1. Hipparchus in the Onos is exceedingly fond of money (philargurōtatos deinōs, 1) but this miserliness is not emphasized. His little house is comfortable enough and Lucius has no qualms about staying for dinner. He remarks that the feast was adequate and the wine good, and he rebuts Abroea's assumption that Hipparchus is a miser. It has been argued that the Pythias episode must therefore be an insertion of Apuleius into the ass-story, since the motivation for his search for food is missing in the Onos (and therefore in the Metamorphōseis): Perry, B. E., ‘Some Aspects of the Literary Art of Apuleius in the Metamorphoses’, TAPA 54 (1923), 205Google Scholar, and Walsh, P. G., The Roman Novel (Cambridge, 1970), 150f.Google Scholar See, however, Brotherton, B., ‘The Introduction of Characters by Name in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius’, CP 29 (1934) 46 and n. 36Google Scholar.

2. 1.25. The Latin text is from Helm's Teubner edition of the Metamorphoses, 3rd ed. (1931; repr. with addenda, 1968Google Scholar); I have changed some of the orthography. The translation of indented text is by Lindsay, Jack, The Golden Ass (New York, 1932Google Scholar); I have made a few changes. Translations within the text are mine.

3. Junghanns, P., Die Erzahlungstechnik von Apuleius' Metamorphosen und ihrer Vorlage, Philol. Supp. 24.1 (1932), 124Google Scholar, points out the possible irony of Pythias' name through etymological connection with Pythia and Pythō.

4. Auerbach, E., Mimesis, tr. Trask, W. (New York, 1957), 54fGoogle Scholar.

5. Tatum, J., Apuleius and the Golden Ass (Ithaca, 1979), 36Google Scholar.

6. Kenny, E., ‘The Reader's Role in the Golden Ass’, Arethusa 7 (1974), 196f.Google Scholar; see also van Thiel, H., Der Eselsroman I (Munich, 1971), 65fGoogle Scholar.

7. Most clearly seen in G. Drake's study of Apuleius' ‘symbolic’ method: ‘Lucius's “Business” in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius’, Papers in Lang. and Lit. 5 (1969), 339–61Google Scholar. A. Scobie, Apuleius Metamorphoses (Asinus Aureus) I (Meisenheim am Glan, 1975), 126f., has a brief survey. He follows Junghanns (n. 3 above), 126, in citing the Roman satirical tradition in which the exposure of the pretentious graces of municipal magistrates is a topos. P. G. Walsh, ‘Petronius and Apuleius’, in B. L. Hijmans Jr. and R. Th. van der Paardt, eds., Aspects of Apuleius' Golden Ass — hereafter cited as Aspects — (Groningen, 1978), 19, notes similarities between Pythias and certain characters in the Satyricon. Summers, R. G., ‘Roman Justice and Apuleius' Metamorphoses’, TAPA 101 (1970), 521Google Scholar, demonstrates that Lucius has purchased the fish in language technically correct for a Roman sale by emptio venditio. He too sees in it a satire on Roman law in the provinces. I think the scene is humorous at both Pythias' and Lucius' expense, yet it would be difficult to make a case for a consistent satirical attitude throughout the novel. If this episode is part of a grander literary scheme, it is not to be found in its satire. Hicter, M., ‘L'autobiographie dans L'Âne d'or d'Apulée’, AC 13 (1944), 95f.Google Scholar, found autobiographical references to the role of fish in Apuleius' trial; as Scobie comments, this is a long shot. Derchain, Ph. and Hubaux, J.. ‘L'Affaire du marché d'Hypata dans les Métamorphoses d'Apulée’, AC 27 (1958), 100f.Google Scholar, cite Egyptian rites known from inscriptions in which fish were trampled in the gateway of a temple apparently as symbols of the king's enemies. Hian, J., ‘L'Âne d'or d'Apulée et l'Egypte’, RPh 47 (1973), 274f.Google Scholar, uses this sort of argument to attempt to substantiate his view that the story of a man turned into an ass is part of an initiation ritual into the Isis cult, recognizable, of course, only to ceux quisavent. The problem with explanations such as these is that they seek solutions outside of the text. Did Apuleius truly have no literary intentions in, or expectations for, this odd scene? Informative, but of little help for our purposes, are observations such as Walsh's (n. 1 above, 151) that the theme of comic humiliation in the market is doubtless a stock Milesian motif, or Trenkner's that in Philogelos 138 there is also an anecdote about a stupid policeman who manages to punish the innocent: Trenkner, S., The Greek Novella in the Classical Period (Cambridge, 1958Google Scholar).

