Apuleius

John Ferguson

doi:10.1017/S0017383500012183

Apuleius

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009

John Ferguson

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To one nurtured on the pure and sustaining milk of Cicero and the Augustans, with an occasional dash of Tacitus and Juvenal for medicinal purposes, the writings of Apuleius come with something of the force of a knock-me-down. The very words are unfamiliar. Barrio is onomatopoeic enough to be guessed, but what does vispellio mean to anyone outside the legal profession? What of cambio? His is a strange language, highly artificial, with its borrowings from the Greek—myoparo, schedium, and naulum, which Juvenal took before him, for instance; with its echoes of Plautus—tuburdnor, scitulus, atticisso, capero, ientaculum, agaso, lurco, pollinctor, cincinnus, and examussim are all Plautine; with its diminutives, always a sign of artifice, as it was the sign of the Graecis-santes of Cicero's day—mellitula, tenella, centunculus, sdtulus spring to the mind; with comparatively unfamiliar literary words—tesca and blatero are both Horatian, but are very rare; and with his own occasional extensions of usage, as when he describes his horse as vector meus, or speaks of a kiss being given pressule, or seemingly coins subterlabere for ‘to slight’. But with this mannered artificiality goes the easy conversational idiom of the professional popular writer, evinced by his repeated use of commodum in the Metamorphoses to carry on the flow of ideas. Fuscis avibus or sinistro pede for ‘without luck’ are as artificial as the rest, but minimo minus for ‘almost’, or dicam an with the indicative for immo vero are surely conversational.

Type: Research Article
Information: Greece & Rome , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 1961 , pp. 61 - 74

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017383500012183 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1961

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^{page 61 note 1} Spinula, formicula, somnulentus seem to appear for the first time in Apuleius.

^{page 62 note 1} Apol. lxvi.Google Scholar

^{page 62 note 2} Haight, E. H., Apuleius (London, 1927), p. 71.Google Scholar

^{page 62 note 3} Pater, W., Marius the Epicurean.Google Scholar

^{page 62 note 4} Florida, iv. 20(98).Google Scholar

^{page 63 note 1} Graves, R., The Golden Ass (Harmondsworth, 1956), p. 9.Google Scholar

^{page 63 note 2} Florida, i. 1.Google Scholar

^{page 63 note 3} Eliot, T. S. in The Dial, lxxxv. 255.Google Scholar

^{page 63 note 4} Metamorphoses, i. 3.Google Scholar

^{page 63 note 5} Ibid. 8.

^{page 64 note 1} Metamorphoses ii. 2.Google Scholar

^{page 64 note 2} Ibid. vi. 27.

^{page 64 note 3} Florida iv. 18 (85).Google Scholar

^{page 64 note 4} Ibid. i. 6.

^{page 64 note 5} Apol. xviii.Google Scholar

^{page 64 note 6} Ibid. ix.

^{page 64 note 7} Ibid. xiv.

^{page 64 note 8} Ibid. xv.

^{page 64 note 9} e.g. Quint. 6. 3, 4. 7, on quoque and coque.

^{page 64 note 10} Apol. xv.Google Scholar

^{page 64 note 11} Ibid. xxx.

^{page 64 note 12} Ibid. xxxi.

^{page 65 note 1} Ibid. xxxiv.

^{page 65 note 2} Metamorphoses ix. 14.Google Scholar

^{page 65 note 3} Ibid. v. 18.

^{page 65 note 4} On Lucr. v. 75.Google Scholar

^{page 65 note 5} Ibid. i. 820.

^{page 65 note 6} Metamorphoses v. 21.Google Scholar

^{page 65 note 7} Ibid. 12.

^{page 65 note 8} Ibid. ix. 36.

^{page 65 note 9} Ibid. xi. 13.

^{page 66 note 1} Metamorphoses iv. 6.

^{page 66 note 2} Ibid. xi. 7.

^{page 67 note 1} For a detailed analysis of this see Brock, Dorothy, Studies in Pronto and his Age.Google Scholar Cf. Bouchier, E. S., Life and Letters in Roman Africa (Oxford [Blackwell], 1913), c. x.Google Scholar

^{page 67 note 2} Vita i. 12.Google Scholar

^{page 67 note 3} Die Orationibus 2.Google Scholar

^{page 67 note 4} Pronto, II. xi.Google Scholar

^{page 67 note 5} Ibid. iv. iii.

