaphorical, is given to Fortuna, supplanted only by Isis. 48 Kenney 2003, 187. On the historical value, see Millar 1981, 65 and Moritz 1958, passim.

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motifs to a mundane locale, Apuleius dramatizes a specific social reality. The dramatic twists in the fabulae that follow are hardly the stuff of everyday life, but the style with which Lucius presents them indicates Apuleius’ awareness of and engagement with the special knowledge and discourses of slavery.

Bibliography Annequin, J. 1997. ‘Metaphore de l’esclavage et esclavage comme métaphore’, in: P. Brulé and J. Oulhen (eds.), Esclavage, guerre, economie en Grèce Ancienne: Hommages à Yvon Garlan, Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes. 109–119. Ávila Vasconcelos, B. 2009. Bilder der Sklaverei in den Metamorphosen des Apuleius, Göttingen: Ed. Ruprecht. Bradley, K. R. 2000. ‘Animalizing the Slave: The Truth of Fiction’, JRS 90, 110–125. Clark, R. J. 1979. Catabasis: Vergil and the Wisdom-Tradition, Amsterdam: B. R. Grüner. Facchini Tosi, C. 1991. ‘Quales illic homunculi / quales illi muli (Apul. Met. 9,12–13)’, Vichiana 3 ser. 2, 162–172. Finkelpearl, E. 1990. ‘Psyche, Aeneas, and an Ass, Apuleius Metamorphoses 6.10–6.21’, TAPhA 120, 333–347. Finkelpearl, E. 1998. Metamorphosis of Language in Apuleius: A Study of Allusion in the Novel, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Finkelpearl, E. 2003. ‘Lucius and Aesop Gain a Voice: Apuleius Met. 11.1–2 and Vita Aesopi 7’, in: S. Panayotakis, M. Zimmerman and W. H. Keulen (eds.), The Ancient Novel and Beyond, Leiden: Brill. 37–51. Fitzgerald, W. 1984. ‘Aeneas, Daedalus and the Labyrinth’, Arethusa 17, 51–65. Fitzgerald, W. 2000. Slavery and the Roman Literary Imagination, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. GCA 1995 = B. L. Hijmans et al., Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses Book IX, Groningen: Egbert Forsten. GCA 2004 = M. Zimmerman et al., Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses: Books IV 28–35, V and VI 1–24, Groningen: Egbert Forsten. Gianotti, G. F. 1986. ‘Romanzo’ e Ideologia: Studi sulle ‘Metamorfosi’ di Apuleio, Napoli: Liguori Editore. Gleason, M. W. 1999. ‘Truth Contests and Talking Corpses’, in: J. I. Porter (ed.), Constructions of the Classical Body, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 287–313. Heath, J. 1996. ‘The Stupor of Orpheus: Ovid’s Metamorphoses 10.64–71’, CJ 91, 353–370. Kenney, E. J. 2003. ‘In the Mill with Slaves: Lucius Looks Back in Gratitude’, TAPhA 133, 159–192. Laird, A. 2000. ‘Paradox and Transcendence: The Prologue as The End’, in: A. Kahane and A. Laird (eds.), A Companion to the Prologue of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 267–281. Lateiner, D. 2001. ‘Humiliation and Immobility in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, TAPhA 131, 217–255. Mbembe, A. 2003. ‘Necropolitics’, Public Culture 15, 11–40. Millar, F. 1981. ‘The World of the Golden Ass’, JRS 71, 63–75.

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Miller, P. A. 1995. ‘The Minotaur within: Fire, the Labyrinth, and Strategies of Containment in Aeneid 5 and 6’, CPh 90, 225–240. Moritz, L. A. 1958. Grain-Mills and Flour in Classical Antiquity, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Nethercut, W. R. 1968. ‘Apuleius’ Literary Art: Resonance and Depth in the Metamorphoses’, CJ 64 (3), 110–119. Nethercut, W. R. 1969. ‘Apuleius’ Metamorphoses: The Journey’, Agon 3, 97–134. Reed, J. D. 1995. ‘The Sexuality of Adonis’, ClAnt 14, 317–347. Schiesaro, A. 1985. ‘Il ‘locus horridus’ nelle Metamorfosi di Apuleio’, Maia 37, 211–223. Weyman, C. 1926. Beiträge zur Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Poesie, Munich: Hueber 1926. Winkler, J. J. 1985. Auctor & Actor: A Narratological Reading of Apuleius’ Golden Ass, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Anna Lefteratou

Iphigenia Revisited: Heliodorus’ Aethiopica and the ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ Pattern Abstract: One of the typical adventure patterns of the Greek love novel is the narrow escape of the virgin protagonist from the sacrificial altar in a foreign land, a pattern similar to Euripides’ Iphigenia among the Taurians. Although scholars have pointed out the overall influence of Euripides’ drama, there has been little effort to explore the structural resemblance of the play’s plot to the novel. Heliodorus’ Aethiopica is a keystone in the reception of the Iphigenia because it assimilates non-Euripidean versions of the ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ motif that are found in his predecessors, and stages a consciously Euripidean reworking of both Iphigeniai, while challenging the reader to navigate through drama and novel towards an appreciation of the Heliodoran hoch-variation of the myth.

The Quest for an Iphigenia Plot in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica In reading the whole body of a society’s myths … we are constructing the ‘megatext’ of its mythical material. This ‘megatext’ is an artificial construct, necessarily invisible and unconscious to the society whose exemplary narratives and symbolic projections of what ‘reality’ is, are located within that system. (Segal 1983, 174)

In a tale of love and adventure there are two things that endanger the ‘happy ever after’ end: the first is adultery; the second is death.1 In the Greek love novel death has many faces but only two causes: it may be either the result of a rival’s calumny, or a prenuptial (ritual) sacrifice. Indeed, while male and female protagonists often face death sentences, only the heroine is the subject of a ritual sacrifice, with the exception of Lollianus.2 This is a projection of a voyeuristic 1 I would like to thank Ewen Bowie, Stephen Harrison and Tim Whitmarsh for patiently reading more than one version of this paper and for their valuable comments. 2 Reineke 1997 discusses Kristeva’s and Girard’s thesis on male and female sacrifice and opts for a view of sacrifice as ‘a form of matricide’; hence the emphasis on the female victims.

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male society which, in the arena, in the mime and in the novel, fosters violence against women and which had a long, cultural and literary prehistory in associating the motifs of ‘marriage’ and ‘death’.3 The novel follows its literary predecessors that filled pages with innocently slaughtered virgins, of which the best examples are probably the two Euripidean Iphigeniai.4 However, not all novels make pointed use of the Iphigeniai, and it appears that the more general folk tale motif of ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’5 is often in the background. This seemingly non-linguistic affinity has led scholars to believe that Heliodorus displays a vague influence of the myths of Iphigenia and/or Polyxena but not of intertextuality in the form of specific cross-references with the Euripidean texts.6 The aim of this paper is to argue that intertextual approaches in the Greek novel – I am studying here Heliodorus as the most illuminating example – should not be constrained by the absence or presence of verbally identifiable allusions. As Genette has argued, the relationship between two or more texts is structured on different levels of textuality.7 In this Genettean context the relationship of Heliodorus’ Aethiopica to the two Euripidean Iphigeniai is not only intertextual but in most respects hypertextual: in other words the Heliodoran transposition of Euripides’ dramas is realized through both plot and genre. Here, by the term ‘plot’ I mean the storyline that emerges when a set of mythological motifs are combined. These motifs are derived from the two Euripidean dramas and function as the mythological and literary ‘megatext’ of the Iphigenia myth. The term ‘megatext’ is inspired by Segal (1983, 176) who defines it as follows: ‘by megatext I mean

3 On Leucippe’s sacrifice, see Morales 2004, 68 ff. For the motif, see also Dowden 1989; Rehm 1994; Foley 1985; Loraux 1987. 4 Among others, Rosenmeyer 1963, 199–200; O’Connor-Visser 1987; Burnett 1971; Seaford 1987; Aretz 1999; Kyriakou 2006. Hereafter, IT for E. Iphigenia in the Land of the Taurians, and IA for E. Iphigenia in Aulis. For the IT as Euripides’ innovation, see Wright 2005, 119. 5 For the motif of the sacrifice of the princess for her country in Greek literature, see Trenkner 1958; briefly in Lattimore 1964. Other related folk-tale motifs can be found in Aarne and Thompson 1928: A831.3 (by sacrificing to Earth the son or daughter of the first couple), A1545.2 (animal substituted for human sacrifice), H335.1 (princess to be sacrificed to a dragon/monster), etc. 6 On Charicleia and Polyxena, see Paulsen 1992, 61. 7 For the term, see Genette 1997 (1982), 5. Gennette defines as ‘transtextuality, the textual transcendence of the text (p. 8); he defines as intertextuality, the relationship of co-presence between two texts or among several texts … the actual presence of one text within another (p. 1); as paratext, title, subtitles … and many other kinds of secondary signals, whether allographic or authographic (3); as architextuality, a silent relationship, articulated at most only by a paratextual mention (4); metatextuality, a critical – silent and allusive – relationship, a ‘commentary’ (p. 4); as hypertextuality, any relationship uniting a text B to an earlier text A, upon which it is grafted in a manner that is not that of commentary’ (p. 5).

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not merely the totality of themes or songs that the poets of an oral culture would have available in their repertories, but also the network of more or less subconscious patterns, or deep structure or undisplaced forms which tales of a given type share with one another.’ For the purposes of this paper the ‘megatext’ of the Iphigenia myth is the comprehensive myth that emerges from the reception of both plays as a mythological unit and which is characterized by a set of patterns that differentiates it from other similar mythological megatexts, e.g. the kinship relationship that is so characteristic in both plays. Finally by the term ‘genre’ I refer to the conscious adaptation and rehabilitation of the ‘dramatic’ setting within the novelistic context of the Aethiopica, the ‘feeling’ of drama that emerges through stage-terms, theatrical monologues and a broader ‘dramatic’ conception of its structure. Heliodorus’ Aethiopica can be seen as a keystone in our understanding of the reception of the Iphigeniai in the Second Sophistic, since Charicleia, our protagonist, faces death thrice: firstly during her averted execution by Thyamis,8 a suitor of her double, Thisbe; secondly during her narrowly escaped execution by Arsace, her rival, in 8,9,12; and thirdly during her unsuccessful sacrifice by Hydaspes, her father in Book 10,7,1. Of these three instances the first, as I will try to show, follows not so much the Iphigenia motif, but the broader ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ one, as this had already been used by Heliodorus’ predecessors; the second is a cadenza on the Phaedra/slander/calumny plot;9 in this episode intertextuality with the Iphigenia megatext is excluded, first because the ‘death’ is presented as an execution, and second because the broader Iphigenia megatext requires the victim to have a close relationship (preferably kinship) with her executioner; the third instance is not only a human sacrifice of a daughter by her father, but also a conscious reworking of Euripides’ two Iphigeniai, as I will argue here. Nevertheless, before approaching the above two sacrifice passages, it is necessary to proceed with a short examination of the prehistory of the motif in Euripidean drama, in the Second Sophistic, and in the previous four love novels. The first of these surveys is intended to identify what constitutes an ‘Iphigenia plot’, whereas the other two attempt to contextualize the Heliodoran treatment of the pattern, something that will make it easier for us to distinguish the Heliodoran contribution to its development. The first part of this paper therefore deals with the broader structure and reception of the Iphigenia myth, whereas the second part studies its Heliodoran version.

8 Heliodorus 1,28,1 ff. (Hereafter, I will give only the Heliodoran book, chapter and section numbers without the name of the author). 9 Pletcher 1998.

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Part 1 a. Structuring the Motif of ‘Death and the Maiden’ The myth of Iphigenia undoubtedly emerges from folk-tale motifs as discussed above. In Greek literature its standard version seems to have been that of Euripides. The tragedian has patterned his chronologically earlier tragedy, the IT around 414 and 412(?) BCE,10 according to one version of the established myth of Iphigenia’s sacrifice at Aulis, whereas the IA is written later, between 408 and 406(?) BCE, and treats a different version. The structural similarities of the two plays have not remained unperceived: already in antiquity Aristotle pointed out the similarities in the two myths.11 Modern scholars make similar remarks.12 The treatment of the Iphigenia myth in Attic drama has bequeathed to its admirers two possible endings: one in which the sacrifice is presented ‘raw’, e.g. Aeschylus’ version,13 and one in which it is averted, as in Euripides’ IT.14 In the first case the emotional effect relies on the fear and pity aroused for the victim: ‘raw’ sacrifice is a study in death; in the second, the ‘averted’ sacrifice motif is an essential part of the structure of another cluster of Euripides’ dramas, which are labelled ‘escape’ tragedies.15 These, although they display the features of ‘raw’ sacrifice motifs, do so as a metatragic commentary, since the main dramatic impact centres on the recognitionescape motif, further enhancing the ‘suspense’ and minimizing the ‘pity’. It is the latter, ‘escape’ pattern that inspired Greek literature up to the love novels. The pattern of the virgin-sacrifice plot that emerges after the IT and the IA includes a quadruple sequence of motifs:16

10 Cropp 2000, 60, dates the play to 414 or 413 BCE; Wright 2005 argues for 412. 11 Arist. Po. 1455a, discussing Euripides’ and Polyidus’ Iphigeniai. 12 For the similar plots of the IT and the IA, see O’Brien 1988, 98 ff.: ‘both tragedies are structured on a tripartite sequence of motifs: (a) the murder of a kinsman narrowly averted by a recognition; (b) a reunion is followed by an intrigue; (c) a maiden is rescued.’ My quadruple analysis treats the ‘recognition motif’ separately, because, as I will show later, it is an important ingredient of the pattern, and one which is not included as such in the IA. 13 Sourvinou-Inwood 1988 argues for an averted sacrifice in the Agamemnon; against, Griffith 1988. 14 I am here following the reconstruction of the play as suggested by Kovacs 2003. 15 This is the reason why, alongside the IT, one could list as typical reworkings of the pattern the Andromeda, in which the eponymous heroine is offered as an expiation for Cassiopea’s arrogance at Poseidon’s request, and the Alcestis, in which the heroine dies as Apollo’s gift to Admetus. Both Andromeda and Alcestis sacrifice themselves for the common good. 16 For an overview, see Tables at the end. For a similar approach to the mythological material, see Segal 1983.

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(a) a god or a king requires the immolation of a (virgin) victim, either abroad or at home; (b) the sacrifice is carried out often (and always in the more dramatic versions) by kin of the victim, or kin is close enough to observe the sacrifice; (c) the victim and the thutes either recognize each other or recognize each other’s intentions; (d) the sacrifice is averted by human or divine intervention; in some cases the victim is carried off to another land. There is not much variation in the pattern, with the exception of the last motif (d) that may carry the victim to another land: e.g. Iphigenia to the Tauric Chersonese, Andromeda to Greece. In this plot pattern pathos, involving both pity and fear, is generated by the kinship relationship, while a peripeteia is a result of the recognition motif.

b. Human Sacrifice, Iphigenia and the Second Sophistic Besides Euripides, Greeks had some non-literary evidence for the practice of human sacrifice: ‘they knew, or thought they knew, that the Scythians performed human sacrifice, or used to; that the Carthaginians sacrificed children to Cronus, and that in distant India women committed suicide on their husbands’ funeral pyres: ritual ξενοκτονία, τεκνοκτονία and αὐτοκτονία, figured in ethnographic writing as well as in the IT and its imitations.17 Both these supposedly ‘historical’ and ‘literary’ accounts created an inspiring cultural/literary milieu that fed the imagination of the Second Sophistic: e.g. Lucian in his Toxaris 5–6, downplays the importance of the sacrifice as a barbarian practice and emphasizes Scythian respect for friendship; Plutarch and Apollonius of Tyana also condemn the practice as barbarian.18

17 Ritual slaying of foreigners: Hdt. 4,103 (on the sacrifices of shipwrecks in Scythia); Luc. Tox. (as a practice of earlier times); Hecat. Fr. 118a (Jacoby), regarding human sacrifices in Lemnos. For a version of sacrifice of elderly people in the Greek island of Ceos, see Str. 10,5,6; nevertheless the practice was considered mainly non-Greek. For child sacrifice in Phoenicia as a source for Euripides, see D.S. 20,14,5–7. For the ritual suicide of widows, see Ph. Abraham 182 and Plu. Mor. 499c. For the archaeological evidence for infanticide in Tunisia, see Brown 1991, discussing the iconography of votive stelai used in sacrificial rites. Also see Smith and Kahila 1992 on sacrifices in late antiquity; and Smith and Avishai 2005. 18 See also his De Sacrificiis 2 about the supposed Aethiopian piety and their sacrifices. Plu. Otho 21,1–4; Philostr. VA 1,1; 1,31; in 3,41 Apollonius’ condemnation includes both human and animal sacrifice.

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However, despite the condemnation of the practice, the motif of the IT offered great dramatic possibilities that could not be neglected by aspiring writers.19 The escape of Charition with her brother from the land of the Indians is the subject of the Charition20 mime that seemed to be popular in imperial times. Similar literary narrow escapes from sacrifice are found in the pre-Heliodoran novelistic tradition as well: e.g. Xenophon’s Anthia escapes death thrice when she is (almost) offered as sacrifice (a) by Hippothous, (b) when she seems to commit suicide with the help of Eudoxus her compatriot, and (c) when Hippothous imprisons her in the dogs’ den;21 Lollianus describes a scene of child cannibalism22 at the hands of the ‘desperadoes’;23 Iamblichus presents a double execution/sacrifice of Mesopotamia and her brother Euphrates by their father;24 and Achilles Tatius stages a triple death of Leucippe: (a) an averted sacrifice with cannibalism at the hands of the ‘desperadoes’, (b) a feigned decapitation, and (c) a supposed murder by her lover.25 These incidents follow the same pattern of ‘averted sacrifice’ as presented above, although only the last ‘escape’ of Cleitophon (here restaging Orestes) from death is overtly compared to the Iphigenia myth.26 Although this large variety of near-sacrifice/escape motifs could have denied Heliodorus large margins for revision of the main pattern, the Aethiopica challenges its tragic and novelistic predecessors by staging two, consciously dissimilar versions of the ‘sacrifice’ motif, partly as a commentary on the novelists’ practices in their treatment of the motif and partly as a tragedy-like, hoch-novelistic variation. Indeed, like Anthia and Leucippe, Charicleia faces death thrice, but only

19 A pre-Sophistic version of the myth, a variation of the IT, is found at Antoninus Liberalis’ Met. 27, that ends with the transformation of Iphigenia into a daemon, Orsiloche. 20 The socio-cultural implications are discussed in Hall 2009. For Charition and the Greek novel, see Mignogna 1997. 21 X. Eph. 2,13,2 ff.; 3,5,5ff. and 4,6,3. 22 Lol. fr. b1r. (Stephens and Winkler). 23 Winkler 1980. 24 Phot. Bibl. Cod. 96,76a-77b. 25 Ach. Tat. 3,15,1 ff.; 5,7,4 ff.; 7,5,2. 26 Ach. Tat. 8,2,3, ‘in Ephesus flows the blood that should only flow at Tauri’.

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twice as a sacrificial victim. In what follows I will explore the ingenuity of the Aethiopica in dealing with a ‘dramatically’ (i.e. known from the stage) and ‘novelistically’ (i.e. known from other novels) well-known pattern and the challenges that such a treatment presents for the skilled reader. Reading Heliodorus is a long process that fulfils itself through and after a game of expectations, deceptions and surprises to reach the wished-for ending.27

Part 2: Heliodorus’ Iphigeniai a. The Sacrifice of Thisbe The slaughter of Charicleia-Thisbe at the very beginning of the novel is a latent Iphigenia-motif, whose introduction is unflagged but, for the expert reader of novels, obvious when Thermouthis enters the narrative. Thyamis orders ‘his henchman to bring a sacrificial animal so that they could make an offering to their native gods before entering the battle’ (1,28,1, trans. Reardon). But the battle starts before Thermouthis finds the animal and when he finally brings the offer, Thyamis, who believes Charicleia slain, laughs at him for having already ‘sacrificed the most beautiful of victims’ (1,31,1). The sequence (capture by bandits and sacrifice-substitute) echoes its previous variants in the novels, e.g. the cases of Anthia and Leucippe. Nevertheless there are clear traces of the sequence of the motifs in both the parallel narratives, that of Charicleia and that of Thisbe: For Charicleia: (a) Charicleia is captured by Thyamis and (b) is offered as sacrifice before the battle; (c) Thisbe is mistaken for Charicleia and (d) Charicleia is alive, her sacrifice averted. For Thisbe: (a) Thisbe is captured by Thermouthis and (b) executed as a sacrificial victim by Thermouthis’ commander; motif (c) and (d) are absent since this is not an averted sacrifice. The link with the latent Iphigenia sequence is realized through the Thermouthis detail, a touch of dramatic irony: Thyamis’ henchman is ordered to bring the

27 See the reading suggested by Brooks 1984. When writing this article Whitmarsh 2011 was not in print but I have profited from his comments and his feedback.

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sacrificial victim (an animal) and he happens to be the lover of the human victim, Thisbe. This small detail interconnects the subordinate plot, which is more generically appropriate to the novel, to the main story: it illustrates the narrative choice of leaving aside a possible ‘sacrifice in the pirates’ land’ sequence and opting for a more tragic and spectacular one, that of Charicleia at Meroe.

b. Heliodorus’ Iphigenia in Aulis: the King’s Daughter The most important element of the Iphigenia motif is undoubtedly the child sacrifice. Nevertheless, in the Heliodoran context the emphasis is not only on the tragic daughter but also on the tragic father. Book Nine contributes towards a positive portrayal of Hydaspes before he resumes his role as his daughter’s executioner in front of the altar at Meroe. The characterization of Hydaspes in Book Nine is presented so as to contrast with that of Agamemnon in Homer, Aeschylus and IA: the narrative insists on pointing out differences rather than similarities. In the Iliad and the IA, Agamemnon is presented as a man driven by a thirst for power;28 according to Clytemnestra the whole heroic expedition was based on a crime that served the private ambitions of the Greek generals.29 In contrast to Agamemnon, Hydaspes is always presented as the ‘enlightened’ king,30 and the Syenian chapters work to portray him as such.31 The long account of the siege is used not just as a digression but as a key element for tying the plot together.32 The siege of Syene occupies Book Nine and alludes heavily to the Iliad,33 without this meaning that the Herodotean allusions observed by Morgan (1982) and Elmer (2008) should be neglected – rather they should be treated alongside the Iliadic allusions. The Trojan War was the ‘archetypical war’ for all those that followed and which brought Greece against Persia, in historiography and/or in fiction. Besides, the Homeric coloring of the battle scenes that has been observed 28 IA 1195, ‘or is your only thought to be distinguished in kingship and generalship?’ (The translations from Euripides’ IA and IT are my own). 29 IA 1194. 30 Cf. X. Cyr. 8,4,7; see the Ethiopian Sobacos, Hdt. 2,139; and Actisanes, Diodorus 1,60; Morgan 2005, 309–318. 31 Elmer 2008, 423 argues that Heliodorus is narrating his own version of the Persian Wars. 32 For this big digression as ‘tiring’, see Rattenbury 1935; also Morgan 1989, who argues that Book 8, with a possible defeat of the Ethiopians, plays with the possibility of not concluding with a happy ending, since the sacrifice will not be offered. 33 Morgan 1982, for the historical context. Lightfoot 1988, 119 argues that Julian borrowed some fictive elements from Heliodorus’ description. Elmer 2008, 423.

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in the duel between Peloros and Trachinos makes it echo that of Paris and Menelaus, and the duel of Petosiris and Thyamis echoes that of Hector and Achilles.34 At the border between Egypt and Ethiopia the battle continues around a city that is presented as a potential Troy; surrounded by a huge force the native Syenians and the occupying Persians are doomed. The detail that the Syenians are not fighting for their location, but are the victims of the two powerful generals who want to take over this strategic city, is one that possibly gives a color of imperialist political realism to the scene, rather than painting the picture of an idealized fight for the motherland. This detail is followed by another: unlike the siege of Troy that lasted ten years, Hydaspes, in order to make his attack fast and successful, conceives a brilliant, Odyssean plan: to drown the city.35 Hydaspes (his name’s components mean ‘water’ and ‘shield’ but is also the name of the river beside which Alexander fought Porus) chooses to attack the city with water, whilst Troy was famously burned down.36 Hydaspes’ plan is based not on attacking from the inside but from the outside; the Syenians, because they are not fighting for their homeland but are pawns in the hands of their sovereigns, upon seeing the disaster approaching beg Hydaspes for clemency, which he happily displays.37 But the Aethiopica offers another way of attacking Syene, performed by Oroondates, the negative counterpart of Hydaspes: while the city celebrates the Neiloa with sacrifices and banquets,38 Oroondates frees his men who were imprisoned in Syene. The setting is similar to that at Troy: feasts and banquets which result in a deep sleep and the eventual surprise of the Syenians upon discovering the escape of the Persians; this recalls the Trojans’ naïve reaction and celebrations, with which they welcomed Odysseus’ Wooden Horse. Both Odysseus’ and Oroondates’ plans are alike in that they are based on the false assumption, on the opponent’s part, that the enemy has retreated. The escape of the Persians causes the Syenians to be suspected of treason, since, despite Hydaspes’ clemency, they appear to have co-operated with the enemy. It is here that the king’s clemency is tested, risking his presenting a negative example. Nevertheless, he shows mercy for a second time, despite Oroondates’ double treason.39

34 Sandy 1982a, 88. 35 9,3,1. Hydaspes’ name components mean ‘water’ and ‘shield’ (ὕδωρ, ἀσπίς). 36 The battle of the Hydaspes, 326 BCE; Plutarch, Alexander 62,1; Arrian 5,18; note that Alexander, having won, showed clemency and allowed Porus to rule in his name. 37 9,5,1. 38 9,10,1–3. 39 9,6,2; 9,6,5; and 9,8,1.

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When Oroondates is captured alive and brought before the Ethiopian king, Hydaspes displays all his clemency (φιλανθρωπία), an element that distinguishes the Aethiopica from the world of the epic. Hydaspes’ φιλανθρωπία seems to be inspired by Alexander’s moral superiority. The dialogue between the victor, Hydaspes, and the defeated, Oroondates, recalls the encounter between Alexander and Porus in that Hydaspes approaches his opponent with admiration.40 Moreover, Hydaspes proves himself magnanimous and forgiving towards the besieged Syenians for a second time, trying to exempt the many from the consequences of one person’s misconduct, arguing that ‘it would be absurd … for one man’s folly to entail the loss of so many lives’.41 This attitude differentiates the siege of Syene from that of Troy, where many perished because of one person, Paris. Hence, unlike Agamemnon’s, Hydaspes’ victory will be fair from start to finish and nothing will stain his homecoming. That is why his nostos, unlike Agamemnon’s,42 will result in happy days with his wife and his daughter (to be). This mythological approach to Book Nine as an ‘alternative’ Iliad is inseparable from the following Iphigenia sequence of motifs, and reveals why the ‘war episodes’ come before the sacrifice in the Aethiopica. The narrator, starting Book Ten, urges the reader to ‘let this be the end of our narrative of events at Syene: from so perilous a predicament the city had passed in an instant to such felicity, owing to the righteousness of one man.’43 This as an intratextual commentpreface to Book Ten, summarizing the argument that the previous book was an elaborate narration of how Syene did not become another Troy, because of Hydaspes. I would even go further and suggest that were Hydaspes not clement and wise, his homecoming might well have resulted in a ‘family-tragedy’ instead of a ‘happy ending’.44 Having presented a positive version of Agamemnon, Book Ten continues the story of the sacrifice.45 It is in this context that Hydaspes, although different in character and thoughts from his mythological analogue, shares with Agamemnon the same fate of the ‘tragic father’ who must sacrifice his child for the benefit of his people. What is important to know, however, is that while Charicleia knows that Hydaspes is her father, Hydaspes thinks of Charicleia as simply a sacrificial victim (πρωτόλειον). Yet in order to re-stage a version of the family tragedy they

40 9,21; see. Plu. Alex. 60, 14. 41 9,7,2. 42 IA 1186–7, ‘what happiness are you praying for by sacrificing your child? An evil homecoming to match your shameful departure?’. 43 10,1,1. 44 10,3,3, ‘had instilled an almost filial devotion in his people’s hearts’. 45 Paulsen 1992.

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both have to be aware of each other’s identities; hence a ‘recognition’ motif is necessary. The first encounter between daughter and father in both Charicleia’s and Iphigenia’s case has one common element, the contradictory emotions on the daughters’ and on the fathers’ faces;46 in the IA it is Iphigenia who cheerfully greets a wary-looking father,47 while in the Aethiopica, it is Hydaspes who sadly notices the cheerful face of Charicleia-to-be-sacrificed.48 However, the real ‘spectacle’ begins after the virginity trial of the burning pyre when Charicleia is dressed in her Delphic gown. It is the third time Charicleia has consciously dressed herself for a ‘performance’ in which she is the protagonist.49 Charicleia reveals her identity in a dramatic way, as Hydaspes notices, ‘casting herself in the role of (his) daughter to resolve a hopeless situation like a deus ex machina in the theatre’.50 Charicleia’s defence is based on her knowledge, namely that she is an Ethiopian princess, and on Hydaspes’ ignorance. Her argument is rooted in the distinction between killing foreigners (ξενοκτονεῖν) and killing one’s children (τεκνοκτονεῖν),51 emphasizing thus the motif of kinship between victim and executioner. Thus, the first part of the sacrifice brings infanticide, and the IA, into play. The recognition scene follows all the steps of the ‘ideal recognition’, since Hydaspes does not know the identity of his victim, since, in Aristotelian terms it is ‘the better form … when the character does it in ignorance and recognizes his victim afterwards’.52 The recognition in the Aethiopica follows all the possible options of the Aristotelian recognition-typology:53 (a) ‘the least artistic … is recognition by visible signs’, which is found in the band, the jewels and the ebony scar on her arm; (b) it is ‘by means of memory’, since the sight of the young girl reminds Persinna of the daughter that she should have had, and Hydaspes of the dream in which he was the father to a daughter;

46 10,7,3, ‘whose countenance was radiant and smiling’. Cf. ΙΑ 640 ff., ‘father, I was so happy to see you’. 47 IA 650 ff. 48 10,7,6. 49 The other two were in Delphi, when she meets with Theagenes in 3,4,2, and before her marriage to Trachinus, 5,31,2. Charicleia more or less consciously performs her life: her love, her Helen-adventures and now her Iphigenia-adventures. 50 10,12,2. 51 10,12,3. 52 Arist. Po.1454a. The translation is from Russell and Winterbottom 1972. 53 See the quadripartite classification of recognition scenes in Arist. Po. 1454b, 16 ff.

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(c) it is also a recognition ‘manufactured by the poet’ in that Charicleia accidentally embraces the feet of Sisimithres, whom only later she recognizes as her saviour, and who is now her public defender; (d) it is a recognition ‘on the basis of reasoning’ as natural conclusion, I do not understand ‘as natural conclusion’, in Sisimithres’s case: such a beautiful virgin, whose skin color and age correspond to that of the exposed infant, could not be anyone other than Charicleia. (e) Finally, in order to crown all these simultaneous modes of recognition, the narrative presents another option in the Aristotelian typology, namely the famous Andromeda painting that explains Charicleia’s skin-color. How does this fit into the Aristotelian typology? After all the proofs of Charicleia’s identity are assembled, the sacrifice is called off and the general grief, felt from the beginning of the ritual – so hard was it to accept the sacrifice of such a beauty – gives way to jubilation. However, a second surprise soon follows, this time unpleasant. Hydaspes decides, nevertheless, to sacrifice his daughter, since tradition so requires and the people have so decided.54 It is at this point that Hydaspes incorporates the character of Agamemnon and Persinna that of Clytaemnestra, the ‘tragic mother’. The theatricality of the next scene is highly accentuated: Hydaspes is now consciously staging his own drama, against the expectations of the other plotmaker, Charicleia. Hence, whereas the daughter expected the recognition to be the ending of her plot, the father conceives a new one, and addresses her with the following words: ‘and you, my daughter … conduct yourself with the pride and courage befitting a king’s daughter … come to your father … for I am the man who has to slay his child in the very instant of calling her by that name.’55 The comparison between sacrifice and marriage is common throughout Greek literature and it does not need to be related to the Iphigenia myth exclusively.56 Nevertheless, the sacrifice of a king’s daughter for the common good is a major characteristic of the Iphigenia myth.57 Like Agamemnon in the IA, who first gave his consent and then tried to warn his daughter secretly, Hydaspes seems to accept the sacrifice ‘and all the while he prayed that his oration … would fail to

54 10,16,1–6. 55 10,16,9–10. 56 IA 460–491, ‘the poor virgin, it seems that Hades will marry her soon’. 57 IA 514 ff. A major difference between the IA and the Aethiopica is the position of the priests. Whereas Calchas is presented negatively in the play (520), in the novel the Gymnosophists explicitly argue against human sacrifices, 10,9,6.

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carry its point’.58 The staging is highlighted by allusions to the setting and to the acting (ὑπόκρισις) of the Ethiopian king. Like a good plot-maker and actor, Hydaspes takes his time to observe his audience’s reaction before moving on with the play: ‘he stood and looked at his people, whose emotions were no less than his own and who were weeping from a mixture of delight and pity at destiny’s stage management of human life … and raised his arm and with a motion of his hand stilled the tempest (κλυδώνιον) that raged in the people.’59 The noun κλυδώνιον – meaning ‘surge’, ‘surf’ – is frequent in Aeschylean tragedy.60 Further on, Hydaspes presents himself as a man subject to divine powers; it is a divine will, he says, ‘whether it is the gods’ wish to bestow her on me and take her from me in the space of a single instant.’61 Moreover, he addresses both his citizens and his daughter in emotionally loaded vocabulary drawn both from tragedy and from epic: ‘so then, if you will, cease your tears, put away your empty commiserations (κατοικτιζόμενοι μάτην), and let us proceed with the ceremony … and you, my daughter, do no confuse my heart (μή μοι σύγχει θυμόν) with sorrow.’62 Hydaspes then seems to heighten the drama that was staged by Charicleia at the beginning of the episode. Fearing the reaction of the crowd, he takes the initiative and prepares to sacrifice his daughter, asking her to be brave, like Iphigenia.63 Yet this is an action that is supported not only by his high sense of duty but also by self-motivation: playing the role of the tragic father in front of an audience, he stages another drama, the play par excellence of his life and his kingship. In this drama, as opposed to the IA, the leading characters react mainly to their audience’s emotions and expectations. In the IA, the Greeks, with the exception perhaps of Achilles, did not oppose the sacrifice but remained spectators. Hydaspes’ expectations seem to come true when the crowd releases him from his duties by ordering him to save his daughter, arguing that they have recognized him as their king, and it is now his turn to recognize himself as Charicleia’s father.64

58 10,17,1. 59 10,16,3. 60 Cf. A. Ch. 183: κλυδώνιον χολῆς; A. Sept. 759, a metaphor about the city being in danger (κλυδωνίου). 61 10,16,6; cf.Od. 1,82; Pl. Cri. 43d. 62 10,16,8–9; cf. A. Pr. 36 (κατοικτίζεις μάτην) and Il. 9,612, (μή μοι σύγχει θυμὸν ὀδυρόμενος καὶ ἀχεύων) (Achilles). 63 10,16,9 (ἀνδρεῖον ἐκεῖνό σου φρόνημα καὶ βασίλειον) and IA 1411 (ἐς τὴν φύσιν βλέψαντα· / γενναία γὰρ εἶ. ‘indeed your are brave by nature’). 64 10,17,1.

