A Joke that No One Has Gotten for Over a Thousand Years
The Novel The Golden Ass as a Prank on Another Philosopher, and a Response to Epictetus
Apuleius’ novel, The Golden Ass, is the only Roman-era Latin novel to survive fully intact from antiquity. Apuleius was a Platonist philosopher. He wrote the novel sometime between about 145 and 180 CE. This was the heyday of the Roman adoption of Hellenistic philosophies.
If you’ve not read The Golden Ass, I highly encourage you to do so. For those familiar with the Lindy Effect, there’s good reason why this novel was preserved. It is both highly entertaining and laden with philosophical allusions and symbolism open to multiple interpretations, making it a book readers want to hold onto to read again to look for the philosophical easter eggs and philosophical meaning hidden in the text.
An audiobook version is available free from Librivox. The text is available free online. Amazon offers several inexpensive translations.
I’ll try to make the rest of this article to be understandable for those who have not read the novel, but there will be spoilers.
This article presents a novel interpretation of The Golden Ass that exposes a philosophical joke that was obvious in antiquity but which we have been unable to see because we’ve lost the background information to understand the joke.
Incidentally, there are many possible interpretations of The Golden Ass. The philosopher Peter Singer interpets the novel to be about developing compassion for animals. He’s even the editor of one of the translations available. I do not recommend this translation as it removes much of the story that does not conform to Singer’s objectives.
The first thing to understand in order to get the lost joke is that the novel is in part a satire about how badly some young men of the day approached learning philosophy. If you’re well-read on your Epictetus and Aulus Gellius - also writers from this era - you would be familiar with the fact that some people were attracted to philosophy for the wrong reasons. Epictetus complains that his students are just interested in learning about what Chrysippus said, not to learn to practice Stoicism. He’s concerned that they’re just interested in logic as a kind of parlor trick, with things such as the liar’s paradox (Discourses 1.8). He also expresses concern about a student making unnatural efforts to make himself attractive to women (Discourses 3.1).
Aulus Gellius tells us a story about a young Stoic who made an ass of himself.
I have also heard the following anecdote about a young Stoic philosopher who was somewhat over-eager and hot-headed. When he was dining with a group of friends, he asserted with great vehemence and contentiousness that the wise man alone is rich. An old man who was present, and who was not a philosopher, gently admonished him, saying: 'My young friend, you are not yet rich, but you do dine with the rich.' (Attic Nights 6.13)
Even today, Stoics complain that groups are misunderstanding and misusing Stoicism for improper ends. They even have names for the various types of misuses: $toicism, Broicism, and StoicisM.
The novel is structured so as to have many side stories conveyed within the main narrative. These stories and the main narrative all seem to be borrowed from pre-existing Greek tales. The morals of the side stories usually echo or amplify themes in the main narrative.
We have a condensed version of the main narrative that comes to us via the satirist Lucian of Samosata. Apuleius modified this story for his own purposes. These modifications are key to understanding the philosophical meanings and jokes in the text. In particular, Apuleius modifies the beginning and ending of the main narrative. For example, Lucian’s version of the story ends with Lucius’ family descent being an important fact. Apuleius puts this at the beginning and embellishes it. So, any change like this that Apuleius made is probably important with respect to the philosophical meanings he wished to convey.
At the beginning of the novel, the protagonist, Lucius, tells us that he is descended from the famous Plutarch and his nephew, the philosopher Sextus, who lived in Thessaly. Sextus is best known these days for the praise that Marcus Aurelius gave him in Meditations 1.9. Marcus Aurelius was said to have attended Sextus’ lectures when Marcus was old. Sextus was a contemporary of Apuleius, and almost certainly had to have been alive when The Golden Ass was published. In my review of the academic literature about The Golden Ass, I’ve not found any mention of this fact. I suggest that the text has philosophical jokes that are specific to Sextus.
Anyone with just a passing knowledge of Plutarch and Sextus knows that they are not from Thessaly. They’re from the town of Chaeronea, in Boetia. Also, anyone of that era would strongly associate Thessaly with witchcraft - so strongly that the two terms were nearly synonymous. This is a key to understanding the moral story of the novel. What is said about witchcraft is meant to be understood as being said about philosophy.
Witchcraft and philosophy have several things in common.
They are time-consuming and difficult to learn, involving learning much detail and much that is not intuitively obvious.
They give practitioners powers that others lack.
For Latin readers, they are associated with places in far-away Greece: Thessaly for witchcraft and Athens for philosophy.
They transform the practitioner.
The Golden Ass is in part a parable about having a wrong approach to learning philosophy by treating philosophy like it was witchcraft.