8. Schlam, C., The Structure of the Metamorphoses of Apuleius (Diss. Columbia, 1968Google Scholar); he follows Derchain and Hubaux (n. 7 above) in his interpretation of the scene. Schlam's, article ‘Man and Animal in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius’, in Hijmans, B. L. Jr. and Schmidt, V., eds., Symposium Apuleianum Groninganum 1980, 121Google Scholar, presents some of the peculiarities of the ‘two-sided character of the Ass's food habits’ but he does not see the progression which I urge here. See also G. Drake (n. 7 above), 354 n. 37.

9. See Nethercut, W. R., ‘Apuleius' Literary Art: Resonance and Depth in the Metamorphoses’, CJ 64 (1968), 114Google Scholar; Tatum, J., ‘The Tales in Apuleius' Metamorphoses’, TAPA 100 (1969), 498–99Google Scholar; and especially Sandy, G., ‘Foreshadowing and Suspense in Apuleius' Metamorphoses’, CJ 68 (1973), 232fGoogle Scholar. There is no parallel to the first book of the Metamorphoses in the Onos; for all we can tell, it is Apuleius' invention.

10. Scobie, A., Aspects of the Ancient Romance and its Heritage (Meisenheim am Glan, 1969), 25Google Scholar, gives evidence of tales told both historically and in literature. There are many examples in this novel of storytelling combined with a meal. It is at Byrrena's dinner, for example, that Thelyphron tells of his unfortunate disfigurement (2.21-30). The robber in the cave narrates at a banquet the sad fate of his three excellent comrades (4.9-21), and the tale of Bar-barus' cuckolding is told while the miller's wife and decadent companion drink it up (9.17-21). There are also various indirect references to the affiliation of food with tales. Aristomenes claims that he tried to nurture Socrates back.to health: lectulo refoueo, cibo satio, poculo mitigo, fabulispermulceo (‘I warm him up again in bed, I fill him up with food, I soothe him with wine, I charm him with tales’, 1.7). Lucius promises Aristomenes that he will buy him a meal in return for his story (1.4).

11. It is worth noting, but not stressing at this point, that Apuleius has already brought his hero onto the same level as his horse. (1) Lucius' first action in the novel is literally to jump down (desilio) to his horse's level. Is this the first example of the desultoria scientia (‘acrobatic skill’) which is promised in the introduction? (2) In 1.2, man and horse are tied together by their weariness (cf. fesso … fatigationem in line 7). (3) Lucius mentions no servant, and the impression is that there is none, for he personally wipes the sweat off his horse. Yet in the Onos Lucius has a slave, and we learn later in the Metamorphoses that there was a groom to take care of the horse — this groom beats Lucius away from the roses around the goddess Epona (3.27), an important function, as we shall see. By removing the groom from this scene and leaving Lucius to tend his horse, Apuleius has brought them closer together. (4) The two characters are closely linked at the end of Aristomenes' tale by dramatic and verbal parallels with the beginning of the novel. The narrator promises us that uarias fabulas conseram auresque tuas beniuolas lepido susurro permulceam (‘I shall weave you a web of tales and caress your benevolent ears with pleasing whispers’, 1.1). Soon after we see Lucius caring for his horse: aures remulceo (‘I smooth back his ears’), he notes. Again, is this a playful literal interpretation of the opening words? Lucius thanks Aristomenes for the tale quod lepidae fabulae festiuitate nos auocauit (‘because he has distracted us with the good cheer of a pleasing tale’, 1.20). Assumably the nos (‘us’) is he and his horse, for no one else has been mentioned. Quod beneficium etiam ilium uectorem meum credo laetari, sine fatigatione sui me usque ad istam ciuitatisportam non dorso illius, sed meis auribus peruecto (‘And I believe that my transport here is also enjoying the benefit, in that without any toilsome effort on his part I have been conveyed to the very gate of the city carried along not on his back but by my ears’, 1.20 fin.): both Lucius and his mount share a common gratitude for the story and the diversion from their laborious climb. Everyone's ears — Candidus’, Lucius’, and reader's — have been charmingly assuaged. See Nethercut (n. 9 above), 98; also Drake, G., ‘Candidus; A Unifying Theme in Apuleius' Metamorphoses’, CJ 64 (1968), 105Google Scholar, for several of the preceding observations, but with Platonic overtones. Schwartz, G., ‘Apulei Metamorphoses 1.2: desultoriae scientiae’, Collection Latomus 164 (1979), 462f.Google Scholar, has some interesting things to say about desultoria scientia and its relation to Lucius' journey.

