The Golden Ass

I just wanted to post something on here that I ran across while searching the web. It's a pretty interesting meditation on the Golden Ass. Here's the link to the site where I read this.

http://faculty.vassar.edu/jolott/clas217/projects/violence_in_apuleius/thoughts.html

It looks like this is from another student probably in a very similar class to ours. Not too bad at all. For those of you too lazy to click on a link, I'll post his reflection/essay/meditation, whatever you want to call it, right after I type this word.

Historical Reflections and Research-Induced Thoughts

Apuleius’s The Golden Ass has enjoyed a lengthy tenure as a monument of argument pertaining to how an ancient novel may be approached with a modern point of view. The presence of the book can be traced throughout history within almost every significant era since the end of the Roman Empire (Apuleius (III) xliv). Since there is very little debate as to the continual magnitude of this novel, it is important to consider how it has been considered over the course of time, as well as how it has impacted our view of Apuleius’s contemporary society. Richard D. Summers (1970) approaches the matter from the perspective of identifying the criminal behavior portrayed “at random” throughout the book. Nancy Shumate (2) approaches The Golden Ass from the perspective of a religious conversion, noting the concrete evidence contained within the book about Roman society, and, to a greater extent, what she considers the literary value of the book in the context of an ancient novel.

Since The Golden Ass is not an entirely original piece of work, having been based on a Greek novel by Lucian entitled “Lucius or the Ass” (Apuleius (I) vii), there is ample opportunity to examine it in comparison to the remaining evidence of the original version. This is fairly problematic, since all that remains of the original is an abridged variation within the works of Lucian. Walsh feels that there is not a great deal of substance missing from this abridgement, thus allowing for a comparison between the two pieces of literature and the societies in which they are contextualized (Apuleius (III) xx).

Summers (1970) offers a focus upon the depictions of justice within the book, and these are prime ruminations to take into consideration when discussing Apuleius’s portrayals of violence and the subsequent reflections on society. He also states that the novel exposes a clear abhorrence of the justice system, as it was unable to cope with the demands that were placed upon it as Augustus rearranged the system to form a more centralized and homogenized structure under which law should be applied. Among the myriad results of this concentration of power was the eventual loss of any expectation of a trial by members of the lower class (Summers 1970; Lintott 24).

The cruel trick played on Lucius in books two and three is used by Summers (1970) to shed further light on the justice system. He notes that this scene involves the use of a combination of both Greek and Roman court situations. This is appropriate to the setting of the story, since Lucius is in Greece (an element of the story that was not altered from Lucian’s original) during a time of Roman political and legal domination. Moreover, as Apuleius describes the scene, the reader is instilled with imagery of the general populace reacting to the incidence of a highly anticipated public demonstration of how the law ostensibly worked.

Within the book, Apuleius depicts the general populace of Hypata as deriving entertainment from the spectacle of Lucius’ abuse, while the fear and confusion felt by the main character are communicated very vividly. The people have little regard for the normal procedures followed by a court, and instead pursue the torture of their unknowing victim as the mothers and babies of the alleged victims are marched before the crowd (3.8). Summers (1970) insists that the trial should not have even taken place within Hypata, since Lucius is a Roman citizen; he should have been transferred to Rome or to a Roman magistrate for any trial.

The concept that the legal administration of a town could be used in such a crass manner is evidence of how the courts were regarded by both the aristocratic class and the general populace. The willingness of the court administrators to place such an exhibition in their own court is a result of their not having proper respect for their stations. Similarly, the use of the courts for entertainment provides the reader with the bizarre dichotomy present between the courts and the system of justice: the courts are for the ruling class and the entertainment of the people, while the vast majority of justice is dealt with on an individual basis outside any formal political structure.

This peculiar social order is not only present within the primary vein of the story, but also within the various meandering asides Apuleius inserts among the adventures of Lucius. The story of Thelyphron (2.21-2.31) reveals the confusion behind the legality of written documents (Summers 1970) as well as the sickening cruelty with which witches concern themselves (Schlam 70). Summers (1970) attributes the source of the unfortunate incident involving Thelyphron entirely to the wife being ignorant of the laws of inheritance. This witchcraft has long been an element of fascination within the story, and as such, has served to fuel many interpretations of the tale. Shumate is keen to suggest that the witchcraft lends the story a metaphorical air that relates the actions of the minor characters to the “shifting nature of all matter” (56). In doing so, she explicitly denies that Apuleius features such involvement of magic as a source of entertainment (56), a concept that is highly favored by other critics, including Schlam, who prefers to consider witchery as a form of sexual humor (Schlam 80).

Socially, the authors do not find this surprising in the least, since there is a theme throughout a great deal of classical fiction and theater that mocks women. One of the rare instances of males performing magic within the story also occurs within the story of Thelyphron, where the dead man is roused by the powers of a necromancer in order to condemn his wife for committing adultery and murder (2.29). Schlam indicates that the significance of the gender correlations between males and the necromancer in addition to females and the witches is that the necromancer practices his magic to ascertain a truth, while the females practice magic for various less wholesome reasons (Schlam70). This parallels the most basic dichotomy within the social order: the distinctions between masculinity and femininity. Furthermore, the necromancer is described (2.28) in the same terms as the religious figures in book eleven (Schlam 70), which lends further credence to his superiority over other magic-wielders.

