Apuleius

Apuleius (c123-c180 CE) - his full name was Lucius Apuleius Platonicus - was a Roman writer, best known today as the author of Metamorphoses (or The Golden Ass), the only Latin novel to have come down to us in its entirety. The English pronunciation of Apuleius is a-pyoo-LEE-ers (IPA: /,æpjʊ'liːəs/); and the adjective from Apuleius is Apuleian.

Apuleius was born into a wealthy Romanised Berber family at Madaurus (modern Mdaourouch in Algeria). He was educated initially at Carthage, but later studied philosophy at Athens and oratory at Rome. After travelling in Egypt and Asia Minor he returned to North Africa and settled at Carthage, where he was greatly admired as a lawyer, public speaker, and poet.

Many of Apuleius' works have been lost, but several have survived, the most famous of them the novel Metamorphoses, nowadays more commonly known as The Golden Ass (Asinus aureus), the title under which St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) refers to the novel.

The picaresque hero of Metamorphoses is Lucius, who dabbles in magic and accidentally turns himself into an ass; and much of the novel is concerned with his adventures and experiences while in the body of an ass. Lucius is eventually restored to human form, and the novel ends with his initiation into the mystery cult of the Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris. The novel is, however, loosely constructed, and this central narrative incorporates a number of lengthy digressions, one of which contains a version of the Cinderella folk-tale.

Metamorphoses is written in a florid, extravagant style, and its vocabulary is often poetic. Inasmuch as the novel is a fantasy which recounts events far removed from those of normal everyday life, it is sometimes characterised as a romance. Metamorphoses was widely read and much admired in the final centuries of Classical Antiquity, in the Middle Ages, and in the Renaissance.