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Therefore Charicleia, like Iphigenia, narrowly escapes death, although this is performed not by substitution but with the help of the embedded audience, the crowd. What is more, this reaction of the Ethiopians marks Charicleia’s final ‘recognition’ by her people as their princess. This is not an unexpected recognition since it is already foregrounded in Book Nine in which, as we have seen, Hydaspes is represented in all the glory of an enlightened king. It is to be expected, then, that his people would love him; therefore this type of recognition can be classified in Aristotle’s terms as one of the ‘recognitions that come from reasoning’, the logical conclusion of the events.65 Last but not least, this reaction of the crowd is presented as being in direct cultural dialogue with Heliodorus’ previous dramatic models (Iphigenia, Polyxena, etc.); why did the (classical) Greeks tolerate human sacrifice, when the Ethiopians did not? But the narrator is also in dialogue with the external audience’s expectations: the expected ending, ‘sacrifice’ or ‘substitution’, is fundamentally re-examined: the tragic does not need to appeal to violence and/or to unhappy endings to be ‘tragic’, in our modern sense of the term. Rather, the novels’ tragic-like episodes could be sketched and perceived as ‘tragic’ regardless of the final outcome and according to the suspense and fear that they created when unfolding; the happy ending could be as cathartic as the unhappy one, and Chariton’s testimony is the most explicit comment on this revision of the Aristotelian model.66

c. Heliodorus’ Iphigenia in Tauris: Theagenes’ Sacrifice by Charicleia Before moving to the adaptation of the IT, where a brother-sister relationship is presented, I would like to examine the relationship between Theagenes and Charicleia. It seems that Heliodorus, the narrator, emphatically presents the relationship between Charicleia and Theagenes as a virtual brother-sister relationship as well as a love-relationship. First, Charicleia has tried to present Theagenes as her brother in front of Thyamis where they figured as priests of Artemis and Apollo respectively. Again in Book Six Charicleia is compared to Isis in her search for Theagenes-Osiris in Chemmis, a sacred city in the cult of Osiris, and afterwards

65 Arist. Po. 1455a. 66 Char. 8,4,1 (καθάρσιον σύγγραμμα). On Chariton’s use of Aristotle, see Rijksbaron 1984.

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at Bessa.67 Before Arsace, too, Charicleia again presents Theagenes as her brother.68 This choice is not only required because of her subtle and discreet handling of erotic rivals but has a deeper analogue in the Isis-Osiris myth. Like Isis and Osiris, who fall in love in their mother’s womb, Theagenes and Charicleia too are sister-souls, who seek each other’s love.69 The brother-sister relationship is not only a trick to deceive their suitors or a reminiscence of (neo-)Platonic love but also a narrative ploy that is fully employed in Book Ten: because Charicleia presents herself as Theagenes’ sister the motif (b) sacrifice by a kinsman and the motif (c) recognition between kinsmen are enabled, enhancing thus the reader’s pity and fear. I argue here that Charicleia’s proposition to sacrifice Theagenes with her own hands shifts the novel’s plot from the IA to the IT and challenges the Ethiopian custom of ξενοκτονία at its root: with the recognition of Theagenes as Hydaspes’ ‘kinsman’, his son-in-law, the very notion of a foreigner (ξένος) is abolished, since, even in the far-away Meroe, there is no certainty that the sacrificial victim is not a relative (φίλος). In Heliodorus’ narrative order of the world there are no undisclosed identities. In order to save Theagenes Charicleia relies once more on the same argument, the distinction between ξενοκτονία and killing of kinsmen. This time, however, the interplay between these terms refers to Theagenes’ relationship to Charicleia. But the same argument does not work twice and despite Charicleia’s objections, Hydaspes decides to proceed with the ritual. The king believes his daughter is insane since, in his words, she spoke of a brother, who does not exist. When (Hydaspes) asked her who this stranger, who does exist, was, she said she did not know. But then she made every effort to save the life of this unknown stranger as if he were a friend. And then, when she was told that her request could not be granted, she begged on bended knee to be allowed to sacrifice him with her own hands, as if he were her bitterest enemy. (10,22,2)

The fast and unexplained change of Charicleia’s stance – the otherwise brave princess becomes powerless instead of resourceful – is the introductory element to another drama staged at Meroe, namely the adaptation of the IT. But the ‘solution’ (λύσις) to this drama does not depend entirely on the inventiveness of

67 First time in 1,22,2; Charicleia’s Isis-like quest in 6,15,4, ‘a young lady distraught with love and wandering over virtually the whole face of the earth in search of some loved one’. There are two places called Chemmis: (a) a big city, Hdt. 2,91; (b) a floating island, Hdt. 2,156. On Chemmis as the first city that learned about Osiris’ death, see Plu. Isis 356d. For Chemmis as the birthplace of Horus, see Behaeghel 1995. 68 10,8,2. 69 3,5,4.

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the embedded characters, but requires a more careful manipulation by the narrator, whose narrative threads are now fully entwined. The staging of the Theagenes drama is not a product of ‘novelistically’ correlated events but a forceful narratorial coup that aims to reveal the masterful conception of the whole plot. The setting of Theagenes’ sacrifice recalls the IT: in a foreign land, the Tauri in Iphigenia’s case and Meroe in Charicleia’s, ‘foreigners’ perform human sacrifices by killing strangers; the victims are devoted to Artemis and Selene. The sacrificial victims are foreigners and have a close relationship with the priestess who executes the sacrifice. The latter is, in both cases, a priestess of a Moon goddess, Artemis’s and Selene’s priestess, respectively. Nevertheless, among the Taurians a virgin priestess performs the ritual, whereas in Ethiopia only a married woman can participate; but Charicleia has a liminal position between a virgin and a woman, being both virgin and Theagenes’ fiancée.70 The mythical parallel between the sacrifice of Theagenes and that of Orestes is based on two things: the virtual brother-sister relationship and the ensuing recognition, required for the happy end and the ritual aetiology. On the one hand Charicleia, unlike Iphigenia, is fully aware of Theagenes’ identity. Yet this is not enough. Theagenes needs not only his bravery to be recognized, but his identity too. It is Charicles’ job to recognize him as the abductor of his daughter and only then is Theagenes fully legitimized as husband-to-be of Charicleia. The recognition of the hero, as is the case in the Iphigenia myth too, leads to the abolition of the sacrifice. Yet in the Aethiopica there follows not escape but marriage. Unlike the Tauri for Orestes, Meroe is, finally, a place friendly to the two young wanderers, since it not only offers them shelter but also makes them queen and king of the Ethiopians. On the other hand, and most importantly, both the IT and the Aethiopica end with an aetiology for the abolition of human sacrifice. In the Aethiopica Sisimithres, aware of divine intervention in the events, closes the scene by praising divine providence that, in the priest’s words, ‘on the very altar of sacrifice, revealed the blessed lady Charicleia to be your daughter and dramatically transported her foster father here from the heart of Greece … and now they revealed that this young stranger is betrothed to the maiden.’71 This is the first conclusion of the novel, since the main ending consists of the coronation of Theagenes and Charicleia as priest and priestess of the Sun and the Moon respectively. Heliodorus, then, has made a conscious effort not just to embed the Iphigenia pattern in his novel, but also to interlock it fully into his larger plot and to

70 10,22,3. 71 10,39,2–10,39,3.

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distinguish it from its other, novelistic variation, for which he used Thisbe. Not only is the novel the only one extant to rework the pattern as a ritual sacrifice of a daughter by her father, to be followed by a sacrifice of a ‘brother’ by his ‘sister’, but it also places the pattern carefully at the very end of his novel, with emphasis on the double recognition. The sequence of the motifs is then as follows: Charicleia: (a) the nubile girl in a foreign land, but in reality, her homeland, (b) is to be sacrificed according to the Ethiopian custom regarding the sacrificial rituals that follow a victory in war. (c) The virgin recognizes the king as her father, and vice versa, while the sacrifice is still going on until (d) the audience calls the ritual off. Theagenes: (a) a young man in a foreign land (b) is about to be sacrificed according to its customs, by his own fiancée, priestess of Selene; (c) this is followed by his recognition by Charicles as the priestess’ suitor and beloved (d) hence, the audience with Sisimithres’ intervention call the sacrifice off and they abolish the ritual forever.

Conclusion Heliodorus’ treatment of the Iphigenia pattern shows that the sacrifice motif in the novels is based more on literary evidence than on ‘archaeological’ realia, and it cannot support a ritualistic approach. With the exception of Anthia’s first sacrifice, which appears to recall what might possibly be a ‘real ritual’, the rest of the sacrifice motifs, Heliodorus’ included, are literary readings (whether close readings or not) and revisions of a blend of Euripides’ two Iphigeniai with the innocently slaughtered maiden motif. The Iphigenia pattern in Heliodorus influences three different levels of reading: (i) it is a meta-novelisitic commentary on his predecessors’ narrative orchestration of the motifs; (ii) it questions the theme of virginity and sexuality, and (iii) it is an ideological commentary on issues of (non?)-Greek identity and of ethnicity.

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As to (i), on the level of episodic composition Heliodorus re-inserts motif (c), the recognition, in its Euripidean place before the motif (d), maintaining the dramatic force of the IT. This enhances the suspense of the storyline as opposed to his predecessors for whom the escape motif (d) did not need to be preceded by a recognition. Even more effectively, Heliodorus strategically places the Iphigenia pattern proper (the Thisbe version is the interlude) at the very end, instead of the very beginning, unlike Xenophon and Achilles Tatius, to endorse the sense of ending, by infusing the near death situation with the subsequent happy ending. Heliodorus’ use of the hoch Euripidean Iphigenia treatment can be read as opposed to the less punctual Iphigenia readings of his predecessors and his sidetreatment of the Thisbe/Charicleia sacrifice, highlights the narrator’s intention to create a narrative of ‘dramatic’ standards within the novel’s context. On a second level, Heliodorus’ characterization of Charicleia as ‘Death’s Maiden’ presents some differences as opposed to that of his predecessors. Virginity, as observed in Xenophon’s case, is not a requirement for the novel’s nearsacrifice motif, although sexual ‘purity’, fidelity in Anthia’s case, is important. Virginity is an important ingredient of the motif since it raises the pity of the spectators for the pure and unaware of the (sexual) pleasures of adulthood. Persinna and the Ethiopians pity the unlucky fate of the beautiful girl who is dressed in her Delphic gown, as if she were heading to her wedding.72 However, unlike Iphigenia, who instead of marrying Achilles marries death (or exchanges exile for death), Charicleia escapes sacrifice and marries Theagenes. Moreover, unlike Greek drama, and the previous novelistic reworking of the motifs, the purity motif is not applied only to Charicleia but also to Theagenes, who, unlike the polluted matricide Orestes, is also found virgin, hence, an appropriate sacrificial victim. Despite the expected voyeurism of the chaste Charicleia, there is an undisputed sexual symmetry between the couple, which is effected through the brothersister relationship, and which can be understood within a Neo-Platonic context. Unlike his predecessors, Heliodorus appears to use the sacrifice motif without appealing to horror (e.g. Lollianus, and Leucippe), while maintaining its primary narrative role, suspense, and endows it with a hint of ‘philosophical décor’.73 Finally, sacrifice patterns have been examined as a response to the cultural context of the texts in which they are found. Although it is easy to say that sacrifice, as a practice, is a barbarian act and makes clear the divide between the Greek and non-Greek world, since Greeks tend to be sacrificed by barbarians, in 72 10,9,5: the Ethiopians pity the girl; the chiton appears in 10,9,3 and earlier in 5,312. In the latter Charicleia is dressed in her Delphic gown for her ‘marriage’ to Trachinos, although she plans to use it as the winner’s gown or a shroud. 73 Sandy 1982a.

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the novels this is not always the case. Heliodorus’ novel, just as Achilles Tatius’, seems to comment on this ‘desperadoes motif’, as discussed by Winkler, by placing the sacrifice on Greek soil, like Ephesus, or at ambivalent locations, like Meroe,74 and therefore narrowing down the distance between Greece and their neighbors. This latter point opens up the question already posed by Euripidean drama, regarding the limits between what is and/or is not proper Greek identity and what is and/or is not proper barbarian identity and seems to be interwoven with a more general disapproval of sacrifice in the Second Sophistic, and of a preference for immaculate rituals, as observed in Lucian and Philostratus. Heliodorus’ setting of a Euripidean happy-ending Iphigenia at the request of the Ethiopian spectators/readers is probably the best comment on Greek (literary) identity: Euripides may be the key-intertext but the Heliodoran text, its closure and its ἐπιμύθιον, depend on the constructive expectations of the reader(s), who, reading the plot as a work-in-progress, opt for a radiant happy ending.75

74 For Charicleia being both black and white, see Harris 2001; also for the mixed paternity of the novel, see Whitmarsh 1998, and Elmer 2008, who argues against any effort of inquiring into the genetics of the text. 75 For the Menandrean influence in Heliodorus, see Lowe 2000, 258, ‘the longest comic plot in history, spanning the whole of its world and the whole of its literary heritage, is reassembled on a single stage at the very moment of its completion.’

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Appendix Below is a visual representation of my argument. The first table (Iphigenia megatext) summarizes the motif sequence or else plot pattern of the two Iphigeniai and related ‘escape’ plays. The second table (Novelistic Iphigeniai) resumes the sacrifice patterns in the five Greek novels. Motif D: Motif C: Sacrifice performed Recognition between kinsmen and/or averted

The Iphigenia Motif A: megatext A required sacrifice

Motif B: A kinsman as the slayer

Iphigenia

Artemis requests the sacrifice

Iphigenia Agamemnon needs to sacrifice recognizes the true reasons for his daughter her arrival to Aulis

Orestes

Artemis of Scythia Iphigenia is requests human responsible for the rite sacrifices

Chryses

Thoas demands the execution of Iphigenia and Orestes

Aletes

Iphigenia is sacrificed and/or rescued

Orestes recognizes Iphigenia as his sister

Reunion and escape

Chryses refuses to surrender his halfbrother and sister

Recognition of the siblings

Chryses helps Orestes to kill Thoas and to escape

Electra does not recognize Iphigenia and plans to murder her

Recognition of the siblings

Murder of Aletes and restoration of Orestes to the throne Heracles saves Alcestis from Hades

His wife volunteers to die in his stead

Alcestis

Apollo requires a replacement for Admetus

Andromeda

Poseidon and the Cassiopeia is Nereids request a responsible for the wrath of the sacrifice Nereids

Helen

Theoclymenus sacrifices all foreigners

Perseus saves and marries Andromeda

Helen recognizes Menelaus

Reunion and escape

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Novelistic Iphigeniai

Motif A: A required sacrifice

Motif B: A kinsman as the slayer

Motif D: Motif C: Sacrifice performed Recognition between kinsmen and/or averted

Anthia

Anthia is to be sacrificed to Ares

Hippothous, Habrocomes’ best friend, responsible for the sacrifice

Hippothous recognizes the girl as Anthia ex post facto

Perilaus saves Anthia

Anthia is to be executed for murder

Hippothous orders her to be thrown in the dog’s den

Hippothous recognizes the girl as Anthia ex post facto

Amphinomus and Polyidus save Anthia

Leucippe is offered as a sacrifice of war

Menelaus and Satyrus, Cleitophon’s friends, perform the sacrifice

Menelaus and Satyrus know Leucippe

Leucippe is replaced by a sheep and saved. Reunion with Cleitophon

Charmides abducts Leucippe

Charmides’ henchmen behead Leucippe

Satyrus and Cleitophon recognize Leucippe in Ephesus

Leucippe is replaced by a prostitute

Cleitophon and Sostratus recognize the suppliant as Leucippe

Reunion and escape

Sostratus recognizes Cleitophon as his nephew

Reunion and escape

Leucippe

Thersander plans Cleitophon falsely takes to murder responsibility Leucippe for Leucippe’s ‘murder’ Cleitophon

Charicleia – Thisbe

Cleitophon is to be executed as Leucippe’s murderer

Ethiopian custom Hydaspes is of xenoktonia responsible for the sacrifice Theagenes

Charicleia is replaced by Thisbe. Reunion and escape of Charicleia and Theagenes

Falsely interThyamis slays preted Isis dream Thisbe as Charicleia, his beloved Father-daughter recognition

Reunion and escape

Reunion, escape Ethiopian custom Charicleia asks to Theagenes is and marriage recognized as of xenoktonia perform the Charicleia’s fiancé sacrifice by Charicles

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Bibliography Aretz, S. 1999. Die Opferung der Iphigeneia in Aulis. Die Rezeption des Mythos in antiken und modernen Dramen, Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner. Aarne, A. and S. Thompson 1928. The Types of the Folk-Tale: A Classification and Bibliography, Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia. Behaeghel, J. 1995. Osiris, le dieu ressuscité, Paris: Berg International. Brooks, P. 1984. Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Brown, S. S. 1991. Late Carthaginian Child Sacrifice and Sacrificial Monuments in Their Mediterranean Context, Sheffield: JSOT Press. Burnett, A. P. 1971. Catastrophe Survived: Euripides’ Plays of Mixed Reversal, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Dowden, K. 1989. Death and the Maiden: Girls’ Initiation Rites in Greek Mythology, London: Routledge. Cropp, M. J. 2000. Euripides Iphigenia in Tauris, Warminster: Aris and Phillips. Elmer, D. F. 2008. ‘Intertextuality, Paternity and the Nile River in the Aethiopica’, TAPhA 138, 411–450. Foley, H. 1985. Ritual Irony: Poetry and Sacrifice in Euripides, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Genette, G. 1997 (1982). Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree, translated by Channa Newman and Claude Doubinsky, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Griffith, D. R. 1988. ‘Disrobing in the Oresteia’, CQ 38, 552–554. Hall, E. 2009. ‘Iphigenia in Oxyrhynchus and India: Greek Tragedy for Everyone’, in: D. Jakob and S. Tsitsiridis (eds.), Festschrift for Gregory Sifakis, Iraklion: Crete University Press, 393–414. Harris, M. 2001. ‘Not Black and/or White: Reading Racial Difference in Heliodorus’s Ethiopica and Pauline Hopkins’ Of One Blood’, AAR, Fall, 2001. Hughes, D. 2007. Culture and Sacrifice: Ritual Death in Literature and Opera, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kovacs, D. 2003. ‘Toward a Reconstruction of Iphigenia Aulidensis’, JHS 123, 77–103. Kyriakou, P. 2006. A Commentary on Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris, Berlin: de Gruyter. Lattimore, R. A. 1964. Story Patterns in Greek Tragedy, London: University of London, Athlone Press. Lightfoot, C. S. 1988. ‘Facts and Fiction: the Third Siege of Nisbis (A.D. 350)’, Historia 37, 105–125. Loraux, N. 1987. Tragic Ways of Killing a Woman, Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Lowe, N. J. 2000. The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mignogna, E. 1997. ‘Leucippe in Taurida, A.T. 3.15–22: mimo e pantomimo tra tragedia e romanzo’, MD 38, 224–236. Morales, H. 2004. Vision and Narrative in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morgan, J. R. 1982. ‘History, Romance and Realism in the Aethiopica of Heliodorus’, ClAnt 1, 221–265. Morgan, J. R. 1989. ‘A Sense of the Ending: The Conclusion of Heliodoros’ Aithiopika’, TAPhA 119, 299–320.

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Morgan, J. 2005. ‘Le blanc et le noir: perspective païennes et chrétiennes sur les Éthiopiques d’Héliodore’, in: B. Pouderon (ed.), Lieux, décors et paysages de l’ancien roman des origines à Byzance (Actes du 2e colloque de Tours, 24–26 octobre 2002), Lyon: Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée, 309–318. O’Brien, M. J. 1988. ‘Pelopid History and the Plot of Iphigenia in Tauris’, CQ 68, 98–115. O’Connor-Visser, E. A. M. E. 1987. Aspects of Human Sacrifice in the Tragedies of Euripides, Amsterdam: B. R. Grüner. Paulsen, T. 1992. Inszenierung des Schicksals. Tragödie und Komödie im Roman des Heliodor, Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier. Pletcher, J. 1998. ‘Euripides in Heliodoros’ Aithiopika 7–8’, GCN 9, 17–27. Rattenbury, R. M., T. W. Lumb and J. Maillon 1935. Héliodore: Les Éthiopiques ou Théagène et Chariclée, Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Reardon, B. P. 1989. Collected Ancient Greek Novels, Berkeley: University of California Press. Rehm, R. 1994. Marriage to Death: the Conflation of Wedding and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Reineke, M. J. 1997. Sacrificed Lives: Kristeva on Women and Violence, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Rijksbaron, A. 1984. ‘Chariton 8.1.4 und Aristotle Poetics 1449b 28’, Philologus 128, 306–307. Rosenmeyer, T. G. 1963. The Masks of Tragedy: Essays on Six Greek Dramas, Austin: University of Texas Press. Russell, D. A. and M. Winterbottom 1972 (1989). Classical Literary Criticism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sandy, G. N. 1982a. Heliodorus, Boston: Twayne. Sandy, G. N. 1982b. ‘Characterization and Philosophical Decor in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica’, TAPhA 112, 141–167. Seaford, R. 1987. ‘The Tragic Wedding’, JHS 107, 106–130. Segal, C. 1983. ‘Greek Myth as Semiotic and Structural System and the Problem of Tragedy’, Arethusa 16, 1,2, 173–198. Sirinelli, J. 2000. Plutarque de Chéronée, un philosophe dans le siècle, Paris: Fayard. Smith, P. and G. Avishai 2005. ‘The Use of Dental Criteria for Estimating Postnatal Survival in Skeletal Remains of Infants’, JArchSc 32, 83–89. Smith, P. and G. Kahila 1992. ‘Identification of Infanticide in Archaeological Sites: a Case Study from the Late Roman-Early Byzantine Periods at Ashkelon’, JArchSc 19, 667–675. Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 1988. Studies in Girls’ Transitions: Aspects of the Arkteia and Age Representation in Attic Iconography, Athens: Kardamitsa. Trenkner, S. 1958. The Greek Novella in the Classical Period, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whitmarsh, T. 1998. ‘The Birth of a Prodigy: Heliodorus and the Genealogy of Hellenism’, in: R. Hunter (ed.), Studies in Heliodorus, Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society. 93–124. Whitmarsh, T. 2011. Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel: Returning Romance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilston, J. P. 1996. ‘Tragedy and Rhetoric: the Use of Tragedy and the Tragic in Fourth Century’, in: M. S. Silk (ed.), Tragedy and the Tragic. Greek Theatre and Beyond, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 310–331. Winkler, J. J. 1980. ‘Lollianos and the Desperadoes’, JHS 100, 155–181. Wright, M. 2005. Euripides’ Escape-Tragedies: A Study of Helen, Andromeda, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Paolo Monella

‘Non humana viscera sed centies sestertium comesse’ (Petr. Sat. 141,7): Philomela and the Cannibal Heredipetae in the Crotonian Section of Petronius’ Satyricon Abstract: The article first highlights the symbolic link between the ‘body’ of Rome in the Petronian Bellum Civile and the body of Eumolpus in the Philomela episode of the Satyricon. Following this argument, it claims that not only the Philomela myth, but also, more specifically, the Procne and Philomela episode in the sixth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a direct intertext for the Crotonian section of the novel. The Crotonian episode in the Satyricon has been fruitfully analyzed with respect to the images of body and food, in the frame of Petronius’ general discourse on eloquence and literature. Croton’s paradoxical society and the cannibalistic feast envisaged on the body of Eumolpus have been contrasted with the Pythagorism of Ovid’s Metamorphoses’ last book and connected with the mythological memory of the name Philomela.1 In this paper I shall add some further considerations on two related points. Firstly, I shall highlight a specific link between the ‘body’ of Rome in the Petronian Bellum Civile and the body of Eumolpus in the Philomela episode. Then, I shall argue that not only the Philomela myth, but also, more specifically, the Procne and Philomela episode in the sixth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses are direct intertexts for the Crotonian section of the Satyricon.2

1 Bodies The metaphor of the ‘body’ of eloquence and art notoriously plays an important role in the Satyricon. In the first extant section of the novel, Encolpius and Agamemnon discuss corrupt rhetoric and schooling, while constantly using such

1 See especially Conte 1996, 134–139 and Rimell 2002, 77–97 (chapter 5, Bella intestina); 140–158 (chapter 9, Ghost Stories); 159–175 (chapter 10, Decomposing Rhythms). 2 I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Sylvia Hakopian, graduate student in Italian at the Department of Romance Studies at Cornell University, for her valuable help during the preparation of this paper.

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metaphors as weight, flavor and illness (Sat. 1–4) that allude to the corpus orationis (Sat. 2,3). As a result of the moral decay of society, the ‘body’ of rhetoric is badly fed, ill and swollen.3 In chapter 118, before reciting his Bellum civile, Eumolpus lectures us about epic poetry. After alluding to the body of the text (Sat. 118,5: corpus orationis), he claims that epic poetry in general and the topic of the civil war in particular are too heavy a burden, under which a number of young and illiterate would-be poets are destined to fall down (Sat. 118,6):4 ecce belli civilis ingens opus quisquis attigerit nisi plenus litteris, sub onere labetur.

In the proem of the epic poem the metaphor of a body’s physical illness is applied to Rome and its people twice. A first time in vv. 51–55:5 praeterea gemino deprensam gurgite plebem faenoris illuvies ususque exederat aeris. nulla est certa domus, nullum sine pignore corpus, sed veluti tabes tacitis concepta medullis intra membra furens curis latrantibus errat.

and a second time in vv. 58–60:6 hoc mersam caeno Romam somnoque iacentem quae poterant artes sana ratione movere, ni furor et bellum ferroque excita libido?

3 Sat. 1,1; 1,3–2,1; 2,3 (corpus orationis enervaretur et caderet); 2,4; 2,6–8; 4,3 (iam illa grandis oratio haberet maiestatis suae pondus); and 5,1 vv. 15–16. See Conte 1996, 134–139 and Rimell 2002, 18–22. 4 Rimell 2002, 197 compares Quint. Inst. 11,2,27: proderit per partes ediscere; laborat enim maxime onere. No need to say that the decadence of poetry is closely linked to the declamation schools, and therefore to corrupt rhetoric. Cf. Sat. 118,2: sic forensibus ministeriis exercitati frequenter ad carminis tranquillitatem tamquam ad portum feliciorem refugerunt, credentes facilius poema extrui posse quam controversiam sententiolis vibrantibus pictam. The imagery of illness appears in Eumolpus’ poetics as well (Sat. 118,3), although in a controversial passage, where our manuscripts read ceterum neque generosior spiritus sanitatem amat. The passage has been variously corrected, but the text of almost all testimonies, that I suggest we might accept, reads that a talented soul willing to write epic poetry does not love mental health. In other words, an inspired poet must be a little crazy. On Eumolpus’ poetics of enthusiasm, see Labate 1995, 153– 175 and in particular 174, with further bibliography. 5 In v. 52 I accept illuvies, which is the reading of all manuscripts, and tend to interpret it as ‘filthiness’, although the other interpretation of ‘inundation’ could be possible too. Note that exederat expresses the idea of a disease that consumes, that is eats, the body. 6 Cf. the description of Troy asleep in Verg. Aen. 2,265: invadunt urbem somno vinoque sepultam.

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where Rome is pictured as a mortally ill body lying down in the mud of its own vices. This passive body needs some external force to move it up, but unfortunately this will only happen under the stimulus of furor, bellum and libido, three forces that will lead her to self-destruction through civil war. In the rest of the poem, the image of a passive body to be borne recurs again and again. In the verses to follow, the corpses of Caesar, Pompey and Crassus become an excessive burden for tellus.7 Within the ensuing dialogue between Dites and Fortuna, Rome is again depicted as a doomed body, a burden too heavy for the shoulders of Fortuna. The goddess has borne it so far, and now wants to get rid of it.8 After the declamation of the Bellum Civile and the Circe episode, Eumolpus celebrates his sexual pygesiaca sacra with Philomela’s daughter. It is a sex scene, but a special one indeed. At the centre of the stage, Eumolpus’ body is heavy and passive, a swollen, gouty body, lying down mortally ill.9 Of course, the ill and passive body here is not that of Eumolpus the poet, who is quite healthy and very active, but that of Eumolpus in the character of the old millionaire. However, Eumolpus will soon become his own character, since he heads towards a (pretended or real) destiny of death in Croton. Due to a bizarre fate, he will end up trapped in his own role.10 I argue that in this scene of Eumolpus’ mimus, his body looks suspiciously like the one of the corrupted eloquence in the first chapters of the extant Satyricon and – less predictably – like the personification of Rome in the Bellum Civile. As we saw, in his introduction to the Bellum civile (Sat. 118) Eumolpus had compared epic poetry to a heavy burden which the poets have to bear upon their shoulders. Now, in the main sex scene of the Philomela episode, it is Eumolpus’ body that needs to be borne by Corax on his shoulders (Sat. 140,7–8):11

7 The earth cannot support them and scatters their sepulchers all over the world (Bell. civ. 65– 66): et quasi non posset tellus tot ferre sepulcra, / divisit cineres. hos gloria reddit honores. 8 Bell. civ. 82–83 (Dites to Fortuna): ecquid Romano sentis te pondere victam, / nec posse ulterius perituram extollere molem? 9 Rimell 2002, 172 n. 27 sees in Eumolpus’ gout (Sat. 140,6) an allusion to ‘Oedipus’ mutilated foot, dredging up similar stories of incest and blindness’. 10 Real death or ‘Scheintod’? I would subscribe to Conte’s words (Conte 1987, 530): ‘Whether at the end of his stay Eumolpus really does die, or merely pretends to die in order thereby to escape the consequences of his deception, is irrelevant for the present discussion. Anyway it is impossible to decide on the basis of our fragments.’ See Conte 1987, 530 and n. 2 and Rimell 2002, 167 n. 15, both providing further bibliography. 11 Although lumbi refers to the loins, and therefore not necessarily to the back, the general usage of the term, as well as likelihood, make me think that Corax here is doing something resembling ‘push-up’ exercises.

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Sed et podagricum se esse lumborumque solutorum omnibus dixerat … itaque ut constaret mendacio fides, puellam quidem exoravit ut sederet supra commendatam bonitatem, Coraci autem imperavit ut lectum, in quo ipse iacebat, subiret positisque in pavimento manibus dominum lumbis suis commoveret. ille lente parebat imperio puellaeque artificium pari motu remunerabat.

Other than the resemblance with the burden of epic poetry, what strikes me is that Eumolpus’ body seems to mirror the passive body of corrupt Rome. Compare Bellum Civile, lines 58–60: hoc mersam caeno Romam somnoque iacentem quae poterant artes sana ratione movere, ni furor et bellum ferroque excita libido?

Eumolpus, just like Rome, must be moved by external forces. The textual parallels (iacentem ~ iacebat; artes ~ artificium; movere ~ commoveret … motu) are quite self-evident. Eumolpus is not ‘moved’ by a libido excited by the iron of the sword, like Rome had been, but by a much more common, sexual libido. Yet his lust will bring him to a much more real anthropophagy. As it is clear now, what I am arguing is that in Philomela’s episode Eumolpus embodies, in a very literal sense, not only the ill, swollen body of eloquence and the heavy body of epic poetry, but also the mortally ill body of corrupt Rome – which represents a new direct link between the Croton episode and the Bellum Civile.12 Therefore, he must finally undergo a deserved self-destruction. In a way, he must be sacrificed.13 With this sacrifice, rhetoric, poetry and Rome itself will symbolically die in him.14

12 The ties that connect the Bellum Civile to the rest of the novel have been underlined, among the others, by Zeitlin 1971; Connors 1998, 100–146; Cucchiarelli 1998; Rimell 2002, 77–97. 13 Nardomarino 1990, 37–48 has an interesting discussion on the sacrificial aspects of the cannibal feast that is going to take place on Eumolpus’ body. 14 I explored further connections between the corruption of Rome in the Bellum Civile and the decadence of eloquence and art in the whole Satyricon in a paper, entitled ‘Il sonno della ragione nel Bellum Civile petroniano (Sat. 119,58–60)’, delivered at the conference Incontri sulla poesia latina di età imperiale III – Itaque conabor opus versibus pandere (Sat. 89,1). Tra prosa e poesia: percorsi intertestuali nel Satyricon (Palermo, 3–4 December 2007).

