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The World of the Golden Ass*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Fergus Millar
Fergus Millar
Affiliation:
University College London
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Extract

Those who study and teach the history of the Ancient World suffer from a great disadvantage, which we find difficult to admit even to ourselves: in a perfectly literal sense we do not know what we are talking about. Of course we can dispose of a vast range of accumulated knowledge about what we are talking about. We can compile lists of officeholders in the Roman Empire, without our evidence revealing how government worked or even whether it made any impact at all on the ordinary person; we can discuss the statuses of cities and look at the archaeological remains of some of them (or rather some parts of some of them) without having any notion of their social and economic functions, or of whether it made any real difference whether an inhabitant of the Roman provinces lived in a small city or a large village.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 71 , November 1981 , pp. 63 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Fergus Millar 1981. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Met. XI. See esp. Griffith, J. Gwyn, Apuleius of Madauros: The Isis-Book (Metamorphoses, Book XI) (1975)Google Scholar.

2 Met. VIII, 24–IX, 10. See Cumont, F., Les religions orientates dans le paganisme romain4 (1929), ch. 5Google Scholar.

3 Met. IX, 14. See esp. Barnes, T. D., Tertullian (1971), App. 21Google Scholar; Simon, M., ‘Apulée et le Christianisme’, Mélanges d'histoire des religions offerts à Henri-Charles Puech (1974), 299Google Scholar.

4 It is quite probable, as argued by G. W. Bowersock, ‘Zur Geschichte des römischen Thessaliens’, Rh. Mus. CVIII (1965), 277, that Thessaly was transferred from Achaea to Macedonia at the moment of Nero's grant of freedom in 67. As he points out (p. 285 f.), ILS 1067 does not imply that Thessaly is within the same province as Athens, Thespiae, and Plataea. But it is in any case clear from Ptolemy, Geog. III, 12, 13–14 and 42 (Müller), that in Pius' reign Thessaly was part of Macedonia; cf. Robert, L., Hellenica V, 29–30Google Scholar.

5 I refer to Lucius or the Ass preserved in the works of Lucian (most readily available in the Loeb Lucian, vol. VIII, 47 f.), and venture no further on the question of the authorship of this or its relation to the Metamorphoses of (?) Lucius of Patras, briefly summarized by Photius, Bibl., cod. 129. For all these questions see Van Thiel, H., Der Eselsrotnan I–II (1971–1972)Google Scholar.

6 For other allusions see Bowersock, op. cit. (n. 4), 278.

7 Met. I, 1. See esp. Mazzarino, A., La milesia e Apuleio (1950)Google Scholar; Mason, H. J., ‘Fabula Graecanica; Apuleius and his Greek Sources’, in Hijmans, B. L. and van der Paardt, R. Th., Aspects of Apuleius' Golden Ass (1978), 1Google Scholar. Cf. Tatum, J., Apuleius and the Golden Ass (1979)Google Scholar.

8 See esp. Lancel, S., ‘‘Curiositas’ et préoccupations spirituelles chez Apulée’, Rev. hist. relig. CLX (1961), 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J. Tatum, op. cit. (n. 7), 22 f.; 76 f., and esp. A. Wlosok, ‘Zur Einheit der Metamorphosen des Apuleius’, Philol. CXIII (1969), 68.

9 For the ‘conversion’ see n. 1 and e.g. Nock, A. D., Conversion (1933), ch. 9Google Scholar. For speculations on the autobiographical element see e.g. J. Hicter, ‘Autobiographie dans l'Âne d'or d'Apulée’, Ant. Class. XIII (1944), 95; XIV (1945), 61. But note the salutary scepticism of Fredouille, J.-C., Apulée, Metamorphoses Livre XI (1975)Google Scholar, who also argues (pp. 15–17) that the sense in XI, 27,9, ‘Madaurensem, sed admodum pauperem’, requires ‘Corinthiensem’. On that view the deliberate personal allusion would disappear.

10 Flor. 9, 27–9. There is no need to rehearse here the biographical evidence about him, which is collected in Schanz-Hosius-Krüger, Römische Literaturgeschichte III3 (1922), 100f.

