4 - Magic

Summary

Magic and miracle in Roman sources

Lucius Apuleius, like his mid-second century contemporary, Aelius Aristides, reported an experience of epiphany and mystical transformation, although the divinity in the case of Apuleius was Isis rather than Asklepios. The career to which he devoted his later life was that of a lawyer, but this seems to have been a means of providing money so that he could spend as much time as possible on his major interest: as priest in the shrine of his beloved Isis. While his story in the Metamorphoses – which is almost certainly in large part autobiographical – has no significant link with medical tradition, it makes contact at several crucial points with magic. Indeed, the story line is launched with the narrative of Apuleius' dabbling in magic, which results in his being transformed into an ass. The symbolic import of that experience is clear: Apuleius is pictured as a braying, clomping fool, scorned by his contemporaries until he encounters the goddess, who delivers him from his condition, and transforms him into a fully human being, in communion with her and dedicated to her beneficent purpose for the world.

In a later work, the Apology, Apuleius develops a defence against the charge brought against him before the Roman authorities that he has been practising magic.