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2 Ovid’s Philomela In fact, there are a number of reasons why Eumolpus had to die that way, with an anthropophagic banquet. First, the widespread metaphor of the legacy-hunters as prey animals pointed in that direction;15 second, there was no funnier way to die in Pythagoras’ city;16 third, as a rhetoric teacher – and therefore a ‘fisher of students’ – he owed revenge to his pupils.17 Furthermore, as we just saw, he had to die this way because in the sex scene with Philomela’s daughter he fully embodied the ill bodies of eloquence, epic poetry and Rome. In addition, Victoria Rimell has clearly shown how the mythical memory recalled by the name of the matrona Philomela in the Crotonian section orients the narrative and the destruction of Eumolpus’ body towards anthropophagy.18 I would like to carry my analysis a little further. My aim in the second part of this paper is to point out that the Procne and Philomela tale in the sixth book of

15 The Crotonian farmer had defined the city as a field piled with dismembered cadavers, and the heredipetae as crows (Sat. 116,9: ‘adibitis’ inquit ‘oppidum tamquam in pestilentia campos, in quibus nihil aliud est nisi cadavera quae lacerantur aut corvi qui lacerant’). Conte 1996, 137–138 has a discussion on the satiric topos of legacy-hunting (for which an important model is Hor. Sat. 2,5). Also see Tracy 1980; Fedeli 1988a, 31; Nardomarino 1990, 27–31; Tandoi 1992, 632; Courtney 2001, 178–179 and 212; Rimell 2002, 166–170; Stucchi 2005, 83–85. Conte 1987 makes a very interesting point on the Crotonians’ ‘hunger for virtue’: they are ‘avid’ disciples of the wise Eumolpus. Conte therefore interprets the expression devorare spiritum in Sat. 141,4 as a metaphor for this attitude, feigned by the heredipetae. 16 Also this aspect has been noted by many scholars, including Paratore 1933, 376; Ciaffi 1955, 126; Conte 1987, 532; Dimundo 1987, 54–57; Fedeli 1987, 20–21; Nardomarino 1990, 52–59; Conte 1996, 139; Courtney 2001, 212; Stucchi 2005, 84 and 94. Rimell 2002, 15–16; 84–88; 152 has acknowledged the role of the Pythagorean fifteenth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses as an important intertext for the Crotonian section of the Satyricon. 17 Compare Sat. 3,2–4 (the students are the fish, the teachers the fishers) with Sat. 140,15 (Eumolpus’ ruse against the Crotonian legacy-hunters is described in very similar terms). See Rimell 2002, 22–23; 168–169. 18 The scholarship on the names of the characters in the Satyricon is rich and very interesting. From among many critics, one could recall Barchiesi 1984 on Lichas and Petronius’ ‘poetics of the names’; Petrone 1988, 66–69; Fedeli 1988a and 1988b on Polyaenus and Circe; Labate 1986 on Corax ‘the delator’; Goldman 2008. On Philomela’s name, before the deep analysis by Rimell 2002, 171–175, only shorter comments had been written, mostly related to the fact that she offers Eumolpus her children allowing him to ‘eat’ them sexually. See Paratore 1933, 433–434; Ciaffi 1955, 124–125; Walsh 1970, 108; Sullivan 1977, 65 n. 55; Labate 1986, 142 and n. 23; Dimundo 1987, 57–58; Fedeli 1988a, 17; Cicu 1992, 163–167, with interesting considerations; Panayotakis 1994, 461–462 and 1995, 183; Landolfi 1996, 168; McGlathery 1998, 5–6; and, more recently, Stucchi 2005, 78.

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Ovid’s Metamorphoses constitutes a relevant intertext for the whole Crotonian section of the Satyricon. A number of elements in the Petronian text recall Ovidian details, often not found in other narratives of the story. Let us explore them in detail.

2.1 Ingesta orbitas Philomela’s main business consists in offering her children to old men without heirs. The verb used by Petronius for this activity is, quite unusually, ingerere (Sat. 140,1: filium filiamque ingerebat orbis senibus). As Labate has noted, ingerere is unparalleled in this general meaning of ‘offering’, while it is commonly used for ‘serving’ food or beverages.19 Derivatives of gero had been used by Petronius himself to describe the Crotonians throwing their opes on Eumolpus (Sat. 124,3: congesserunt); by Ovid in the Metamorphoses for Tereus’ banquet (Ov. Met. 6,651: congerit); and by Seneca for Atreus’ meal in a passage intertextually related to Ovid’s Tereus episode (Sen. Thy. 282: ingesta orbitas).20 The same intertextual pattern may be identified in two more details connected with cannibalism in Petronius’ text.

2.2 Intus The Crotonian Philomela leaves her children in domo Eumolpi (Sat. 140,3). Both Ovid and Seneca had insisted on the tragic irony of a father who has his own children inside not because they’re at home, but because he just ate them. In the Ovidian text, when Tereus asks for Itys, Procne replies (Met. 6,655–656): ‘intus habes, quem poscis’ ait: circumspicit ille / atque, ubi sit, quaerit. Tereus does not understand the double-entendre implied in intus, which normally means ‘inside, home’, and therefore looks around the room. Seneca extends the effect of Atreus’

19 See Labate 1986, 142 n. 23, who says that he has developed these considerations together with Alessandro Barchiesi. See Stucchi 2005, 78 and n. 35. McGlathery 1998, 3 has a different explanation for ingerere (‘to heap or thrust upon’), related to ‘the sexual position she (sc. Philomela’s daughter) assumes’. 20 Sat. 124,3: qui (sc. heredipetae) statim opes suas summo cum certamine in Eumolpum congesserunt; Ov. Met. 6,650–651: ipse sedens solio Tereus sublimis avito / vescitur inque suam sua viscera congerit alvum; Sen. Thy. 281–283: tota iam ante oculos meos / imago caedis errat, ingesta orbitas / in ora patris. The Senecan parallel is suggested by Labate 1986, 142 n. 23.

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sadistic wordplay (Sen. Thy. 976–982; 997–1004), although he uses a different metaphor: not intus but in amplexu patris (Thy. 976).

2.3 Nausea When the legacy-hunters will be required to eat Eumolpus’ corpse, they will have to deal with the stomachi recusatio, the rebellion of their stomach.21 In Ovid’s narrative of the Philomela story, when Tereus understands that he has devoured his son’s flesh, his reaction involves the desire to take out from his body the food he has just eaten.22 An even more conspicuous precedent is the reaction of Thyestes in Seneca’s tragedy when he realizes that he has devoured his own children.23 It is thus arguable that Petronius had two related intertexts in mind: Ovid’s narrative in the Metamorphoses and Seneca’s Thyestes, a tragedy whose intertextual relationship with the Tereus section in the sixth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses is well known.24

2.4 Sacra In the Satyricon at a certain point Philomela’s plan requires that she pretends to go to the temple for some religious practices. Immediately after, Eumolpus organizes the pygesiaca sacra, the ‘sacred ceremony in honor of the buttocks’ with Philo-

21 Cf. Sat. 141,6: de stomachi tui recusatione non habeo quod timeam; and 141,8: neque enim ulla caro per se placet, sed arte quadam corrumpitur et stomacho conciliatur averso. On the ancient Roman concept of fastidium, and on the connections between taboos like incest and cannibalism, see Kaster 2001. Rimell 2002, 167–168 suggests that the nausea that awaits those who will eat Eumolpus’ noxissimum corpus might symbolize the risk that we run by reading the Saytiricon itself: ‘Who knows (apart from the writer) what we are really eating when we chew over the Satyricon narratives?’ 22 Ov. Met. 6,663–664: et modo, si posset, reserato pectore diras / egerere inde dapes semesaque viscera gestit. 23 Cf. Sen. Thy. 999–1001: quis hic tumultus viscera exagitat mea? / quid tremuit intus? sentio impatiens onus / meumque gemitu non meo pectus gemit; and 1041–1044: volvuntur intus viscera et clusum nefas / sine exitu luctatur et quaerit fugam: / da, frater, ensem (sanguinis multum mei / habet ille): ferro liberis detur via. See Stucchi 2005 77–78; 86–87 and n. 65. 24 On this relationship, see Mantovanelli 1984, 62–64 and 97–100; Picone 1984, 51–61; Monteleone 1991, 355–360; Marchesi 2000, 185–188; Monella 2006.

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mela’s daughter.25 In Ovid’s text, Procne used the pretext of the sacra … trieterica Bacchi (Ov. Met. 6,587) to disguise herself and rescue her sister. She induces Tereus to eat his cannibal feast without witnesses, pretending that it is a sacrum, a sacred ceremonial meal to be eaten alone (Ov. Met. 6,648: patrii moris sacrum mentita). I think that this could help to explain Petronius’ pigiciaca (or pygesiaca) sacra.

2.5 Boys and Blindness Immediately after these words, in Petronius’ text, we find a note not completely clear in itself (Sat. 140,5): Eumolpus, qui tam frugi erat ut illi etiam ego puer viderer, non distulit puellam invitare ad pygesiaca sacra. If Eumolpus is going to have sex with a girl, why does Encolpius quote his passion for all sort of (male) pueri instead? Mainly to say that he is not particularly fastidious, when it comes to sex. But another reason could also be involved: both Tereus and Eumolpus make evaluation errors when it comes to pueri. Eumolpus calculates wrong targets for his pederastic appetites. Tereus’ ‘error’ is much more tragic, for he does not mistake an adult for a puer, like Eumolpus, but his own puer for a dinner. Still, Eumolpus is making a big error too by ‘sexually eating’ Philomela’s puella, because this will lead him to a no less tragic outcome, involving a cannibal banquet – his own. Although they belong to a degraded world animated by ‘low’ instincts, the legacy-hunters are oddly described as wretched and blinded tragic heroes (Sat. 141,5): excaecabat pecuniae ingens fama oculos animosque miserorum.26 Blindness is another aspect of the Crotonian cannibal banquet that sounds very ‘tragic’ as well as very Ovidian. Ovid had complained about the ‘blindness’ of the characters

25 Sat. 140,4–5: nec aliter fecit ac dixerat, filiamque speciosissimam cum fratre ephebo in cubiculo reliquit simulavitque se in templum ire ad vota nuncupanda. Eumolpus, qui tam frugi erat ut illi etiam ego puer viderer, non distulit puellam invitare ad pygesiaca sacra. The text is uncertain here: manuscripts read pigiciaca. Müller (Müller and Ehlers 1983) (whose text is my reference for quotations in this article) prints Aphrodisiaca, originally proposed by Bücheler. I sympathize with the emendation pygesiaca (Ernout 1962), which has the advantage of making the sexually oriented parody more explicit (see Panayotakis 1994, 463, and 1995, 185–186). Baldwin 1977–1978 has a more detailed discussion on the question. The English translation for pygesiaca that I am adopting comes from the title of Panayotakis 1994. On the sacra of Eumolpus and Philomela’s daughter, see Schmeling 1971, 354–356; Gill 1973, 181 n. 29; Panayotakis 1994, 466 n. 47 and 1995, 75. 26 The character that speaks in Sat. 141,7 – probably Gorgias – suggests that the would-be cannibals close their eyes in order to be able to carry on the anthropophagy: operi modo oculos et finge te non humana viscera sed centies sestertium comesse.

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of the Tereus story twice: a first time about Pandion, who is unable to see the malice of Tereus, and a second time about Tereus himself, unaware that he is eating his son’s flesh.27

2.6 Birds A further funny ‘Ovidian’ detail hides in Eumolpus’ room. In the Metamorphoses, on top of the nuptial bed of Tereus and Procne a profanus … bubo sits, an ominous owl.28 But if we look well under the bed where Eumolpus’ ‘strange love’ is consumed we shall find a bird, too, and it will bring no good luck to the groom and his friends, as a suspected traitor: it is Corax ‘the crow’ (Sat. 140,7): Coraci autem imperavit ut lectum, in quo ipse iacebat, subiret.

2.7 Civilisation Clash, Civilisation Collapse In the myth Philomela, after being raped by Tereus, defeats him through the ars of weaving (a metaphor for literature and poetry). Petronius does not miss this occasion to pursue his metaliterary discourse on eloquence and literature through the contrast between the matrona Philomela and Eumolpus, appointed in Sat. 140 as a teacher of rhetoric and, alas, virtue. Victoria Rimell has explored this aspect thoroughly,29 so I would just like to add some brief considerations about the role

27 Cf. Ov. Met. 6,472–473 (on Pandion): pro superi, quantum mortalia pectora caecae / noctis habent!; and Ov. Met. 6,650–652 (on Tereus): tantaque nox animi est. See Rimell 2002, 172 and n. 32. The allusion to the blindness of the human soul, which cannot see its misfortune coming, is particularly appropriate in a myth that had strong tragic connotations due to the very famous Sophoclean tragedy entitled Tereus (fr. 582–595b Radt), an important source for Ovid himself: see Monella 2005, 79–125, with further bibliography. I suspect that while the Polyaenus-Circe episode can be seen as a parody of the epic genre, the Philomela episode is a degraded tragedy. The relationship of Eumolpus’ invention with theatrical genres is a complex issue, on which see Fedeli 1988a, 9–12; Panayotakis 1994 and 1995, 182–190; Conte 1996, 96; Genoni 1997; Rimell 2002, 175. I tend to agree with McGlathery 1998, 5–6, who acknowledges the ‘mythological resonance of the name Philomela’ and the literary memory of Sophocles’ tragedy Tereus, and speaks of a ‘paratragic mime’. 28 Ov. Met. 6, 431–432: tectoque profanus / incubuit bubo thalamique in culmine sedit. 29 Rimell 2002, 171–175. The competition between Philomela and Eumolpus on the ground of simulation and vicious eloquence has also been noted by Dimundo 1987, 58; Cicu 1992, 166; Panayotakis 1994, 462 and 1995, 184; Landolfi 1996, 171; McGlathery 1998, 1.

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played by the dichotomy between civilisation and barbaries, tyranny, bestiality in the myth and, by comparison, in Petronius’ episode. The counter-attack of the Athenian sisters Procne and Philomela against the Thracian Tereus, in the legendary tale, begins with Philomela, who uses the arts connected with her superior Greek culture, including weaving and writing, to deceive the barbaric, though deceptively eloquent, tyrant.30 Then the two sisters together use Tereus’ own weapons against him: treachery, hypocrisy, fallacious eloquence, even murder; and overdo him. Procne persuades Tereus to do the thing most contrary to human civilisation: eating his own son’s body. The paradox lies here: in order to beat the barbarian offender, the Athenian civilized sisters break the taboo of familial cannibalism, and the final result is the descent of them all below the level of humanity itself, that is to the realm of bestiality, through the final metamorphosis into birds. In Philomela’s episode of Petronius’ Satyricon, Eumolpus is not a barbarian, yet he is a foreigner in a Greek city, as is emphasized by his character’s vaguely remote origin, his fantastical African properties31 and by the ‘rites of passage’ that mark the entrance of the protagonists in the city.32 His very name, other than sounding nicely ‘musical’ (‘sweetly singing’),33 had belonged to a mythical Thracian king who had fought against Athens.34

30 See Rimell 2002, 171–172. Being a woman, Philomela weaves on a texture; being an Athenian literate princess she writes down her story in a message for Procne (in Ovid’s text, at least); and being a future nightingale, she apparently writes down a carmen miserabile, almost an elegiac poem (Ov. Met. 6,582): (sc. Procne) fortunaeque suae carmen miserabile legit. 31 Cf. Sat. 117,8: praeterea habere in Africa trecenties sestertium fundis nominibusque depositum; nam familiam quidem tam magnam per agros Numidiae esse sparsam, ut possit vel Carthaginem capere; 125,3: ‘quid’ aiebam ‘si callidus captator exploratorem in Africam miserit mendaciumque deprehenderit nostrum?; 141,1: ex Africa navis, ut promiseras, cum pecunia tua et familia non venit. Of course, this does not prove that the old millionaire presented himself as based in Africa, since owning large estates overseas was quite possible for a wealthy Roman. But the mention of Africa might be meant to give both an idea of hyperbolic extension and an aura of exoticism, as in Trimalchio’s allusion in Sat. 48,3: nunc coniungere agellis Siciliam volo, ut cum Africam libuerit ire, per meos fines navigem. 32 See Fedeli 1987, 13–14. 33 On the connection with the Greek root *mel (song), see Dimundo 1987, 57–58 and McGlathery 1998, 1. 34 See Cicu 1992, 166. According to Apollodorus (3,201–203) an Eumolpus, ancestor of the Eleusinian clan of the Eumolpidae, after trying to rape his sister-in-law in Ethiopia, had sought refuge in Thracia, then in Eleusis, and finally had become king of Thracia. As such, he fought against the Athenian king Erechtheus during the war between Eleusis and Athens. On this mythical Eumolpus, see Engelmann 1884; Kern 1907; Rose 1970.

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Also, if he is not a tyrant, he certainly exerts a very imperious political supremacy. In fact, shortly after his arrival in Croton he had become a patronus not only of political prestige and influence but also of arrogance on such a scale as to remind us of Seneca’s words about the regnum of rich old men without heirs in greedy Roman society (Const. Sap. 6,1: dives aliquis regnum orbae senectutis exercens).35 In Petronius’ description of Eumolpus’ influence we find terms like gratia, beneficium and amicus, bearing a specific political relevance (Sat. 125,1):36 dum haec magno tempore Crotone aguntur … et Eumolpus felicitate plenus prioris fortunae esset oblitus [statum] adeo ut † suis † iactaret neminem gratiae suae ibi posse resistere impuneque suos, si quid deliquissent [in ea urbe], beneficio amicorum laturos.

Ovid’s Thracian Tereus, one could object, was a ‘real’ tyrant with military connotations: he had gathered a clarum nomen by helping Athens victoriously in a recent war against the barbarians.37 However, the first thing that our heroes have learned from the vilicus about Croton was that, after having been the most important city of Italy, it found itself is in a ‘post-bellum’ phase at the moment.38 After all, also Petronius’ Eumolpus started to qualify for a fame of military virtue in Croton as soon as he presented himself as a rich man without children. In the Crotonian farmer’s words, those who do not have family relationships ad summos honores perveniunt, id est soli militares, soli fortissimi atque etiam innocentes habentur.39 In fact, shortly afterwards, during the organisation of Eumolpus’ ruse, his fellows pretended to be his slaves, and even took the gladiatorial oath at his hands.40

35 The Senecan passage is mentioned in Tracy 1980, 401 n. 15 together with Mart. 1,49,34 (imperia viduarum) and 2,32,5–6 (orba est, dives, anus, vidua). 36 A brief allusion to the pretended clients of the millionaire family in his own city had already appeared in Sat. 117,6: ne aut clientes sodalesque filii sui aut sepulcrum quotidie causam lacrimarum cerneret. This passage also hints at another conspicuous feature that Eumolpus’ fictional character shares with Tereus: he too has lost his only son (see Rimell 2002, 175). 37 Ov. Met. 6,421–425. 38 Sat. 116,3: post attritas bellis frequentibus opes. 39 Sat. 116,8. 40 Sat. 117,5: in verba Eumolpi sacramentum iuravimus: uri, vinciri, verberari ferroque necari, et quicquid aliud Eumolpus iussisset. See Rimell 2002, 140: ‘the “invasion” of Croton by the leader Eumolpus and his “army” of “gladiator” slaves, followed by their greedy exploitation of foreign luxuries … and Encolpius’ fear of vengeful Fortuna … restage the scenes at the beginning of the Bellum Civile, where war is precipitated by insatiable imperialistic greed and directed by Fortuna.’ Rimell 2002, 88–89 stresses ‘the barbaric, war-like hierarchies that structure life in Croton (Eumolpus rules supreme as tyrannical master over his tortured, worthless slaves)’, where the slaves are Eumolpus’ own gang. I suggest that we should also take into account his rule de facto over all Crotonians.

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I therefore suggest that Eumolpus may be seen, like Tereus, as a foreign tyrant defeated through perverted yet sophisticated rhetoric by a degraded version of Greek civilisation. The names evoked in the Philomela episode recall the highest cultural achievements of Greek (literary) culture. Philomela represents the contrast with barbarism but above all is, as nightingale, a major symbol of the poet in Greece and Rome. Gorgias, the legacy-hunter who is ready to execute Eumolpus’ will41 recalls Gorgias of Leontini, a crucial figure in the history of rhetoric.42 Corax himself, the mercennarius of Eumolpus’ band in Croton,43 shares his name with Corax of Syracuse, another father of rhetoric.44 However, both in the myth and in the Petronian narrative the revenge of the Greek Philomela against the powerful and sexually greedy foreigner will lead to the collapse of the boundaries between civilisation and barbarism, humanity and bestiality.45 Thus the shadow of the mythical memory, through the mediation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, has served as one of the main textual strategies of the Satyricon: blurring boundaries, questioning civilisation and literature, increasing textual entropy.

41 Cf. Sat. 141,5: Gorgias paratus erat exsequi. 42 See Ciaffi 1955, 126; Stucchi 2005, 81–82; Conte 1992 and 1996, 134–139; further bibliography is in Conte 1996, 134 n. 44. 43 Cf. Sat. 117,11; 140,7; 140,9. 44 Although not as famous as Gorgias, Corax of Syracuse is no less interesting: he ‘is said to have been the first teacher of rhetoric. He perhaps taught the division of a speech into προοίμιον, ἀγών, and ἐπίλογος’ (Russell 1970a). He is also believed to have been (with Tisias) ‘the first to write handbooks (τέχναι, artes), concentrated on forensic speaking’ (Russell 1970b, 920). More detailed information in Aulitzky 1922. The hypothesis of the connection of the Petronian Corax with the forensic rhetorician has been suggested, although dubiously, by Paratore 1933, 380 and Conte 1992, 309 n. 2. Corax’s name has received a number of different explanations. I think that a number of different resonances of Corax’ name may be active in different phases of the narrative, since they are not contradictory with each other: as feralis bubo and as a ‘siege engine’ (see McGlathery 1998, 7 and Panayotakis 1995, 186 n. 69), he lay under Eumolpus’ bed in Sat. 141,11; as a mythical crow, and therefore a delator (see the Coronis story; see Labate 1986) he later betrayed Eumolpus and friends; and in the lost parts of Petronius’ narrative he could have had lots of occasions to show rhetorical talent (in comic contrast with his ‘croaking’ name; see Goldman 2008). 45 In Petronius’ Croton the confusion between civilisation and its opposite is thorough (see Fedeli 1987, 12 and 1988b, 72). In particular, in Sat. 141,3–4 cannibalism is attributed to exotic people, but not in order to mark it as a barbarian custom. It is instead taken as a model, with a sort of cultural relativism (cf. Hdt. 3,99 and the other ancient passages quoted by Rankin 1969, 381–382; Nardomarino 1990, 3; Courtney 2001, 211).

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Monella, P. 2006. ‘Il mito di Procne nel corpus tragico senecano: threnos, teatro, metateatro’, in: F. Amoroso (ed.), Teatralità dei cori senecani, Palermo: Flaccovio 2006. 133–148. Monteleone, C. 1991. Il ‘Thyestes’ di Seneca. Sentieri ermeneutici, Fasano: Schena. Müller, K. (ed.) and W. Ehlers (trans.) 1983. Petronius: Satyrica, 3rd Edition, Munich: Artemis Verlag. Nardomarino, F. 1990. ‘Petronio, Satyricon 141. Il testamento e la scelta necrofagica’, Aufidus 11–12, 25–58. Panayotakis, C. 1994. ‘A Sacred Ceremony in Honour of the Buttocks: Petronius, Satyrica 140.1–11’, CQ 44, 458–467. Panayotakis, C. 1995. Theatrum Arbitri: Theatrical Elements in the Satyrica of Petronius, Leiden: Brill. Paratore, E. 1933. Il Satyricon di Petronio, II, Firenze: Le Monnier. Petrone, G. 1988. ‘Nomen/omen: poetica e funzione dei nomi (Plauto, Seneca, Petronio)’, MD 20–21, 33–70. Picone, G. 1984. La fabula e il regno. Studi sul Thyestes di Seneca, Palermo: Palumbo. Rankin, H. D. 1969. ‘Eating People Is Right. Petronius 141 and a topos’, Hermes 97, 381–384. Rimell, V. 2002. Petronius and the Anatomy of Fiction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rose, H. J. 1970. ‘Eumolpus’, in: N. G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard (eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press. 416. Russell, D. A. F. M. 1970a. ‘Corax of Syracuse’, in: N. G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard (eds.), Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 289. Russell, D. A. F. M. 1970b. ‘Rhetoric, Greek’, in: N. G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard (eds.), Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 920–921. Schmeling, G. 1971. ‘The exclusus amator Motif in Petronius’, in: Fons perennis. Saggi critici di filologia classica raccolti in onore di Vittorio d’Agostino. Torino: A cura della Amministrazione della Rivista di studi classici. 333–357. Stucchi, S. 2005. ‘Parassiti e cannibali in Petronio: l’episodio crotoniate (Sat. 116–141)’, ARF 7, 71–94. Sullivan, J. P. 1977. Il Satyricon di Petronio: uno studio letterario, Firenze: La Nuova Italia. Tandoi, V. 1992. ‘Come entrare a Crotone (Petr. Satyr. 117)’, in: F. E. Consolino, G. Lotito, M.-P. Pieri, G. Sommariva, S. Timpanaro and M. A. Vinchesi (eds.), Scritti di filologia e di storia della cultura classica, II, Pisa: Giardini. 624–632. Tracy, V. A. 1980. ‘Aut captantur aut captant’, Latomus 29 (1), 399–402. Walsh, P. G. 1970. The Roman Novel: The Satyricon of Petronius and the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zeitlin, F. I. 1971. ‘Romanus Petronius. A Study of the Troiae halosis and the Bellum civile’, Latomus 30, 56–82.

Religious Imagery, Cult, Mystery and Art

Mike Lippman

False Fortuna: Religious Imagery and the Painting-Gallery Episode in the Satyricon Abstract: Encolpius meets the poet Eumolpus while in the pinacotheca (sections 83–90 of the Satyricon), but only as they leave does the reader learn that this gallery lies within a temple. This paper illustrates how the religious setting provides a new interpretive dimension to these scenes. Instead of giving Encolpius closure, as the ancient reader might have expected, Petronius sends him on more adventures with a new problematic companion. Eumolpus, whose name evokes the Eleusinian mysteries, appears instead of the expected mystagogos. Every subsequent thing he says contains ironic religious overtones when Eumolpus is reinterpreted as a priest-substitute. When we first see Encolpius in the pinacotheca (sections 83–90 of the Satyricon), he is admiring pederastic artwork of the great Greek masters. He then encounters the poet Eumolpus and from him hears the tale of the Pergamene boy, a lament over the current state of the liberal arts and finally a poetic rendition of the Sack of Troy. Only when he and Eumolpus are driven away by a less-than-adoring public, however, does the reader learn that this painting gallery was located all this time within a temple. Although it has been briefly noted by previous commentators, the importance of this religious setting to the overall reading of the scene has not yet been throroughly taken into account.1 In the three days since the debauch at Trimalchio’s, Encolpius was lonely, had been betrayed by both his friend and boy-toy, had his attempts at revenge foiled, and was considering suicide. He had, in other words, reached rock bottom. A visit to a religious space by a character in such a desparate and vulnerable emotional state may have fostered expectations in the average reader of ancient novels for a religious conversion or divine salvation scene.2 Granted, any claim on reader expectations, like any other generalizations regarding the ancient novel, is difficult to sustain with such a limited amount of evidence.3 Scenes in

1 For the major studies of Encolpius’ time in the pinacotheca, see Sullivan 1968; Walsh 1970; Zeitlin 1971; Slater 1990; Connors 1998; Courtney 2001; Rimell 2002; and most recently, Elsner 2007, whose work thus far goes the furthest towards imagining Eumolpus as a priest figure as well as the entire scene’s connections to established conventions for the artistic exegete. 2 For an overview of the readership of the ancient novel, see Bowie 2003. 3 See Slater 1990, 5–23 for an analysis on the expectations of Petronius’ readership. He reasonably believes (19) that they would have had a basic familiarity with other Greek novels.

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temples with characters seeking or giving thanks for divine aid do occur often enough. The most memorable, of course, is the final book of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, but a number of the other novels have such cult scenes; some more important to the narrative arc, some merely an ending point to bring the wandering plot to rest.4 Petronius, however, if he is utilizing this trope, only uses it to tease his audience.5 Instead of giving Encolpius closure, Fortuna (or rather, Petronius) sends him off onto another round of chaotic adventures with a new, but no less problematic, companion. Epiphany and fulfillment are hinted at, but at this time are only false illusions. Because of the fragmentary nature of the extant text, modern readers are unaware that Encolpius is in a temple until he tells us he and Eumoplus are being driven out of one in section 90: extraque templum profugit. Earlier, the temple was only referred to as a pinacotheca, a painting gallery. Temples, however, are often the art galleries and museums of antiquity, as any cursory glance of Pausanias shows.6 Religious spaces and artistic places regularly overlap in antiquity and distinctions can blur. Encolpius’ rationale for entering the temple and any of his first impressions are lost, but his experience with the artwork borders on worship.7 His experience reveals a spiritual hunger, possibly suggestive of what he was seeking upon his arrival. Parallels in other works suggest that there is, besides the religious cult trope, another recognizable scene where a young travler enters an art gallery and seeks a skilled exegete for an extemporaneous lesson in art history.8 In Petronius (just as with some of the other authors), the need for artistic guidance overlaps with the need for spiritual and religious guidance, emphasizing the character’s sense of overall confusion and need. Encolpius’ 4 For religious themes in the novels, see Walsh 1970, 78–79 and Beck 2003. Chariton ends Chaereas and Callirhoe in a temple with the hero thanking Aphrodite. Heliodorus ends the Aethiopika with a marriage and the mystical rites of the Sun and Moon. Longus ends Daphnis and Chloe with the heroes dedicating their lives to the pastoral gods who had saved them. For the temple endings, see Fusillo 1997, 215–222. Even surface readers of Tragedy and New Comedy might also expect a divine appearance for insoluble plots, as the deus ex machina would have been a familiar convention. For connections between the novel and drama, see Ruiz-Montero 2003, 48–54. 5 For the trick of toying with reader’s expectations as a device in the ancient novel, see Fusillo 1997, 222–223. 6 See Courtney 2001, 133–134. 7 Slater 1990, 91 calls his reactions ‘almost physically emotional’ and Conte 1996, 15 refers to his ‘sacred shudder’. 8 Such as Daphnis and Chloe 1.3, Leucippe and Clitophon 1.2 or the Tabula of Cebes 1.1–2 (for which see also below). See also the start of Herodas Mime 4. Likewise, in Lucian’s Erotes 15, as soon as the travelers have a question about the statue of Aphrodite, a nearby attendant woman appears to tell them a story. See Slater 1990, 91; Conte 1996, 18–20; and Elsner 2007, 182–185.

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descriptions display wonder – mirabilem – and a sort of religious awe – non sine quodam horrore – as he admires the artwork. When he gazes at an Apelles masterpiece, he says adoravi – ‘I worshipped it!’ His spirit is uplifted as he imagines the painting represents souls, not bodies – crederes etiam animorum esse picturam, he exults. He even begins to identify with the godly figures in the paintings, so an experience akin to an enthusiasmos starts to take place as he and other the divine pederasts (Jupiter, Apollo, Heracles) start to merge into one. Such experiences parallel those of the mystery rituals, where the sufferings of the gods and heroes are symbolically undergone and reimagined (via sympatheia) as if they were one’s own.9 Encolpius’ revelation, such as it is, may connect his erotic sufferings with those of the gods, but is not sufficient for him to do more than begin his spiritual quest and underline to the reader his need for further guidance. Naturally, we see Encolpius’ misinterpretations of the myths as somewhat comic, but this in no way detracts from the larger point.10 A religious experience is still recognizable, even if satirized; thematically appropriate for a temple settling, even if it not necessarily an accurate way to worship. Eumolpus enters while Encolpius is in this emotionally heightened and vulnerable state. We do not learn his name until later, but from the very first he is described as a man of mystery, one who suggests some undisclosed greatness: qui videretur nescio quid magnum promittere. Although we swiftly learn that he is only a poet, established narrative patterns may lead the reader to expect that such a person found in a temple would be a priest or mystagogos, the temple guide whose duty it would be to bring Encolpius into the fold or, if Encolpius were merely a tourist, explain the art in more detail for his behalf.11 Experienced readers would then recognize this trope from other works. When an artistic exegesis occurs, the explanation is typically given to a spiritually confused narrator by an older, wiser figure. The reader would thus expect, along with Encolpius, that this new ‘man of mystery’ would be imparting some great truths at this moment of crisis. We are thus anticipating a character either similar to the wise and helpful priest from Metamorphoses, the philosophical guide from The

9 See Burkert 1987, 114 and Beck 2003, 134–136. 10 See particularly Walsh 1970, 93–97; Zeitlin 1971, 60; Slater 1990, 220–30; and Elsner 2007, 183–184 for discussions on Encolpius’ initial reaction to the art. It is possible, too, that these paintings of divine rape were in this temple’s art gallery as allegories for apotheosis or the soul’s union with the divine. See Vermeule 1979, 166–167 (thanks to Marilyn Skinner for this suggestion). If so, Encolpius almost gets the point when he starts thinking in terms of the soul, but his interactions with Eumolpus will send him crashing back to earthly matters soon enough. 11 For Eumolpus as an expected philosophical guide, see Elsner 2007, 188–197.

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Tabula of Cebes, or at the very least, a learned docent, like the woman in Lucian’s Erotes.12 Eumolpus’ very name, when we learn it, heightens expectations, as it is the name of the founder of the priesthood of the Eleusinian Mysteries.13 The mythical Eumolpus, so named for his extraordinary singing ability, combines the dual aspects of the Latin word vates (priest and poet), that are both so important to Petronius’ ironic construction of Eumolpus in this scene.14 Each time he speaks, be it in poetry or in prose, his words are couched in religious terminology, even within a seemingly secular topic like the fall of the liberal arts. People, he says during the conclusion of his rant in section 88, no longer offer thanks to gods in return for skill of learning or philosophy – all worship nowadays is worship of money. That is why, he says, the Senate decorated Jupiter’s temple with a thousand pounds of gold rather than beautiful paintings and artwork.15 His abrupt turn to religion, not necessarily an obvious choice, underlines their current position in a temple as well as his expected role as priestly exegete. Although the temple’s patron deity is never identified, Fortuna, or some aspect of her, is a likely candidate. It is certainly not difficult to imagine her being worshipped near Encolpius’ seedy beachfront hotel on the Bay of Naples. In fact, some evidence (statues and inscription bases) suggests that there was indeed such a temple dedicated to Fortuna in the area between Pompeii and Puteoli; an ideal location for Encolpius to be at this stage of the novel.16 In Southern Italy, Fortuna began as a goddess of fertility, but by Petronius’ day was now also a particular patroness of sailors, thus especially likely to be found in these port towns. Through her Greek manifestation as Tyche she was also combined with Demeter, Aphrodite and Isis.17 One common iconographical depiction of Isis/ Fortuna, found both in the Bay of Naples and elsewhere, reveals her holding a

12 See Elsner 2007, 185–189. In his comparison with the Tabula, he stresses the viewer’s aporia upon entering the art gallery. 13 For Eumolpus of Eleusis, see Richardson 1974, 197–198. The decendants of Eumolpus, the Eumolpidai, were the priests who had the duty of revealing the sacred objects during the Greater Mysteries at Eleusis (such as the priest does for Lucius during the rites of Isis in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses 11). See also Simon 1983, 34. 14 See Elsner 2007, 189. 15 Elsner 2007, 193–194 notes how Eumolpus is almost as convoluted in his analysis of art as Trimalchio is on literature. 16 See Peterson 1919, 207–209. For recent work on cults of Demeter and Isis (but not specifically Fortuna, alas) in the area, see Casadio and Johnston 2009, 139–273. 17 For Fortuna in general, see Champeaux 1982, who, unfortunately for me, focuses on neither this time period nor this geographical area. For Fortuna and Isis, see Donaldson 2003, 7 and 109.