Our protagonist, Lucius, in addition to being remarkably foolish, has a bad character defect. This defect is central to the story. He is plagued with a meddlesome curiosity about things that are none of his business. This is a caricature or perversion of a key philosophical idea, famously expressed by Aristotle: “philosophy begins in wonder” and that “it is the nature of man to want to know.”
Lucius is overcome with wonder. He wants to know everything - except for anything about himself. The events of the novel will show that he is a spectacular failure at following the first three Delphic Maxims:
Know thyself
Nothing to excess
Ignorance of himself, pursuit of excesses, and commitments that bring on calamities appear throughout the novel. Apuleius may have drawn on Plutarch’s essay, on the E at Delphi for this, which emphasizes the importance of the Delphic Maxims to philosophy.
Another thing Lucius is a spectacular failure at is in practicing the Dichotomy of Control - a spiritual exercise that, contrary to the modern marketing of Stoicism, is not uniquely Stoic but was a common philosophical understanding. For those familiar with alternative ways to translate Epictetus Enchiridion 1, where Epictetus lays out his Stoic version of the Dichotomy of Control, the term that gets translated as “in our power” or “in our control” can also be translated as “things that are our business.” Lucius is a caricature of someone who ignores what is his business to focus on things that are not his business.
The Latin term for this meddlesome curiosity is curiositas - from which we get the English word “curiosity.” The English term has a more benign meaning than the Latin term, but the term that Apuleius has in mind is a Greek term, πολυπραγμοσύνη - polypragmosyne. This is a negative term. Aulus Gellius tells us in connection with discussing an essay by Plutarch on this subject that this word is not readily translated into Latin. Of course, confusingly, curiositas tends to get translated as curiosity, whereas polypragmosyne gets more clearly translated as “busybody.”
Gellius’ full story is worth recounting as it, or the Plutarch essay it refers to, may have been part of the inspiration for the novel. As Gellius’ story will make clear, it can be difficult to distinguish between the virtuous curiosity endorsed by Aristotle and the Pyrrhonists, and the vicious kind of curiosity that turns one into a meddlesome busybody.
That the translation of certain Greek words into the Latin language is very difficult, for example, that which in Greek is called πολυπραγμοσύνη. The word means “being busy about many things,” often with the idea of “officiousness” or “meddling.”
We have frequently observed not a few names of things which we cannot express in Latin by single words, as in Greek; and even if we use very many words, those ideas cannot be expressed in Latin so aptly and so clearly as the Greeks express them by single terms. Lately, when a book of Plutarch had been brought to me, and I had read its title, which was περὶ πολυπραγμοσύνης, a man who was unacquainted with Greek letters and words asked who the author was and what the book was about. The name of the writer I gave him at once, but I hesitated when on the point of naming the subject of the work. At first indeed, since it did not seem to me that it would be a very apt interpretation if I said that it was written De Negotiositale or “On Busyness,” I began to rack my brains for something else which would render the title word for word, as the saying is. But there was absolutely nothing that I remembered to have read, or even that I could invent, that was not to a degree harsh and absurd, if I fashioned a single word out of multitudo, or “multitude,” and negotium, or “business,” in the same way that we say multiiugus (“manifold”), multicolorus (“multicoloured”) and multiformius (“multiform”). But it would be no less uncouth an expression than if you should try to translate by one word πολυφιλία (abundance of friends), πολυτροπία (versatility), or πολυσαρκία (fleshiness). Therefore, after spending a brief time in silent thought, I finally answered that in my opinion the idea could not be expressed by a single word, and accordingly I was preparing to indicate the meaning of that Greek word by a phrase.
“Well then,” said I, “undertaking many things and busying oneself with them all is called in Greek πολυπραγμοσύνη, and the title shows that this is the subject of our book.” Then that illiterate fellow, misled by my unfinished, rough-and-ready language and believing that πολυπραγμοσύνη was a virtue, said: “Doubtless this Plutarch, whoever he is, urges us to engage in business and to undertake very many enterprises with energy and dispatch, and properly enough he has written as the title of the book itself the name of this virtue about which, as you say, he is intending to speak.” “Not at all,” said I; “for that is by no means a virtue which, expressed by a Greek term, serves to indicate the subject of this book; and neither does Plutarch do what you suppose, nor do I intend to say that he did. For, as a matter of fact, it is in this book that he tries to dissuade us, so far as he can, from the haphazard, promiscuous and unnecessary planning and pursuit ”
I suggest interpreting The Golden Ass as a satire of how beginning philosophy students mistake curiosity as a virtue while ignoring what they really should be learning: wisdom. Lucius’ tale is about learning via the hardest way possible how to become wise, and even in the end, we’re not sure he has succeeded.