11 For his possible knowledge of Corinth and Cenchreae see e.g. P. Veyne, ‘Apulée à Cenchrées’, Rev. Phil. XXXIX (1965), 241; Mason, H. J., ‘Lucius at Corinth’, Phoenix XXV (1971), 160CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Cenchreae see now Scranton, R., Shaw, J. W. and Ibrahim, L., Kenchreai: Eastern Port of Corinth I: Topography and Architecture (1978)Google Scholar, esp. 71 on the possible site of the shrine of Isis (Paus. II, 2, 3). For a collection of evidence on Corinth, J. Wiseman, ‘Corinth and Rome I: 228 B.C.–A.D. 267’, ANRW VII. 1 (1979), 438.

12 See the interesting if not entirely convincing essay by Fick, N., ‘Les Metamorphoses d'Apulée et le monde du travail’, in André, J. M. et al. , Recherches sur les Artes à Rome (1978), 86Google Scholar.

13 See Cooper, G., ‘Sexual and Ethical Reversal in Apuleius: the Metamorphoses as Anti-Epic’, in Deroux, C. (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History II (1980), 436Google Scholar.

14 Met. I, 2; II, 2–3. For Plutarch and his family see Jones, C. P., Plutarch and Rome (1971), ch. 1Google Scholar. For Marcus still hearing Sextus of Chaeronea while Emperor, Philostratus, Vit. Soph. II, 1; Dio LXXI 1, 2. For terminology in the novel implying a setting in the mid-second century see also n. 19 below.

15 See e.g. P. Grimal, Apulée, Metamorphoseis (IV, 28– VI, 24) (le conte d'Amour et Psyche (1963); Binder, G., Merkelbach, R. (eds.), Amor und Psyche (Wege der Forschung, 1968)Google Scholar; Hoevels, F. E., Märchen und Magie in den Metamorphosen des Apuleius von Madaura (1979), 1Google Scholar: ‘Die zentrale Frage der Apuleiusforschung war und ist bis heute die nach Sinn der Amor- und Psyche-Einlage im Eselsroman (4, 28– 6, 24)’.

16 The narrated ‘real-life’ episodes are (1) I, 5–19, Aristomenes' story, told by himself and set in Hypata; (2) II, 13–14, the story of Diophanes the Chaldaean at Corinth, told by Lucius' host Milo; (3) II, 21–30, Thelyphron's story, told by himself and set in Larissa; (4) IV, 9–21, the story of the robber Lamachus and others, told by one of his companions and set in Boeotia; (5) VII, 5–8, the exploits of the pretended robber Haemus, told by himself (in reality Tlepolemus) and set in Macedonia and Epirus; (6) VIII, 1–14, the story of Charite and Tlepolemus, told by one of her slaves; exact setting unclear, but in the same region as the rest; (7) IX, 5–7, the faber and his wife; narrator not indicated; (8) IX, 17–21, the decurion Barbarus and his wife's lover, told by an old woman to the baker's wife; (9) IX. 35–8, the fate of the three sons of the hortulanus' rich patron, narrator not identified; (10) X, 2–12, the story of the wicked noverca, overheard from conversations by the ass, and set somewhere in Thessaly; (11) X, 23–8, the story of the condemned Corinthian woman; no specific narrator.

17 For comparative material see the important article by MacMullen, R., ‘Market-Days in the Roman Empire’, Phoenix XXIV (1970), 333CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 For the theme of the function of the Imperial cult in inducing consciousness of belonging to a single political framework see K. Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves (1978), ch. 5: ‘Divine Emperors or the Symbolic Unity of the Roman Empire’.

19 Met. VII, 6: ‘procuratorem principis ducenaria perfunctum’. This is only the second recorded usage of the term, the earliest being Suetonius, Claudius 24. Documentary uses begin in the reign of Marcus Aurelius with AE 1962, 183 : ‘ad ducenariae procurationis splendorem’. See JRS LIII (1963), 197Google Scholar, and Pflaum, H.-G. in Bonn. Jahrb. CLXXI (1971), 349Google Scholar. For the deployment of a fairly new technical term note also ‘fisci advocatus’ (VII, 10), used ironically of one of the robbers; it had come into use in Hadrian's reign, see HA, v.Had. 20,6; for the earliest attested case, Eck, W., RE Supp. XV, col. 123Google Scholar, ‘Iulius’ (228a).