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cornucopia in one hand and a ship’s rudder in the other.18 Both symbols would correspond appropriately to the character of Eumolpus, with the already mentioned link to the Mysteries of Demeter through his name, and to the fact that he will shortly accompany Encolpius and Giton on their ill-fated sea journey to Croton. The association with a sea voyage, too, may parallel Eumolpus’ role with the priest in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, whose role it is (11.17) to pronounce the sea lanes open.19 Given Encolpius’ upcoming performance issues in the next section of the novel, echoes of Isis, Aphrodite and Cybele, all goddesses associated with Fortuna, are worth noting here as well. Encolpius’ haircut on Lichas’ ship may parallel the shaving of a recent Isis convert (like Lucius at the close of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses) just as Giton’s upcoming staged self-castration may invoke the rites of Cybele (reminiscent of Catullus 63). Furthermore, Fortuna lurks constantly in the background of most ancient novels, but is a particular presence in the Satyricon.20 She was only just recently seen as a special patroness of Trimalchio’s a few days earlier – even present in his wife’s name!21 She will also make a special appearance soon afterward (at least in the extant version left for us) with a magnified role in Eumolpus’ rendition of the Bellum Civile performed in Croton. In general, Encolpius’ ekphrasis has been compared to that of Virgil’s Aeneas and, given the later theme of Eumolpus’ recitation, this comparison seems quite reasonable.22 For Aeneas, the doors on the temple of Juno, his future enemy, started him on the path that led to the telling of the Sack of Troy and then to events beyond. It would stand to reason, then, if the parallel is to hold, that the divinity whose temple Encolpius is currently in would be of a similar significance for his upcoming adventures. Finally, having the temple dedicated to Fortuna

18 Peterson 1919, 122; Donaldson 2003, 109 19 The priest of Isis, too, appears after Lucius’ struggle with evil Fortune (11,15) and promises to banish her and replace her with a new, benevolent Fortune. 20 For Fortuna as a recurring theme in the ancient novel, see Ferguson 1970, 80; Walsh 1970, 78. For Fortuna in the Satyricon, see Connors 1998, 82–83 and Rimell 2002, 190–197. For a complete list of references to Fortuna in the Satyricon, see Rimell 2002, 206–207. It may be worth noting, too, the presence of Fortuna as an allegorical figure (blind, mad, deaf and random) in the Tabula (7). 21 For Fortuna and Trimalchio, see Rimell 2002, 193. Here, she wonders if all texts about Fortuna are really about constructed chaos, mentioning in particular the poet (be it Trimalchio at the cena, or in the big picture, Petronius) as the fate-controlling vates. She refers to Trimalchio as controller, (failed) poet and husband of Fortunata. I would take this same model of bad poet/poor controller of Fortuna and apply it to Eumolpus. 22 See Zeitlin 1971, particularly 59–60, for some interesting parallels and Slater 1990, 90 for an earlier parallel with the soldier.

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would lend a special emphasis to the final line of section 82. Immediately before the extant section of the episode begins, Encolpius says, seemingly apropos of nothing: Non multum oportet consilio credere, quia suam habet fortuna rationem – ‘There isn’t much point in putting faith in a plan, because Fortune has her own rationale’. This suggests more than anything that Fortuna herself had a hand in what happened; it just was not quite the kindly hand of salvation that a reader might have expected from the scene’s setting. Instead, the playful hand of the poet, acting as Fortuna’s agent, spins the wheel to come up with an entirely unexpected plot twist.23 Within the last century, scholars have noted (with various explanations) mystery symbols and religious rites scattered throughout the ancient novels.24 Kerenyi saw the parallels between the wanderings of Isis/Osiris, Christian aretalogies and the endlessly struggling young lovers of the typical ancient novel. Merkelbach went a step further, arguing that the novels themselves were aretalogical texts which provided hidden clues for initiates who were thus able to reach higher points of understanding if guided by the proper priestly authority. His theory, with a one-to-one ratio between text and ritual, may no longer be favor, but mystery-cult tropes or themes remain.25 Beck does well to restate these observations on mystery cult and religion in the form of a question: ‘What is it about these novels that seems to resonate so deeply with the mystery cults – and vice versa?’26 Part of the answer surely lies in the fact that the bulk of the evidence for the ancient novel coincides with the time of popularity for the mystery cults (2nd century AD), so the novels merely reflect the reality on the ground, or possibly the escapist desire of the ancient reader along with an optimistic hope

23 Connors 1998, 82–83 puts it well: ‘In the Satyricon’s prose fiction, without the narrower constraints of other literary forms, anything can happen to the characters: Petronius is fortuna in devising these fictions of chance for his literary creations.’ If the temple were indeed to be that of Fortuna and the poet’s decision to send his character on to further troubles was to be attributed to this goddess in particular, it would be particularly fitting for Petronius the author, as the anecdotal evidence describes him. According to Tacitus (Ann. 16.19), in order to get a final laugh at Nero and deny him the pleasure of ordering his death, Petronius staged his forced suicide as an accidental act of fortune – mors fortuitae similis. He was adept at making his hand and Fortuna’s seem the same. 24 For an overview of these theories, see Ruiz-Montero 2003, 76–80 and Beck 2003. 25 See footnote 4, above. Beck 2003, 144, names in particular the Aethiopica, Daphnis and Chloe and the Metamorphoses as having a ‘more thoroughgoing religious aspect.’ 26 Beck 2003, 132. See also Ruiz-Montero 2003, 78, who decides: ‘We must, then, conclude that aretalogy and the novel can indeed be linked, and that this was a given fact by the 2nd century AD.’

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for resolution.27 A temple scene would lead the audience into certain expectations of conversion and conclusion, fully realized in the controversial last book of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. At this point, the hero’s (and/or heroine’s) wandering and suffering ends and the action of the plot comes to a halt. If we can overlook the strict model whereby the novel (or at the very least, Petronius’ novel) contains a ritual code that needs to be broken, but instead imagine that it uses established tropes drawn from religion recognizable to the reader both from everyday experience and from familiar narrative pattern, we can reasonably assume that when Encolpius decides to go to a temple, the ancient audience would immediately have had a set of expectations. One goes to a temple either to give thanks for dangers averted or because one is in dire straits and needs aid – be it directly from a god or from a priestly stand-in. Encolpius, as we have seen, is clearly in the latter situation. Petronius at this point toys with the religious trope, leading Encolpius, and with him the reader, into a false sense of security and familiarity. Eumolpus, with his promising priestly name, is ultimately to be a massive spiritual disappointment. He will turn out to be the exact opposite of all the things a mystagogos or religious mentor ought to be.28 He will give none of the guidance and aid of Heliodorus’ Calasiris.29 Nor, despite some possible raised hopes, will he provide any salvation like the priest of Isis in the Metamorphoses.30 In the end, he is far more like one of the corrupt tour guides who plagued holy sites, characterized by ancient travelers as greedy fonts of misinformation. His tale of the Pergamene boy, his lament for the liberal arts and his recitation of the Troiae halosis all then

27 Ruiz-Montero 2003, 76–80. 28 For an overall analysis of Eumolpus, see Walsh 1970, 93–97 and Connors 1998, 63–86. For him as a failed priest-figure (with parallels in other works), see Elsner 2007, 188–189. Beck 2003, 140–142 mentions a trope of the god-like man as hero, sometimes parodied (as in Lucian). We may be meant to read Eumolpus through this other established parodic trope as well. 29 Beck 2003, 145. 30 In Apuleius the priest (11,12) carries both Lucius’ destiny and salvation: et fata salutemque ipsam meam gerens sacerdos approprinquat, which should give a sense of the possible stakes at hand for Encolpius here (which will be completely denied). He bears a victory crown, which Eumolpus claims to have won, but, by the end of his recitation, we realize is likely a false claim. The priest of Isis has some sort of divine knowledge, utcumque divino monitu (11,14) and is kindly. His speech (11,15), like Eumolpus’ critique of the age of the liberal arts, condemns irresponsible behavior. Then he banishes evil Fortune, whom he blames for Lucius’ troubles, whereas, as discussed above, Fortune will play an accented role in Eumolpus’ poetry, making him seem more an agent of Fortune than an adversary. Most importantly, this priest can fall silent (11,16 conticuit). Beck 2003, 132–133 rightly cautions against the casual use of the word ‘salvation’ which may imply a too-Christian meaning to modern readers.

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have ironic religious overtones when Eumolpus is reconsidered as a failed priestsubstitute. If we are indeed to consider this scene as parallel to Aeneas’ ekphrasis, the false hope of an ending offered by the temple works quite neatly to accent this connection. Just as Carthage was a possible home for Aeneas and the Trojans, but one that was just not meant to be and ultimately one that will be the cause of a great deal more suffering and wandering, so too Petronius’ temple episode here offers a false rest for the protagonist. Eumolpus, like Dido, suggests a solution, but will only provide an impetus for far worse troubles and wanderings. Zeitlin notes as part of her comparison between the two texts how Dido is the one to interrupt Aeneas’ reverie, while Eumolpus approaches Encolpius.31 For an audience member sensing this connection, this is immediately an ominous parallel for Encolpius’ future happiness. When Eumolpus tells his story of the Pergamene boy, readers can detect immediately that Eumolpus is not the ideal scholar/philosopher he sets himself out to be – nor is he an ideal companion for a jealous man such as Encolpius. There are numerous echoes of Socrates too, particularly the Socrates from Plato’s Symposium, a work just alluded to in the background of Trimalchio’s feast.32 If we consider Eumolpus as a failed priest figure, however, we get one more additional layer of irony to the comparison, since Socrates’ speech on love in the Symposium used the same language of Eleusis that Eumolpus’ name and figure evokes. In both cases, we detect a whiff of greater mysteries and in every instance Eumolpus ultimately will be unable to deliver the goods. By failing to be a good Socratic philosophical guide, he also fails at being a good priest to a spiritually needy initiate. And in both instances his failure regards the mysteries of love.33 In this tale too, Eumolpus foreshadows his later role in this scene and in the rest of the extant novel. He directly warns Encolpius and thus the readers that he is not to be trusted around pretty young boys, broadcasting clearly that there will be trouble with Giton should he become a traveling companion. He also utlilizes

31 Zeitlin 1971, 60. 32 See Courtney 2001, 138–139. Of course, there is no clear indication that Eumolpus is the tutor mentioned in this Milesian tale, but even if this is not meant to be autobiographical (as I take it), it reveals a great deal about Eumolpus’ tastes and interests and is completely consistent with his later actions with Giton and in Croton. No matter what, be it a first-hand account of seduction or a dirty joke told in a religious setting, Eumolpus undercuts his expected credibility at the outset. See Slater 1990, 94–95. 33 See, as a parallel, the opening of Leucippe and Clitophon (1,2) where the narrator notes the young man has been well initiated into Love’s mysteries. There is, of course, the suggestive trope of seduction as an intergral part of the museum experience. This adds a whole other element to the scene that could be profitably explored further. See, especially Elsner 2007.

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the same themes and even individual word choices of his upcoming poem on the Troiae halosis.34 The boy in the tale, like Troy, finally ‘opens the gates’ with the false promise of a horse. Even more specific is Eumolpus’ borrowing of religiously charged terms to describe his gifts. The word he repeatedly uses both here and in his poem for the horse is votum – more properly used of a votive offering.35 Religious imagery clings to this pseudo-priestly figure even during his role as a supposedly Socratic tutor.36 It will remain while he plays the part of a poet.37 Encolpius, seems, if anything, not suspicious, but rather aroused by this tale of anti-Socratic seduction. He is even, he says, erectus his sermonibus. The tale had exactly the wrong effect if he was hoping to become free of the body and become more spiritual; all the uplifting is happening in the wrong head. For whatever reason, this Milesian tale of the Pergamene boy even encourages Encolpius to trust Eumolpus further, as if he really was this wise guide both he and the readers have been led to expect. Erectus his sermonibus consulare prudentiorem coepi: ‘Uplifted by these tales, I began to take counsel from this rather prudent person.’ Readers at this point can slap their collective foreheads in shock at Encolpius’ blind gullibility and prepare themselves for another round of misfortune and adventure. After his lament over the tragic fall of the liberal arts, the religious overtones of which have already been mentioned, Eumolpus launches into the tragic fall of Troy.38 If Virgil was evoked in the ekphrasis of the paintings, this tale should naturally follow anyway, as it did with Aeneas, so our connection with the Aeneid is confirmed and perhaps strengthened. The image of Eumolpus as failed priest figure, however, gives this scene a new edge. He thus becomes identifiable with Laocoön, the priest who warned the Trojans of the dangers hiding within the gift horse. The story of the Pergamene boy should have sufficed to scare Encolpius off – Eumolpus couldn’t have stated more clearly what sort of person he is – but it did not. Rather the contrary. Just like the Trojans, Encolpius ignores the warnings

34 For the comparison between the tale and the poem, see Zeitlin 1971. 35 See Zeitlin 1971, 61. 36 Although I doubt the priest of Isis is meant to be taken as a parodic figure, if one reads the Metamorphoses with Eumolpus and the tale of the Pergamene boy in mind, the sections in 11,21, where Lucius is attempting to be initiated into the next round of nocturnal mysteries (petens ut me noctis sacratae tandem arcanis initiaret) but is told to be patient, the self-controlled priest (At ille, vir alioquin gravis et sobriae religionis observatione famosus) takes on new meaning. 37 Eumolpus plays many different roles. See Slater 1990, 94–95. 38 For this scene, see Sullivan 1968, 186–189; Walsh 1970, 46–48; Zeitlin 1971, 61–66; Slater 1990, 98–100. Compare the start of Daphnis and Chloe (1,1) where the narrator, gazing upon a painting, is seized with desire to respond to the painting in writing, just as Eumolpus does so here in song.

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of the priest figure. Eumolpus’ version also lingers a bit longer on the boys of Laocoön, a detail completely in line with his pederastic tendencies, although he uses a religious term not found in Virgil, camilli, to describe them.39 He also plays up Laocoön’s religious verbiage, paralleling this aspect with his own role in Petronius’ narrative.40 Impiety, what he had claimed earlier was ruining Rome, brought down Troy. The priest-figure Eumolpus warns of decadence just like his poetic double, the priest Laocoön. Likewise, just as Eumolpus had warned about how the age was overly drenched in wine and whores, so the Trojans in his poem were too overcome by drink and the other nighttime festivities to ward off the dangers they had brought into the city.41 How appropriate that Encolpius, nonetoo-fresh from his recent party at Trimalchio’s and subsequent three-day miseryfest, is equally unable to see the warnings laid out by this parody of a priest. In fact, even after the barrage of stones (substitutes, perhaps, for the snakes of Poseidon), he insists on inviting Eumolpus to dine with him that very evening and (we can reasonably suspect, given Encolpius’ lifestyle thus far) get even more drenched in wine and whores.42 He thus effectively brings in a rival for Giton’s attention that is destined to be as destructive as the horse was to the Trojans and sets off another round of adventures filled with seduction and corruption sure to be as harrowing as those undergone by Odysseus and Aeneas. By going into a temple after having hit rock bottom, Encolpius seemed ripe for revelation. Eumolpus appeared exactly at the point when a priest could have provided the needed spiritual guidance and salvation. Rather than giving him answers or aid, however, Eumolpus will only further complicate Encolpius’ life. Each episode in the temple, then, has a different significance when the religious location is taken into consideration. Furthermore, if we examine the religious overtones of the scene, we have two conflicting tropes operating at once. On the one hand, we have the priest who promises salvation and closure. On the other, we have the artistic exegete and guide, who in other novels helps provide a framework for the novel, whether it be through a story told to a narrator, or an

39 Zeitlin 1971, 63–65. 40 Zeitlin 1971, 64–65, includes several specifics; most particularly the repetition of the words votum and sacerdos and that the major reason for the sacking of Troy was the defilement of the altar. 41 Zeitlin 1971, 64. 42 Rimell 2002, 73–75 compares the stoning of Eumolpus to an audience misreading an author (as the Trojans misread the Trojan Horse and we may misread the Satyricon). So, too, does Encolpius misread Eumolpus, deserving to be caught up in the stony cross-fire. If, as Merkelbach 1994 (and others) argue (p. 284), namely that part of an aretalogy is the crowd’s amazement and awe after the telling of the tale, the crowd’s reaction to Eumolpus’ tale (stoning) is exactly the opposite of that, making this a kind of anti-aretalogy.

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aretalogy left as a religious dedication.43 Both of these expected tropes are denied here – we get neither a strong beginning (since we know very well we are midstory) nor a strong ending (since Eumolpus does not live up to any of his priestly expectations). Instead, the pervasive feeling of this particular episode, despite its false indication at the start that guidance is coming and that Fortuna is about to let go of Encolpius, is nothing more than ‘Here we go again!’. If the parallel here is, as it seems, to Aeneid 2, Encolpius (and his readers) have a long road in front of them (for I doubt that Croton is the last stop on the tour). Too bad more of the text doesn’t survive so we, too, could come along for more of the ride.44

Bibliography Beck, R. 2003. ‘Mystery Religions, Aretalogy and the Ancient Novel’, in: G. Schmeling (ed.), The Novel in the Ancient World, Boston: Brill. 131–150. Bowie, E. 2003. ‘The Ancient Readers of the Greek Novels’, in: G. Schmeling (ed.), The Novel in the Ancient World, Boston: Brill. 87–106. Burkert, W. 1987. Ancient Mystery Cults, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Casadio, G. and P. Johnston (eds.) 2009. Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia, Austin: University of Texas Press. Champeaux, J. 1982 (1987). Fortuna: Le Culte de la Fortune a Rome et dans le monde romain, I–II, Rome: Ecole Française de Rome. Connors, C. 1998. Petronius the Poet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Conte, G. 1996. The Hidden Author, Berkeley: University of California Press. Courtney, C. 2001. A Companion to Petronius, New York: Oxford University Press. Donaldson, M. 2003. The Cult of Isis in the Roman Empire, Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press. Elsner, J. 2007. Roman Eyes, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Ferguson, J. 1970. The Religions of the Roman Empire, London: Thames and Hudson. Fitzgerald, J. T. and L. M. White 1983. The Tabula of Cebes, Chico: Scholars Press. Fusillo, M. 1997. ‘How Novels End: Some Patterns of Closure in Ancient Narrative’, in: D. Roberta, F. Dunn and D. Fowler (eds.), Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature, Princeton: Princeton University Press. 209–227. Merkelbach, R. 1994. ‘Novel and Aretalogy’, in: J. Tatum (ed.), The Search for the Ancient Novel, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 283–295. Peterson, R. 1919. The Cults of Campania, Rome: American Academy in Rome. Richardson, N. J. 1974. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Oxford: Clarendon Press.

43 In fact, in the later scene in Croton that is more like an aretalogy, when Encolpius is healed by Mercury from his performance problems (140,12–13), Eumolpus no longer plays the role of priest, but is now more of a witness to the miracle. 44 I owe great thanks to Marsha McCoy, Louis Ruprecht, Diskin Clay, Niall Slater, Marília Futre Pinheiro, Roger Beck and Marilyn Skinner for their help and encouragement as this paper moved from one manifestation and/or presentation to another.

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Rimell, V. 2002. Petronius and the Anatomy of Fiction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ruden, S. 2000. Petronius: Satyricon, Indiapolis: Hackett Press. Ruiz-Montero, C. 2003. ‘The Rise of the Greek Novel’, in: G. Schmeling (ed.), The Novel in the Ancient World, Boston: Brill. 29–85. Simon, E. 1983. Festivals of Attica, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Slater, N. 1990. Reading Petronius, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. Sullivan, J. P. 1968. The Satyricon of Petronius, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Vermeule, E. 1979. Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry, Berkeley: University of California Press. Walsh, P. G. 1970. The Roman Novel, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zeitlin, F. I. 1971. ‘Romanus Petronius: A Study of the Troiae Halosis and the Bellum Civile’, Latomus 30, 56–82.

Maria S. Kasyan

The Bees of Artemis Ephesia and the Apocalyptic Scene in Joseph and Aseneth Abstract: This paper aims to demonstrate that the most enigmatic apocalyptic scene in Joseph and Aseneth involving bees and honeycomb could be explained with the help of the cult and iconography of Artemis of Ephesus (AE). Combining an analysis of mythological conceptions, archaeological evidence, historical and literary data, and Jewish Hellenistic imagery, the author comes to the following conclusions: the literary images (the bees, the heavenly honeycomb, Aseneth’s mystical inclusion in the divine sphere and her being called the ‘place of refuge’ for the chosen) reflect the ancient concept of divine bees as it is known within the Ephesian cult of Artemis. Apes enim ego divinas bestias puto, quae mel vomunt, etiam si dicuntur illud a Iove afferre. (Petr. Sat. 56,6)

An Old Testament apocrypha, Joseph and Aseneth (JosAs) has been regarded since M. Philonenko as a sui generis Greek erotic novel.1 The similarity of the general pattern of the narrative (beautiful couple both of a high social position meet each other, sudden love sickness of a misandric virgin, impediments to their union, divine intervention, happy wedding) was seen as influenced by the Greek novel. Being a love story JosAs has its own peculiarities if compared with other Greek novels: it is not only a story of the marriage of the patriarch Joseph to the Egyptian Aseneth, it is also a story of her conversion to the true God of Israel and it contains an apocalyptic vision. JosAs’ language is borrowed from the Septuagint (LXX), the characters and the events are from Genesis (Gen 41,45– 47), many exact or implicit quotations are taken from the Bible, etc. All this shows us the intersections of the various Mediterranean traditions of the Hellenistic epoch. Nevertheless there are details and symbols of the central apocalyptic scene (14–17) which are unique. This scene involves bees and a honeycomb. While a sacral honeycomb might be regarded as an analogue with the manna from Exodus (Ex 16,31: ‘like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with

1 Philonenko 1968, 43–49; esp. West 1974, 70–81.

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honey’), the presence of bees in the conversion mystery has not been fully clarified by Biblical scholars.2 The scene looks like this: after a prayer of repentance a heavenly messenger (‘the Man’) appears before Aseneth and they partake of a miraculous ‘honey comb’, which ‘was big and white as snow’. Then white bees came up from it, covered Aseneth’s body (‘and all those bees encircled Aseneth from feet to head’) and built a new comb on her mouth. However, not all the bees build the new comb, but only specific ones that were ‘great and chosen (ἐκλεκτοί), like their queens (βασίλισσαι), and they rose from the comb and encircled Aseneth’s mouth, and made upon her mouth and her lips a comb similar to the comb which was lying before the man’ (16,19–20).3 These most enigmatic images of the novel – a virgin covered by bees, wonderful bees themselves, and partaking of honey as sacramental culmination of conversion – seem to have no parallels in the Greek literary sources as well. We will try to find an explanation in a wider context, taking into account the ancient ideas about the bees and the data of the archaic Greek cults. The mythological and sacred function of bees is universal in various cultures of the Mediterranean. A hive is a natural model of a human community, like a polis, while a brood with its queen can be compared to a colonial settlement. This concept was not a Greek invention. Archaeological evidence from Asia Minor suggests that the idea of a city as a hive goes back to Neolithic cultures. The origin of bees is mysterious and inexplicable.4 Aristotle ascribes them to the group of self-engendering creatures, but he also makes reference to other opinions, namely, that bees are born ‘from flowers’ or from ‘the ruler’ (HA 553a; Pliny agrees with this, saying that apium enim coitus visus est numquam: NH 11,46); the later compilers of Aristotle and Pliny mention the miraculous origin of bees, to be more precise, their appearance from decayed carcasses of oxen, as a well-known fact (the so called bougonia; e.g., Ael. NA 2,57). At the same time, bees don’t have individual features and are not gender differentiated; their external attribute is that of an indivisible multitude, a swarm. According to Aristotle, bees belong to the group of the ‘community animals’, having a common cause (HA 488a), the structure of their community depicted in the metaphors of people and city (Ael.

2 Bees and honey in the Biblical tradition have been recently considered by the following authors: Hubbard 1997; Wong 1998; Portier-Young 2005. 3 Critical edition: Burchard 2003; English translation: Burchard 1985. 4 Bees are counted among demonic creatures such as Italic manes, Greek μύρμηκες/Μυρμιδόνες or Jewish Rephaim. On Rephaim, see Schnell 1986, 35. Detailed study of the bee mythology is to be found in Olck 1897 and Cook 1895, still among the best studies on the subject. See also Burchard 1985, 230–231 n. f2 and h2.

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NA 1,9–10). As far as honey is concerned, bees don’t produce their main product and food, but ‘it is said, that it falls out of the air’ (Arist. HA 553b). As far as bees are concerned, there is no serious disagreement between science and mythology. Thus, Virgil speaks about their mirabilis mos and miraculous self-engendering from decayed carcasses of oxen in a long etiological narration (the story of Aristaeus, Orpheus and Euridyce).5 The bees serve in the different myths as mediums between the world of the dead and that of the living,6 between gods and people, i.e. they are servants of gods and heavenly messengers. And this is not their only function. The myth about the building of the second temple of Delphi points towards bees as builders.7 They are also feeders of gods (Zeus, Dionysus and Artemis), poets, prophets; they attend to the fertility deities, and keep hidden knowledge, being in contact with oracles.8 Their food (honey) gives life or immortality and the honey they give characterizes the blissful ‘golden age’ (often in combination ‘milk and honey’). In many Greek cults and myths, bees are present in the full variety of their functions: mediating, ominous, feeding and building. We can see that the white, divine bees and the honey have the same functions in JosAs as well: For this comb is (full of the) spirit of life. And the bees of the paradise of delight have made this from the dew of the roses of life that are in the paradise of God. And all angels of God eat of it and all the chosen of God and all the sons of the Most High, because this is a comb of life, and everyone who eats of it will not die for ever (and) ever (16,14).

The miraculous snow-white bees that came up from the cells of the divine comb (‘innumerable, ten thousand ten thousand and thousand upon thousand’) had ‘wings like purple and like violet and like scarlet (stuff) and like goldwoven linen cloaks, and golden diadems on their heads’ (16,17–18).9

5 Georg. 4,197–218, 281–558. 6 See the neo-Platonic interpretation in Porph. Antr. 14–15. 7 According to Pausanias the bees built the temple with wax and bird wings (Paus. 10,5,4). This description corresponds to the natural habits of bees in building honeycombs: see SourvinouInwood 1979. 8 Cf., e.g., about Trophonios’ oracle Paus. 9,39,3; about Delphi see above; the the temple of the Ephesian Artemis was an oracle too. 9 The bees that had appeared out of the honeycomb formed two different groups. One of them intended to harm Aseneth (16,22–23). If the bees represent priests (= angels) then harmful bees would represent a group of priests opposed to Aseneth or to what she is to symbolize. We don’t know exactly to which historical group of priests (if any) the author implicitly refers, and we have only one instance of poisonous honey in the world of the ancient novel: Iamb. Bab. 74a40 (Stephens and Winkler 1995, 179–245). As a natural phenomenon poisonous honey was not

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Let’s look at the ‘chosen’ and ‘remarkably big’ bees that covered Aseneth. It is well known that a Queen-bee is the biggest bee in a colony. Aristotle (HA), Pliny (NH), and their compilers referring to the ‘leader’ of a swarm regularly call it by the masculine terms: ἡγεμών, βασιλεύς, rex.10 Feminine terms like βασίλισσαι in our text are not found in Greek sources before the first or second centuries AD.11 M. Philonenko treated the whole bee scene in JosAs and especially the virgin’s image sub specie Aegypti.12 He believed that Aseneth is a representation of Egyptian Neith (with her ‘bee-symbols’), or, to be precise, the Hellenistic combination of Neith and Athena worshipped in Sais.13 Ch. Burchard was skeptical about this and paid more attention to the tradition of Sion, the City of God described as a feminine figure. However, the Biblical tradition leaves the bee scene unexplained.14 Besides Neith of Sais, bees are also associated with Greek deities, mostly of chthonic origin. Taking into account the lack of literary sources we may try to follow similar images in the visual arts and point to another virgin covered with bees whose image was famous throughout the Mediterranean, Artemis of Ephesus (further AE), one of the Greek colony’s oldest goddesses. In Hellenistic times, AE was a more influential and powerful deity than Egyptian Neith, and I believe AE was to become Aseneth’s prototype, its, so-to-say, visual etymology. Let us follow some of the intriguing similarities between the Ionic deity and the heroine of the story. It is well known that AE had a special status among the other city deities. She was the major goddess of the polis, the city’s protective deity (she was often portrayed as bearing either a corona muralis, the city walls, or a temple on her head). A virgin Goddess with bees on her garment (bigger than the lions and bulls, which suggests a superior status) is both the defender of the city, and the City itself. Aseneth after her conversion and transformation accepts a new name: ‘… your name shall be City of Refuge, because in you many nations will take refuge

unknown to the ancients (Plin. NH 21,74–78; see Stephens and Winkler 1995, 191 n. 21), but much more important for understanding the unique atmosphere of JosAs is not simply the presence of both harmful and harmless bees, but the fact that the harmful cannot do any harm and are finally forgiven and revived. 10 Aristotle notes that these kings are sometimes called ‘mothers’ because they ‘beget ’ (HA 5, 112). 11 Bασίλεια, βασίλισσα according to Arrian (Epict. 3,22,99). ‘Bee-queen’ replaces ‘Bee-king’ considerably later (cf. Phryn. Eclogae, 197). 12 Philonenko 1968, 67–79. 13 According to Philonenko the name Aseneth means etymologically ‘belonging to the Goddess Naith’ (1968, 61–62). 14 Burchard 1985, 189.

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with the Lord God, the Most High, and under your wings many peoples trusting in the Lord God will be sheltered, and behind your walls will be guarded those who attach themselves to the Most High God in name of Repentance’ (15,7). ‘You shall be like a walled mother-city of all who take refuge with the name of the Lord God’ (16,16).15 Thus, the Egyptian priest’s daughter is transformed into the City itself and becomes the protector for all proselytes. Aseneth is compared to Biblical foremothers: ‘and she was tall (μεγάλη) as Sarah and handsome as Rebecca and beautiful as Rachel’ (1,8). One of the epithets, ‘tall’, seems here rather curious. In LXX the definitions of Rebecca and Rachel are the same as in JosAs, while the term used for Sarah (μεγάλη) in JosAs is not applied to her in LXX. In general in LXX the epithet ‘tall’ is seldom applied to women, and when it is, it is used to describe their high social position only, not their appearance (e.g. 2 Kings 4,8). On the other hand, the term is often used to refer to a city (both in LXX and NT: Gibeon, Sidon, Nineveh, Babylon etc.). Meanwhile μεγάλη, μεγίστη are well-known cultic epithets of Artemis, the main city Goddess of Ephesus.16 The divine city of Aseneth and that of AE are both cities of newcomers. A bee is stamped on the Ephesian coins of the archaic period (attested from 6th century BC)17 possibly as a sign of a colony (the swarm leaves the native hive). A new honeycomb on Aseneth’s lips can be taken as a symbol of a new community. The question of what kind of a community it could be is disputable.18 What is said explicitly is that the new convert, Aseneth, is herself a symbol of the new Jewish proselytes’ community. AE is also not only a city goddess but also the goddess who protects the refugees.19 Why is she so kind to strangers? Ephesus is one of the oldest Greek colonies in Asia Minor (dated to the beginning of the first millennium BC). It is known also that one of the collegia of AE priests was called melissai (the bees) while another was called essenes.20 Essen (Ἐσσήν) is a rare (Ionic) word which Callimachus uses for ‘king or leader’, ‘the leading one’ (Zeus is called θεῶν ἑσσῆνα ‘the essen of gods’, Call. Jov. 66) and he

15 Cf. the Biblical concept of ‘cities of refuge’ (Num 35; Josh 20,2–3; 21,13 etc.). 16 This very formula (μεγάλη ἡ Ἄρτεμις Ἐφεσίων) was used by ‘men of Ephesus’ in the argument with the Apostle Paul (Acts 19,28,34). In the inscriptions: see Engelmann 2001, 34. 17 Ephesian coins are among the earliest Greek coins; see Karwiese 1995, 99–130. 18 Bohak 1996 explains the divided swarm symbolically: the story represents the historical schismatic movements of the Maccabean period (divided priesthood). 19 Cf. Achilles Tatius 8,8,9 where Artemis is described as the only saver of those who ask her for protection. 20 On Ephesian priests, see Oikonomos 1924 and Engelmann 2001, 37.

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calls someone Μυρμιδόνων ἑσσῆνα (Call. fr. 178).21 Scholia to Callimachus explain the term as follows: ‘Essen is a regular term for “bee king”, but now it is also applied to a king of peoples.’ Bee-as-king and king-as-bee are attested elsewhere in ancient times: the Egyptian hieroglyphic representation of a bee (bjtj) means ‘King’ [Figure 1].

Fig. 1: The King as bee (as ‘potnia theron’ with two gazelles), The Egyptian scarab, XXI century BC (from: Keel O., Uehlinger Ch. Altorientalische Miniaturkunst, Frieburg, Schweiz: Univ.-Verl., 1996, 78 Abb. 102c).

Classical and Byzantine lexicographers often interpret this rare word essen in a similar way, e.g. Etym. Magnum s.v.: ‘the Ephesian word for “king” is transferred from bee king.’ But the most important meaning for us now is ‘colonist, settler’ (οἰκιστής), ‘citizen’ (πολίτης).22 It points out the fact that beside the general metaphors (bees as a nation, essen as its king and leader) in the Greek mentality the term is also associated with historical events, i.e. the Greeks’ migration to Asia Minor.23

21 Callimachus uses such a rare Ionic word probably because he knew the details of AE’s cult; cf. his Hymn to Artemis (Dian. 237–258). 22 EM, s.v. ἐσσήν. It should be noted also here that βασιλεύς was an Ephesian priest title: see Karwiese 1995, 43 n. 175. The etymology of essēn is unclear. This word could be of Phrygian or Lydian origin: see Engelmann 2001, 37; on the Asia Minor background see also Morris 2001, 135– 138. I should like to thank Prof. V. Tsimbursky for his valuable suggestion (personal conversation) regarding a possible affinity of Ionic essēn and Hittite išha (acc. išhan) ‘lord, master’. 23 See Cook 1895, 13 n. 97. Ephesus had probably a so-called ‘quarter of refuge’: unlike other Ionic cities, Hellenistic Ephesus had 5 (not 4) phyla, the extra one being reserved for newcomers (Jews among them). The Jewish community probably constitutes one of its chiliastyes (see Ramsay 1904, chap. 17).

