The Works of Apuleius (Golden Ass, God of Socrates, Florida, On the Doctrines of Plato)

Having understood that at HypataA famous city of Thessaly, situated on the banks of the river Spercheus.—which is the principal city of all Thessaly—new cheese of exquisite flavor was to be sold at a very reasonable price, I made my way there with the intention of buying the whole stock. But, as often happens when one starts a journey with the left foot foremost,Starting a journey with the left foot was considered an ill omen in antiquity. all my hopes of profit were disappointed. A person named Lupus, a merchant with a large business, had bought the whole supply the day before.

“Weary from my rapid journey undertaken to so little purpose, I proceeded early in the evening to the public baths. To my surprise, I espied an old companion of mine named Socrates. He was sitting on the ground, half-covered by a sorry, tattered cloak, and he looked like a different person, so miserably pale and thin was he—just like those outcasts of fortune who beg for alms in the streets. Consequently, although he had been my friend and acquaintance, I approached him with hesitation.

“‘How now, friend Socrates,’ I said, ‘what is the meaning of this? Why this appearance? What crime have you committed? You have been mourned at home and for some time given up for dead.The Romans performed a ceremony called conclamatio, calling the name of the deceased for seven days to ensure they were not merely in a trance. Guardians have been assigned to your children by decree of the provincial magistrate. Your wife, having fulfilled the rites due to the dead,Ovid, in his Fasti, Book I, mentions ten months as the mourning period for widows. all disfigured by grief and sorrow, and having nearly cried herself blind with excessive weeping, is being pressured by her parents to repair the family’s misfortune by the joys of a new marriage. But here you come before our eyes like a ghost, to our extreme confusion.’”