Another fault Lucius has is that he is plagued with appetitive desires. The novel is full of tales about Lucius’ sexual endeavors. If you’re listening to the audiobook version, take care of who is in earshot.
That beginning philosophy students - particularly young ones - have issues about mixing up their appetitive desires and their pursuit of philosophy seems as relevant to today as is did in Apuleius’ time. Consider this meme aboout Stoicsim:
The meme above is a joke, but if one digs deeply enough into videos put out by certain influencers in the manosphere one can find pretty much this sort of thing. Here’s a documentary about that: How Stoicism Became the World’s Greatest Scam.
As further evidence, here’s a popular “Stoic” book. It would seem that in this version of $toicism wealth is not merely a preferred indifferent but is instead the objective of $toicism.
After the first few paragraphs of the novel, the reader is launched into the first story within a story, told by a fellow traveler on the way to Thesssaly. This story is filled with philosophical allusions, mostly to Plato’s Phaedo and Aristophanes’ The Clouds. To lay it on thick, the main character in the story is named Socrates and the teller the story is named Aristomenes. Note that “Plato” went by his nickname. His given name was Aristocles. The story Aristomenes tells is a mashup of those told by the other Aristos: Aristocles and Aristophanes. In so doing, Apuleius is signaling to the reader to pay attention to the names of the characters. There’s hidden meaning there.
A long article could be - and has been written by others - on all of the various allusions Apuleius makes in this story. I’ll give just one here as an example of Apuleius’ cleverness. This allusion is to Phaedo 77e, where Socrates is addressing Cebes' concerns about the survival of the soul after death. Socrates says:
Are you afraid that when the soul leaves the body, the wind may really blow it away and scatter it, especially if a man happens to die in a high wind and not in calm weather?
Cebes jokingly replies:
Perhaps, if we were children, we might be afraid of that; but try to convince us not to be afraid of death like children afraid of bogies [λαμίας, lamias].
A lamia in ancient Greek mythology was a child-eating monster and a type of night-haunting spirit. They also seduced young men to satisfy their sexual appetites.
In The Golden Ass, the author uses lamia and “witch” as synonyms in this story about Socrates. Socrates was seduced by a lamia, and killed through the lamia’s magical powers.
It is probably not a coincidence that Plutarch mentions lamia near the beginning of De Curiositate:
…like the Lamia in the fable, who, they say, when at home sleeps in blindness with her eyes stored away in a jar, but when she goes abroad puts in her eyes and can see, so each one of us, in our dealings with others abroad, puts his meddlesomeness, like an eye, into his maliciousness ; but we are often tripped up by our own faults and vices by reason of our ignorance of them, since we provide ourselves with no sight or light by which to inspect them.
The Golden Ass is full of easter eggs like this - this is just a small sample - making it fun for those well-read in philosophy to go looking for them, encouraging readers to read the book multiple times and talk about it with friends. As Apuleius is a Platonist, most of the references will be to Plato or Plutarch.
Apuleius’ little tale of Socrates here hints that The Golden Ass is about something that seduces even the greatest of philosophers. There’s something seductive in philosophy and that something is what it has in common with witchcraft. Our protagonist Lucius’ attraction to witchcraft is like how many foolish people pursue philosophy: they are looking to transform themselves.
Transformation is, however, a risky endeavor.
Following this tale-within-a-tale, Lucius reaches his destination, Hypata, a city in the heart of Thessaly - the same city where the tale of Socrates was set. Here Lucius presents a letter of introduction to Milo from a mutual friend requesting that Milo host Lucius while he’s there “on business.” The business Lucius is there for is not mentioned, but it is obvious to readers that Lucius’ business is to learn about witchcraft. For this he has come to the right spot, as Milo’s wife Pamphile turns out to be a witch.
Apuleius then lays things on a bit thicker about how witchcraft should be equated with philosophy. At the first dinner where Phamphile and Lucius are together we’re told of this incident.
… Pamphile looked at the lamp: ‘What a monstrous rain-storm we’ll have tomorrow!’ When her husband asked her how she knew, she replied the lamp had told her. Milo replied with a laugh: ‘We’re nourishing a mighty Sibyl indeed in that light, one that looks on all heaven’s affairs, and the sun itself, from the crow’s-nest of the lampstand.’
To this I retorted: ‘It’s my first experience of this kind of divination. But it’s no surprise that your tiny flame lit by human hands still retains awareness of that greater celestial fire, as if it was its begetter; thus by divine presentiment it knows and can proclaim to us whatever that orb will enact in the zenith.