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The great bee-goddess AE being the queen of the ‘hive-city’ or polis open to newcomers has her own leader-servants, the Essenes, the cultic kings of archaic tradition. She was the queen of her people who had a strict social hierarchy reflecting the universal religious and mythological imagery of Anatolian (or Cretan) antiquity. In our apocrypha Aseneth is also the city of refuge for the pious citizens and has priests-citizens, the God’s people represented by bees around her. Essenes lived ritually pure lives and had a special cultic function, as attested in epigraphic material from Ephesus and literary sources.24 Pausanias (8,13,1–2) compares the rule of life of Ephesian Essenes to that of the servitors of Artemis Hymnia in Orchomenus: The Mantineans there [in Orchomenus] have a priestess and a priest. It is a custom for them to live their whole lives in purity, not only sexual but in all respects, and they neither wash nor spend their lives as ordinary people do; nor do they enter private persons’ homes. I know that the hestiatores of the Ephesian Artemis live in a similar fashion, but for a year only, the Ephesians calling them Essenes.

The inscriptions from Ephesus often mention ‘the two essenia’.25 It is possible to suppose that their two duties were: 1) preparing a sacred meal for the goddess and serving food for worshippers during the goddess’s feast; 2) housing newcomers or ‘immigrants’. The latter duty may well have been inherited from the first settlers. If we assume this, the semantic development of the word in question seems very natural: from the self-designation of the first settlers, the colonial nobility so to say, to an appellative applied to the priests of the major local cult. Some services probably involved kinds of magic ritual including initiation, during which the goddess herself gave oracles.26 Artemis in Ephesus is usually portrayed as ‘Mistress of Animals’, a standing goddess flanked by two sacred animals [Figure 2]. Since bees are her servants, she has bees in her garment as well [Figures 3 and 4]. The word kosmos (the general term for statue apparel in inscriptions) was used to refer to her cultic garment (ependytos).27 The wardrobe of AE is evidently exclusive. Many Greek goddesses have some special attributes like the helm of Athena, for instance. But no one has a sacred vestment of such a complex and recognisable appearance. Its most remarkable feature is called polymastia. Among the many ways to understand this feature, I suggest we regard the bulbs on her breast as the cocoons of the king-

24 See Oikonomos 1924; also Engelmann 2001. 25 E.g. IvE 1582b; Oikonomos 1924, 336–339. On the Ephesian mysteries in general, see also Portefaix 1999, esp. 613. 26 See Engelmann 2001, 37. 27 Engelmann 2001, 38–39.

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bees = essenes (see below, Appendix). I propose that Ephesian essenes give us a key both to the garments of AE and the image of Aseneth. In our apocrypha the garment of the heroine is of great importance. When Aseneth meets Joseph for the first time, she is dressed as a noble Egyptian lady: ‘and dressed in a (white) linen robe interwoven with violet and gold, and girded herself (with) a golden girdle and put bracelets on her hands and feet, and put golden buskins (anaxyrides) about her feet, and around her neck she put valuable ornaments (kosmon polytimon) and costly stones which hung around from all sides, and the names of the gods of the Egyptians were engraved everywhere on the bracelets and the stones, and the faces of all the idols were carved on them. And she put a tiara on her head and fastened a diadem around her temples, and covered her head with a veil’ (3,5). Thus described, Aseneth may be an allusion to the famous Anatolian goddess, to AE. Four times Aseneth changes her clothes and each change symbolizes the stages of her transformation. It should be noted that Aseneth’s outfit is called kosmos (2,4; 10,8; 14,14; 18,5), just like AE’s apparel. To summarize the parallels of AE and Aseneth, I would like to stress the following points. We encounter the feeding function of mythic bees both in JosAs and in the Ephesian cult. Honey is sacral food in JosAs and has a heavenly origin: ‘For this comb is (full of the) spirit of life. And the bees of the paradise of delight have made this from the dew of the roses of life that are in the paradise of God. And all angels of God eat of it and all the chosen of God and all the sons of the Most High, because this is a comb of life, and everyone who eats of it will not die for ever (and) ever’ (16,14). Essenes in Ephesus had their special function: to prepare the meal for the goddess and her guests at the annual feasts.28 In JosAs sacral food is a symbol of immortality presented in literature, in AE a part of actual ancient ritual. Artemis and Aseneth are parallel images not only because of bees. One is a goddess, another is a divine creature after her conversion. The tower chambers, Aseneth’s private quarters that she never leaves, have temple features (idols and sacrifices) and from the time of her birth seven maids are there to serve her (JosAs 2). The crowded temple of Artemis in Ephesus is a home for the goddess’ servants (both essenes and melissai), who stay there for the duration of their service. Bees in myth represent chastity,29 Aseneth and AE are chaste virgins, and the chastity of the Ephesian goddess’ priests is attested by Pausanias.30 So

28 Oikonomos 1924, 333–336. 29 See the notion of their chastity in the works describing real bees: Arist. HA 1,12; Colum. De r. rust. 9,14,3. 30 Paus. 8,13,1–2.

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we can see that the functions of mythic bees coincide with the functions of bees in JosAs and of Ephesian priests. Combining an analysis of mythological conceptions, archaeological evidence, historical and literary data, and Jewish Hellenistic imagery we come to the following conclusions: the literary images (the bees, heavenly honeycomb, Aseneth’s mystical inclusion in the divine sphere and her being called the ‘place of refuge’ for the chosen) reflect the ancient concept of divine bees as it is known within the Ephesian cult of Artemis. Although we do not know AE’s cultic practices in every detail, it is clear that her cult involved elements of mystery and her bee-priests were rooted in the same mythic idea. The intersections of the Ephesian cult and the Judeo-Hellenistic apocrypha evoke a further comparison of Ephesian realia with Judeo-Hellenistic realia. Gideon Bohak sees, like M. Philonenko, in chapters 14–17 of JosAs in the bee scene the key to the novel, but he uncovered the similarity between divine bees in the novel and the Jerusalem Temple’s priests.31 That means that bees in JosAs represent priests as well as angels in the celestial sphere. The parallel with Ephesian essenes seems to confirm Bohak’s hypothesis, because essenes in Ephesus are priests and bees. Bees as builders create a new comb that is symbolical of a new community and city in JosAs, as essenes in Ephesus give places to new citizens, and thus their role would be to organize the polis. It was already observed that essenes (Lat. esseni), the name of the Judaic community of Qumran, is not Semitic, but Greek in its origin, and that it was transferred from the famous Ephesus priests to the Palestinian community (or communities) in the Greek-speaking environment.32 The transfer is supposed to have taken place on Greek soil and via unidentified literary source became known to Pliny, Philo and Joseph Flavius.33 But this explanation, exceeding the limits of the Semitic languages,34 was not supported by modern Hebraic scholars. To support this hypothesis we propose to examine the problem in question not so much from the linguistic point of view as from that of the imagery. We suggest that essene as a bee king, essene as a priest of Artemis, and essene as a member of a Judean community are not accidental homonyms (as they are usually represented in many dictionaries). The transference of the name of the Ephesian community to the Palestinian one became possible thanks to the semantics of bee-life and the bee-like priesthood, because both Qumranites and essenes re-

31 Bohak 1994, 4. 32 See Jones 1985; esp. Kampen 1986; 1988, 151–185; 2003. 33 Plin. NH 10,5,4; Philo Quod omnis prob. 12,76; De vita contempl. 1; Apol. Iud., 198 (ap. Eusebium Praepar. Euang. 8.11–18); J. AJ 13,171; 18,11; BJ 2,119; Vit. 2. 34 See e.g. Anchor Bible Dictionary, II, 619–620.

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garded themselves as priestly peoples with similar features of ritual and chaste lives. And the white bees like angels or heavenly priests in the Jewish-Hellenistic narrative JosAs give us an additional argument. The metaphor here goes back to the image of the bee community as an ideal community in general. However, it would be reasonable to ask why the author of JosAs made his heroine, who rejected pagan gods, so similar to the pagan goddess? Egyptian Aseneth appears before Joseph with her complete kosmos looking like an idol, and so he rejects her. Aseneth’s idol-like appearance symbolizes her old pagan rule of life. But not only is pagan Aseneth similar to the idol, but also, when she is transformed, she acquires the features of the most powerful goddess of the pagan world. She is covered with divine white bees and her kosmos is now symbolical. Thus, the story about Joseph and Aseneth, directed to the Jewish diaspora, uses a well-known image to demonstrate how paganism can be transformed into the righteous monotheism of a different religious society, a society desperate to defend its religious uniqueness in the pagan environment. Artemis of Asia Minor was worshipped far from Ephesus and became one of the main symbols of Greco-Roman paganism for Jews and later for Christians.35 If our hypothesis is correct, we may conclude that the image of AE was used for the story of conversion in order to show the turning to the true God not merely by a heathen but also by a powerful pagan goddess.

35 See Acts 19,24–40; also Passio of Galaction and Epistima 3; Acts of John.

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Fig. 2: Artemis Ephesia (Fleischer 1973, Taf. 40).

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Fig. 3a, 3b: Artemis Ephesia (Fleischer 1973, Taf. 7; 13).

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Fig. 4: Artemis Ephesia (Fleischer 1981, Taf. 60).

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Fig. 5: Artemis Ephesia (Fleischer 1973, Taf. 33).

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Fig. 6: Artemis Ephesia (Fleischer 1973, Taf. 44).

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Fig. 7: Artemis Ephesia (Fleischer 1973, Taf. 11).

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Fig. 8: Zeus of Labraunda (Fleischer 1973, Taf. 138).

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Fig. 9: Cybele (Fleischer 1973, Taf. 58).

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Appendix: Artemis ‘polymastos’ The most remarkable feature of the plentiful replicas of Artemis of Ephesus’ cultic statues with rich animalistic ornaments is, of course, her so-called polymastia – the curious pendants, the bunch of breast-like ‘bulbs’. I suggest that the bees might offer the long-sought explanation of AE’s iconography. R. Fleischer, who studied Anatolian Artemis and her images, rejects the widely accepted interpretation of these ‘bulbs’ as ‘breasts’, and says that this iconographic feature is ambiguous,36 because: 1) In too many cases, this ‘bunch’ is located under the breast line [Figures 4, 5, 6]. 2) ‘Two-color’ statues demonstrate that the ‘pendants’ belong to the garment, not to the body. This can be best observed when the head, arms and feet made of black stone contrast with the attire carved from light marble [Figures 4, 7]. 3) Similar ‘decoration’ is found on the image of Zeus of Labraunda [Figure 8]. It is also present on statues of Cybele, a goddess that AE merged with in later Hellenistic tradition. There ‘the pendants’ have similar, though more stylized, shape [Figure 9]. I would also like to point out an important piece of lexical evidence. The epithet widely applied to AE in scholarly and popular literature, i.e. ‘multibreasted’, πολύμαστος, multimammia, seems to be completely unknown to classical authors. Neither is it found in standard dictionaries, or in Greek and Latin texts prior to Jerome, or after him except for those who quoted him.37 This decorative element of AE’s statues relates directly to her bee-goddess title.38 Bees cover the goddess on the flanks from her head down to the lower edge of her vestment. Their number may vary, while their size exceeds that of horses, goats, or bulls, which points to bees’ high symbolic status and the conventionality of the dimensions. These considerations allow me to assume that ‘the bunch’ on the front part of AE’s statues represents cocoons of King/Queen bees, the servants of the Great Goddess, i.e. the essenes, priests of her Anatolian cult. As for the beeKings’/Queens’ cocoons in nature, they are white and are located (as was ob-

36 Fleischer 1973, 87–88; the same opinion was also expressed in 1984 and 1999, 605–609. 37 Jer. In Eph., prol.; probably Jerome borrowed this image from Minucius Felix who derides the unnatural features of pagan idols: Oct. 22,5 Diana … Ephesia mammis multis et uberibus extructa, ‘Diana … as the Ephesian has many and fruitful breasts’. 38 Sir W. M. Ramsay (1927, 81–83) was the only one who assumed that the ‘bulbs’ may have something to do with bees. He believed that they were symbolic representations of working bee cocoons (according to him, essenes were drone-bees). C. Seltman in his excellent paper criticized Ramsay’s point of view and proposed his own interesting interpretation (Seltman 1952).

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served already by Aristotle) in a special place in a hive (‘hanging below the comb’, HA 5,113), usually in a group of six or seven, as beekeepers confirm [Figure 10].

Fig. 10: The Bee-Queens’ cocoons (inside the hive).

Bibliography Aptowitzer, V. 1924. ‘Aseneth, the Wife of Joseph: A Haggadic Literary-Historical Study’, Hebrew Union College Annual 1, 239–306. Bohak, G. 1994. Joseph and Aseneth and the Jewish Temple at Heliopolis, Diss. Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. Bohak, G. 1996. Joseph and Aseneth and the Jewish Temple in Heliopolis (Early Judaism and Its Literature 10), Atlanta GA: Scholars Press. Burchard, C. 1985. ‘Joseph and Aseneth: A New Translation and Introduction’, in: James H. Charleworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha II, Garden City, NY: Doubleday. 177–247. Burchard, C. 1996. ‘Ein vorläufiger griechischer Text von Joseph und Aseneth’, in: Gesammelte Studien zu Joseph und Aseneth (Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha 13), Leiden: Brill. 161–209. Burchard, C. (ed.) 2003. Joseph und Aseneth (critical edition), Leiden: Brill. Cook, A. B. 1895. ‘The Bee in Greek Mythology’, JHS 15, 1–24. Elderkin, G. W. 1939. ‘The Bee of Artemis’, AJPh 60, 203–213. Engelmann, H. 2001. ‘Inschriften und Heiligtum’, in: U. Muss (ed.), Der Kosmos der Artemis von Ephesos, Vienna: Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut. 33–44. Fleischer, R. 1973. Artemis von Ephesos und verwandte Kultstatuen aus Anatolien und Syrien, Leiden: Brill.

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Fleischer, R. 1984. ‘Artemis Ephesia’, LIMC II.1, 755–763. Fleischer, R. 1999. ‘Neues zum Kultbild der Artemis von Ephesos’, in: H. Friesinger and F. Krinzinger (eds.), 100 Jahre österreichische Forschungen in Ephesos: Akten des Symposions Wien 1995, Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. 605–609. Hubbard, M. 1997. ‘Honey for Aseneth: Interpreting a Religious Symbol’, Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 16, 97–110. Jones, A. H. 1985. Essenes, the Elect of Israel and the Priests of Artemis, Lanham: University Press of America. Kampen, J. 1986. ‘A Reconsideration of the Name Essene in Greco-Jewish Literature in Light of Recent Perceptions of the Qumran Sect’, HebrUCA 57, 61–81. Kampen, J. 1988. The Hasideans and the Origin of Pharisaism: A Study in 1 and 2 Maccabees (Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint and Cognate Studies Series), Atlanta: Scholars Press. Kampen, J. 2003. ‘The Cult of Artemis and the Essenes in Syro-Palestine’, Dead Sea Discoveries 10.2, 205–220. Karwiese, S. 1995. Die Münzprägung von Ephesos. Bd. 1: Die Anfänge, die ältesten Prägungen und der Beginn der Münzprägung überhaupt, Vienna: Böhlau. MacInnes, D. 2000. ‘Dirum ostentum: Bee Swarm Prodigies at Roman Military Camps’, in: C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History 10, Brussels: Latomus. 56–69. Morris, S. P. 2001. ‘The Prehistoric Background of Artemis Ephesia’, in: U. Muss (ed.), Der Kosmos der Artemis von Ephesos, Vienna: Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut. 135–150. Oikonomos, G. 1924. ‘Naopoioi kai Essenes’, Archailogikon Deltion 7, 258–346. Olck, F. 1897. ‘Biene’, RE III.I, 446–450. Philonenko, M. 1968. Joseph et Aséneth: Introduction, texte critique, traduction, et notes (Studia Post Biblica), Leiden: Brill. Portefaix, L. 1999. ‘The Image of Artemis Ephesia: A Symbolic Configuration Related to Her Mysteries?’ in: H. Friesinger and F. Krinzinger (eds.), 100 Jahre österreichische Forschungen in Ephesos. Akten des Symposions, Wien 1995, Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. 611–615. Portier-Young, Anathea E. 2005. ‘Sweet Mercy Metropolis: Interpreting Aseneth’s Honeycomb’, JSP 14.2, 133–157. Ramsay, W. M. 1904. The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, London: Hodder and Stoughton. Ramsay, W. M. 1927. The Asianic Elements in Greek Civilization, reprint 1969 New York: Ams Press. Schnell, R. F. 1986. ‘Rephaim’, The Interpreter’s Dictionary of The Bible 4, 34–35 (reprint Nashville: Abingdon). Seltman, C. 1952. ‘The Wardrobe of Artemis’, NC 12, 33–44. Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 1979. ‘The Myth of the First Temples at Delphi’, CQ 29, 231–251. Stephens, S. A. and J. J. Winkler (eds.) 1995. Ancient Greek Novels: The Fragments, Princeton: Princeton University Press. West, S. 1974. ‘Joseph and Aseneth: a Neglected Greek Romance’, CQ 24, 70–81. Wong, Fook-Kong. 1998. Manna Revisited: A Study of the Mythological and Interpretative Contexts of Manna, Diss. Harvard Univ.

Magic, Comic Reversal and Healing

R. Drew Griffith

Shamans and Charlatans: Magic, Mixups, Literary Memory in Apuleius’ Golden Ass Book 3 Abstract: Regine May has argued that throughout the Golden Ass Lucius is a comic parasite, the fitting side-kick to the miles gloriosus whom he meets in 9,39. Accepting this, I argue that there is an even more important incompetent boaster with whom Lucius-as-parasite is paired in the novel, namely Photis. I further argue that she is descended from the alazon or ‘quack’ of Attic Old Comedy, that genus of which the miles gloriosus is one species. What mediates Old Comedy for Apuleius is Plato, whose Socrates was the master ironist, exposing the alazon’s hollowness and rescuing the community from his pretensions. In her recent study of Apuleius’ Golden Ass, Regine May has argued that throughout the novel, Lucius plays the comic role of parasite, and notes that as such he is the fitting side-kick to the miles gloriosus whom he meets in 9,39 and the two cooks who buy him in 10,13.1 I accept May’s analysis, and will argue that there is an even more important pairing of Lucius-as-parasite with an incompetent boaster earlier in the novel.

I In order to do this, I must situate Lucius-as-parasite in the context of a theory of ancient humor that Robert B. Marks and I have developed in our recent book, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Agora. While immediately inspired by some fascinating remarks by Jan Bremmer on jokes, jokers and jokebooks in ancient Greek culture,2 our theory finds its ultimate roots in A. J. Greimas’ actantial analysis of narrative. As you may recall, Greimas boils down the activities of characters in any narrative into six possible categories, which he calls ‘actants’, namely sender, object, receiver, helper, subject and hinderer.3

1 May 2006, 144. 2 Bremmer 1997, passim. 3 Greimas 1966, 180.

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I believe that our theory of ancient humor has in common with Greimas’ narrative actants the virtue of simplicity and hence the capacity for broad application, while at the same time avoiding – if by a narrow margin – the vice of mere vacuity. We start from the simple notion that humans find themselves, in Greco-Roman eyes, sandwiched between the gods above (separated from them by the death that is inevitable for us mortals) and animals below (who lack the human capacity for social interaction maintained by our sense of modesty and justice). Tragedy always involves hubris, which comes about whenever a human tests the former boundary. Comedy, by contrast, and indeed humor in general whether onstage or off, arises when a human person breaks the other boundary and becomes animal-like by trying to get something for nothing (that is, unjustly) without caring who sees him do it (that is, immodestly). As Marks and I put it in the book, ‘Through trying to get something for nothing, and thereby preventing everyone from getting his due, a man becomes a flatterer, causing a chain-reaction that brings into being … the quack, the sucker and the ironist.’4 The most common venue for the parasite’s activities is sympotic or convivial, starting with the arrival of an uninvited guest, who disturbs the order of a ‘wellbalanced feast’ – after all the word ‘parasite’ literally describes someone who is ‘beside another’s food’. In light of the frequently humorous consequences of such mooching, we could, with an ironist’s fausse naiveté, derive the noun comedia from the verb com-edere. This chain reaction takes various forms in different contexts. Let me give just two examples from Latin literature before Apuleius. The first is Catullus’ poem ten, in which Varus and his girlfriend egg the poet on to claim that he acquired litter-bearers in Bithynia. They are flatterers; under their influence he has become a fraudulent quack. Then the girlfriend simply asks (quaeso, line 25, would be in Greek eromai, which is the etymological origin of the word ‘irony’) if she can take them for a spin. This simple question exposes Catullus’ deception, so that he becomes a sucker, losing face by having to admit he has lied: Varus me meus ad suos amores uisum duxerat… ……………………………………… huc ut uenimus, incidere nobis sermones uarii, in quibus, quid esset iam Bithynia, quo modo se haberet, et quonam mihi profuisset aere.

4 Griffith and Marks 2011a, 146.

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respondi id quod erat, nihil neque ipsis nec praetoribus esse nec cohorti. ………………………………………. ‘at certe tamen,’ inquiunt ‘quod illic natum dicitur esse, comparasti ad lecticam homines.’ ego, ut puellae unum me facerem beatiorem, ‘non’ inquam ‘mihi tam fuit maligne, ut… non possem octo homines parare rectos.’ at mi nullus erat nec hic neque illic, fractum qui ueteris pedem grabati in collo sibi collocare posset. hic illa, ut decuit cinaediorem, ‘quaeso’ inquit ‘mihi, mi Catulle, paulum istos commoda: nam uolo ad Serapim deferri.’ ‘mane,’ inquii puellae, ‘istud quod modo dixeram me habere, fugit me ratio: meus sodalis – Cinna est Gaius – is sibi parauit. uerum, utrum illius an mei, quid ad me? utor tam bene quam mihi pararim….’

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My Varus took me to see his girlfriend. ………………………………………………. When we got there, there came to us various topics of conversation, among which, what Bithynia was like now, how people were making out, and how much money I’d cleared. I told it like it is: nothing came to the governors themselves, or their staff. …………………………………………………. ‘But surely even so,’ they said, ‘you bought what they say is a specialty there: men for your litter.’ So that in front of the girl I might seem one of the luckier ones, I said, ‘Things weren’t so bad for me, …………………………………………………. that I wasn’t able to get eight men – sturdy ones.’ (Though I had no-one either here or there who could lift onto his shoulder the broken leg of a camp-cot.) At this, like the little Sodomite she was, she said, ‘I beg you, dear Catullus, loan those men a while, for I want to be carried to Serapis’ temple.’ ‘Wait!’ I said to the girl:

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‘That thing I said just now I have – I wasn’t thinking. My companion, Cinna, I mean Gaius – he got them for himself But whether his or mine, what do I care? I use them as often as if I’d bought them myself ….’

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We see a different, and indeed more typical, deployment of these humorous ‘actants’ in the Cena Trimalchionis episode of Petronius’ Satyricon. Let us consider especially chapter 72. Here the toady Habinnas has persuaded Trimalchio to rehearse his own funeral, and so enjoy the eulogies and lamentations of his ‘grieving’ friends while still alive. By following this eccentric suggestion, Trimalchio puts out his guests, who being every bit as much moochers as Habinnas, cannot but play along. They become the suckers in this scenario, and by the time Trimalchio proposes a trip to the calidarium, our narrator Encolpius is at the end of his rope. Ascyltus then steps in with a down-to-earth, and therefore ironic, remedy to save them both from the whims of their overbearing host: haec ut dixit Trimalchio, flere coepit ubertim. flebat et Fortunata, flebat et Habinnas, tota denique familia, tanquam in funus rogata, lamentatione triclinium impleuit … cum Trimalchio ‘ergo’ inquit ‘cum sciamus nos morituros esse, quare non uiuamus? Sic uos felices uideam, coniciamus nos in balneum, meo periculo, non paenitebit. sic calet tanquam furnus.’ … ego respiciens ad Ascylton ‘quid cogitas?’ inquam ‘ego enim si uidero balneum, statim expirabo’. ‘assentemur’ ait ille ‘et dum illi balneum petunt, nos in turba exeamus’. As he said these things, Trimalchio began to weep buckets. Fortunata was weeping, Habinnas was weeping, finally the whole household, as though called to a funeral, filled the dining-room with keening… when Trimalchio said, ‘Well then, since we know that we’ve got to die, why not live? As I would see you happy, let’s rush into the bath. On my honour, you won’t regret it: it’s hot as a furnace.’ … I looked at Ascyltus and said, ‘what do you think? As for me, if I see a bath, I’ll die on the spot.’ ‘Let’s say “yes”,’ he said, ‘and while those people are heading for the bath, we’ll slip out in the crowd.’

II Armed with this brief theoretical introduction, let us now turn to Apuleius’ novel itself. Unlike his Petronian precursors, Encolpius and Ascyltus, Apuleius’ hero, Lucius has the bad luck to fall in with a host who is a quack alright, but the worst possible sort from a moocher’s perspective. He is as impervious to flattery as he is ignorant of the rudiments of hospitality. He is, in fact, the loner in his most vicious

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form: the skinflint or tightwad. Consider Metamorphoses 1,21–22, in which Lucius asks the first person he meets in Hypata if she knows Milo, and so learns for the first time about his future host: ‘nostine Milonem quendam e primoribus?’ adrisit et: ‘uere,’ inquit, ‘primus istic perhibetur Milo, qui extra pomerium et urbem totam colit.’ ‘remoto’, inquam, ‘ioco, parens optima, dic oro et cuiatis sit et quibus deuersetur aedibus?’ ‘uidesne’, inquit, ‘extremas fenestras, quae foris urbem prospiciunt, et altrinsecus fores proxumum respicientes angiportum? inibi iste Milo deuersatur ampliter nummatus et longe opulentus, uerum extremae auaritiae et sordis infimae infamis homo, foenus denique copiosum sub ar|rabone auri et argenti crebriter exercens, exiguo Lare inclusus et aerugini semper intentus, cum uxore〈m〉 etiam calamitatis suae comite 〈m〉 habeat. neque praeter unicam pascit ancillulam et habitu mendicant[h]is semper incedit.’ …. Intuli me eumque accubantem exiguo admodum grabatulo et commodum cenare incipientem inuenio. assidebat pedes uxor et mensa uacua || posita, cuius monstratu ‘en’ inquit ‘hospitium.’ ‘Do you know a certain Milo among your first citizens?’ She laughed and said, ‘Truly, this Milo of yours could be called “first”, who lives outside the boundary and the whole city.’ ‘Joking aside, Granny’ I said, ‘Tell me, I beg you, what part of town is he in, and where does he live?’ She said, ‘Do you see the windows in the distance that look out on the city and on the other side doors giving onto the nearby alley? There this Milo of yours lives, amply coined and very rich, but an infamous man of extreme stinginess and lowest filth, frequently working his abundant capital under loans of gold and silver, shut up in a tiny house, and always intent on his avarice while he has a wife indeed as the companion of his disaster. And he feeds no more than one little slave-girl and always goes around in the clothing of a beggar.’ … I brought myself in and found [Milo] lying on a rather tiny little couch, and just starting to eat. His wife was sitting at his feet, and an empty table was set out. Gesturing to it, he said, ‘Behold our hospitality!’

A sponge can tell promising from unlikely hosts, and Lucius, seeing immediately that flattery will be wasted on Milo, follows his brown nose elsewhere. His first attempt to fawn in the novel is on his former fellow-student Pythias, whom he meets by chance in the market, where he has just bought fish for his dinner (1,24–25): ‘Sed quid istud? uoti gaudeo. nam et lixas et uirgas et habitum prorsus magistratui congruentem in te uideo.’ ‘annonam curamus’, ait, ‘et aedilem gerimus et siquid obsonare cupis, utique commodabimus. … Iam iam’, inquit, ‘nec amicis quidem nostris uel omnino ullis hospitibus parcitis, quod tam magnis pretiis pisces friuolos indicatis et florem Thessalicae regionis ad instar solitudinis et scopuli edulium caritate deducitis? sed non | impune. iam enim faxo scias, quem ad modum sub meo magisterio mali debea〈nt〉 coherceri’ – et profusa in medium

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sportula iubet officialem suum insuper pisces inscendere ac pedibus suis totos obterere. qua contentus morum seueritudine meus Pythias ac mihi, ut [h]abirem, suadens: ‘sufficit mihi, o Luci’, inquit, ‘seniculi tanta haec contumelia.’ His actis consternatus ac prorsus obstupidus || ad balneas me refero prudentis condiscipuli ualido consilio et nummis simul priuatus et cena lautusque ad hospitium Milonis ac dehinc cubiculum me reporto. ‘What’s this?’ [Lucius asks,] ‘I rejoice at your luck. For I see by your followers, rods and clothing you must be a magistrate.’ ‘We oversee the price of grain,’ said [Pythias], ‘and play the aedile, and if you desire to buy provisions, by all means we will oblige. …’ [Turning to the fish-seller] ‘Now, now,’ he said, ‘do you spare neither our friends nor even any guests that you label paltry fish with such great prices and reduce the flower of the Thessalian region to the level of the desert or searocks by the cost of your food? Well not without punishment! Soon enough you’ll know what I’ll do; how bad men will be restrained under my magistracy!’ And, having poured out my basket in our midst, he orders his official to jump onto the fish and crush them all with his feet. Happy with this severity, by way of dismissing me, my Pythias said, ‘Lucius, I think you’ll agree this is enough abuse for the little old man.’ Confused and absolutely stunned by these events, I take myself to the baths on the good advice of my thoughtful fellow-student, and deprived of my coins at the same time as my dinner, once having bathed, I bring myself to Milo’s house and so to bed.

Lucius’ flattery in this passage has the typical effect of turning Pythias into a quack: so eager is the young aedile to show off his newly acquired authority that he destroys Lucius’ dinner. It is symptomatic of the quack that his ultracrepidarian favors leave you worse off than you were before, rather like Trimalchio’s offer of an after-dinner bath. Character-development is not Lucius’ forte, and slow to learn from his experience with Pythias, he proceeds in the next book to butter up the slave-girl, Photis. He ought to have known better, for when he comes upon her, she is cooking. While cooks are less prominent in Roman comedy than Greek,5 they are still a menace. Their salient feature is boastfulness,6 and Photis lives up to this trait (2,7): et tandem ad illam: ‘quam pulchre quamque festiue’, inquam, ‘Fotis mea, ollulam istam cum natibus intorques. quam mellitum pulmentum apparas. felix et 〈certo〉 certius beatus, cui permiseris illuc digitum intingere.’ Tunc illa lepida alioquin et dicacula puella: ‘discede’, inquit, ‘miselle, quam procul a meo foculo, discede. nam si te uel modice meus igniculus afflauerit, ureris intime nec ullus extinguet ardorem tuum nisi ego, quae dulce condiens et ollam et lectulum suaue quatere noui.’

5 But see Lowe 1985. 6 Wilkins 2000, passim.

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Finally I said to her, ‘How beautifully and with what zest, my Photis, you stir your little pot along with your buttocks! What a sweet stew you’re making! Blessed and happy he whom you let dip his finger there!’ Then that clever little chatterbox said, ‘Get back, you wretch, as far as you can from my grill, get back, for if my spark blows on you even a little, you’ll burn within, and no-one will put out your fire but I, who know with sweet seasonings a pleasant way to stir both pot and bed.’

The Festival of Risus (3,1–11) seems a deliberately planned practical joke, yet depends for its success on an unforeseeable coincidence: that Photis has substituted goat-hair for human in her mistress’ love-magic (3,17), so making Lucius slay something other than the human beings he imagines. This deliberate substitution born of desperation foreshadows the accidental mixup of two jars of potion that will inadvertently transform Lucius into an ass, giving the novel its central plot-twist (3,24). This gross error over the magic recipe gives the lie to Photis’ boast about knowing how dulce cond[ere] … ollam. (She errs a third time when she fails to put roses in Lucius’ room as usual; 3,25). For these very good reasons, Lucius should have been wary. Yet he proceeds to flatter her further in order first to spy on, and then actually to experience, magic transformation into an owl (3,19–25): ‘quamquam mihi nec ipsa tu uideare rerum rudis uel expers. scio istud et plane sentio, cum semper alioquin spretorem matronalium amplexuum sic tuis istis micantibus oculis et rubentibus bucculis et renidentibus crinibus et hiantibus osculis et fraglantibus papillis in ser|uilem modum addictum atque mancipatum teneas volentem. … ‘oro te’, inquam, … ‘impertire nobis unctulum indidem per istas tuas papillas, mea mellitula, tuumque mancipium inremunerabili beneficio sic tibi perpetuo pignera ac iam perfice, ut meae Veneri Cupido pinnatus adsistam tibi.’ …. Haec identidem adseuerans summa cum trepidatione inrepit cubiculum et pyxidem depromit arcula. quam ego amplexus | ac deosculatus prius utque mihi prosperis faueret uolatibus deprecatus abiectis propere laciniis totis auide manus immersi et haurito plusculo uncto corporis mei membra perfricui. … ac dum salutis inopia cuncta corporis mei considerans non auem me, sed ASINUM uideo, querens de facto Fotidis, sed iam humano gestu simul et uoce priuatus, quod solum poteram, postrema deiecta labia, umidis tamen oculis oblicum respiciens ad illam tacitus expostulabam. ‘You don’t seem unskilled or untrained in these things to me. I know it and feel it deeply, since you can so hold me – I, who always before have spurned married women’s embraces – as a devotee, willingly delivered up like a slave to these, your sparkling eyes, and rosy cheeks, and glistening hair, and open-mouthed kisses and perfumed breasts. … I beg you,’ I said,… ‘by those breasts of yours, share with me a little ointment from the same place, my little sweetie, and accept and now make me your property by a perpetual benefit irreparable to you, so that I might stand a winged Cupid by you, my Venus.’ …

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Agreeing to these things repeatedly, with the greatest hesitation she crept into the bedroom and brought out the box from its chest. Once I had first hugged and kissed it, and had prayed that it would be my companion in propitious flights, I quickly cast off every stitch of my clothes, eagerly immersed my hands, and, having taken up a little ointment, rubbed all my limbs. … And considering my body’s subsequent helplessness, I saw that I was not a bird, but a DONKEY, and wanting to complain about Photis’ deed, but being now deprived at once of human gesture and voice, all I could do was droop my lower lip, look at her sideways with moist eyes, and keep silently rebuking her.

When Photis’ owl-spell spectacularly backfires, she shows herself a quack in one of its various guises, namely the Zauberlehrling or sorcerer’s apprentice, who proves that ‘a little Learning is a dang’rous Thing’ by knowing just enough magic to cause a disaster.

