Possibly Sal stands for Salvieno instead of Salvio. The father of Septimia Tertia had the same name as her husband, Quintus. 74. Marble base found in two separate pieces which we easily joined, near the triple city gate of C. Julius Asper (cf. A. J. A. XXVIII, 1924, 443). Height 1.04 m.; width 0.55 m.; thickness 0.55 m. Letters 0.045 m. Ti(to) Claudio Ti(ti) Cl(audii) Ser(gia tribu) Pulchro Quinquennali) II vir(o) Ti(tus) Claudius) Sporus et Ti(tus) Claudius) Prosdocimus lib(erti) de sua pec(unia d(ecreto) d(ecurionum) On the quinquennales cf. Magoffin, Johns Hopkins Univ. Stud. Hist. Pol. Sc. XXXI, 1913, 547 ff. 75. Marble base found near No. 74. Height 0.37 m.; width 0.61 m.; thickness 0.61 m. Plinth 0.20 m. high. Letters 0.065 m. Piece found later was fitted in lower left corner. Two tores with trochilus between are preserved above the plinth. L. Molrdius Threptia[nus L. Clottius Alexand[rus Q. Arrius Corinth[us 76. Marble base, 0.63 m. square, found about three m. to the north of the second east pier of the city gate of C. Julius Asper. L. Mordius Thre- This is the same man as in No. 75. Perhaps all these gave public games or festivals and were thus honored for their generosity. XII.—An Interpretation of Apuleius' Metamorphoses BEN EDWIN PERRY UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 1 When Macrobius expresses surprise that Apuleius, the professed student of Plato, should have stooped to the writing of fiction, he voices thereby not only the ancient reaction toward such a performance on the part of a self-respecting rhetor, but likewise that of the modern philologian. For the latter, no less than Macrobius, must explain the Metamorphoses with some reference to ancient literary conventions; and these on the whole were hostile to fiction of the Apuleian type. Partly for this reason, but more perhaps in view of the nature of book XI, speculation has arisen as to why, or for what serious purpose, if any, the Metamorphoses was written. Does it contain symbolism, or autobiography, and if so what? Further, what artistic principles govern its structure? These and similar questions are best dealt with in the light of what we can learn about the sources of the Metamorphoses, the individual tendencies of Apuleius as a writer, and the nature of the species to which the Metamorphoses belongs. It is now agreed on all sides that Apuleius based his Metamorphoses on a Greek work by the same title, which Photius (Bibl. 129) describes as resembling the Lucianic AoÚKLos "Ovos word for word except for its greater fullness. Both extant versions, the Apuleian and the Lucianic, are derived independently from this lost Greek original, the "Ovos being a mere abridgment of the same, and the Latin Metamorphoses abundantly and fancifully interpolated. The original can be re 1 In Somn. Scip. 1, 2, 8: argumenta fictis casibus amatorum referta quibus vel multum se Arbiter exercuit vel Apuleium nonnumquam lusisse miramur. References by ancient writers to works of pure fiction are few, and generally in a tone of disparagement. See further Class. Phil. xx, 39, n. 1, and the citations in Bücheler's Petronius, pp. 264, 268, 270. 2 The truth of this proposition was demonstrated fully for the first time by Karl Bürger in his dissertation, De Lucio Patrensi (1887). His study was constructed in its main outlines and with some certainty by carefully comparing the two extant versions. Previous studies in this connection have led me to the conclusion that the Greek Meтаμорowσels was not more than twice the length of its epitome the "Ovos, and probably not quite that long; that it dealt with no other story than that of Lucius,3 and that it was ostensibly a satire upon marvel-seeking.4 Against the background of this original, and in the light of those passages in the Metamorphoses which can be proved interpolations, the originality of Apuleius stands forth in clear relief. We see supplemented to some extent by Rothstein (Quaestiones Lucianeae (1888), pp. 129 ff.); but since that time, in spite of many obiter dicta on the subject, there has been very little real study of the relation of Apuleius' work to the Greek Meтаμорwσels and to the "Ovos. For an outline of the controversy previous to the time of Bürger, see my dissertation, The Metamorphoses Ascribed to Lucius of Patrae (1920) hereafter cited as Diss. I regret the self-repetition necessary to the orientation of the present study, but I believe my interpretations warrant it. Diss. chap. II; T. A. P. A. LIV, 223–226; Class. Phil. xvIII, 230 ff. Since Photius (l.c.) cites the lost original as Meтaμорywσewv λóyoɩ diáçopoi, Morelli (Stud. Ital. di Fil. Class. xxi, 120) concludes very confidently that the words varias fabulas conseram in Met. 1, 1 are taken from the preface of the Greek original as reflected in Photius' review. There is no need of interpreting Móyoi diá❤opo as referring specifically to different stories (cf. C. P. xviii, 231, n. 1); but if we do so interpret these words, the meaning must be 'various stories of metamorphosis,' and this cannot be equated with the varias fabulas of Apuleius, since the latter are not stories of change. To assume that Móyoi diάopol in Photius' title is reminiscent of the same phrase in a different meaning in the (hypothetical) preface of the lost original is purely arbitrary. A large number of modern conjectures about the Meraμopywoes are based either upon superficial verbal resemblances, like that of Morelli, or upon very exact and arbitrary interpretations of the noncommittal phraseology of Photius. Even so capable a scholar as Reitzenstein (Hellen. Wundererzählung, p. 32; Das Märchen von Amor und Psyche, pp. 42 ff.), instead of approaching the matter critically, ignores the only thorough work on the subject, that of Bürger, and bases his whole conception of the lost