It’s seldom discussed these days because it’s embarrassing to the modern advocates of Stoicism, but ancient Stoicism embraced divination. Stoic physics had a theory of why divination worked. Lucius’ retort is that theory. Pamphile, however, is not relying on Stoic physics for her forecast. She’s using witchcraft. Here witchcraft and philosophy literally cannot be distinguished from each other - a point that is extra delicious for a Platonist (or any of the other critics of Stoicism) that the target of this barb is Stoic doctrine.
It’s interesting that the Stoic theory of divination is the only formal bit of philosophy Lucius seems to know. Latin readers of philosophy in this era would likely know of Cicero’s Platonist/Academic Skeptic essay On Divination, in which he takes down divination and the Stoic theory supporting it as pseudoscience.
This is not the only place in the novel where Apuleius connects Stoicsm with magic. Early in the novel, he recounts watching sword swallowers performing in Athens in front of the Painted Porch - the famous meeting place and namesake of the Stoics.
At this point in the story, Lucius has learned that not only has he come to the right place to learn about witchcraft, but it’s also the right place to fulfill his other desires. A servant girl in the household, Photis, has immediately taken a liking to Lucius. Soon they are lovers. This comes with two more benefits. Photis brings him much better food than Milo provides him, and she has begun to learn about witchcraft from being a busybody herself, observing Pamphile in secret.
One evening, Photis takes Lucius to spy upon Pamphile as she turns herself into an owl and flies away.
Again here, Apuleius shows that witchcraft is to be equated with philosophy. The owl is a symbol of Athena and thus of Athens and of philosophy.
He also invokes a well-known philosophical exercise: the view from above. In this exercise, one investigates one’s problems at great remove to reduce their sense of significance. Here’s an example of this exercise being put to use by Marcus Aurelius:
Asia and Europe: distant recesses of the universe. The ocean: a drop of water. Mount Athos: a molehill. The present: a split second in eternity. Minuscule, transitory, insignificant. (Meditations 6.36)
What philosopher would not want to experience this view from above? Lucius begs Photis to show him how to transform himself into an owl as Pamphile just did.
Photis, however, is not very knowledgeable. She gives Lucius the wrong potion. Instead of being turned into an owl, he is turned into a donkey. At least Photis knows the antidote to the potion - roses - but she cannot obtain them until the next morning. She has Lucius stay overnight in the stable.
That night, robbers break into the house. To carry away their loot, they commandeer the pack animals in the stable, including Lucius. Thus begins Lucius’ remarkable tempest-tossed journey at the hands of fate. Instead of getting the view from above, as an ass, Lucius gets the view from below. This view lets him see not only all of the horrors with which animals were treated in antiquity, he also spends time living with thieves, religious cult members, and all sorts of other types of shady characters whom he would not have encountered in his aristocratic upbringing.
To backtrack a bit in the story, I’d like to focus on the part of the tale where Lucius first learns about Phamphile’s involvement in witchcraft. Lucius discusses his first day in Hypata.
Anxious as ever to investigate, with all my excessive eagerness, the rare and marvellous, and knowing that there I was in the heart of Thessaly, the home of those magic arts whose powerful spells are praised throughout the world, and remembering that my dear friend Aristomenes’ tale was set in this very city, I was possessed with desire and impatience, and set out to examine everything carefully. Nothing I saw in that city seemed to me to be what it was, but everything, I thought, had been transformed by some dreadful incantation; the rocks I came across were petrified human beings, the birds I heard were people with feathers, the trees round the city walls were the same with leaves, and the water in the fountains had flowed from human veins; soon the statues and images would start to walk, and the walls to talk, and the oxen and other cattle to prophesy, and an oracle would speak from the very sky, out of the face of the sun.
…there a woman was passing by with a large crowd of servants. I quickened my pace and caught up with her. The gold settings of her jewels, and the gold threads woven into her dress marked her out as the wife of some wealthy person. An old man weighed down by the years was clinging to her arm who, the moment he caught sight of me, cried: ‘It’s Lucius, by Hercules, it’s Lucius!’ He embraced me and whispered something in the woman’s ear. ‘Why don’t you go and kiss your aunt?’ he said. I blushed, replying: ‘I’m embarrassed to greet a woman I don’t know’ and stood there with my eyes on the ground.