III Here I want to pause and consider the ‘cultural archaeology’ of this quack-figure. One might suppose that Apuleius’ interest in magic and its attendant problems has a biographical origin in his own prosecution on a charge of sorcery (Ap. Apol. passim), which could also account for his interest in trials on trumped-up charges. I wish to argue, however, that there is a literary-historical component to Apuleius’ text. As an absurdly boastful, but woefully incompetent purveyor of the occult arts, Photis is the direct descendant of the alazon of Attic Old Comedy, that genus of which the miles gloriosus is but one species.7 Stephanie West, followed by Gauthier Liberman,8 has suggested that both the name and character of the alazon are prefigured in the Akkadian aluzinnu or ‘jester’, a claim that Marks and I have elsewhere explored in some detail.9 We know rather a lot about the figure of the aluzinnu thanks to a cuneiform text of uncertain date in which he narrates his activities:10 (a) (fragmentary lines) The lion can terrify, I can let out air too! The lion can swish his tail, I can wag my tail too!

7 Burkert 1962 = 2006, 173–190. 8 S. West in West 1994, 2 n. 8, and Liberman 1999, II, 255. 9 Griffith and Marks 2011b. 10 Foster 2005, 939–941; capitals added.

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I’m as trustworthy as a sieve I hold onto my followers like a net. I sing like a SHE-ASS…. (b) … ‘Jester, how do you exorcise?’ Here’s how: I take over the haunted house, I set up the holy water, I tie up the scapegoat, I skin a DONKEY and stuff it with straw. I tie a bundle of reeds, set it on fire, and toss it inside. I spared the boundaries of the house and its surroundings, But the haunt of the house, the serpent, the scorpion, are not spared. (gap) (c) … ‘In December what is your diet?’ Thou shalt dine on wild DONKEY dung in bitter garlic, And emmer chaff in sour milk. ‘In January what is your diet?’ Thou shalt dine on goose eggs and dung (?) embedded in sand, And cumin infused with Euphrates water in ghee. ‘In February what is your diet?’ Thou shalt dine on hot bread and DONKEY’S anus, Stuffed with dog turds and fly dirt. (fragmentary lines, then gap)

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Note first that the aluzinnu, though boasting of his culinary prowess, blithely cooks inedible – nay, incredible – foods, second that when he volunteers as a shaman or exorcist, he burns down his client’s house (rather like an aedile, who will have your fish trampled for you if you buy them too dear), and lastly that he has a curious affinity for donkeys. Lucius as ass himself barely escapes one of the aluzinnu’s recipes, when the robbers plan to stuff him with Charite (6,31): meis itaque consiliis auscultantes uitam puellae, sed quam meretur, largimini. nec uos memoria deseruit utique, quid iam dudum decreueritis de isto asino semper pigro quidem, | sed manducone summo, nunc etiam mendaci fictae debilitatis et uirginalis || fugae sequestro ministroque. hunc igitur iugulare crastino placeat totisque uacuefacto praecordiis per mediam aluum nudam uirginem, quam praetulit nobis, insuere, ut sola facie praeminente ceterum corpus puellae nexu ferino coherceat, tunc super aliquod saxum scruposum insiciatum et fartilem asinum exponere et solis ardentis uaporibus tradere. Therefore, heeding my advice, let us grant the girl her life … but the life she deserves. For you will by no means have forgotten what you just now have decided concerning this ass of

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yours – always so slow-moving, but the utmost glutton, now even faking a make-believe injury, both aider and abettor of the girl’s escape. May it please you, therefore, to slit his throat tomorrow; and, having made him empty of all his innards, to stitch the girl whom he has preferred to us within his bowels so that, with only her face sticking out, the rest of her body may be in his bestial embrace; and then to set out the ass, dressed and stuffed, on some jagged rock, and so give it over to the burning rays of the sun.

A Hittite bas-relief from present-day Alaca Höyük in Turkey seems to Hittitologist Ahmet Ünal to show a pair of aluzinnus clowning around on a ladder.11 Interestingly, they are accompanied by a sword-swallower, which recalls Lucius’ encounter with one such figure, whom he calls a circulator or ‘charlatan’ in Metamorphoses 1,4: et tamen Athenis proxime et ante Poecilen porticum isto gemino obtutu circulatorem aspexi equestrem spatham praeacutam mucrone infesto deuorasse ac mox eundem inuitamento exiguae stipis uenatoriam lanceam, qua parte minatur exitium, in ima uiscera condidisse. et ecce pone lanceae ferrum, qua baccillum inuersi teli ad occipitium per ingluuiem subit, puer in mollitiem decorus insurgit inque flexibus tortuosis eneruam et exossam saltationem explicat cum omnium qui | aderamus admiratione: diceres dei medici baculo, quod ramulis semiaputatis nodosum || gerit, serpentem generosum lubricis amplexibus inhaerere. And at Athens recently right before the Stoa Poikile with these two eyes I saw a quack eating a knight’s sword, very sharp with a nasty edge, and soon the same man, urged on by a tiny contribution, put a hunting lance by the end that threatens death down into his inmost belly. And look: behind the metal of the lance where the shaft of the inverted spear enters his throat pointing to the back of his head a boy (handsome to the point of femininity) climbs up and in convoluted contortions unfolds a sinewy and boneless dance to the astonishment of all present. You would say that onto the staff borne by the healing god, knotty with roughhewn branches, a noble snake was clinging in slippery twists.

If the Akkadian aluzinnu indeed became, via Hittite, the Greek alazon, who afterward surfaced in Rome as the circulator – and Plautus uses the word alazon in the Prologue to the Miles Gloriosus – then Metamorphoses Three is more deeply rooted in literary history than in Apuleius’ biography. Apuleius follows a long literary tradition that connects laughter with the incompetence of a pseudoprofessional magician. The source-critical work of Hugh Mason and Vincent Hunink confirms that Greek comedy influenced Apuleius’ novel, albeit less than Terence and especially Plautus, the focus of May’s work.12

11 Bittel 1967, 193, figure 218; Ünal 1994, 213–26. 12 Mason 1978, 10–12, and Hunink 1998.

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In Book Eleven Lucius, re-transformed, will be converted to the cult of Isis and so, in this sense, redeemed. Does Apuleius offer him any redemption along the model I’ve been exploring, that is to say an ironic one? I think the author of the De Deo Socratis whom his fellow Madaurans dubbed a philosophus platonicus does. Remember that, to hammer home his philosophical interests, early on in the novel [1,6] Apuleius includes a character named Socrates. Perhaps the Athenian Socrates’ main ironic gambit was to compare people to quadrupeds and so reduce their highfalutin’ intellectual, military or political claims to the level of the barnyard. We see this in Plato’s Apology (20a-b, 30e and 27d-e, from the last of which I quote – capitals added): But if divinities are in turn the bastard children of gods either by nymphs or by some others of whom they are said to be, who of men would think that gods’ children exist, but not gods? For that would be as crazy as if someone thought the children of horses and ASSES, namely mules exist, but did not think that horses and ASSES exist.

This trope was apparently a real Socratic tic, not just a figment of Plato’s imagination, for a quarter century before the dramatic date of the Apology Aristophanes pilloried Socrates mercilessly in a comedy that hinged on its protagonist’s ‘horse sickness’ (Nu. 243). In true Socratic style, thanks to Photis’ quackery, Lucius becomes a quadruped-metaphor incarnate and reified. This ironically (in the Platonic sense of the word) exposes her pretensions. Though from Lucius’ point of view her comeuppance is a salvation scarcely to be wished, it does spare him further attentions of the slave-girl, who, in violation of the novelistic convention that the lovers are always reunited in the end, drops out of the novel at this point, never to reappear.

IV To conclude: what does this mean for us? Much attention has recently been lavished on the novel’s prologue. Stephen Harrison, followed by Frederic Schroeder, among others, has argued that the prologue’s narrative voice is not that of Lucius, who will narrate the bulk of the novel, but rather that of the physical book itself.13 The physical book is an interesting narrator, because, as Michael Trapp has noted,14 it promises to flatter us, its readers (Met. 1,1):

13 Harrison, 1990, and Schroeder 2007. 14 Trapp 2001, 42.

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At ego tibi sermone isto Milesio uarias fabulas conseram auresque tuas beniuolas lepido susurro permulceam – modo si papyrum Aegyptiam argutia Nilotici calami inscriptam non spreueris inspicere –. … But I will plant for you in this Milesian tale various stories, and I will flatter your benevolent ears with a light whisper – if only you will not refuse to look at Egyptian papyrus written on by the sharpness of a Nilotic reed. …

On a first reading, one may find this promise unremarkable enough, perhaps a generic captatio benevolentiae; yet one who revisits the novel, knowing from prior reading the vicious pattern whereby flattery all too often leads to an exaggerated sense of one’s knowledge and abilities, may well think again of Socrates. Recounting a disappointing interview he once had with a man renowned for wisdom, Socrates says in the same Apology we have already twice quoted (21d): It’s likely that neither of us knows anything fair and good, yet this man on the one hand assumes he knows something, while not knowing, while I on the other, since in fact I do not know, don’t assume (that I do). I think, therefore, that I’m smarter than he in this very small thing at least, that I don’t assume that I know anything I do not know.

Lector intende: may these words warn against all self-inflating quackery, for as Photis’ case so clearly shows, when it comes to knowledge, if you assume, you make an ass of you and me.

Bibliography Bittel, K. 1976. Die Hethiter: Die Kunst Anatoliens vom Ende des 3. bis zum Anfang des I. Jahrtausends vor Christus, Munich: Beck (= Les Hittites. L’Univers des formes, XXIV, Paris: Gallimard). Bremmer, J. 1997. ‘Jokes, Jokers and Jokebooks in Ancient Greek Culture’, in: J. Bremmer and H. Roodenburg (eds.), A Cultural History of Humour, Cambridge: Polity Press. 11–28. Burkert, W. 1962. ‘ΓΟΗΣ. Zum griechischen “Schamanismus”’, RhM 105, 36–55. Burkert, W. 2006. Kleine Schriften, III. Mystica, Orphica, Pythagorica, ed. by F. Graf, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. Foster, B. R. 2005. Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature, 3rd ed. Bethesda, MD: CDL Press. Greimas, A. J. 1966. Sémantique structural, Paris: Larousse. Griffith, R. D. and R. B. Marks. 2011a. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Agora: Ancient Greek and Roman Humour, 2nd ed. Kingston, ON: Legacy Books Press. Griffith, R. D. and R. B. Marks, ‘A Fool by any Other Name: Greek ἀλαζών and Akkadian Aluzinnu’, Phoenix 65 (2011b) 23–38. Harrison, S. J. 1990. ‘The Speaking Book: The Prologue to Apuleius Metamorphoses’, CQ 40, 507–513.

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Hunink, V. 1998. ‘Comedy in Apuleius’ Apology’, GCN 9, 97–113. Liberman, G. 1999. Alcée, I-II, Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Lowe, J. C. B. 1985. ‘Cooks in Plautus’, ClAnt 4, 72–102. Mason, H. J. 1978. ‘Fabula Graecanica: Apuleius and his Greek Sources’, in: B. L. Hijmans Jr. and R. T. van der Paardt (eds.), Aspects of Apuleius’ Golden Ass, Groningen: Bouma’s Boekhuis. 1–15. May, R. 2006. Apuleius and Drama: The Ass on Stage, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schroeder, F. M. 2007. ‘The Final Metamorphosis: Narrative Voice in the Prologue of Apuleius’ Golden Ass’, in: S. Stern-Gillet and K. Carrigan (eds.), Reading Ancient Texts, II. Aristotle and Neoplatonism (Festschrift Dennis O’Brien), Leiden and Boston: Brill. 115–153. Trapp, M. B. 2001. ‘On Tickling the Ears: Apuleius’ Prologue and the Anxieties of Philosophers’, in: A. Kahane and A. Laird (eds.), A Companion to the Prologue of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 39–46. Ünal, A. 1994. ‘Illustration of the “Jester Scene” on the Sculptures of Alaca Höyük’, Anatolian Studies 44, 207–218. West, M. L. 1994. ‘Some Oriental Motifs in Archilochus’, ZPE 102, 1–5. Wilkins, J. 2000. The Boastful Chef: The Discourse of Food in Ancient Greek Comedy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Max Nelson

Lucius’s Rose: Symbolic or Sympathetic Cure? Abstract: It has been argued that the story of Lucius’s asinine quest for a rose represents a search for beauty and knowledge which is finally fulfilled when Lucius regains his human form. It is suggested here instead that the use of the rose is not so much symbolic as sympathetic and that it is linked to ancient magical practices. In the surviving Greek story of Lucius’s metamorphosis Palaestra states that the cure to return Lucius from ass to human form is to eat roses (Luc. 13). Lucius tries to eat roses unsuccessfully on three different occasions (14, 17 and 20), hopes to find some again (51–52), and finally succeeds at the end when he gets hold of a wreath of roses at a banquet in the arena (54). Similarly, in Apuleius’s treatment of the story Photis tells Lucius that the cure for his condition is to eat roses (Met. 3,25,3). Lucius attempts to do so unsuccessfully three times (3,27,2; 3,29,5 and 4,2,8), then must simply wait for the spring for roses (7,15,1; 10,29,2 and 10,33), when he finally succeeds in eating some given to him as a crown by a priest of Isis (11,6,2 and 11,13,2). During the sixteenth century, a number of authors interpreted Lucius’s rose allegorically. Thus Filippo Beroaldo, in the earliest commentary on Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, took the rose to represent ‘knowledge’ (scientia) or ‘wisdom’ (sapientia),1 and following him, William Adlington, in the preface to his English translation of the work, spoke of the ‘sweete Rose of reason and vertue’ and ‘the sweete floure and fruit’ of studies.2 On the other hand, fairly anachronistically, other sixteenth century authors rather took the rose to symbolize the word of God or the Christian sacrament of penitence.3 Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the presence of the rose in this tale among more recent commentators, most taking it as a fairly trivial detail. In one of the few lengthy modern discussions, Nicole Fick-Michel shows that when the rose is mentioned in Apuleius, outside of the context of Lucius’s quest, it is associated with love and joyfulness. Lucius’s lover Photis is covered in roses (Met.

1 Beroaldo 1500, fol. 2v. and 266r., respectively, cited in Gaisser 2008, 217 with n. 84 and 219–220 with n. 91, respectively. See also Carver 2007, 178–179 and 320 on the first passage. 2 Adlington 1566, n.p. For Adlington’s use of Beroaldo, see Carver 2007, 319–320. 3 See the citations in Gaisser 2008, 253 and 267. Bradley 2012, 39–40 takes the rose as a symbol of redemption paralleled in Christian martyrologies in which it symbolizes salvation.

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2,16,1) and in the Tale of Cupid and Psyche they are found worn by Venus at a banquet (6,11,1) and strewn by the Hours at the couple’s wedding (6,24,3).4 Such an erotic association of the rose is already found in the Greek story, in which Palaestra has strewn roses on the bed (Luc. 7) and Lucius at the end wears a garland of roses (56), in both instances in expectation of love-making. Umberto Eco in fact interprets Lucius’s rose specifically as ‘an erotic symbol’ and explains: ‘As regards the rose, because of its complex symmetry, its softness, the variety of its colors, and the fact that it flowers in spring, it appears in nearly all mystical traditions as a symbol, metaphor, allegory, or simile for freshness, youth, feminine grace and beauty in general.’5 No doubt, as Eleanor Irwin has shown, already among archaic Greek poets the rose symbolized beauty, particularly female beauty, because of its color, fragrance and delicacy.6 One may wonder, however, why an erotic symbol would be used as the means for a physical and spiritual transformation, one which in fact requires the abandonment precisely of ‘lowly pleasures’ (Met. 11,15,1 [serviles … voluptates]). Barbara Seward says that it is ‘the power of love as it operated in the human heart’ which Lucius’s rose is meant to symbolize;7 but surely the presence of such a theme of love is not immediately apparent either in the Greek or Latin story of Lucius. On the other hand, Fick-Michel has argued that while roses can act as simple erotic symbols Lucius’s search for the rose symbolizes, in fact, the quest for both beauty and knowledge, returning then in a way to Beroaldo’s interpretation.8 Presumably then, when Lucius finally receives the rose from the priest of Isis he also attains beauty by regaining his human shape and gains knowledge through enlightenment in the cult of Isis.9 For Fick-Michel then, the rose has not only a physical but a much more spiritual significance, but one that she is unable to parallel precisely in other Greco-Roman literature, although it is familiar from The Romance of the Rose and other later works. Other scholars have gone so far as to interpret the rose in Apuleius, not so much as emblem of Venus, but of Isis. Just as the ass is the symbol of SethTyphon, the Egyptian god of evil, so is the rose the symbol of Isis, goddess of

4 Fick-Michel 1991, 387. The use of roses to signal erotic contexts in the work is also pointed out by Scobie 1978, 45. 5 Eco 1992, 57. 6 Irwin 1994. 7 Seward 1960, 11. 8 Fick-Michel 1991, 386–391 (and see also Fick 1971, 339–343). 9 For the rose in Egyptian cult practice, see Griffiths 1975, 159–161.

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goodness.10 Of course, the problem with such an interpretation is that the rose is already found in the Greek story of Lucius which ostensibly had no Isiac message.11 Eco has astutely commented that ‘the rose is a symbolic figure so rich in meanings that by now it hardly has any meaning left.’12 Was this, however, the case in antiquity? I would suggest that rather than the rose being symbolic in a straightforward literary sense, it may have been sympathetic in an occult magical sense. In Apuleius, when the sorceress Pamphile, in the form of an owl, wishes to regain her human shape, she drinks and bathes in spring water mixed with anise and laurel leaf (Met. 3,23,2).13 It seems obvious here that we would not find in the use of these ingredients a subtle spiritual symbolism but rather simply a magical formula, and thus similarly Lucius’s rose can be seen as a simple magical remedy. While there have been numerous studies of the magical element in Apuleius’s The Golden Ass, few have had anything to say about the rose. Most deal with the Egyptian or Thessalian background, Apuleius’s own reputation as a magician, the theme of curiosity, or the aspect of conversion to a higher form of magic. Apuleius’s Apology, while intended as a defense against charges of magic, goes a long way to demonstrate both Apuleius’s interest and widespread knowledge of the subject, and The Golden Ass too certainly contains reminiscences of authentic rituals, and such details as Lucius’s use of the rose may have been carefully retained from the original because of its actual magical significance. In fact, the idea of a rose as remedy for asininity may go back to tales of Midas.14

10 See, for instance, Rist 1937, 276. For connections between asses and the cult of Isis, see Frangoulidis 2008, 169–171. For the rose as a symbol of Venus and of Isis, see Bradley 2012, 38–39. 11 This is pointed out by Morgan 1998, 3329. To counter such an objection, Trencsényi-Waldapfel 1969, 516 falls back on the generally dismissed theory that Apuleius’s story came first and the Greek version was a parody of it. 12 Eco 1984, 3. 13 Compare the moly which Hermes gives Odysseus to protect him from being turned into a pig by Circe (Hom. Od. 10,281–306). Apuleius also mentions humans transforming into beavers, frogs and rams (Met. 1,9,1–4), domesticated and wild animals (2,5,7), birds, dogs, mice and flies (2,22,3), weasels (2,25,1), and snakes (8,21,3), but unfortunately not the means of regaining human form in these instances. Augustine (Civ. Dei 18,18) says that female innkeepers in Italy were said to turn men into beasts of burden by giving them something in cheese; he believes that if this happened, the men remained asleep while demons appeared as the animals. In the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 67b) Jannai turns a female innkeeper who tried to poison him into an ass by giving her something to drink. 14 Krappe 1947, 228 argues this, pointing out that in different versions of Midas’s story, he was turned into an ass and had a famous rose garden. For more on the possible connection between the tale of Lucius and that of Midas, see Winkler 1985, 301–302.

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I will briefly explore both the occult notion of natural sympathy and antipathy of substances as well as the medical concept of changeable qualities and allopathic cures in an effort to uncover the magical meaning of Lucius’s rose. Around 100 BC Bolus of Mendes wrote a work on antipathies and sympathies, a few quotations of which survive (often under the name ‘Democritus’).15 It may have been he who is quoted as saying that the ass is antipathetic to the scorpion (fr. 15 Wellmann from the Geoponica 13,9,6 and 15,1,25, where it is attributed to Democritus, and see also Pliny Hist. nat. 28,42,155), though nothing extant which can be attributed to him deals with roses. The most substantial surviving work on the special properties and connections, either sympathetic or antipathetic, of various animals, flowers and stones is the so-called Cyranides, a late antique compilation in its extant form.16 Among other material, it discusses the antithesis between asses and scorpions (2,31) but also provides a tantalizing reference to a type of rose used in garlands for festivals of the gods known as onothyrsis (‘ass’s staff’) or onomalache (‘ass’s mallow’) (1,15).17 Whatever the origins of the Lucius story, it seems clear that both Lucian (the possible author of the Greek version known to Photius as authored by Lucius of Patrae [Bibl. 129], what may be the anonymous epitome of which is found among Lucian’s works) and Apuleius (the author of the derivative Latin version) knew the Cyranides or at least similar texts. Thus Lucian speaks of people who seek a cure from Cyrrane (Podagra 174), which has been taken as a reference to the Cyranides.18 On the other hand, Apuleius was accused of having cut a fish to acquire his wife Pudentilla (Apol. 40,5 and 42,2), and although he denied the use of fish in magic (30,4; 31,1 and 32,1), a recipe using a cut fish to cause desire in a woman is found in the Cyranides (4,62).19 Another example of Apuleius’s genuine knowledge of magical practices involving the notions of sympathy and antipathy can be provided. Apuleius claimed to have a statue of Mercury made of ebony because that wood was at hand (Apol. 61,7–8) but he himself knew that one ought not to sculpt a Mercury from any type of wood (43,6, and see Iambl. Vit. Pyth. 34) and in fact a Greek magical papyrus proves that the proper wood of Hermes was ebony (PGM VIII,13)20 and an ebony

15 See in general Wellmann 1928. 16 For a useful introduction to this work, emphasizing the need for a better edition, see Bain 1993. 17 This is cited in passing in Winkler 1985, 301 n. 20. 18 See Festugière 1944, 205–206. 19 The connection is made in Nelson 2001, cited in Bradley 2012, 286 n. 14. 20 The connection is made in Abt 1908, 302.

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statuette of Mercury has even been found in Carthage.21 Although, unfortunately, unlike the case of the ebony statue, I have found no precise magical text or implement to substantiate the claim that, as ebony was thought sympathetic to Mercury/Hermes, roses were considered antipathetic to asses, there is circumstantial evidence which could lead to that conclusion. In the mid-twelfth century AD, Constantine Manasses connected roses with the sun (Comp. chron. 125) and in later anonymous passages on planetary sympathies roses are connected with the sun and with gold as well as with lions.22 The connection between the sun and gold is one that can be traced back to antiquity.23 Indeed various ancient lists of planet/metal sympathies24 as well as planet/stone sympathies25 survive, but lists of planet/flower sympathies and planet/animal sympathies are rare, though existing ones mention both roses and asses, with asses connected to Saturn or the moon.26 At least a rose/sun/gold/lion chain of sympathy resonates to some extent with material in Apuleius. John Winkler, for one, argued that the title Asinus Aureus (‘The Golden Ass’) was an oxymoronic one used already by Apuleius for his own work, one which had strong occult insinuations, and which also called to mind Seth-Typhon’s link in Egyptian myth to both gold and asses.27 Just as gold and asses might be considered generally antithetical it would make sense that a rose, as a plant sympathetic to gold, would be viewed as antithetical to asses. A further promising route may be that opened by Galen, a contemporary of Lucian and Apuleius. Galen believed that all animals partake in the qualities of hotness or coldness and of dryness or wetness (De temper. 1,1) and thought that a perfect balance among these was needed for good health (1,3). Thus if one were too hot, one needed cold, too dry, wet (3,5). Galen further suggested that man is the most balanced of all beings (2,1) and holds the middle position (1,6) while asses have natures very similar to those of humans (De foet. form. 2) and have

21 Sichet 2002, 479. 22 Texts can be found in Weinstock 1940, 122. For the sun and roses, see also, for instance, Picatrix 3,1,6. 23 See, for instance, Anon. Schol. Pind. Isthm. 5, Cels. in Orig. Contr. Cels. 6,22, and Procl. Comm. in Pl. Tim. 14c ap. Olymp. Comm. in Ar. Meteor. 59. 24 See, for instance, the listing in Partington 1937. 25 See, for instance, the listing in Halleux and Schamp 1985, 222. 26 See, for instance, PGM XIII,24–26 and 355–357, where the rose is mentioned among other planetary flowers but its planetary connection is not made explicit (for the problem with this list, see Nelson 2000, 381 n. 75). In Ps.-Albert. Magn. Lib. secr. 22 the sun is linked to the corrigiola flower. For the ass and Saturn, see Weinstock 1940, 122, and for possible reasons for this association, see Bouché-Leclercq 1899, 318 n. 1. For the ass and the moon, see Picatrix 3,1,9. 27 Winkler 1985, 292–321, esp. 312–315.

Lucius’s Rose: Symbolic or Sympathetic Cure?

293

similar mental faculties (Anim. 5). According to the twelfth century Bernardus Silvestris, who followed this Galenic system, asses tend to be cold and wet while lions are hot and dry (Cosm. 2,13), thus making them antipathetic.28 According to the allopathic system of Galen, the standard cure for asses would be the hot and dry, and while the sun was considered hot and dry,29 and was connected to lions (as seen above), so sympathetically might the rose, as the flower of the sun, be thought to be hot and dry.30 Giving an ass a rose could possibly have been medically thought to cure it to some degree of its asinine nature and make it more balanced, like a human. In conclusion, the appearance of the rose in the Lucius story betrays knowledge of real arcane practices. No contemporary text precisely elucidates the significance of the rose but passages from medieval authors seem to illuminate matters. In the end it may have to be admitted that ancient occult practices remain obscure today.

Bibliography Abt, A. 1908. Die Apologie des Apuleius von Madaura und die antike Zauberei, Giessen: Toepelmann. Adlington, W. 1566. The XI Bookes of the Golden Asse, Conteininge the Metamorphosie of Lucius Apuleius … London: Henry Wykes. Bain, D. 1993. ‘Marcianus Graecus 512 (678) and the Text of the Cyranides: Some Preliminary Observations’, RFIC 121, 427–449. Beroaldo, F. 1500. Commentarii in Asinum aureum Lucii Apuleii, Bologna: Benedictus Hectoris. Bouché-Leclercq, A. 1899. L’astrologie grecque, Paris: E. Leroux (repr. Brussels: Cultures et civilization 1963). Bradley, K. 2012. Apuleius and Antonine Rome: Historical Essays, Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press. Carver, R. H. F. 2007. The Protean Ass: The Metamorphoses of Apuleius from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eco, U. 1984. Postscript to The Name of the Rose, tr. W. Weaver, San Diego, New York and London: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.

28 Bernardus in fact says that asses are phlegmatic and lions choleric, but phlegm is the cold and wet humor while choler is the hot and dry one. Galen at least says that lions are hot (De temper. 1,5). If asses are thought to have the same nature as Saturn, they would be cold and dry, but if they are thought to be like the moon, they would rather be cold and wet (see Ptol.,Tetr. 1,4 on Saturn and the moon). 29 See, for instance, in an author contemporary with Lucian and Apuleius, Ptol. Tetr. 1,4. 30 However, following Platearius, Thom. Cant. Nat. rer. 10,42 speaks of the rose as cold and dry, and the same is found in Peter the Deacon’s Book of Degrees (as cited in Thorndike 1958, 751).

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Eco, U. 1992. ‘Overinterpreting Texts’, in: S. Collini (ed.), Interpretation and Overinterpretation, Cambridge: University Press. 45–66. Festugière, A.-J. 1944. La révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste, I, Paris: Belles Lettres. Fick, N. 1971. ‘La symbolique végétale dans les Métamorphoses d’Apulée’, Latomus 30, 328–344. Fick-Michel, N. 1991. Art et mystique dans les Métamorphoses d’Apulée, Paris: Belles Lettres. Frangoulidis, S. 2008. Witches, Isis and Narrative: Approaches to Magic in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. Gaisser, J. H. 2008. The Fortunes of Apuleius and the Golden Ass: A Study in Transmission and Reception, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Griffiths, J. G. 1975. Apuleius of Madauros, The Isis-Book (Metamorphoses, Book XI), Leiden: Brill. Halleux, R. and J. Schamp. 1985. Les lapidaires grecs, Paris: Belles Lettres. Irwin, M. E. 1994. ‘Roses and the Bodies of Beautiful Women in Greek Poetry’, EMC/CV 38, n.s. 13, 1–13. Krappe, A. H. 1947. ‘Apollôn Onos’, CPh 42, 223–234. Morgan, J. R. 1998. ‘On the Fringes of the Canon: Work on the Fragments of Ancient Greek Fiction, 1936–1994’, ANRW II.34.4, 3293–3390. Nelson, M. 2000. ‘Narcissus: Myth and Magic’, CJ 95, 363–389. Nelson, M. 2001. ‘A Note on Apuleius’s Magical Fish’, Mnemosyne 54, 85–86. Partington, J. R. 1937. ‘The Origin of the Planetary Symbols for the Metals’, Ambix 1, 61–64. Rist, M. 1937. ‘Visionary Phenomena and Primitive Christian Baptism’, The Journal of Religion 17, 273–279. Scobie, A. 1978. ‘The Structure of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, in: B. L. Hijmans, Jr. and R. T. van der Paard (eds.), Aspects of Apuleius’ ‘Golden Ass’, Groningen: Bouma’s Boekhuis. 43–61. Seward, B. 1960. The Symbolic Rose, New York: Columbia University Press. Sichet, S. 2002. La magie en Afrique du Nord sous l’Empire Romain, I, Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion. Thorndike, L. 1958. A History of Magic, I, New York: Columbia University Press. Trencsényi-Waldapfel, I. 1969. ‘Das Rosenmotiv außerhalb des Eselsromans’, in: R. Stiehl and H. E. Stier (eds.), Beiträge zur alten Geschichte und deren Nachleben: Festschrift für Franz Altheim zum 6.10.1968, I, Berlin: de Gruyter. 512–517. Weinstock, S. (ed.) 1940. Catalogus codicum astrologorum Graecorum codicum Romanorum, V.4, Brussels: In Aedibus Academiae. Wellmann, M. 1928. Die Physica des Bolos Demokritos und der Magier Anaxilaos aus Larissa, Berlin: de Gruyter. Winkler, J. J. 1985. Auctor & Actor: A Narratological Reading of Apuleius’s The Golden Ass, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

General Index Achilles, 9, 19‒20, 63, 62‒65, 120‒121, 148, 205, 208, 212, 217 – Chaereas compared to, 26 – Clitophon compared to, 33 – cross-dressing, of, 20 accusations – anti-christian, 145, 151 Achilles Tatius, 12‒13, 17‒21, 23, 25, 30, 32, 34‒36, 38, 60, 62, 64‒65, 67, 69, 72‒ 74, 78, 80, 148, 205, 217‒218, 221, 255 – novelesque heroism in, 33 Actaeon, 36‒37, 190 Acts of John, 260 n. 35 Acts of Peter, 165 Acts of Thomas/Acta Thomae, 127 adolescence, 1, 82, 90, 96, 111, 296, 63, 65, 69, 79, 82‒90, 92, 94‒99 – crisis of, 2, 89, 96 Adonis, 46, 197, 199 Aemilianus, 159‒16 Aeneas, 46, 177‒178, 180, 183‒184, 187, 190‒192, 194, 197‒198, 243, 246‒248 Aeschylus, 26, 203, 207 Aethiopica/Aithiopika, 3, 22, 26‒27, 38, 54, 76, 99, 200‒203, 205‒211, 213, 215, 217, 219, 221‒222, 244 alazon, 4, 275, 282, 284 Alexiou, M., 83 and n. 10, 84 n. 12, 13 and 14, 86 n. 25, 89 nn. 47 and 48, 90 nn. 50 and 51, 92 n. 57, 97 allusion – literary, 25‒26, 79 – mythical, 25 aluzinnu, 282‒284, 286 amentia, 153 ancient novel – function of myth in, 24 – associated with the worship of Isis, 24 – silence in, 33 – mistery cults as the key to, 54 Anderson, G. 33‒34, 146 n. 5, 147 n. 16 and 17, 167 Andromeda, 9, 63, 203 n. 15, 204, 219, 222 – painting of, 211, 36‒37. See also ekphrasis

Anthia, 37, 205‒206, 220 Anthia and Habrocomes, 40 anthropophagy, 153, 230 n. 26, 226‒227 Aphrodite, 9, 18, 52, 57‒58, 61 and n. 16, 62, 64‒65, 143, 197 n. 44, 242‒243 – statue of, 240 n. 8 – and Ares, 187 – Uranian, 137 – soul assimilated to, 137 – as mystagogos, 61 apocrypha, 251, 257‒259. See also Joseph and Aseneth, Old Testament Apollo, 9, 18, 63, 203, 219, 241 – priests of, 213 – Milesian oracle of, 92 Apuleius, 2‒4, 13, 20, 36, 38 and n. 11, 43‒ 47, 71 n. 24, 80, 82 n. 1, 83 n. 5, 86‒88, 91, 95‒100, 107, 111‒117, 123‒125 n. 6, 126, 129 and n. 25‒131, 133, 135 and n. 46, 136 and n. 51, 140‒144, 145 and n. 2, 146‒147, 148 and n. 22, 149, 150 and n. 33, 151, 153‒155, 156 and nn. 64 and 66, 157 nn. 68 and 70, 159, n. 81, 160, 162, 163 n. 92, 164‒173, 198–199, 236, 240, 242 n. 13, 243, 245 and 245 n. 30 – as a Middle Platonist, 150, 157‒158, 163, 166 – wife, of, 165 – accusation of magic against, 164 – linguistic analysis of, 156 f. – links between- and Mithraism, 124 n. 5 Archons, 132 – equated with the evil Creator of Genesis, 135 Ariadne, 44‒45, 183 Arsace/Arsake, 202, 214 Artemis, 9, 17‒18 and n. 6, 21, 26, 37, 61‒64, 213, 215, 219, 253‒255 and n. 19, 257‒260 – of Ephesus (Ephesia), 3, 61, 251, 253 n. 8, 254, 257, 261‒269 – of Scythia, 219 – Hymnia, 257