20 AE 1956, 124, see Pflaum, Carrières, no. 181 bis (M. Valerius Maximianus): ‘praeposito vexillationibus et at (sic) detrahendum Briseorum latronum manum in confinio Macedon(iae) et Thrac(iae) ab Imperatore misso’. On the Brisei see Pflaum, op. cit., I, p. 489.

21 For the division see n. 4 above. The proconsul of Macedonia appears in the last section of Lucius or the Ass (54–5).

22 See Ritterling, E., ‘Military Forces in the Senatorial Provinces’, JRS XVII (1927), 28Google Scholar; R. K. Sherk, ‘Roman Imperial Troops in Macedonia and Achaea’, AJPh LXXVIII (1957), 52 (not considering the evidence from Apuleius).

23 In this the novel contrasts clearly with the martyracts, where Roman soldiers perform an active police role; see G. Lopuszanski, ‘La police romaine et les Chrétiens’, Ant. Class. XX (1951), 5.

24 Met. II, 18: ‘nec praesidis auxilia longinqua levare civitatem tanta clade possunt’.

25 The soldier is described simply as a miles, but has a vitis with a thickened end (IX, 40: ‘inversa vite de vastiore nodulo cerebrum suum dirfindere’), normally thought of as the mark of a centurion, see e.g. G. Webster, The Roman Imperial Army 2 (1979), 132. Exactly the same contradiction confronts us in the grave-relief of a miles from Corinth, see Kos, M. Šašel, JRS LVIII (1978), 22Google Scholar, who also notes (p. 23) that there are a number of such depictions of soldiers with a vitis from Achaea and Macedonia, and suggests (p. 24) some connection with service in the provinciae inermes.

26 Epictetus, Diss. IV, 1, 79, quoted by Rostovtzeff, M., The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire2 (1957), ch. 8, n. 37Google Scholar (also referring to the story of the hortulanus, the only episode from Apuleius used by Rostovtzeff.)

27 It is puzzling that the soldier should be described as a ‘miles e legione’ (IX, 39). Apuleius might in this case have been misled by the system in Africa, where the legion III Augusta provided the beneficiarii for the proconsul (Tacitus, Hist. IV, 48). On the other hand the soldier's superior officer is described (X, 13) as a tribunus (compare the tribunus cohortis with Caecilius Classicus as proconsul of Baetica, Pliny, Ep. III, 9, 18). Tribuni of auxiliary units must have been in command of cohortes milliariae, and what seems to be the same superior officer appears in X, 1 as ‘praepositum suum, qui mille armatorum ducatum sustinebat’. For comparable usages see R. E. Smith, ‘Dux, Praeposirus’, ZPE XXXVI (1979), 263.

28 See now Mitchell, S., ‘Requisitioned Transpor in the Roman Empire: a New Inscription from Pisidia’, JRS LXVI (1976), 106Google Scholar.

29 For release from the obligation of hospitium see e.g. Sherk, Roman Documents, no. 57; FIRA 2 I, no. 56; 73; Dig. L, 4, 18, 30; XXVII, 1, 6, 8; Millar, F., Emperor in the Roman World (1977), 460–1 (athletes)Google Scholar; Drew-Bear, T., Eck, W., Herrmann, P., ‘Sacrae Litterae’, Chiron VII (1977). 355Google Scholar (senators).

30 See Rostovtzeff, op. cit. (n. 24), ch. 11.

31 For the proconsul's assize tour see Burton, G. P., ‘Proconsuls, Assizes and the Administration of Justice under the Empire’, JRS LXV (1975), 92Google Scholar. It is attested that Beroea in Macedonia was an assizecentre, and the system probably existed in all proconsular provinces (p. 97). Note that the appointment of tutores for the children of a man thought to be dead is alluded to in Met. I, 6: ‘liberis tuis tutores iuridici provincialis decreto dati’. No deductions should be drawn from the use of this term, which simply means the proconsul, as does in Lucius or the Ass, 55.