12. For the purposes of this essay and ease of reference, ‘eating’ will refer to eating and drinking, for both functions are involved. For other implications of the phrase sititor nouitatis see Penwill, J. L., ‘Slavish Pleasures and Profitless Curiosity: Fall and Redemption in Apuleius' Metamorphoses’, Ramus 4 (1975), 66ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. See Schlam 1968 (n. 8 above), 55f. and Tatum (n. 9 above), 497f.

14. There are other, less significant references to food in Book 1. Besides those already mentioned in n. 10 above, note the following: Aristomenes' business in Thessaly was to buy food (1.5); Socrates finally falls asleep insolita uinolentia (‘through unaccustomed wine-drinking’, 1.11); the entire house of the man who led the prosecution of Meroe was transported to a city on top of a mountain ad aquas sterilem (‘with no supply of water’, 1.10).

15. Sex and sexuality play an important part in the Metamorphoses; see Schlam, C., ‘Sex and Sanctity: the relationship of male and female in the Metamorphoses’, in Aspects (n. 7 above), 95–106Google Scholar. In this essay I will only discuss them in so far as they are connected with food and eating, and ultimately with Lucius' conversion.

16. Note that Lucius is once again plagued at Milo's table by a spate of inoportunarum fabularum (‘ill-timed stories’ 2.15). The description of 1.9, boni Milonis concinnaticiam men-sulam (‘good Milo's adroitly prepared table’) is probably meant to be sarcastic. Perry (n. 1 above), 205, suggested that this was simply the result of Apuleius' slip — he forgot that he was writing a new novel and accidentally repeated an incongruous detail from his model, the Onos. As we shall see, it could be that these frequent contradictions are intentional.

17. The phrase hospitium ac loca lautia used by Lucius is the technical term for hospitality given to distinguished public visitors at Rome: Walsh (n. 1 above), 63, and Schlam 1980 (n. 8 above), 130.

18. This episode has puzzled some scholars, who note that Lucius has mentioned no groom previous to this. Where does he come from? Drake (n. 7 above), 105, finds the answer in symbolism: ‘If the groom represents the charioteer that is the controlling aspect of Lucius’ soul — again the double of himself — the implication is that the groom has presented Lucius' regression to dependence on a domineering matriarch.’ For this so-called servant problem, consult van der Paardt, R. Th., L.Apuleius Madaurensis, The Metamorphoses: A Commentary on Book III with Text and Introduction (Amsterdam, 1971Google Scholar), on Met. 3.8; he agrees with Helm's suggestion that this is one of the res neglegenter compositae (‘items carelessly composed’). But Lucius had good reasons for not mentioning a servant before (see nn. 11 and 16 above).

19. Van der Paardt (n. 18 above) ad loc. presents cogent arguments for reading frena rather than Helm's faena.

20. The interposing pages have been taken up by the old woman's story of Cupid and Psyche. The gastronomical habits of Psyche in the underworld are curious. She is instructed to turn down the sumptuous meal offered by Proserpina and is told instead to ‘sit on the ground, ask for some stale bread and eat that’ (et humi reside et panem sordidum petitum esto, 6.19). This seems to be a conflation of different traditions concerning the underworld, with emphasis on the peculiar dietary restrictions.

