Apologia (A Discourse on Magic)

II. THE WORKS OF APULEIUS

A. Extant Works.

1. As to the date and contents of the Apologia sufficient has been said in the chapter on the life of Apuleius, while the details of the style are dealt with in a subsequent chapter. A few words, however, as to its general characteristics may not be out of place here. The speech stands alone among the extant works of Apuleius. For it shows him confronted with a practical problem. Circumstances force him to appear as a genuine human being after a preliminary display as the declamatory and romantic σοφιστής sophist during a considerable portion of the speech. As a result, though the speech contains at least its fair portion of declamation, ‘bunkum’, and bombast, it has a human as well as a stylistic interest, and the style for all its extravagant Asianism is far less distant from the classical style of oratory than we might have expected from the author of the Golden Ass and the Florida. In this speech Apuleius is fighting a capital charge. If his adversaries’ case was trivial, he at least brought heavy artillery to bear on it; and, after he has concluded his fantastic displays of ill-digested learning in the first half of the speech, he speaks like a man and with real indignation, and the reader realizes that he could be something more than a golden ass!

2. The Metamorphoses, commonly called the ‘Golden Ass’,