296

General Index

– temple of, 258 – festival, 61 – as a bee-goddess, 257, 269 Aseneth, 3, 251‒253, 253 n. 9, 254, 254 n. 13, 255, 257‒261, 263, 265, 267, 269‒271 – symbol of the Jewish proselytes’ community, 255 – compared to Biblical foremothers, 255 – as a representation of Egyptian Neith, 254 ass-man, 3, 145, 148–150, 296 Atreus, 228 bandits. See robbers banquet, 227‒228, 230, 288‒289 barbarism, vs. civilization, 234 beauty, of protagonists, 9, 51‒53, 57, 60, 64, 73‒74, 76, 78, 92, 94, 117, 124 n. 3, 135, 211 – and violence, relationship between, 31 – Plato conception of, 60 – Middle Platonists conception of, 137 nn. 52 and 53 Beck, R., 34, 53 and n. 4, 65, 83 n. 4, 97, 124 and n. 5, 138 n. 59, 139, 147 n. 13, 167, 240 n. 4, 241 n. 9, 244 and nn. 24, 25 and 26, 245 nn. 28, 29 and 30, 249 and n. 44 bee (bees), as a motif and symbol, 254‒255, 259‒260, 269 n. 38 – mythology, 252 n. 4 Bee-king, 244 n. 11, 256, 259, 269. See also king-as-bee Bee-queen, 254 n. 11, 270. See also Queenbee bella fabella, 88 Bierl, A., 1‒2, 7 n. 1 and 2, 8 n. 5, 9 n. 7 and 8, 10 n. 11, 12 and 14, 12 n. 21, 13 n. 22, 14‒15, 17 and n. 1 and 3, 22, 34, 43 n. 1, 46, 51 n. 1, 54 and n. 8 and 9, 63 n. 17, 65, 69 and n. 11, 79, 82 n. 1, 83 n. 7, 84 n. 15, 85 n. 18 and 21, 86 n. 24, 25, 26 and 28, 87 n. 36, 88 n. 40, 42, and 43, 89 n. 44, 95 n. 59, 97, 99 biforme numen, 149 Billault, A., 65‒66, 79 Bio-ritual model, approach, 2, 82, 86, 91

body, 3, 13, 29, 37, 72, 84, 89, 93‒95, 119, 126 n. 13, 149, 152, 158 and n. 73, 194, 225‒ 226 and n. 13, 227, 229, 232, 247, 252 – violence against a woman’s, 31‒33 – platonic distinction between intellect, soul and, 158 – resurrection of, 158 – metaphor of the, 223, 224 and n. 5, 225‒226 Bowie, E., 22 and n. 26, 25 nn. 4 and 7, 27, 80, 239 n. 2, 200 n. 1, 249 Breton, A., 2, 100, 104 n. 8, 105 and n. 16, 107‒108 Burkert, W., 9 n. 10, 12 and n. 19, 15, 84 n. 15, 85, 86 n. 23, 97, 99, 241 n. 9, 249, 282 n. 7, 286 Calasiris/Kalasiris, 20, 63, 99, 245 Callirhoe, 16, 30, 57‒58, 69, 159, 240 – likened to Aphrodite, 26 – likened to Ariadne, 26 Callisthenes, 61, 72 cannibalism, 3, 21, 32, 153, 205, 228‒229, 232, 234 Chaereas/Chaireas, 26, 30, 57, 76 Chaereas and Callirhoe, 26, 30, 57‒58, 240 n.4 Charicleia/Charikleia, 37, 63, 70 n. 18, 201 n. 6, 202, 205‒207, 209, 210 and n. 49, 211‒217 and n. 72, 218 n. 74, 220 – mistaken for Artemis, 63 Charicles/Charikles, 215‒216, 220 Charite, 2, 44, 46, 90‒91, 94‒96, 99, 113 n. 5, 121, 182 n. 14, 189, 283 – Psyche, and, 2, 91, 111‒115, 118–120 – gender transformation, and, 117 – associated with Photis, 116 Chariton (of Aphrodisias), 10 n. 12, 17 n. 2, 19‒20, 25 n. 8‒27, 30, 53, 57‒58, 64, 67, 69 and n. 9, 76, 79, 158‒159, 213, 222, 240 n. 4 charlatan/charlatans, 163, 275, 284 Charon, 161 chastity test – Leucippe and Clitophon, in, 17 Chloe, 21, 40, 60 – education, of, 31

General Index

Christian doctrine of the resurrection, 158‒159 christianity – opponents of, 166 – Apuleius and, 125 n. 6, 131, 145 n. 2, 146, 150 f. Circe, 177 n. 2, 225, 227 n. 18, 231 n. 27, 235, 290 n. 13 Cleinias, 72, 74‒75 Clement, 134 n. 44, 156, 165‒166 Clitophon/Cleitophon, 19, 30‒31, 33, 61, 69, 72‒74 and n. 34, 75, 80, 205, 219‒220 comb of life, 253, 258 Cooks, 275, 280, 287 Corpus Hermeticum, 142 Crowd, 212, 278 – as embedded audience, 213 Cueva, E., 2, 25 n. 3, 27, 31 n. 10, 35, 81 cultural construction, feminine, 28 n. 1 cultural identity, 56, 79, 85 Cupid, 45, 92‒93, 107, 117‒121, 281. See also Eros Cupid (Eros) and Psyche, tale of, 2, 23, 38 and n. 11, 45, 47, 82, 83, 90 n. 50, 92, 97, 99, 100‒108, 109, 111, 113‒121, 123 f., 149, 281, 289 – Gnostic version of, 125 f. curiositas, 140, 141, 156, 172 curiosity, 37, 86‒88, 94, 129 and n. 25, 142, 143, 192 n. 35, 290 – Apuleius, 157 – Lucius, 184 Cybele, 243, 268‒269 – rites of, 243 Daphnis, 21, 34, 40, 60 Daphnis and Chloe, 10, 15, 24, 27, 34 n. 16, 39‒41, 59, 65‒66, 71, 79, 240 nn. 4 and 8, 244 n. 25, 247 n. 38 Darius Painter, 18 and n. 8, 19 n. 9 dating, of texts, 127, 132, 148 and n. 22, 159 n. 81 de Beauvoir, S., 29 desire, 2, 12, 43, 51‒52, 74‒75, 86, 107, 133‒ 134, 137‒138, 185, 190, 247 n. 38, 291 – object, of, 137 – knowledge, of, 86, 129

297

– mystic union, for, 43, 88 – women as objects of, 30, 33 Deus Christianorum onocoetes, 149 Deus unicus, 154 Diana, 37 – Ephesia, 269 n. 37 dichotomy, civilization vs. barbaries, 232 Dionysus, 2, 13‒14, 43‒44, 53, 59, 91, 253 – cult of, 44‒45, 64 – Trigaios, 61 divine intervention, 204, 215 – as plot device, 57, 251 drama, 76, 78 and n. 52, 82, 200, 202‒203, 211‒212, 214‒215, 217‒218, 297 – Charite, of, 83, 90 – connections between the novel and, 240 n. 4 Dowden, K., 23, 43 n. 3, 46, 51 n. 1, 54 n. 7, 65, 83 nn. 4 and 5, 84 n. 15, 88 nn. 39 and 43, 90 n. 50, 92 n. 56, 94 n. 58, 97, 124, 126 and n. 15, 131 and n. 32, 140, 146 n. 11, 150 and n. 36, 151 n. 39, 168, 201 n. 3, 221 dragon, 93, 102, 127, 201 n. 4 dream, 2, 10, 54, 68‒69, 74‒75, 88‒89 and n. 44, 104, 106‒107. See also enypnion, oneiros, phantasia, phantasma – Callirhoe, of, 69 and n. 12 – Charite, of, 92, 96, 107, 117 – Charite’s dead husband, of, 117 – Cleitophon, of, 72‒73 and n. 32 – Hydaspes, of, 63, 210 – Panthea, of, 75 – similar to a fairy-tale folk structure, 82, – vs. reality, 107 – myth, and, 10 early Christianity – women deacons in, 151 n. 40 ebony, 210, 292, – statue of Mercure, 291‒292 ebrietas, 151, 153, 155 Echo, 21, 31 education, 2, 8, 11, 31‒32, 297 ekphrasis/ecphrasis, 8, 30 and n. 7, 32‒33, 35, 36 nn. 2 and 4, 37 and n. 6, 38, 71,

298

General Index

79, 81, 182, 190, 194 n. 40, 247. See also painting – Andromeda, of, 31 – Aeneas, of, 246 – Encolpius, of compared to Aeneas, 243 – Acteon, of, 37 – theatrical quality of, 76 n. 42 elegy, 112, 116, 118, 121 eloquence, 223, 225, 226 and n. 14, 227, 231 and n. 29, 232 Encolpius, 3, 223, 230, 233 n. 40, 239 n. 1, 240, 241 and n. 10‒245 and n. 30, 246‒248 and n. 42, 249 and n. 43, 278 Endymion, 46 Enneads, 137 nn. 53 and 54 enypnion, 72, 75 Ephesiaca/Ephesiaka, 57‒58 Ephesus, 3, 19, 21, 57, 62, 65, 158, 205 n. 26, 218, 220, 251, 254‒255 and n. 16, 256 n. 23, 257‒260 – priests, of, 259 epistles, 77 – pastoral, 163 and n. 93, 167‒168, 170, 173 Eros, 8, 10, 33‒34, 40, 44, 53, 56‒59, 61, 64‒65, 72 n. 25, 79, 123, 128 n. 22, 133 f., 139‒140, 143‒144, 235. See also Cupid – beauty of, 133, 134 n. 43 – androgynous, 133 erotic poetics, 13 Eselsroman, 99, 146‒148, 168, 172, 294 – dating, of, 148 Eucharist, 142, 151, 153, 155, 172 Eumolpus, 3, 223 f. 236, 239 and n. 1, 241 and nn. 10 and 11, 242 and nn. 13 and 15, 243 and n. 21, 245 f. Euricleia, 72 Euripides, 3, 18‒20, 26, 47, 58, 200, 201 and n. 4, 202, 203 and n. 11, 204 and n. 17, 207 n. 28, 216, 218, 221‒222 Europa, 30‒31, 36 Excerpta ex Theodoto, 134 n. 44 exegesis, 131, 241 – Fulgentius, of, 123 – Homeric, 131 – Neoplatonic, 135 n. 47

Exegesis on the Soul, 127, 138 exsecta genitalia, 95 fabula anilis, 111 fabula Milesia, 142, 150 fairy, 100‒101 and n. 1, 102, 105‒106 fairy tale (tales), 11‒12, 68, 92, 94, 96. See also tale (tales) – motives, 38 n. 11 – Cupid and Psyche, of, 38, 100 – folk structure, 82, 89 – Latin, 100 – medieval, 100 feras, 166 festival (festivals), 14, 55, 59, 64, 76, 250, 291 – Festival of Risus (Risus Festival), 186, 194 n. 39, 281 – Artemis, 61 fiction, 12, 15, 25 n. 5, 27, 29, 35, 38, 67 n. 5, 69, 80‒81, 98, 131, 167, 198, 207, 244, 250, 294, 298 fish, 164‒165, 227 n. 17, 279‒280, 283, 291, 294, 298 – women, 101 n. 4 flagitia, 150, 152, 154 flattery, 278‒280, 286 folk-tale, 96, 201 and n. 5, 203, 221 – Cupid and Psyche, of, 103 Fortuna (Fortune), 3, 69 n. 14, 76, 127, 136, 182 and n. 13, 191 n. 31, 197 and n. 47, 225 and n. 8, 232 n. 30, 233 and n. 40, 239 f., 243 and nn. 19, 20 and 21, 244 and n. 23, 245 n. 30, 247, 249 Fortunata, 243 n. 21, 278 Foucault, M., 29, 35, 79 Frangoulidis, S., 16, 97‒98, 290 n. 10, 294 Fulgentius, 123, 149 funereus thalamus, 92 Futre Pinheiro, M., 1‒2, 7, 9, 12‒13, 15, 28, 30 n. 7, 32 n. 11, 34‒35 gender, 1‒2, 9, 12‒13, 28 f., 85, 111‒112, 113 n. 4, 116, 119‒120, 252 – categories, 12 – role, 12 – norms, subversion of, 12, 28 – change of, 3, 112, 120‒121

General Index

garden (gardens), 30, 52, 290 n. 14 gaze, 13, 30 and n. 8, 31, 74‒75, 189‒190, 191 n. 31, 210 Genesis, 132, 134‒135, 164, 171, 251 Genette, G., 201 and n. 7, 221 Giton, 243, 246 n. 32, 243, 248 girl’s tragedy, 82, 91‒92 Gnosticism, 125, 126 and n. 15, 128 nn. 19 and 21, 131 – Hermetism, and, 134 n. 46 – Valentinian, 125, 127 – Sethian, 128, 131 gold, 242, 258, 279, 292 Goldhill, S., 70 n. 16, 74 n. 37, 75 n. 41, 77, n. 45, 79 Graf, F., 1, 8‒9, 10 n. 16, 13, 15, 20 n. 14, 23, 89 nn. 45 and 46, 98 Graverini, L., 68 n. 6, 69 n. 10, 71 n. 24, 72 n. 28, 77 n. 47, 79, 146 n. 5, 150 n. 33, 166 n. 109, 168 Greek cults, 252‒253 Greenblatt, S., 34, 83 and n. 8, 98 Gymnosophists, 211 n. 57 Habrocomes, 57, 220 Haemus, 44, 94‒95, 116, 118. See also Tlepolemus Hägg, T., 9 n. 8, 15, 75 n. 41, 79, 148 n. 21, 168 Harrison, S. J., 28, 16, 44 n. 7, 46, 82 n. 1, 87 and n. 37, 96 n. 61, 97‒99, 144, 146 n. 5, 164, 165 n. 101, 168, 200 n. 1, 285 n. 13, 286 hapax legomenon, 115 Haynes, K., 30, n. 6, 35 Heinrici, G., 125, 126 n. 10, 140 Helena, 128 Heliodorus (Heliodoros), 3, 19 and n. 9, 20, 22‒23, 25 n. 8, 26‒27, 34, 36 n. 2, 37‒ 38, 54 and n. 11, 62, 63 n. 18, 64‒66, 70 n. 18, 76, 78 n. 52, 79‒80, 99, 200‒201, 202 and n. 8, 205‒206, 207 nn. 31 and 33, 213‒217, 218 n. 75, 221‒222, 240 n. 4, 245 Heracles, 219, 241. See also Hercules Hercules, 46 and n. 11, 115, 186‒187, 194 and n. 39. See also Heracles.

299

Hermes, 290 n. 13, 291‒292. See also Mercury Hesiod, 26, 134, 141 hierogamy, 128 Himeros, 133 n. 42 Hippolytus, 9, 18‒19, 26 Historia Augusta, 130, 150 historiography, 25 n. 5 – vs. fiction, 38, 207 Holzberg, N. , 87 n. 29, 98, 147 n. 14 Homer, 24, 26‒27, 35, 37, 72 n. 28, 73 n. 29, 177‒178, 193‒194, 207 honeycomb, 3, 251, 253 nn. 7 and 9, 255, 259, 271 horror (horrors), 92‒93, 178‒180, 196, 217 human sacrifice, 3, 201 n. 5, 202, 204 and n. 17, 211 n. 57, 213, 215, 219, 222 Hydaspes, 76, 202, 207, 208 and nn. 35 and 36, 210‒214, 220 ignes, 166 imagination, 38, 45, 67 and n. 5, 70 and n. 18, 72, 74‒75, 81, 198, 204, 285. See also phantasia impietas, 151 impudicitia, 151, 154‒155 Inanna (Isthar), 128 and n. 21, 142, 144 inimica fidei, 152, 154 initiation (initiations), 2‒3, 8, 12, 14‒15, 22, 30, 34, 46, 51, 54 and nn. 9 and 11, 55, 59, 82 f., 120‒121, 124 n. 5, 194, 221, 257 interdiscursive process, 9 interperformative process, 9 interritual process, 9 intertextuality, 3, 201 and n. 7, 202, 221 inventio, 11 Iphigenia, 3, 9, 200 f. Irenaeus, 163 n. 93 irony, 33, 41, 136 n. 49, 148, 188, 206, 221, 228, 246, 276 Isis, 4, 7, 14, 24, 37, 43, 45, 53, 61, 63‒65, 82, 87‒89, 91, 95 n. 60, 96, 98, 124, 128, 135 and n. 48, 136, 140, 150, 155, 168, 197 n. 47, 213, 214 and n. 67, 220, 242 and nn. 13, 16 and 17, 243 and n. 19, 244, 245 and n. 30, 247 n. 36, 249, 285, 288‒289, 290 n. 10, 294. See also Osiris

300

General Index

Jean d'Arras, 102 Joseph, 251, 258, 260 Joseph and Aseneth (JosAs), 3, 251 f. journey (journeys), 43, 45‒46, 69, 88, 104, 177‒178, 182 n. 13, 191, 193, 199, 243. See also katabasis – initiatic, 56 – symbolic reading of, 54 katabasis, 3, 177 f. Kerényi, K., 7 and n. 4, 8 n. 6, 11 n. 17, 15, 53‒54, 65, 83 n. 3, 98, 124 n. 3, 141, 244 king-as-bee, 256 King bee, 269. See also Queen bee Konstan, D., 12, 29 n. 3, 35, 58 n. 13, 65, 146 n. 10, 166 n. 109 labyrinth, 180‒181, 182 and n. 12, 183‒184, 185 and n. 17, 186, 192 n. 35, 198‒199 Lacan, J., 12 n. 21, 15 Lalanne, S., 2, 10 n. 11, 15, 30 n. 5, 35, 51 n. 1, 54 n. 7, 65, 84 n. 15, 85 and nn. 19 and 20, 88 n. 43, 98, 120 lascivia, 154 Lavagnini, B., 13, 39 and n. 1, 41 legacy-hunter, 227, 229‒230, 234 Létoublon, f., 158 n. 76, 169 Leucippe and Clitophon, 30 and nn. 7 and 8, 31 n. 9, 35, 40, 73, 80, 221, 240 n. 8, 246 n. 33 Leucippe (Leukippe), 15, 17, 30‒32, 40, 61, 73, 76, 201 n. 3, 205‒206, 217, 220 lexis hypokritike, 77‒78 Life of Apollonius (Apollonios), 70, 80 lion (lions), 254, 282, 292, 293 and n. 28 literary tradition, 51 f., 67, 235, 284 Longus, 9‒11, 13‒15, 20‒22, 24, 25 n. 8, 27, 40‒41, 53, 59, 60 and n. 15, 64‒67, 69 n. 9, 71, 87, 98, 240 n. 4 love – adulterous, 19 – as (sickness) nosos, 12, 58 – in lyric poetry, 52 f. – homo- and heterosexual, 61 – mytho-ritual poetics of and sex, 82 f. – Platonic philosophy of, 52 f. – (neo-)Platonic, 214

– reciprocal, 29 – Socrates’s speech on, 246 Lucian, 26, 146 and nn. 6, 8, 9 and 11, 147 and nn. 14, 15, 17 and 18, 148‒149, 161 n. 87, 164 n. 99, 167‒169, 171, 218, 240, 245 n. 28, 291‒292, 293 n. 29 – Alexander, 161 – de Morte Peregrini, 153, 160 – de Saltatione , 19 – Erotes, 240 n. 8, 242 – Onos, 44, 96, 145, 146 n. 10 – Toxaris, 204 lucifugus, 162 Lucius, 14, 36 and n. 4, 37, 43, 46 and n. 11, 82, 87‒89, 91, 95‒98, 116, 119‒121, 123, 135‒136, 145‒148, 150, 156, 159‒160, 167‒168, 170, 173, 178 f., 242‒243, 245, 247, 275, 278‒281, 283‒285, 288 f. Lucius of Patrai (Patrae), 17 n. 2, 145‒146, 147 and n. 13, 167, 291 Lusignan, 101 nn. 1 and 2 magia, 151 magic, 4, 43, 54 n. 11, 82, 88, 89 and n. 46, 90, 96, 98, 136, 155 and n. 59, 159‒160, 162 n. 90, 165, 167, 177 n. 2, 193, 273, 275, 281‒282, 287, 290‒291, 294 – Apuleius, accused of, 159, 164, 282, 290 – Christians, accused of, 155 and n. 51, 159‒ 160, 162 – curiosity about, 88 – Jews, accused of, 162 – miracles and, 89 – mysteries, and, 88–89 – sex, and, 88, 91, 96 magus, 164 manna, 251, 271 Märchen, 11, 38, 97‒99, 140‒141, 143 marriage, 1, 8, 11‒12, 32, 45, 54, 85‒86, 88, 92‒94, 96, 99, 102, 106, 111, 114‒115, 133‒134, 140, 210 n. 49, 215, 217 n. 72, 220, 222, 240 n. 4 – Apuleius, of, 145 n. 2 – Charite and Tlepolemus, 114, 189 – crisis of, 85, 91 – death and, 92 and n. 57, 201 – Joseph and Aseneth, of, 251

General Index

– Psyche and Cupid (Amor and Psyche), of, 45, 93‒94, 114 f., 121 – sacred marriage (hierogamy), 128 – sacrifice and, 32, 211 Marsyas, 32 Martianus Capella, 123 martyr (martyrs), Christian, 165 martyrdom – Telesphorus, of, 160 masculinity, 34, 90 n. 53 – Eros, of, 133 – traditional patterns of, 33 matrona, 115, 117, 120 n. 9, 227, 231 – Christian, 153 Melite, 17‒19, 33, 74 n. 34 Mélusine, 2, 100 f. Mercury, 249 n. 43, 291‒292. See also Hermes Merkelbach, R., 1, 14, 30 n. 4, 35, 43, 45‒46, 53 and n. 5, 54, 58, 59‒60, 65, 82, 83 and nn. 2, 3 and 4, 84, 87 and nn. 31 and 34, 88 n. 39, 92 n. 56, 94 n. 58, 95 n. 60, 97‒98, 139‒141, 143‒144, 150 nn. 35 and 36, 169, 244, 248 n. 42, 249 Meroe, 63, 207, 214‒215, 218 Metamorphoses – Apuleius, by, 14, 20, 36, 38, 43‒47, 53, 86‒89, 97‒99, 111, 113‒114, 121, 125, 131, 136 and n. 51, 141‒144, 147 n. 15, 148 n. 22, 149 n. 28, 150, 155, 158, 159 n. 81, 167, 169‒170, 172, 177, 178 n. 3, 180, 182 and n. 15, 183, 185 n. 17, 188, 191‒194, 197 n. 47, 198–199, 228–229, 231, 236, 240‒245, 247 n. 36, 279, 284, 286‒287, 288, 293‒294 – Ovid, by, 3, 38, 102 n. 7, 198, 223, 227 n. 16, 234 – Lucius of Patrai, by, 145‒146, 147 n. 13 metamorphosis, 14, 20‒21, 23, 89 and n. 47, 93, 100, 101 n. 4, 149 n. 28, 159, 177, 182, 186, 190, 288 – animals, into, 33, 90, 232 – sex, magic and, 90 metaphor (metaphors), 11, 14‒16, 30 n. 8, 53‒54, 58, 73 nn. 31 and 32, 83‒84, 87, 89, 91‒93, 95‒96, 97‒98, 138, 185, 198,

301

212 n. 60, 223‒224, 227 and n. 15, 229, 231, 252, 256, 260, 285, 289 Mezentius, 160‒162 Midas, 290 n. 14 Middle-Platonism (Middle Platonism), 140, 150, 157 and n. 68, 166, 170 Milesian tale, 130, 246 and n. 42, 247, 286 mill, 3, 178‒181, 183, 185‒190 n. 29, 192 f. – episode, Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, in, 177 f. 191, 198 miller’s wife episode – Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, in, 3, 151 f., 156, 159, 184, 186‒187, 196 mime, 201, 205, 231 n. 27, 240 n. 8 mimesis, 10 n. 15, 70, 8081 – theory of, 70 mirror, 73 and nn. 31 and 32, 74, 80, 120, 184, 226 – imagery, 73 n. 32, 74‒75 mise en abîme, 136 and n. 49 Mithraism, Apuleius and, 124 moocher (moochers), 278 – Lucius as, 278 Morales, H., 30 n. 8, 31, n. 9, 35, 67 n. 3, 72, 77 n. 46, 78 n. 52, 80, 201 n. 3, 221 Morgan, J. R., 10 n. 13, 15, 25 nn. 5 and 6, 26 n. 10, 27, 73 n. 18, 74 n. 36, 78 n. 52, 80, 85 n. 19, 98, 169, 207 and nn. 30, 32 and 33, 221‒222, 290 n. 10, 294 motif – ass-man, 3 – Der Tod und das Mädchen, 200‒202 – Eros, intervention of, 57 – escape, 203, 217, 219‒220 – Fortuna, 243 and n. 20 – heroines, sold as prostitutes, 95 – hieromenia, 61 – hope of union with the divine, 13 – initiation, 12, 54 and n. 11, 85 n. 21, 90, 94‒95 n. 59 – Iphigenia, 202, 206‒207, 209, 219‒220 – katabasis, 177 f. – kinship between victim and executioner, 210 – love as (sickness) nosos, 12, 58 – mythological, 201 – purity, 217

302

General Index

– rape/seduction, 32 – recognition, 203 and n. 12, 204, 210‒220 – re-birth, 107 – religion, use of 58 – sacrifice, 54 n. 11, 200 f. – Scheintod, 225 n. 10 – stupor, 190 – virginity, 216‒217 Mystery (Mysteries), 2‒3, 13‒14, 33‒34, 51‒53, 55‒57, 59, 82, 87‒88, 89, 97, 104, 120, 131, 156, 183, 246 and n. 33, 247 n. 36, 252, 259 – cults, 44, 52‒56, 60, 96‒97, 120, 124, 244, 249 – Demeter, of, 243 – Dionysian, 43‒44 – Ephesian, 257 n. 25 – Eleusinian, 3, 239, 242 and n. 13 – initiation, 14, 87 – Isis, of, 43, 87, 89, 124 – Isis and Osiris, of, 88 – Mithra, of, 53, 124 – novels as texts, 54, 82‒84 – Osiris, of, 4 – Platonic, 131 – religions, 63 – rituals, 241 – theory, 1 Myth (mythos), 1‒3, 7 f., 17, 20 f., 31 and n. 10, 34 f., 46, 54 and n. 11, 55‒56, 60, 65, 68‒69 n. 12, 71, 75, 77‒78, 81‒84, 78, 87, 97, 99, 108, 124‒125, 130‒131, 135, 138, 142, 200, 203, 205 n. 19, 215, 222, 231 n. 27, 232, 234, 241, 253, 258, 271, 292, 294. See also oneiros – aethiological, 20 – as exemplum, 31 – Eros, of, 134, n. 43 – Echo, of, 21‒22 – Eros (Cupid) and Psyche, of, 100, 124 n. 3, 125‒126, 140 – Gnostic, 128, 130 – Iphigenia, of, 201‒203, 214 – Isis and Osiris, of, 7, 214 – local, 13, 39 f. – Philomela, 3, 32‒33, 223, 231 f. – Phoenix, of, 134, 144

– Psyche, of, 141, 150‒151 n. 39 – Rhodopis (Rhodope), of, 18–19 – Sophia, of, 3, 123, 127, 128 f. 141, 144 – sophistic paideia, and, 8 – Ur, of, 11 mythological megatext (s), 202 mythos/logos, 67, 69 narrative – actantial analysis, of, 275 – actants, 275‒276 – device, 7, 75‒76 – function, 67‒68 – perspective, 56, 73 – point of view, 29, 30‒31 – structure, 54, 56, 62, 103 – voice, 285, 287 narrative technique, 10, 55, 57 narrator – first-person, 197 Nausicaa, 37 New Comedy, 26 n. 9, 58, 112 n. 3, 113, 240 n. 4 Nonnus, 22, 38 novel (novels) – aretology and, 244 n. 26 – as “mystery texts”, 54, 83 – as myth and dream, 9 f., 71 – drama, and, 200, 217, 240 n. 4 – Neoplatonic aesthetic theories, and, 166 n. 109 – poetics, of, 2, 7, 13, 86 – religion, and, 1‒2, 18, 62, 83, 240 n. 4 – readership, of, 22 and n. 27, 56, 239 n. 2 – visual arts, and, 18, 71 Odysseus, 37, 46, 72, 208, 248, 290 n. 13 – Calasiris assimilated to, 63 – Lucius, as, 177‒178, 187, 192 f. Odyssey, 3, 34, 65, 72, 97, 178‒179, 193, 196 Old Testament, 24, 163‒164, 251, 270 On the Origin of the World, 131, 140, 142 oneiros, 67, 69, 71, 75, 77 onkos, 77‒79 Oroondates, 208‒209 Orpheus, 22, 191 n. 31, 198, 253 Orphism, 130

General Index

– Osiris, 7, 14, 45, 53, 63, 88, 143, 150, 213‒214 and n. 67, 221, 244 – Eros, and, 128 and n. 22 Ovid, 3, 21, 35, 38‒39, 102 n. 7, 112‒113, 198, 223, 227 f. owl, 231, 281‒282, 290 paganism, 44, 63 n. 18, 156, 168‒169, 260 paideia, 8, 11, 13, 30, 47, 164, 172 – antignostica, 139 – novel, as, 85 – sophistic, 1, 8 painting, 19, 32, 36, 40, 70 n. 18, 71, 239 f., 247 and n. 38. See also ekphrasis/ ecphrasis Pan, 10, 17, 21‒23, 40, 59, 64, 118 and n. 8 Panayotakis, C., 46, 79, 124 n. 3, 140‒142, 144, 169, 198, 227 n. 18, 230 n. 25, 231 nn. 27 and 29, 234 n. 44, 236 Panthea, 75 paramithia, 86, 89‒90 parasite, 275‒276. See also moocher – Lucius-as-parasite, 275 Parmenides, 134 n. 43, 141 parody, 290 n. 11 – Apuleius’s Metamorphosis, in, 151, 155, 190‒191 – Petronius, in, 230 n. 25, 231 n. 27, 248 Parthenius, 40‒41 – Erotica Pathemata, 39, 41 Passio Anastasiae, 155, 170 Passio Perpetua, 165, 167, 171, 173 Paul (Apostle, St. Paul), 35, 151, 157‒158, 163 n. 93, 167, 255 n. 16 Pausanias, 40‒41, 240, 253 n. 7, 257‒258 Penelope, 72‒73 penitence, 104 and n. 10 – Christian sacrament of, 288 Pergamene boy, tale of, 239, 245‒247 and n. 36 Perkins, J., 134 n. 43, 142, 158 n. 76, 167, 170 Perpetua, 167 Perry, 27, 87 n. 34, 99, 146‒148, 170 Persinna, 36, 210‒211, 217 – as (counter) Clytemnestra, 211 perspective, feminist critical, 30 pertinacia, 151, 153

303

Petosiris, 208 Petronius, 3, 36, 99, 150, 153, 158, 223 f., 227‒236, 239 f., 242‒246, 248‒250, 278 Phaedrus, 23, 52‒53, 136‒137 and n. 54, 144 phantasia, 2, 38, 67 f. 70‒81 phantasma, 75‒77 – mythos, and, 77 phatta, 20 Philetas, 21, 59 Philo, 65, 259 and n. 33 Philomela, 3, 9, 13, 31‒33, 223, 225 f., 234‒235 Philonenko, M., 251 and n. 1, 254 and nn. 12 and 13, 259 Philostratus, 70‒71, 80‒81, 218 – Life of Apollonius, 40, 70, 80, 204 n. 18 Philostratus, the Younger – Imagines, 71, 77 Photis, 4, 87, 91, 94, 112 n. 3, 116, 177 n. 2, 190, 194, 275, 280‒282, 285‒286, 288 Photius, 39, 146 and nn. 7, 9 and 11, 147, 291 Plangon, 69 Plato, 23, 26, 46, 58, 60, 63, 69 n. 10, 70, 73, 77, 81, 113, 131, 136, 143‒144, 157, 169‒170, 275, 285 – Apology, 285 – Parmenides, 135 n. 47 – Phaedrus, 137 – Symposium, 137, 246 Platonism, 3, 123, 130, 136, 140, 158, 166, 170 – Christian, 166 and n. 108, 171 – Middle, 140, 150, 157 and n. 68, 166, 170 plot – as work-in-progress, 218 – bio-ritual, 96 – Iphigenia, 200 f. – myth, as constituent element of, 8, 11‒12, 14 – mythos, as, 8, 11 plot motif – kidnapping, 31‒32, 61, 75 Plotina, 120 and n. 9 Plotinus, 3, 135 n. 47, 137‒140, 143‒144 – Enneades, 123 Plutarch, 74‒75, 157‒158, 204 – Alexander, 208 n. 36

304

General Index

– Amatorius, 73‒74, 81 – Crassus, 40 Polycharmus, 69 n. 12 Porta, A., 2, 100, 104, 106 and n. 17, 107‒108 pothos, 86 power – female, 33‒34 – female, against, 31‒32 – male/female relationships, 28 f. praesumptio, 156 prison, 127, 178‒179, 196 Procne, 3, 33, 223, 227‒228, 230‒231, 232 n. 30, 235‒236 Prometheus, painting of, 32 Ps.-Longinus, 77, 78 n. 49 Ps.-Lucian, 147 Ps.-Demetrius, 77‒78 Psyche, 2‒3, 12 n. 19, 37‒38, 44‒46, 52, 86 n. 23, 91‒94, 96, 100, 103, 107, 109, 111‒121, 123‒131, 133 f., 150, 151 n. 39, 168‒169, 177 and n. 1, 178 n. 4, 180 n. 7, 181, 192 nn. 33 and 35, 197‒198 psychoanalysis, 124 n. 3 puberty, 2, 8, 10, 12, 85‒86, 88, 90 n. 50, 93, 114, 120‒121 – crisis of, 1, 11, 82, 86, 94, 96 puella, 2, 91, 95, 111 f., 226, 230 and n. 25, 277, 280, 283. See also virgo quack, 275‒276, 278, 280, 282, 284 quackery, 285‒286 Queen bee, 254, 269. See also King bee rape, 12‒13, 28, 31‒32, 36, 40, 86, 92, 99, 241 n. 10 Rape of Persephone, 38 reading – allegorical, 84 – bio-ritual, 91 f. – levels, of, 216 – literary, 124 n. 3, 216 – Platonic, 124 n. 3 – religious-historical, 125 – symbolic, 54 readership – ancient novel, of, 239 n. 2 – Petronius, of, 239 n. 3

