Introduction

fatigues of study and his hair as tangled as a lump
of tow!

His works were astonishingly numerous. Beside
those already mentioned there have come down to us
two books on the life and philosophy of Plato¹ original: "de dogmate Platonis", a highly
rhetorical treatise on the ‘Demon of Socrates’ original: "De deo Socratis"; the "demon" refers to a guiding spirit or divine sign mentioned by Socrates, and
a free translation of the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise
‘on the Universe’ original: "De Mundo", though Apuleius is regrettably far
from making due acknowledgement of his debt to the
original. None of these works can be described as
interesting, though the treatise on the ‘Demon of
Socrates’ contains some characteristic purple passages passages of particularly ornate or flowery prose.

It would, however, scarcely be an exaggeration to
say that more of Apuleius’ works have perished than
survived. He has told us in the Florida original: "Florida", meaning "The Florid Passages", a collection of Apuleius's best oratorical excerpts (20) that he
has written dialogues, hymns, music, history, and
satire. And we have copious references to works from
his pen, that, perhaps fortunately, no longer exist.
Beside the three poems which survive in the Apology original: "Apologia", the speech Apuleius gave to defend himself against charges of using magic to win his wife
and a translation of a passage of Menander a famous Greek playwright of the 4th century BC, preserved in
a manuscript once at Beauvais, but now lost (Baehrens,
Minor Latin Poets original: "Poet. Lat. Min." 4, p. 104), he mentions a hymn to
Aesculapius the god of medicine and healing, written both in Latin and Greek (Florida
18), and a panegyric a speech or poem of high praise in verse on the virtues of Scipio
Orfitus (Florida 17). He wrote also another novel
entitled Hermagoras, a collection of famous love-
stories of the past, sundry ‘histories’, a translation
of the Phaedo Plato’s famous dialogue regarding the immortality of the soul, and numerous scientific works, dealing

¹ He regarded Plato as his master above all others. We find
Platonist original: "Platonicus" attached to him as an honorific title in the manuscripts.