21. The theme has been kept alive by the repetition of death by self-starvation (inedia). Lucius claims that he will kill himself continua inedia or throw himself off a cliff rather than suffer gelding (7.24). Thus sex and eating (or non-sex and non-eating) are again connected. Charite is wasting away inedia, but is talked into eating by Thrasyllus (echoes here of the Widow of Ephesus, 8.7). And Thrasyllus finally kills himself inedia (8.14). For more on this, see below for inedia as a paradigm for the reader's response to the novel.

22. Penwill (n. 12 above), 72; Nethercut, W. R., ‘Apuleius' Metamorphoses: The Journey’, Agon 3 (1969), 126Google Scholar.

23. See especially Tatum (note 9) 522f.

24. Scobie, A., ‘The Structure of Apuleius Metamorphoses’, in Aspects (n. 7 above), 54Google Scholar; he cites with approval Dornseiff's label of ‘inferno’. Cf. also Penwill (n. 12 above), 80 n. 45.

25. Tatum (n. 9 above), 522f., observes that in the Onos Lucius is supposed to have sex with a woman in an arena, but she is simply described as ‘one of the women, who had been condemned to be killed by the beasts’ (52 fin.). Stories about a woman persecuting an innocent and defenseless girl are frequent in antiquity; Trenkner (n. 7 above), 34.

26. However, Lucius as an ass has revealed signs of moralizing for some time, e.g. his reaction when Charite kisses the new recruit (7.11), and when he uncovers the baker's wife's lover by stepping on his fingers (or toes) (9.27): Scobie (n. 10 above), 67.

27. Just as there was a tale told while Candidus snacked peacefully on his breakfast (1.2), so there is a tale told as Lucius eats his meal (but this time on stage: the fabula of 10.3 fin is the Judgement of Paris).

28. Both the robbers and the wicked boy ask how long they should continue to waste their money feeding the ass (6.26; 7.20); cf. the salesman's joke (8.23). We have already seen that Lucius can eat an immense amount of bread. That Lucius was fed abundantly with animal food is made clear by his reference to the gardener's spoiled vegetables as contrasting with his suetis cibariis (‘customary food’) at the miller's (9.32).

29. Drake (n. 7 above), 354 n. 37, observes that Apuleius has over thirty allusions to eating and drinking in the novel and she suggests that it is a symbolic, unifying theme.

30. Abstinentia is used of Milo in 1.26, and the motif has been under the surface of the non-eating motif throughout the novel. The difference in the last book is that this turns into the voluntary asceticism of Lucius the religious convert. The only other occurrence of the word in the novel is in the last book, for which see below and Schlam 1980 (n. 8 above), 134.

31. This adjective is used only one other time by Apuleius in the Metamorphoses, to describe the miller when he returns home from his intercepta cena (‘interrupted dinner’, 9.26).

32. That he is prepared for this ascent to Isis is clearly marked by the unexpected (and otherwise unrequired) return at this crucial moment of his horse, Candidus (11.20). Candidus had disappeared from the story at 6.26 (he was last mentioned at 7.3). Lucius has taken the first important step towards separating himself from his bestiality.

33. Bergman, J., ‘Decern Illis Diebus’, in Ex Orbe Religionum = Numen Suppl. 21 (1972) 332f.Google Scholar has discussed the three passages involving the avoidance of meat, but only from a religious point of view. Griffiths, J. G., Apuleius of Madauros: The Isis Book (Leiden, 1975Google Scholar) ad loc. examines various degrees of abstention required by ancient cults. Sexual abstinence is not explicitly mentioned here in the Metamorphoses, but is probably implied.

34. Bergman (n. 33 above); the pun here is not unparalleled in the Metamorphoses. At the end of the tale of the old woman (Cupid and Psyche), Jupiter claims that he shall make the marriage of the two lovers a union of equals: porrecto ambrosiae poculo: ‘sume,’ inquit, ‘Psyche, et immortalis esto nec umquam digredietur a tuo nexu Cupido, sed istae uobis erunt perpetuae nuptiae’ (‘Holding out a cup of ambrosia he said, “Psyche, take this and be immortal; and Cupid shall never depart from your embrace, but this marriage of yours will be everlasting”’, 6.23 fin.). Sume…immortalis esto, ‘Take this and be immortal,’ he says, but he might also be saying, ‘Take this and drink, immortal one!’ Paronomasia is, of course, quite common in Apuleius.