Reardon, B., 20 n. 17, 23, 25 n. 8, 27, 69 n. 13, 80, 83 n. 4, 99, 172, 206, 222 redemption, 123, 126‒129, 132, 135 and n. 48, 142, 285, 288 n. 3 refuge – city (cities) of, 251, 254, 255 n. 15, 257 – place of, 59, 259 – quarter of, 256 n. 23 Reitzenstein, R., 124 n. 3, 126 and nn. 11 and 13, 128 n. 22, 143 rhetoric, 15, 22, 27, 59, 68, 78‒79, 81, 98, 121, 170, 222‒223, 224 and n. 4, 226‒ 227, 231, 234 and n. 44, 236 rites, anthropophagic, 31 rites de passage, 8‒9, 15, 35, 51, 54, 65, 98, 121 rites of passage, 54, 65, 97‒98, 111 f., 232 robbers, 31, 88 and n. 41, 91, 95, 119, 194, 283 – cave of, 115 Rohde, E., 13, 38, 40, 42, 148 Rome, personification of, 225 rose (roses), 4, 43, 94, 133, 232, 236, 281, 288 f. roses of life, 253, 258 Rufinus, 19 sacred marriage, 45, 128. See also hierogamy sacrifice(s), 3, 12‒14, 31‒32, 85‒86, 117, 161. See also motif – abolition of human, 215 – death (of the heroine) as prenuptial (ritual), 200, 211, 216 – human, 3, 201 n. 5, 202, 204 f., 211 n. 57, 213, 215, 219, 222 saevitia, 119, 151‒152 sapientia, 288. See also wisdom Satyricon/Satyrica, 3, 36, 99, 167, 170, 223 f., 232, 234‒236, 239, 243 and n. 20, 244 n. 23, 248 n. 42, 250, 278 scitula, 118 scientia, 288. See also knowledge scorpion, 283, 291 Second Sophistic, 2, 24, 27, 37, 79, 87, 96, 202, 204 f., 218 Seth-Typhon, 289, 292 sex, 3, 14‒15, 29, 32, 34‒35, 47, 55, 82, 84 f., 94‒96, 117, 119, 130, 140, 230

General Index

Sexual ambivalence, 33 sexual symmetry, 12, 29, 35, 65, 217 Sexuality, 10, 14, 29, 39, 83, 85, 90, 94, 102, 199, 216 Sight. See gaze silence, language of, 32 f., 35 Simon Magus, 128 Sirens, 101‒102 skinflint, 279 Skinner, M., 241 n. 10, 249 n. 44 Slavery, 69 n. 14, 177, 178 n. 3, 180‒181, 187‒ 189, 191, 198 Sophia, 3, 123, 125, 127‒132, 136 n. 49, 141, 143‒144, 151 Sophocles, 26, 231 n. 27 sorcerer’s apprentice, 282 sorcery, accusation of, 162, 282 Sosthenes, 75‒78 soul, 44, 53, 70, 72‒74, 77, 94, 126‒127, 133‒139, 152, 158 and n. 73, 161, 170, 224 n. 4, 231 n. 27, 241 and n. 10. See also Psyche. See also phantasia space(s), – geographic, 56 – religious, 239‒240 Stoicism, 74, 157 n. 68, 158 storytelling, 178‒179, 183, 186‒187, 194‒196 sun, 54 n. 11, 94, 186 n. 21, 187, 215, 284, 292‒293 – cult of, 53‒54, 63 – mystical rites of, 240 n. 4 superstitio – illicita, 154, 161, 166 – malefica, 155 surrealism, 104 sword-swallower, 284 Syene as (counter) Troy, 207‒209 symbolism, 53, 60, 134 n. 45, 290 – funerary, 44 – religious, 58 sympathy, vs. antipathy, 291 Symposium, 46, 52, 113, 136, 137 and n. 54, 157, 246 Syrinx, 23, 31 telos, 96 – marriage, as, 85‒86

305

Tereus, 33 n. 12, 228‒234 Tertullian, 128‒131, 136 n. 49, 142, 145, 149 and n. 29, 152‒156, 161, 165, 172‒173 Theagenes, 26, 37, 62‒63, 210 n. 49, 213‒ 217, 220 – as (counter) Orestes, 215, 217 – as Osiris, 213, 214 and n. 67 – assimilated to Achilles. 63 – assimilated to Apollo, 63 – recognition, of, 214‒215 theatricality, in Heliodorus, 211‒212 Thermouthis, 206 Thero/Theron, 76 Thersander/Thersandros, 17, 19, 31, 61, 76, 78 and n. 53, 220 Thisbe, 202, 206‒207, 216‒217, 220 Thrasyllus, 95‒96, 114‒115, 117, 119, 182 n. 14 Thyamis, 202, 206, 208, 213, 220 Thyestes, 229, 235‒236 tightwad, 279 Tlepolemus, 44, 46, 95, 115‒116, 118, 121, 189. See also Haemus topos – legacy-hunting, 227 n. 15 – violence, 29‒30 torture, female, 13, 28, 31 Trachinus/Trachinos, 208, 210 n. 49, 217 n. 72 traditional story, 25 Trimalchio, 36, 239, 242 n. 15, 243 n. 21, 246, 248, 278, 280, 232 n. 31 Tripartite Tractate, 138 Troiae Halosis, 236, 245, 247, 250 Tyche, 57, 64, 242 tyranny, 135, 232 tyrant, 232‒234 Venus, 4, 37, 92‒93, 113, 115, 117, 119, 121, 136, 281, 289, 290 n. 10 Vergil, 198 violation of taboo, 106 violence, 2‒3, 8‒9, 12‒14, 18, 32, 84, 86, 88, 104, 181, 189, 201, 213, 222 – female body, on, 13 – Greek novels, in, 28 f. – sexual, 92, 94

306

General Index

virginalis verecundia, 89 virginity, 18, 61, 79, 92, 114, 117‒118, 216‒ 217 – trial, 210 virgo, 2, 111 f., 143, 172. See also puella visual arts (art), 17, 71, 126, 254 visual component, 62 Voluptas, 94, 118, 135‒136 Von Harnack, A., 131 West, S., 251 n. 1, 271, 282 Whitmarsh, T., 2, 8, 13, 41 n. 5, 42, 68 n. 5, 69 n. 9, 77 n. 45, 78 n. 53, 81, 84 n. 15, 99, 222 Widow of Ephesus, 96, 117, 159, 303

Winkler, 15, 32, 37‒38, 83, 87, 89‒91, 99, 192, 199, 205, 218, 222, 253‒254, 271, 290‒292, 294 wisdom, 286, 288. See also sapientia Xenophon, of Ephesus (Ephesius), 15, 25 n. 8, 37, 53, 57, 58, 64, 65, 67, 69, 79, 80, 87, 97, 158, 205, 217 Zeitlin, F., 60 n. 15, 66, 82 n. 1, 99, 226 n. 12, 236, 239 n. 1, 241 n. 10, 243 n. 22, 246 and n. 31, 247 n. 38, 247 nn. 34, 35 and 38, 248 nn. 39, 40 and 41, 260 Zeus Casius, 61 Zeus, of Labraunda, 267, 269

Index locorum Achilles Tatius Leucippe and Clitophon 1,1‒2: 36 nn. 1 and 2 1,1,10‒13: 30 1,2: 246, n. 33 1,2,1‒2: 10 n. 12 1,6,3‒4: 72 1,6,5: 73 1,8,6: 17 1,9,1: 72 n. 25 1,9,4: 74 2,4,5: 33 2,24,3‒4: 75 3,7: 31 3,8: 32 3,15‒22: 31 n. 9 3,15‒22: 9 n. 10 3,15,1 f.: 205 n. 25 3,15,4: 32 3,15,6: 31‒32 5,3,48: 31 5,5: 32 5,5: 69 n. 10 5,5,1: 69 5,5,8 ff: 33 5,7,4 f.: 205 n. 25 6,1: 33 6,1: 19 6,4,3‒4: 76 6,11,3‒4: 78 6,22,4: 30 7,5,2: 205 n. 25 8,2,3: 205 n. 26 8,6: 21 8,8,9: 255 n. 19 8,12: 17 8,13: 21 Acts of Thomas, 108‒113: 127 Aelian On the Nature of Animals 1,9‒10: 253 2,57: 252

Aelius Aristides Orations 46: 160 On Plato 99,32: 68 Aeschylus Choephori 183: 212 n. 60 Persians 36: 212 n. 62 Seven against Thebes 759: 212 n. 60 Apuleius Apologia 1,3: 164 3,5‒6: 164 1,15: 154 2,11: 156 2,12: 152 2,4,7: 152 10,6: 157 30,1‒4: 164 30,4: 291 31,1: 291 32,1: 291 39,1: 157 40,5: 291 42,2: 291 43,6: 291 55: 166 55,8: 44 n. 7 56: 159‒160 61,7‒8: 291 70,7: 165 72‒73: 160 90: 160 Florida 16: 166 17: 166 18: 166 20: 166 Metamorphoses 1,1: 285 1,4: 284 1,6: 182 1,8,4–5: 77 1,9,1‒4: 290 n. 13 1,21‒22: 279 1,22: 112 n. 3

308

Index locorum

1,23,3: 89 1,24‒25: 279 2,28: 159 2,5,7: 290 n. 13 2,7: 190 2,7: 280 2,16,1: 289 2,22,3: 290 n. 13 2,25,1: 290 n. 13 2,32,7: 46 n. 11 3,9: 191 n. 31 3,19: 194 3,19‒25: 281 3,19,1‒2: 46 n. 11 3,22: 190 3,23,2: 290 3,25: 159 3,25,3: 288 3,27,2: 288 3,29,5: 288 4,2,8: 288 4,20: 188 4,23: 115 4,23: 91 4,24,1‒2: 92 4,28‒6,25: 92 4,28,1: 20 n. 17 4,28: 115 4,31: 115 4,32: 117 4,33,1: 92 5,1‒3 92 5,4: 117 5,4,2: 92 5,5: 115 5,8,4: 93 5,11,5‒6: 93 5,11: 118 5,12: 115 5,12,1‒2: 93 5,18,4: 93 5,20,3‒6: 93 5,21,3‒4: 93 5,22: 93 5,22: 119 5,23,1‒3: 93 5,24,1: 93

5,28,7‒5,30: 93 6,10,5: 46 n. 10 6,11,1: 289 6,21: 45 6,21,1‒2: 93 6,23: 118 6,24: 118 6,24,3: 289 6,25: 115 6,25,1: 94 6,27: 119 and 165 6,28‒29: 166 6,28: 118 6,28,2: 94 6,28,5: 94 6,29,6‒7: 94 6,31: 283 6,31,5‒32,3: 94 7,4,1: 94 7,5,2: 94 7,9: 118 7,10: 118 7,10,3: 95 7,11: 118 7,12: 118 7,13,2: 95 7,14: 117 7,15,1: 288 7,21: 95 7,22,1: 95 7,23,2: 95 7,23,4: 95 7,24,1: 95 8,5,10: 95 8,7,7: 44 8,9: 117 8,11,1: 96 8,11: 114 8,12,2‒13,1: 96 8,14: 117 8,21,3: 290 n. 13 9,10‒9,13: 178‒188 9,14: 186 n. 20 and 152 9,15: 177 n. 2,184 9,16: 186 n. 20 9,22: 184, 186‒187, 196 9,22: 186 n. 20

Index locorum

9,31: 197 n. 47 9,37: 188 n. 25 10,29,2: 288 10,33: 288 10,15,3: 45 n. 9 10,16,8‒9: 45 n. 9 10,18,3: 45 n. 9 10,30‒34.1: 37 n. 5 11,6,2: 288 11,13,2: 288 11,12‒16: 245 n. 30 11,15,1: 289 11,17: 243 11,30: 166 11,30,5: 14 On the God of Socrates 3‒5: 157 14: 157 15: 157 Aristotle History of Animals 1,12: 258 n. 29 5,112: 254 .10 5,113: 270 488a: 252 553a: 252 553b: 253 Rhetoric 1326a26 f.: 75 1407b26: 78 n. 49 On the Soul 3,9‒10: 75 On Prophesying in Dreams 463a: 72 n. 26 On Dreams 459a–460b: 70 n. 20 Metaphysics 1024b21–24: 70 n. 20 Politics 1454a: 210 n. 52 1454b,16 f.: 210 n. 53 1455a: 213 n. 65 Arrian Discourse on Epictetus: 254 n. 11 Artemidorus Onirocriticus 1,1: 72 n. 27 Augustine Letters 13,1: 166 102,32: 166 138,19: 166

309

The City of God 8,14: 157 8,19: 166 18,18: 166 and 290 n. 13 Basil of Caesarea Letters 210,6: 73 n. 31 Bernard Silvestris (Bernardus Silvestris) Cosmographia 2,13: 293 Bolus of Mendes (Bolus Mendesius) Geoponica (fr.15 Wellmann) 13,9,6: 291 15,1,25: 291 Callimachus Hymn to Artemis 237‒258: 256 n. 21 Fragments 178: 256 Hymn to Zeus 66: 255 Catullus 10: 276‒277 63: 243 Chariton Chaereas and Callirrhoe 1,1,1–2: 57 1,1,2: 57 1,1,4 f.: 58 1,1,7 f.: 58 1,2,2: 69 1,4: 57 1,4: 76 1,12: 30 2,5,6‒7: 69 n. 12 3,1,4: 69 4,2,13: 69 n. 12 4,2,5‒8: 58 5,3,3 f.: 58 5,5,2‒3: 69 n. 15 5,5,6: 69 5,8,2: 69 n. 14 6,3,6: 69 n. 12 8,4,1: 213 n. 66 8,8,15‒16: 58 Cicero On the Ends of Good and Evil 2,4,13: 136 n. 51 Clement of Alexandria Excerpts of Theodotus 21: 134 n. 44 67: 134 n. 44

310

Index locorum

Columella On Agriculture 9,14,3: 258 n. 29 Constantine Manasses Chronicle Synopsis 125: 292 Corpus Hermeticum 1,18: 134 Cyranides 1,15: 291 2,31: 291 4,62: 291 Dio Cassius 67,14: 154 Dio Chrysostomus Discourses 1‒4: 209 n. 40 Diodorus Siculus 20,14,5‒7: 204 n. 17 Dionysius of Halicarnassus Lysias 3: 78 n. 51 On Demosthenes 306,9: 78, n. 49 Letter to Pompeius 2,13: 78, n. 50 EM, s.v. ἐσσήν: 256 n. 22 Epictetus Discourses 2,18,24: 78 n. 53 Eumathios Makrembolites Hysmine and Hysminias 3,5,1: 73 n. 32 Euripides Iphigenia in Aulis 460‒491: 211 n. 56 514 f.: 211 n. 57 1411: 212 n. 63 Eusebius of Caesarea Ecclesiastical Theology 3,21,1: 75 n. 38 Exegesis of the Soul (NHC 2,6): 127 Galen On the Passions and Errors of the Soul 5: 293 On the Formation of the Foetus 2: 292 On the Natural Faculties 1,1: 292 1,3: 292 1,5: 293 n. 28 1,6: 292 2,1: 292 3,5: 292 Geoponica 13,9,6: 291 15, 1, 25: 291 Gregory of Nyssa Against Eunomius 2,1,190: 68 n. 7

Heliodorus Aethiopica/Aithiopika 1,10,2: 19 1,22,2: 214 n. 67 2,16,7: 76 2,25,1: 19 2,34: 20 3,4,2: 210 n. 49 3,5,4: 214 n. 69 4,8: 36 n. 1 5,31,2: 210 n. 49 6,15,4: 214 n. 67 9,3,1: 208 n. 35 9,5,1: 208 n. 37 9,6,2: 208 n. 39 9,6,5: 208 n. 39 9,7,2: 209 n. 41 9,8,1: 208 n. 39 9,10,1‒3: 208 n. 38 9,25,2: 77 10,1,1: 209 n. 43 10,3,3: 209 n. 44 10,7,3: 210 n. 46 10,7,6: 210 n. 48 10,8,2: 214 n. 68 10,16,1‒6: 211 n. 54 10,16,3: 212 n. 59 10,16,6: 212 n. 61 10,16,8‒9: 212 n. 62 10,16,9: 212 n. 63 10,16,9‒10: 211 n. 55 10,17,1: 212 n. 58 10,17,1: 212 n. 64 Herodotus 2,139: 205 n. 30 4,103: 204 n. 17 Hesiod Theogony 118: 134 n. 43 Historia Augusta Clodius 12,12: 130 n. 28 12,12,12: 150 Homer Iliad 9,612: 212 n. 62 Odyssey 1,3: 193

Index locorum

1,82: 212 n. 61 2,80‒81: 34 8,266‒366: 187 10, 281‒306: 290 n. 13 11,328‒332: 195 11,336‒341: 194 11,377‒384: 196 23,15‒17: 72 Iamblichus (novelist) Babyloniaca 74a40: 253 n. 9 Iamblichus (philosopher) Life of Pythagoras 34: 291 On the Mysteries 3,2,1: 72 n. 26 Ignatius Epistle to the Romans 7,2: 134 n. 43 Irenaeus Against Heresies 2,10,2: 130 n. 30 2,14,4: 130 n. 30 2,17,4: 134 n. 43 IvE 1582b: 257 n. 25 Jerome On Ephesians prol.: 269 n. 37 Joseph and Aseneth 1,8: 255 2: 258 2,4: 258 3,5: 258 10,8: 258 14,14: 258 15,7: 255 16,14: 253, 258 16,16: 255 16,17‒18: 253 16,19‒20: 252 16,22‒23: 253 n. 9 18,5: 258 Josephus, Flavius Antiquities of the Jews 13,171: 259 n. 33 18,11: 259 n. 33 Vita 2: 259 n. 33 The Jewish War 2,119: 259 n. 33 Justin Martyr Dialogue with Trypho 2,3: 150 69,7: 155

108,2: 155 134: 154 Apology 1,6,1: 154 1,14,2: 155 1,24,1: 153 1,26,7: 154 2,2: 156 13,1: 154 36,3: 153 57,1: 153 Lactantius Divine Institutes 5,3,19: 155 5,37: 166 Lollianus Phoenicica (Phoinikika) fr. b1r: 205 n. 22 Longus Daphnis and Chloe Prologue 3: 40 1,1: 71 and 248 n. 38 1,2: 71 1,3: 240 n. 8 1,7,2: 59 1,13,1‒3: 60 1,13,5 f.: 60 1,17,2 f.: 60 1,17,3: 60 1,27: 20 2,3,3 f.: 59 2,7,1: 10 n. 12 and 69 n. 9 2,27‒28: 67 n. 1 2,27,2: 10 n. 12 and 69 n. 9 2,30,4: 67 n. 1 2,33‒2,34: 21 3,17,1‒2: 67 n. 1 3,23: 22 3,23: 24 4,2,5: 71 4,18,1: 60 4,20,1: 10 n. 12 and 69 n. 9 Lucian On Sacrifices 2: 204 n. 18 Peregrinus 11: 160 Podagra 174: 291 Toxaris 5‒6: 204

311

312

Index locorum

Lysimachus (ap. Josephus C. Ap. 2, 145): 162 Marcus Aurelius 11,3: 153 Melito of Sardis (ap. Eus. HE 4,26,10): 160 Minucius Felix Octavius 3,1: 155 22,5: 269 n. 37 28,7: 149 New Testament 1 Corinthians 5,9‒11: 151 2 Timothy 3,8: 163 4,21: 165 Acts 2,15: 153 19,24‒40: 260 n. 35 19,28: 255 n. 16 19,34: 255 n. 16 Nonnus Dionysiaca 6,260: 22 n. 27 15,388: 22 n. 27 16,288: 22 n. 27 361: 22 n. 27 48,642: 22 n. 27 804: 22 n. 27 Numenius (ap. Eusebius PE 9,8,1‒2): 163 Old Testament 2 Kings 4,8: 255 Exodus 16,31: 251 Genesis 6,1‒4: 136 n. 51 41,45‒47: 251 Joshua 20,2‒3: 255 n. 15 21,13: 255 n. 15 Numbers 35: 255 n. 15 Olympiodorus Commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorologica 59: 292, n. 23 On the Origin of the World (NHC 2,5) 109,1: 133 Origen Contra Celsum 1,6b: 155 1,26a: 163 4,51: 163

6,22: 292, n. 23 7,40: 149 7,69: 155 Ovid Heroides 14,55: 113 and n. 4 Papyrus Chester Beatty XVI : 163 Papyri Graecae Magicae VIII,13: 291 XIII,24‒26: 292 n. 26 XIII,355‒357: 292 n. 26 Parmenides frg. 13 D.-K.: 134 n. 43 Passio of Galaction and Epistima 3: 260 n. 35 Pausanias 8,13,1‒2: 257 9,39,3: 253 n. 8 10,5,4: 253 n. 7 Petronius Satyricon 72: 278 83‒90: 239 f. Philo Abraham 182: 204 n. 17 Apology for the Jews (ap. Eus. Praep. Evang. 8,11‒18) 198: 259 n. 33 Every Good Man is Free 12,76: 259 n. 33 On the Contemplative Life 1: 259 n. 33 On the Giants 25: 134 n. 43 On the Special Laws 219: 72 n. 26 Philostorgius Church History 9,2: 163 Philostratus Life of Apollonios 1,1: 204 n. 18 1,31: 204 n. 18 3,41: 204 n. 18 6,19: 70 Philostratus the Younger Imagines Prologue 6: 71 Photius Bibliotheca 96,76a–77b: 205 n. 24 129: 291 Phrynichus Eclogae 197: 254 n. 11

Index locorum

Picatrix 3,1,6: 292 n. 22 3,1,9: 292 n. 26 Plato Apology 20a–b: 285 21d: 286 27d–e: 285 30e: 285 Critias 43d: 212 n. 61 Phaedrus 250d: 137 n. 54 Symposium 180: 137 203: 137 Republic 599a2: 71 n. 21 602c10‒d4: 71 n. 21 Timaeus 71a–b: 70 n. 19 71d5‒72e: 71 n. 21 Pliny Epistles 96,7: 153 10,96: 153 Natural History 10,5,4: 259 n. 33 11,46: 252 21,74‒78: 254 n. 9 28,42,155: 291 30,11: 163 Plotinus Enneads 2,9: 135 n. 47 3,5 (50): 137 2‒3: 137 3,8: 135 n. 47 5,1 (10): 138 5,5: 135 n. 47 5,5 (32),3: 138 5,5 (32),12: 137 n. 54 5,8: 135 n. 47 6,9 (9),9: 137 Plutarch Alexander 60,14: 209 n. 40 62,1: 208 n. 36 How to Study Poetry 15b: 68 n. 7

313

Life of Otho 21,1‒4: 204 n. 18 Moralia 499c: 204 n. 17 On Isis and Osiris 383 f.: 72 n. 26 30: 150 50: 150 On Love 759c: 73 Polybius 12,24,5: 68 Pompeus Trogus (ap. Justin Hist. Phil. 36,2,7‒8): 162 Porphyry On the Cave of the Nymphs 14‒15: 253 n. 6 Posidonius (ap. Strabo, Geography 16,2,43): 162 Proclus Commentary on Plato's Timaeus 14c: 292 n. 23 Ps.-Albertus Magnus The Book of Secrets 22: 292 n. 26 Ps.-Clemens Recognitions 1,58,1: 155 Ps.-Demetrius On Style 192‒193: 77 226–232: 77 Ps.-Hippolytus Against Heresies 5,7,22: 128 n. 22 Ps.-Longinus On the Sublime 9,9: 164 12,3: 78, n. 49 15,1‒2: 77 Ps.-Lucian Lucius or The Ass 7: 289 13‒14: 288 17: 288 20: 288 51‒52: 288 54: 288 56: 288 Ptolemy Tetrabiblos 1,4: 293 n. 28 Rufinus Apology 5,36: 19

314

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Sallust Catilina 55,3: 179 n. 5 Scholia on Pindar Isthmians 5: 292 n. 23 Sophocles Ajax 675‒676: 73 n. 30 Statius Achilleid 1,823‒40: 120‒121 Strabo 10,5,6: 204 n. 17 Synesius On dreams 19,45‒53: 10 19,154d‒155a: 68 Tacitus Annals 15,44: 152 16,19: 244 n. 23 Histories 5,5: 152 Talmud, Babylonian Sanhedrin 67b: 290 n. 13 Tertullian Apology 2,3: 153 3,5: 153 4,1: 153 8‒9: 154 10: 161 16,1: 149 16,12: 149 37: 153 39,8: 153 40,1‒2: 153 49,1: 156 Against the Valentinians 10: 128 De Praescriptionibus Hereticorum 7: 130 n. 30 On Baptism 1: 165 On Prayer 15,1: 156 On the Soul 23,4: 130 To His Wife 2,4,5: 155 To the Nations 1,11,1: 149 1,14,1: 149

Theophrastus On the Senses 49‒50: 75 n. 38 Thomas Cantimpratensis Natural History Encyclopedia 10,42: 293 n. 30 Virgil Aeneid 2: 249 6,27‒29: 183 6,126‒129: 180 6: 178 6,616‒617: 184 6,687‒688: 191 7,648: 162 Georgics 4,197‒218: 253 n. 5 4,281‒558: 253 n. 5 Xenophon of Athens Cyropaedia 8,4,7: 207 n. 30 Xenophon of Ephesus Ephesiaca 1,1,1–3: 57 1,1,3: 57 1,2,1: 57 1,2,2 f.: 58 1,3‒5: 58 1,8‒9: 58 1,12,1‒2: 58 2,5: 57 2,13,2 f.: 205 n. 21 3,5,5: 205 n. 21 4: 57 4,2: 58 4,6,3: 205 n. 21 5,13,4: 58 5,14: 58 6: 57 7: 57

About the Authors Joanna Atkin has taught Latin language at the University of London (Birkbeck, KCL and UCL), a literature module on the Roman novel at the University of Warwick, as well as undergraduate supervisions on Apuleius at Cambridge University. Her doctoral thesis entitled ‘The Presentation of Women in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’ (University of Cambridge) is still a work in progress. Anton Bierl is Professor for Greek Literature at the University of Basel. He served as Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies (2005–2011) and is Member of the IAS, Princeton (2010/11). He is the co-editor of the Gesamtkommentar zu Homers Ilias. His research interests include Homeric epic, drama, song and performance culture, and the ancient novel. His books include Dionysos und die griechische Tragödie (1991); Die Orestie des Aischylos auf der modernen Bühne (1996); Der Chor in der Alten Komödie (2001; English 2nd ed. Ritual and Performativity 2009). He is currently working on a book titled Youth in Fiction. Love, Myth, and Literary Sophistication in the Ancient Novel. Jan N. Bremmer (1944) is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Groningen. His latest publications are Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible and the Ancient Near East (2008), The Rise of Christianity through the Eyes of Gibbon, Harnack and Rodney Stark (2010) and (co-editor with Marco Formisano) Perpetua’s passions (2012). Edmund P. Cueva received his doctorate in Classics from Loyola University of Chicago. He is now Professor of Classics and Humanities at the University of Houston-Downtown, where he serves as chair of the Arts and Humanities department. He has published extensively on the ancient novel and is currently working on the origins of horror and their connections with the ancient novel. Marília P. Futre Pinheiro is Professor of Classics at the University of Lisbon. Among her recent publications are Mitos e Lendas da Grécia Antiga (2011; 1st. ed. 2007). She organized the Fourth International Conference on the Ancient Novel (ICAN 2008) that was held in Lisbon, in July 2008. She recently edited (jointly with Stephen Harrison) Fictional Traces: Receptions of the Ancient Novel ANS 14.1 and 14.2, 2011; Narrating Desire: Eros, Sex, and Gender in the Ancient Novel, Trends in Classics-Supplementary volumes (de Gruyter, 2012), with Marilyn Skinner and Froma Zeitlin, and The Ancient Novel and Early Christian and Jewish Narrative: Fictional Intersections, with Judith Perkins and Richard Pervo (ANS 16).

316

About the Authors

Fritz Graf is the Distinguished University Professor in Classics at the Ohio State University. His research covers especially ancient religions and epigraphy. His most recent book is Apollo (2009) and, together with Sarah Iles Johnston, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife (2007; 2nd edition 2013). Presently, he is finishing a study on Greek and Roman festivals in the centuries between Augustus and Theodosius. R. Drew Griffith has taught Classics at Queen’s University at Kingston, Canada for over a quarter century. His courses include Greek and Roman Epic, Greek, and Roman Drama and Ancient Humour. He has written books on the Odyssey and Sophocles Oedipus Rex, and many articles on Greek and Roman poetry. Maria Kasyan is an associate professor in the Department of Classics, Institute of Oriental and Classical Studies, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, where she teaches Latin language and literature. She has translated and edited Latin Classical and Medieval authors. Presently, she is writing on the ancient novel, including Petronius, Apuleius and the anonymous Joseph and Aseneth. As a member of the collaborative ‘Joseph and Aseneth’ project (with N. V. Braginskaya and A. I. Shmaina-Velikanova), she is working on a translation, detailed commentary, and series of papers on that novel. Anna Lefteratou earned her Maîtrise and her DEA degrees from La Sorbonne (Paris IV) with a dissertation on Longus and on Heliodorus respectively. In 2010 she earned her D.Phil. from University of Oxford (Corpus Christi College) with the dissertation ‘Myth and narrative in the Greek novel’. Currently, she is a Dorothea Schlözer Post-doctoral Fellow at the Courant Research Centre EDRIS (University of Göttingen) working on education and religion in Late Antiquity. Her project’s title is ‘Nonnos’ Dionysiaca and Paraphrase of St. John’s Gospel between paganism and Christianity in the mid-fifth century CE’. Mike Lippman received a Ph.D. in Classics from Duke University and has since taught at numerous universities around America (including Emory University and the University of Arizona). He specializes in ancient theater, particularly Aristophanic Comedy. He has taught on a large variety of subjects to classes ranging in size from less than a dozen to over five hundred students. Most recently he has begun working on translation, modern reception and contemporary adaptation of ancient drama. Paolo Monella holds a PhD in Classics (Palermo 2006) and in 2012 was a postdoctoral fellow in Digital Humanities at the Accademia dei Lincei, Rome. In 2004

About the Authors

317

and 2007/08, as visiting lecturer, he taught Latin and Classical Civilisation at UCLA. Since 2008, he has been teaching Digital Humanities at the University of Palermo. He published a book on the myth of Procne and Philomela (Procne e Filomela. Dal mito al simbolo letterario, Bologna: Pàtron 2005) as well as articles on Latin literature – mostly classical poetry – and on digital scholarly editions. Home page: http://www.unipa.it/paolo.monella Max Nelson is an associate professor of Classics at the University of Windsor, Canada. He has published a number of articles on magic in ancient times and specializes in the history of food and drink. His monograph The Barbarian’s Beverage: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe was published by Routledge in 2005. Nelson is also involved in historical reenactments and has a large collection of board games and beer coasters. Aglae Pizzone (PhD, University of Milan) is senior researcher at the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences – University of Geneva, where she acts as academic coordinator of the Focus Language and Culture. Her research interests mainly revolve around Late Antique and Byzantine Literature. She has published a monograph on the reception of Homer in Synesius of Cyrene (Sinesio e la ancora di Omero. Intertestualità e modelli tra retorica e filosofia. Milano 2006). In the last years she has explored the construct of visual imagination in Byzantium as well as the intersection between fiction and Homeric exegesis in the Twelfth century. Ilaria Ramelli (MA, MA, PhD, Postdoc) has been Professor of Roman Near Eastern History, and Assistant in Ancient Philosophy (Catholic University, since 2003); she is also Senior visiting Professor of Greek Thought, of Church History, Senior Fellow (Durham), academic and scientific consultant, research director, and member of directive boards of scholarly journals and series. She has contributed many books and articles on Classics, Ancient Philosophy, and Patristics in outstanding scholarly series and journals, and received prestigious academic prizes. She has given many courses, seminars, and invited lectures in topmost universities, and has never interrupted academic research over 21 years. Sonia Sabnis received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently Associate Professor of Classics and Humanities at Reed College. Her publications include several articles on Apuleius and Lucian. Giovanni Solinas is an academic in the field of Italian and Comparative Literature. He received his degree in Florence, Italy, in History of Italian Literary Criticism. He completed his PhD in Theory and analysis of the text, at the University

318

About the Authors

of Bergamo, Italy. His thesis focused on the concept of performativity applied in twentieth century experimental poetry. His current interest is contemporary literature (particularly, avant-garde poetry) and literature theory. He has published several articles and essays on authors and themes (among others André Breton, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Fortini, surrealism and myth, the concept of contemporary character) of twentieth century’s literature. Today he is Maître de langue at Paris 3 University. Emilio Suárez de la Torre is Professor of Greek Philology at the ‘Universitat Pompeu Fabra’ (Barcelona). The main topics of his research are Greek lyric poetry, religion and literature, divination, and magic in Ancient Greece. Some publications: Píndaro (Madrid 1988), Yambógrafos griegos (Madrid 2002), Elegíacos griegos (Madrid 2012). He is editor or coeditor of: Teoría y práctica de la composición poética en Grecia y Roma y su pervivencia (Valladolid, 2004), Lex Sacra: religión y derecho a lo largo de la historia (Valladolid 2010, with Enrique Pérez Benito), Mito y magia en la Grecia antigua (Barcelona 2013, with Aurelio Pérez Jiménez). Chiara Ombretta Tommasi, former student at the Scuola Normale Superiore (1991–1995), received her PhD at the University of Pisa (2000), where she is currently assistant professor of Latin Literature. Her scholarly interests focus predominantly on Late Antiquity, in particular the interaction between religious culture and literary forms. She has published extensively on fifth and sixth century poetry (Corippus, Dracontius, the Latin Anthology) and on ‘esoteric’ trends in Latin culture, investigating the reception of Gnosticism and Platonism in authors like Tertullian, Apuleius, Marius Victorinus and Martianus Capella. Her most recent works include a critical edition of a juvenile work by Giacomo Leopardi about the Second Sophistic (Pisa 2009) and the monograph The Bee Orchid. Religione e Cultura in Marziano Capella (Naples 2012). She is currently working on a monograph about Lucan and religion, and on a commentary on Arnobius’ Against the Pagans. Maaike Zimmerman is (retired) senior lecturer of Latin Language and Literature at the Classics Department of the University of Groningen (Netherlands). From 1993 to 2004, she has been the leader of the research group Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius, and has been co-author and editor of several volumes published by that group. Her own publications include: Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses Book X, Text, Introduction and Commentary, Groningen, 2000. In 2012 Zimmerman’s critical text edition of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses has been published at Oxford University Press, in the series Oxford Classical Texts.

About the Authors

319

Tim Whitmarsh is Professor of Ancient Literatures in the University of Oxford and E.P. Warren Praelector, fellow and tutor at Corpus Christi College. He has written and edited a number of books on imperial Greek literature, including The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel (ed., Cambridge 2008), Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel: Returning Romance (Cambridge 2011) and The Romance Between Greece and the East (ed., Cambridge 2013). He is currently working on a history of atheism in Greek and Roman antiquity.