Once Lucius is turned into an ass, he suffers a great deal from his inability to communicate with the outside world. He feels that he has received an unfair punishment for the crime of his curiosity, but when he attempts to call on the most powerful non-deity he can think of (3.29), he finds that no one will listen to him when he calls for Caesar. Some scholars believe that this continues to be a metaphor on the Roman system of justice and its apparent lack thereof (Summers 1970), while it has also been considered that Apuleius may have meant different things upon the invocation of Caesar depending on when the story was written (Sandy 6).

Since it is unclear if the book was written during the end of the reign of the Juleo-Claudians, or afterwards (Accardo 21), calling upon such a name could refer to a current emperor or a historically famous and recognizable name. It is important to note that there is some concept of there being power in even the invocation of the name Caesar, which, while ignored by the characters in the book, indicates that there may have been a deep social connection to the inherent power structures of the empire. In this case, such a cry for help may have held a universal validity among the subjects of the empire, regardless of the social status of those issuing a call (one cannot sink much lower than an ass) or those surrounding the issuer.

The story of Cupid and Psyche (4.1-6.24) presents the reader with a significant distraction from the theme of Lucius’ plight, and instead seeks to set up a parallel story that sets the significance of the story in the light of a divine intervention. Shumate places the importance of the story as a precursor to Lucius’ eventual conversion. While Lucius has a problem in that he has an inappropriate fascination with witchcraft, it is argued that Psyche’s problem is that she is worshipped as a god by the citizens of her fictional city (Shumate 252). Schlam soundly rejects the hypothesis that this story has little more than entertainment value, arguing that, despite the light-hearted ending, the “fairy-tale” carries with it a serious message (6, 98). Regardless of how the story is interpreted, both the primary plot of the book and this shorter aside provide a particular insight into the realistic working of oft-ignored segments of Roman society.

The contemporaries of Apuleius clearly had a preoccupation with the process of punishment and redemption. The violence committed against Psyche, while astonishingly atrocious, is accepted in light of her eventual emancipation from that which makes her spiritually flawed. While the Romans did not hold spiritual values as modern cultures do, Shumate concludes that their own preference of modesty before the gods is enough like the modern concept to be related (53). There are some faults in this logic, such as Psyche’s problems being less of her own doing than Venus’s, but producing the correlation between the two stories is an ingenious move by Apuleius in that it provides modern readers with an inkling of the Roman mentality of their lives relating to those of the gods.

As the story progresses, and the reader returns to the reality of Lucius’s current situation of being stuck amongst a band of robbers that want to kill him, he proceeds through a series of unfortunate circumstances, most of which involve cruel masters that want to harm him. While each of these may be exaggerated for purposes of constructing a cohesive and interesting narrative, each relates a particular facet of the fundamental mechanics of the producing class of society. For example, Lucius happens to overhear that he is being sought by the people of Hypata as a suspect in the robbery of Milo’s house (7.1-7.4). It is not some element of the state, such as a police force, that is seeking him, but merely a group of citizens invested in maintaining civil order. The state had no vested interest in Milo’s household, but the people of Hypata were acting to their own advantage to capture this thief that could have victimized them as well. As Summers (1970) is enthusiastic to point out, this is how the lack of a criminal justice system implemented itself in this ancient society.

The images of rural life (7.14-9.16, 10.13-10.18) are a poignant reminder that the vast majority of Roman society did not consist of senators and soldiers. Once hailed as a hero by the girl whom he rescues from the thieves, Lucius is sent out into the country and employed by a variety of peasant laborers. The young man that is eventually mangled by a bear indicates the responsibility placed on youths in regard to household labor (7.17). The boy is charged with transporting lumber, and does so without supervision. In this way, the Roman peasantry was not significantly different than those of the societies that followed. The citizens were forced by the nature of their simple economy to live on subsistence farming and simple trade. Apuleius paints a picture of a land less like the grandiose imagery of Gibbon, and more similar to recent perceptions of the Middle Ages.

Shumate again relates these as his last steps towards achieving salvation at the hands of Isis (96). Throughout any reading of The Golden Ass that is so utterly removed from the contemporary environment for which it was written, it is difficult to relate the novel to anything recognizable as reality. Despite this, Shumate presses a point that the worship of Isis at the culmination of the book can be related to the main character embracing Christianity (327), while admitting that if this is the case, it decreases the likelihood of the story being autobiographical. Summers (1970) is adamant that the purpose behind Apuleius writing the narrative was to confer his distaste regarding the Roman legal system, and Schlam sharply disregards both of these ideals, preferring to denote Lucius as “a mere cult devotee” (13) and calling the story “inseparable from the culture within which [it] was composed.”

A great deal of literature has been established focusing on The Golden Ass from a variety of viewpoints, including the extreme concepts that it is nothing more than a pure vehicle for entertainment, to the more fragile argument that the entire story, and all of the interludes, indicate a powerful religious allegory. The reality is difficult to discern, but Apuleius undoubtedly provides modern readers with an account of life as it was two millennia ago without any unconscious bias that modern historians apply to thought as a result of not being present in the societies they are studying.


· Aaron Hoffman