Would you like to cast aside all the modern day novels for a change and explore an ancient novel almost 2,000 years old, at its most endearing form? The Golden Ass by Apuleius is the only extant Latin novel in the Roman Empire, and few are as remarkable—or as entertaining—as the Golden Ass. Also known by its original title Metamorphoses, this 2nd-century CE novel is an extraordinary mix of farce, fantasy and spiritual allegory.
Over a span of eleven adventurous books, Apuleius creates a world of sorcery, satire, seduction and salvation. What begins as an outrageous comedy ends in religious reverence, and in between, readers are taken on an incredible ride, from slapstick comedy to endearing tales of the human condition, and the silver lining that lies in wait amid the confusions and the unknown.
The beginning: from man to mule
Lucius, our protagonist, is a young, upper-class Roman obsessed with learning the secrets of magic—mostly transformation. While visiting Thessaly, a region known for witchcraft, Lucius becomes entangled in a web of local enchantments. In a botched up magical experiment meant to turn him into a bird, Lucius is instead transformed into a donkey—literally.
Thus begins a long and mortifying odyssey through the ancient Roman world for poor Lucius. Bereft of speech, agency, and status, Lucius undergoes every type of humiliation, of abuse and degradation. He is beaten, starved, overworked, and forced to perform tricks and circus stunts. What makes this truly pathetic is despite his physical transformation, Lucius retains his human perceptions and thought processes. This further amplifies his pathos, enduring atrocities but unable to express his emotions to the world around him but to the readers.
His transformation allows him to move through Roman society from its lowest ranks to its highest, witnessing its hypocrisy, cruelty, and absurdity. In certain ways, his donkeyhood is a punishment, that prescribes a lens to understand the ugly side and the redeeming qualities of human nature and the spiritual.
A novel of many stories
The lyrical structure of the Golden Ass has an engaging multi-layered, story-within-a-story structure. Throughout Lucius’ journeys from owner to owner, he overhears a wide range of tales, some comical while others tragic, with no abundance of romance and the horrifying. These multiple stories while adding diversity deviate from the main plot. Although entertaining in their own right, such techniques increase our enthusiasm to return to the plight of our protagonist, Lucius.
Among these stories, one that resonated with time is the tragic tale of Cupid and Psyche, a fable that reads like a fairytale filled with lyrical beauty and moral profundity. Psyche, a mortal princess – becomes the object of Venus’ wrath due to her beauty. She is subjected to various trials and is separated from her lover, Cupid (the son of Venus) and after much hardship is ultimately deified. Her tribulations mirror Lucius’s own journey, enduring physical trials to achieve spiritual ascendency.
Readers will further be entertained with tales of adulterous wives, crooked priests, violent robbers, and travelling magicians. Apuleius seems to have a fondness for the grotesque and the bawdy. His prose ranges from the slapstick to sublime, effortlessly. The result is a novel that constantly surprises its readers with varied tones and playful unpredictability.
Themes: the animal and the divine
The Golden Ass is a story of transformations. It starts with physical metamorphosis, and moves towards moral and spiritual change. Lucius’s transformation into a donkey is castigation for curiosity and pride, but through his suffering, he overcomes his superficial identity and lives to experience the lowest and loftiest aspects of human nature.
The final book marks a dramatic shift in the tone and in the mood of the story. In utter desperation, after enduring unbearable hardships, our despondent protagonist donkey attempts to take his own life. He goes down to the sea, and starts wailing at his plight, and the desperation that has led him into this state of action.
Pitying Lucius, the goddess Isis, appears before him as a vision and restores his human appearance. The story ends with Lucius initiating into the mystery cult, and experiencing the death of his former self and experiencing a rebirth, akin to his new found faith in the mystery cult. Lucius’s journey is not just one of misadventures and cruelty, but a pilgrimage—from ignorance and desire to wisdom and reverence. The Golden Ass begins in travesty, but ends in salvation.
Style and voice
Apuleius has captured the lucidity of his style with the use of rhetorical flourish. His detailed prose is filled with digressions, puns, and cultural allusions, to keep readers entertained and engrossed.
As a Platonist and a priest of Isis himself, he balances the earthy and often crude humour with a unique sense of storytelling filled with moments of serious philosophical and spiritual reflection. Even in translations, Apuleius’s unique voice shines through: scholarly but cheeky, wise yet never dry. His dexterity of language is apparent as he moves between crudeness and virtue with ease, making the novel feel almost modern in its tonal complexity.
Why read The Golden Ass today?
The Golden Ass still retains a remarkably modern feel and is entertaining to its core. Lucius is a timeless figure, a flawed seeker much like our modern-day truth-seekers, at times curious, foolish, eager, impulsive, but ultimately redeemed. The novel is one of the few ancient works that provides us a vivid portrait of everyday Roman life—you won’t find depictions of the Senate, the law-courts or the citizen assemblies here, but rather you will be escorted into the kitchens, brothels, inns, and back alleys of the ancient Roman world. It’s pitiful, funny, touching, and at times deeply moving.
The Golden Ass is one of antiquity’s strangest and most enjoyable tales. It is one of humour, pathos and spirituality, a novel that defies genre, and stands alone for its unique storytelling. So, grab a copy of the Golden Ass and be transported into an ancient world of magic, pathos and spirituality like never before.
Next week, let’s take a sneak peek into the world of Martial and his satirical snapshots of Roman society—short, sharp, and often scandalous.