32 Met. X, 18: ‘quod caput est totius Achaiae provinciae’.

33 The evidence on this puzzling question is very well collected and discussed by Egger, R., Das Praetorium als Amtssitz und Quartier römischer Spitzenfunktionäre (1966)Google Scholar, without revealing what sort of ‘residence’, owned by whom, was used by proconsuls in the ‘capitals’ of their provinces.

34 Met. X, 18. For Corinth see n. 11 above. The office of duovir quinquennalis in the colonia is well attested on inscriptions, see e.g. Corinth VIII. 2: Latin Inscriptions, p. 157. The assumption that Lucius’ first language will have been Greek is fully reflected in the rapidly changing balance of Latin and Greek inscriptions in the second century see Corinth VIII. 3: The Inscriptions, 1926–1950, pp. 18–19. [Dio], Or. XXXVIL, 26 (perhaps by Favorinus) records the Hellenization of the city.

35 For the well-known senatus consultum of 177 see Oliver, J. H. and Palmer, R. E. A., Hesperia XXIV (1955), 320CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For this interpretation see F. Millar, op. cit. (n. 29), 195.

36 See C. P. Jones, op. cit. (n. 14), ch. 5, ‘Plutarch's Society: Domi nobiles’.

37 II, 18: ‘vesana factio nobilissimorum iuvenum pacem publicam infestat’. Cf. Dig. XLVIII, 19, 28, 3 (Callistratus) on the difficulty for the governor in repressing the disorderly conduct ‘in quibusdam civitatibus’ of those ‘qui volgo se iuvenes appellant’.

38 The best analysis of this situation, as it existed in the Classical and early Hellenistic Greek city, is provided by P. Veyne, Le pain et le cirque (1976), ch. 2. The remark of Rostovtzeff, op. cit. (n. 26), ch. 8, n. 41, that there is no adequate treatment of the history of liturgies under the Empire, remains valid. For a useful recent collection of legal evidence see W. Langhammer, Die rechtliche und soziale Stellung der ‘Magistratus Municipales’ und der ‘Decuriones’ (1973), 237 f. But see now Neesen, L. ‘Die Entwicklung der Leistungen und Ämter (munera et honores) im römischen Kaiserreich des zweiten bis vierten Jahrhundert’, Historia XXX (1981), 203Google Scholar.

39 Met. IV, 9: ‘parva se <d> satis munita domuscula contentus, pannosus alioquin ac sordidus, aureos folles incubabat’. In a very general way the term ‘aureos folles’, reflecting the custom of storing money in bags, foreshadows the usage which becomes official in the early fourth century, when follis becomes a term for a unit of currency. See Jones, A. H. M., ‘The Origin and Early History of the Follis’, The Roman Economy (1974), 330Google Scholar; M. H. Crawford, ANRW II. 2 (1975). 586.

40 Met. IV, 26. As regards the remarkable expression ‘filius publicus’, I owe to Miss H. C. van Bremen the perception that the inscriptions of the Greek cities often emphasize the private virtues of members of the leading families as expressed in their public life.

41 Met. X, 6–12. For the sentences, X, 12: ‘et novercae quidem perpetuum indicitur exilium, servus vero patibulo suffigitur’. Patibulum seems to be used here as a synonym for crux, cf. Mommsen, Th., Römisches Strafrecht (1899), 920–1Google Scholar (not discussing this passage), and RE s.v. ‘Patibulum’.

42 See Garnsey, P., Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire (1970), pt. IIGoogle Scholar.

43 For a statement of the principle see e.g. Sherwin-White, A. N., Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (1963), 35 fGoogle Scholar.; 75 f. For a survey of the evidence which may cast some doubt on the general assumption that local courts did not and could not carry out capital sentences see Schürer, E., History of the Jewish People II, ed. Vermes, G., Millar, F., Black, M., (1979), 219, n. 80Google Scholar, and Nörr, D., Imperium und Polis (1966), 30 fGoogle Scholar.; note Syll. 3 799 (Cyzicus, A.D. 38), showing that the city authorities there could impose a sentence of exile from the city.