35. Englert, J. and Long, T., ‘Functions of Hair in Apuleius' Metamorphoses’, CJ 68 (1973), 236f.Google Scholar, demonstrate how Lucius' attitude towards hair reflects his progress towards Isis, e.g. 239: ‘What happens to his [Lucius'] flauum et inadfectatum capillitium is a symbol of Lucius' recovery and entry into a new life of denial and devotion. He had been held to Fotis by her hair, at once symbol and paragon of her sexual enticements; freed from sensual bondage, he is freed also from what was the principal feature of his earlier condition — his obsession with hair. His lack of concern for the ironically transferred loss of his own blond locks is a symbol of the total release he has gained from his earlier vices.’

36. Suggested by Drake (n. 7), though for other reasons.

37. Tatum, J., ‘Apuleius and Metamorphosis’, AJP 93 (1972), 306–313Google Scholar, has a good discussion of the various aspects of metamorphosis in the novel.

38. This is most evident in the extreme ‘separatist’ interpretations such as Perry's; however, even more recent studies which accept the Metamorphoses as a unified text tend to dismiss incongruities as authorial blunders; see R. Heine, ‘Picaresque Novel versus Allegory’, in Aspects (n. 7 above), who refers to the list of inconsistencies and logical contradictions in the first few stories in van Thiel (n. 6 above), 19 nn. 54 and 55; also those works cited by van der Paardt, R. Th., ‘The Unmasked “I”’, Mnemosyne 39 (1981), 98 n. 8Google Scholar.

39. See Sandy, G., ‘Book 11: Ballast or Anchor?’, in Aspects (n. 7 above), 123–140Google Scholar.

40. I gladly thank Professor Jack Winkler for allowing me to read drafts of his book on the Metamorphoses; I owe more than I can remember to his thoughts on Apuleius.

41. (1) Ebel, H., ‘Apuleius and the Present Time’, Arethusa 3 (1970), 164Google Scholar; (2) Smith, W. S., ‘The Narrative Voice in Apuleius' Metamorphoses’, TAPA 103 (1972), 513Google Scholar; (3) Kenny (n. 6 above), 195; (4) Mayrhofer, C., ‘On Two Stories in Apuleius’, Antichthon 9 (1975), 79–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see now van der Paardt (n. 38 above) for the attractive suggestion that the blending of author and narrator (the author's alter ego) in the supposed ‘slip’ of Madaurensem is intentional — cf. his ‘Summary and Look-Ahead’, in Hijmans and Schmidt (n. 8 above), 166f.

42. E.g. W. Booth's ‘infinitely unstable’ ironic texts which leave the reader floating, tottering near the abyss of nihilism: A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago, 1974Google Scholar). But this emphasis on questions over answers, a healthy skepticism, is at the root of Platonic investigation. That Apuleius Platonicus could have followed such a philosophical approach is surely possible; contra Tatum (n. 5 above), 131.

43. A more violent, but no less appropriate metaphor, would be a sexual image like the one suggested by Naomi Schor for Kafka's ‘hysterical’ texts, ‘hysterical in the sense that they seem to invite rape, while denying penetration’: ‘Fiction as Interpretation/Interpretation as Fiction’, in Suleiman, S. R. and Crosman, I., eds., The Reader in the Text (Princeton, 1980), 166Google Scholar. R. Barthes uses the eating metaphor when discussing the demands upon a reader of modern versus ‘classical’ texts — the modern novel must be read more carefully, more self-consciously: ‘not to devour, to gobble, but to graze, to browse scrupulously, to rediscover – in order to read today's writers – the leisure of bygone readings: to be aristocratic readers’: The Pleasure of the Text, tr. Miller, R. (New York, 1975Google Scholar). The locus classicus for narration and the feast is still Bakhtin, M., Rabelais and His World, tr. Iswolsky, H. (Cambridge, Mass, 1968), especially Chapter IVGoogle Scholar, ‘Banquet Imagery in Rabelais’.

44. The so-called ‘moderate-separatist’ position, as typified by Lesky, A., ‘Apuleius von Madaura und Lukios von Patrai’, Hermes 76 (1941), 43–74Google Scholar.