Apologia (A Discourse on Magic)

years a widow.¹ She was therefore left a widow about the age of 24. The average age of marriage for women was at this period about 14.²

Pontianus was living at Rome shortly before the time of Apuleius’ arrival at Oea and is described as adultus a grown man and uxori idoneus fit for a wife. Assuming his mother to have married at the age of 14–15, he cannot have been much older than 23 when he married the daughter of Rufinus shortly before Pudentilla’s marriage to Apuleius. Neither, on the other hand, is he likely to have been under 21, which seems to have been the age of marriage for men. He was therefore born at some date not far from the years A. D. 134–5, which would make him about 15 or 16 when he resided with Apuleius at Athens circa around A. D. 150. Soon after Apuleius’ marriage he went to Carthage to practise his powers of oratory and not long after died.

Pudens was much younger, for he assumed the toga uirilis garment of manhood about the time of Pudentilla’s wedding. The admission to the ranks of manhood usually took place about the age of 14 or 15, but might be, and in this case probably was, later. Apuleius always lays stress on the extreme youth of Pudens, and hints that he assumed the toga at an unduly early age. But as a matter of fact he can scarcely have been less than 18 at the time of the trial.