The Golden Ass
Metamorphoseon
A classic of antiquity. First published AD 170, written in Latin
The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which Augustine of Hippo referred to as The Golden Ass, is the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety.
Your reading
Sign in to add this book to your map.
Where it is set
- Thessaly
Greece
While journeying to Thessaly on business, he overhears a fellow traveler, Aristomenes, being rebuked by a friend for telling fantastical stories. Source: Wikipedia, reviewed
- Hypata
Greece
At Hypata, Lucius presents a letter of introduction to his hosts Milo and Pamphile, who prove to be miserly moneylenders living in an almost-empty house. Source: Wikipedia, reviewed
Its heirs
Later works that draw on The Golden Ass.
ConfessionsClassic
Augustine of Hippo, AD 400
The Golden Ass ends with its hero's conversion to the cult of Isis, told in his own voice. Augustine, who grew up in the same corner of Roman Africa as Apuleius, tells his own story of wandering and conversion, partly in answer to it.
Source: Wikipedia, The Golden Ass
“The style of autobiographical confession of suffering in The Golden Ass influenced Augustine of Hippo in the tone and style—partly in polemic—of his Confessions.” Read it there
The DecameronGreat book
Giovanni Boccaccio, AD 1353
Two of Boccaccio's tales come straight from Apuleius, the fuller's wife (V.10) and the lover hidden under a tub (VII.2), both stories of wives outwitting their husbands.
%20El%20ingenioso%20hidalgo%20Don%20Quixote%20de%20la%20Mancha.png?width=240)