work, which is thoroughly biased by his obsession for Wundererzählung and Aretologe, upon some misleading statements in Photius (see Diss. pp. 32 ff.), and the insignificant fragments of Sisenna. But the internal evidence to be derived from a painstaking comparison of the extant derivatives and their respective styles and methods, as well as from elementary considerations of literary history, points clearly to the conclusion that the Meraμорywσes was a straightforward Luciad of the same character as the "Ovos. 4 See below, pp. 12-13. that he has brought in deliberately a large number of short stories which in themselves have no conceivable purpose other than that of pure entertainment, and no logical bearing upon the main story; further, that the eleventh book with its solemn description of the mysteries, and its totally different tendency, has been substituted for the original burlesque ending preserved in the Greek epitome; and, finally, that the satirical motivation of the Greek original, though clearly retained in places, has been obscured by interpolation and by the author's preoccupation with various other fancies. These points, to which I refer later, have an important bearing on the interpretation of the Metamorphoses as a whole. It is also important to take into consideration the habits. and tendencies of Apuleius as a literary workman. These are revealed clearly enough by a detailed study of the manner in which he has recast the original story of Lucius, as well as by a consideration of the psychology and structure of his other works. For example, in commenting upon the Apologia, Vallette observes with truth that for Apuleius "tout prétexte est bon pour sortir de la question; il s'engage en des sentiers de traverse; il vagabonde; "L'Apologie est faite d'un assemblage disparate de morceaux rattachés entre eux par un lien plus artificiel que réel; ce qui lui manque le plus, c'est l'unité. à tout moment il semble oublier qu'il parle pour prouver et pour convaincre; il raconte, il cause, 'il s'amuse à tout autre chose qu'à la gaguere'; l'anecdote n'est pas un moyen, elle est le but." 5 The same is true of the Metamorphoses, as I have elsewhere demonstrated. In the story of Lucius it would appear that the author is almost incapable of clinging for any length of time to the thread of a single motive. He frequently becomes so preoccupied with the fancy of the moment that he neglects his context altogether; the result is irrelevant digression and P. Vallette, L'Apologie d'Apulée, pp. 157, 181. T. A. P. A. LIV, 196 ff. 7 8 interruption, sudden and mechanical transitions, logical absurdity, conflict in motivation,10 and self-contradiction at times within a very short space of text."1 Apart from the many interpolated stories, note the essay on hair in the midst of an otherwise lively flirtation (Met. II, 8-9), the harangue on corrupt judgments (x, 33), and the lengthy description of the play in the theater (x, 30-32). Especially in the introduction of new stories, as in vIII, 22; IX, 4 and 14; X, 2; cf. also IX, 9 and Helm, ad loc. Cf. 1, 16 and Helm, Apuleii Opera 11, 2, p. xv; in ш, 12 the author's wits are so far away that he causes Lucius to address a servant of Byrrhaena in terms appropriate only to the lady herself; in III, 29 the robbers in their flight, contrary to expediency and to the "Ovos, are brought into a crowded market place in broad daylight (cf. T. A. P. A. LIV, 204); in IX, 41 a troupe of public officers search 'every angle' of a private house without finding the ass who is loose in the upper room, simply because Apuleius' fancy is preoccupied with other conceits (contrast "Ovos, 45 and cf. T. A. P. A. LIV, 216); equally absurd is the reason given why Lucius knew how to grind when he was put into a mill for the second time (Ix, 11); the episode of the mad dog in Ix, 1-2 (cf. Bürger, pp. 15-16, Perry, op. cit. 212 f.); what took place when Thrasyleon and his followers attempted to rob Demochares (cf. Perry 219); and the notion that the ass was betrayed by his shadow when he protruded his head from an upper window to look upon the crowd below (Ix, 41). 10 Lucius' character is now unmoral, as always in the "Ovos, now moral and philosophical, as in vII, 2 and 10, x, 33 etc.; at one time Lucius is thoroughly afraid of witchcraft, as in II, 11 and 20, while at others he is the same eager investigator that he always is in the "Ovos and that he must be in order to motivate the story (cf. T. A. P. A. LIV, 200); Lucius' reason for wishing to be changed was originally scientific curiosity ("Ovos 13), and therein lay the ironical climax of the plot, but Apuleius, after having previously kept this motivation in the main, abandons it at the critical point in favor of a rhetorical conceit (m, 22); Byrrhaena's ironical remarks to Lucius in II, 31 anticipating the approaching Risus Festival, and the latter's consequent distrust of her after the event (m, 12) would make the reader believe that Byrrhaena was planning, or had planned, the mock trial at that time, which was impossible (see A. J. P. XLIV, 258 ff.); for contradictory motivation in the story of Thelyphron see T. A. P. A. LIV, 220, n. 21. 11 In the stinginess and hospitality of Milo (cf. Met. 1, 21-22 with 11, 3); in the description of civic conditions at Hypata (cf. 11, 18 with 11, 19 and III, 3); in the flight of the servant (III, 27; cf. vII, 2 and T. A. P. A. LIV, 212, n. 14); in the number of servants accompanying Lucius (cf. Helm, op. cit. p. xvi); in the account of the robber Haemus (VII, 4-6; Bürger, p. 13); in the statements about Lucius' hide (111, 24 and v1, 26; though here perhaps the witticism justifies the contradiction); and in the references to his native city (cf. 1, 1; 11, 12; and XI, 27. This is probably a simple case of absent-mindedness, as in II, 12; |