THE APOLOGIA AND FLORIDA
OF APULEIUS OF MADAURA

PREFACE

For the purposes of this translation I have used Helm's text of the Apologia, and Van der Vliet's text of the Florida. Both texts are published by the firm of Teubner, to whom I am indebted for permission to use their publications as the basis of this work. Divergences from the text are indicated in the footnotes, and I have made a few, perhaps unnecessary, expurgations. For the elucidation of the magical portions of the Apologia I am specially indebted to Abt's commentary (Apologie des Apuleius, Giessen, 1906). I also owe much to the articles on Apuleius in Schanz's Geschichte der römischen Litteratur, and in Pauly-Wissowa's Real-Encyclopädie, and to Hildebrand's commentary on the works of Apuleius (Leipzig, 1842).

H.E. BUTLER.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Our authorities for the life of Apuleius are in the main the Apologia, the Florida, and the last book of the Metamorphoses. He has a passion for taking his audience into his confidence, and as a result it is not hard to reconstruct a considerable portion of his life. He was a native of Madaura, the modern Mdaurusch, a Numidian town loftily situated above the valley of the Medjerda. The town was a flourishing Roman colony (Apol. 24), and the family of Apuleius was among the wealthiest and most important of the town. His father attained to the position of duumvir, the highest municipal office (Apol. loc. cit.), and left his son the considerable fortune of 2,000,000 sesterces (£20,000). As to the date of Apuleius' birth there is some uncertainty. But as he was the fellow student (Florida 16) at Rome of Aemilianus Strabo (consul 156 a.d.), and was considerably younger than his wife Pudentilla, whom he married about 155 a.d., when she had 'barely passed the age of forty' (Apol. 89), the estimate which places his birth about 125 a.d. cannot be far wrong. His name is generally given as Lucius Apuleius, though the only authority for the praenomen is the evidence of late MSS., and it is not improbable that the origin of the name is to be found in the curious identification of himself with Lucius, the hero of the Metamorphoses (xi. 27). At an early age the young Apuleius was sent to school at Carthage (Florida 18), whence on attaining to manhood he proceeded to complete his education at Athens (Florida loc. cit.). There he studied philosophy, rhetoric, geometry, music, and poetry (Florida 20), and laid the foundations of that encyclopaedic, if superficial knowledge, which in after years he so delighted to parade. On leaving Athens he set forth on lengthy travels, in the course of which he spent a large portion of his patrimony (Apol. 23). He speaks of the temple of Hera at Samos as an eyewitness (Florida 15), and