44 For meetings in the theatre see Colin, J., ‘Apulée en Thessalie; fiction ou vérité?’, Latomus XXIV (1965), 330Google Scholar, on p. 342, n. 3; cf. idem, Les villes libres de l'Orient gréco-romain et l'envoi au supplice par acclamations populaires (1965), ch. 3 (assuming that the procedure depends on the freedom of the cities of Thessaly).

45 Julius Caesar certainly granted freedom to the Thessalians, Plut., Caesar 48; Appian, BC II, 368. Thereafter the situation is obscure, and neither the existence of Thessalian coins, nor Thessalian votes in the Amphictyonic league (Pausanias X, 8, 3) nor the adoption of new eras in A.D. 10–11 and again in A.D. 41 necessarily imply grants of freedom—so Bernhardt, R., Imperium und Eleutheria (1971), 202, 208Google Scholar. ILS 1067, showing P. Pactumeius Clemens, cos. suff. 138, as ‘legato divi Hadriani Athenis, Thespiis, Plaetaeis, item in Thessalia’, might imply the freedom of Thessaly; but the freedom of Plataea is deduced, e.g. by Larsen, ESAR IV, 447, from its presence on this inscription.

46 cf. the complex variations discussed by Bernhardt, R., ‘Die Immunitas der Freistädte’, Historia XXIX (1980), 190Google Scholar (on freedom from tribute).

47 This pattern is clear in the case of the martyrs of Lyon, Eusebius, HE V, 1, and especially in the martyrdom of Pionius at Smyrna, Knopf-Krüger-Ruhbach, Ausgewählte Märtyrakten, no. 10; Musurillo, Acts of the Christian Martyrs, no. 10.

48 Met. III, 2–3: ‘nocturnae custodiae praefectus’. The term must translate , attested on a number of inscriptions from Greek cities, see esp. Jones, , The Greek City, 212Google Scholar.

49 Met. IV, 9–11; 19–21. The realistic and unheroic character of the robbers' tales of defeat is well brought out by P. A. McKay, ‘Klephtika: the Tradition of the Tales of Banditry in Apuleius’, Greece and Rome X (1963), 147Google Scholar.

50 Jones, A. H. M., ‘The Cities of the Roman Empire’, in The Roman Economy (1974), 1, on p. 31Google Scholar.

51 See the valuable article by Hopkins, K., ‘Economic Growth and Towns in Classical Antiquity’, in Abrams, P. and Wrigley, E. A. (eds.), Towns in Societies (1978), 35Google Scholar; the rest of that volume also presents much relevant material and argument.

52 Hopkins, K.. ‘Taxes and Trade in the Roman Empire (200 B.C.–A.D. 400)’, JRS LXX (1980), 101Google Scholar on p. 104.

53 MacFarlane, A., The Origins of English Individualism (1978), 196Google Scholar.

54 I know of no serious reflection on this fact except Frayn, J. M., ‘Wild and Cultivated Plants: A Note on the Peasant Economy of Roman Italy’, JRS LXV (1975), 32Google Scholar = Subsistence Farming in Roman Italy (1979), ch. 4.

55 Plassart, A., ‘Une levée de volontaires Thespiens sous Marc Aurèle’, Mélanges Glotz II (1932), 731Google Scholar.

56 Pausanias X, 34, 5.

57 For comparative evidence note Brunt, P. A., ‘Did Imperial Rome disarm her subjects?’, Phoenix XXIX (1975), 260CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Ins. lat d'Alg. 2115 (Madauros), cf. PIR 2 A 958.

59 For comparable attempts to use ancient fiction, see e.g. Veyne, P., ‘Vie de Trimalcion’, Annales XVI (1961), 213CrossRefGoogle Scholar; A. M. Scarcella, ‘Les structures socioéconomiques du roman de Xénophon d'Éphèse’, REG XC (1977), 249. Both the title and the approach adopted in this paper were suggested by Morris, Ivan, The World of the Shining Prince (1964)Google Scholar, using Murasaki's The Tale of Genji.