^{page 67 note 6} Noctes Atticae xix. 10.Google Scholar

^{page 68 note 1} A Study of History (London, 1935–1954), iv. 61, n. 3.Google Scholar

^{page 68 note 2} The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus (Oxford, 1944), 98.Google Scholar

^{page 68 note 3} Metamorphoses ii. 7.Google Scholar

^{page 68 note 4} Ibid. 9, non operosus sed inordinatus ornatus addebat gratiam.

^{page 68 note 5} e.g. ibid. 16–17, x. 22.

^{page 68 note 6} Ibid. x. 29–35.

^{page 68 note 7} e.g. ibid. iv. 3 or vi. 32 or vii. 14 ff. or x. 24.

^{page 68 note 8} Ibid. i. 1.

^{page 69 note 1} Ibid. 24–25.

^{page 69 note 2} Ibid. ii. 32–iii. 18.

^{page 69 note 3} Ibid. iii. 21–26.

^{page 69 note 4} Ibid. ix. 32–42.

^{page 69 note 5} Ibid. 15.

^{page 69 note 6} Ibid. 39.

^{page 69 note 7} Ibid. x. 1.

^{page 70 note 1} Metamorphoses x. 2–12Google Scholar; for the replacing of the poison by a potion, cf. Shakespeare's Cymbeline.

^{page 70 note 2} Il. xix. 90ff.Google Scholar

^{page 70 note 3} Metamorphoses ix. 22–29.Google Scholar

^{page 70 note 4} Cp. Boccaccio, , Decameron 11 2Google Scholar giorn. 7 with Metam. ix. 4–7Google Scholar; Nov. 10 giorn. 5 with Metam. viii. 22–28Google Scholar; Cervantes, , Don Quixote iv. 8Google Scholar with Metam. ii. 32–iii. 12Google Scholar; See also Fontaine, La, Le Cuvier and Les Amours de Psyche et CupidonGoogle Scholar; Morris, , Earthly ParadiseGoogle Scholar; Pater, , Marius the Epicurean.Google Scholar

^{page 71 note 1} Adlington, W., The Golden Ass of Apuleius (1566; Loeb Classical Library, London, 1922)Google Scholar, ‘To the Reader’.

^{page 71 note 2} Aug. De Civ. Dei viii. 12Google Scholar, but cf. the statue at Madaura with the title ‘Philosophus Platonicus’.

^{page 71 note 3} Perry, B. E., The Metamorphoses ascribed to Lucius of Patrae (Lancaster, Pa., 1920).Google Scholar

^{page 71 note 4} Eliot, T. S. in The Dial lxxxv. 255.Google Scholar

^{page 71 note 5} Graves, R., The Golden Ass 12.Google Scholar

^{page 71 note 6} Metam. iv. 27.Google Scholar

^{page 71 note 7} Ibid. iv. 28.

^{page 72 note 1} Metam. 32.Google Scholar

^{page 72 note 2} See Webster, T. B. L., Greek Terracottas (Harmondsworth, 1951), 27.Google Scholar

^{page 72 note 3} Metam. v. 3. 15.Google Scholar

^{page 72 note 4} Ibid. 9–10.

^{page 72 note 5} Ibid. 22.

^{page 72 note 6} Ibid. vi. 10.

^{page 72 note 7} Ibid. 2.

^{page 72 note 8} Todd, F. A., Some Ancient Novels (Oxford, 1940), 126.Google Scholar

^{page 72 note 9} Quoted by Haight, E. H., Apuleius 146.Google Scholar

^{page 73 note 1} Metamorphoses vi. 4. 22.Google Scholar

^{page 73 note 2} Ibid. 10–11.

^{page 73 note 3} Ibid. viii. 25–30.

^{page 73 note 4} Ibid. vii. 13.

^{page 73 note 5} Ibid. ix. 14.

^{page 73 note 6} Ibid. xi. 13, 20, 27.

^{page 73 note 7} Ibid. iii. 25.

^{page 73 note 8} Ibid. xi. 15.

^{page 73 note 9} Ibid. 16.

^{page 73 note 10} Ibid. 17.

^{page 74 note 1} Metamorphoses i. 1.Google Scholar

^{page 74 note 2} Ibid. xi. 2.

^{page 74 note 3} Ibid. 15.

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