But she turned and stared at me: ‘He inherited his virtue from his pure and sainted mother Salvia, and the physical resemblance is clear: not unusually tall, slight yet vigorous, a reddish complexion, tawny hair quiet plainly cut, the same alert blue-grey eyes, with a brilliant gaze like an eagle’s, the glowing face, the attractive unaffected way of walking.
Lucius,’ she said, ‘I raised you with these very hands, naturally, since I’m not just a close relative of your mother’s, I was brought up with her, and we’re both descendants of Plutarch’s family, suckled together by the same wet-nurse, and reared in the bonds of sisterhood. Only our position in society differentiates us, since she married an eminent man, I a private citizen. I am Byrrhena, whose name I think you’ll often have heard among those who educated you. So come, and trust yourself to my hospitality, or rather to a house you must treat just like your own.’
Once my blushes had receded, I replied: ‘I ought not to desert Milo, my host, without a reason, aunt. But I’ll try hard to do what I can without failing my obligations. Whenever I’ve reason to come this way I’ll call on you without fail.’
While we were talking in this manner, we had walked a short distance, and reached Byrrhena’s house.
There are two interesting things to point out here. The first one is to recall the Dichotomy of Control: that some things are our business and some things are not. Isn’t it our business to know our close relatives, especially those who cared for us in our youth? Lucius - who begins his story by touting his descent from Plutarch - has forgotten that he has close Plutarchian relatives in Hypata!
At the beginning of this essay, I mentioned that there would be something interesting about Lucius’ ancestor Sextus. We know little about the philosopher Sextus of Chaeronea except that he was Plutarch’s nephew, he lived for a while in Rome, and he was held in high esteem by Marcus Aurelius, who in particular praised Sextus for his encyclopedic knowledge of philosophy. Sextus and Apuleius were contempoaries. Sextus was almost certainly alive when The Golden Ass was published. It’s plausible that Sextus and Apuleius knew each other, perhaps even very well.
Because of Marcus Aurleius’ esteem for him, many people infer that Sextus must have been a Stoic. There’s even a mention in the Historia Augusta that can be read to imply that he was a Stoic; although it can also be read to imply that he wasn’t. Some people infer that Sextus was a Stoic because Marcus praises him and describes him as having apathia - a disposition lauded by the Stoics. However, there’s no reason that philosophers from any other school might not also have such a disposition.
Others infer that Sextus must have been a Platonist as he was the nephew of the most famous Platonist of his era. Plutarch frequently criticized the Stoics. Had Plutarch’s nephew become a prominent Stoic, it would have been scandalous enough to be worth mentioning. But we have no record of anybody mentioning it.
There is, however, a third possibility. We even have a relatively ancient source for this possibility: the 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia, the Suda. The Suda says that the philosopher named Sextus of Chaeronea - Plutarch’s nephew - was the same philosopher known as Sextus Empiricus. This is commonly believed to be an error, but there are reasons to think the Suda is correct.
Does The Golden Ass give us any hints about how to solve this puzzle? I think so. In fact, I think it’s the now-hidden punchline of The Golden Ass that was in plain sight when the novel was written.
The biggest hint is that Apuleius usually gives his characters names that convey a meaning or make a little joke. For example, the name Lucius means “light” in Latin. His lover, Photis’ name means “light” in Greek. They are two manifestations of the same foolishness.
What does Byrrhena mean? There are a few possibilities, but there’s one that stands out philosophically. The name may be derived from the Greek "πυρρός" (pyrrhós), meaning "red" or "flame-colored." This could suggest someone with reddish hair or a ruddy complexion. Or, it could suggest a connection with the philosopher Pyrrho.
Shortly after Byrrhena is introduced to the narrative, Apuleius gives us a hint about why we should associate her with Pyrrho. Upon entering Byrrhena’s home, Lucius gives a lengthy description of a statue in the reception hall, part of which says:
Inside the cavern the statue’s reflection shone from the polished marble, and under its lip hung apples and skilfully carved grapes, art emulating nature in a work resembling reality: you would have thought them ripe for picking, at that moment when Autumn the harvester breathes rich colour into the fruits, and if you bent and stared into the pool, where a gently shimmering wave flowed, beneath the goddess’s feet, you would have thought the grapes hanging there in reflection possessed the quality of movement, besides those other aspects of reality.
This reflects a standard skeptical trope: that what we take for reality is uncertain, as art and dreams can have the same character as reality. Epictetus criticizes this view in Discourses 2.20, which we will examine in detail later, and implies that Plutarch endorsed it, perhaps in one of his several lost essays on Pyrrhonism.
Another hint that we should associate Byrrhena with Pyrrho occurs at a party Lucius attends at Byrrhena’s home. One of the guests is encouraged to tell a story about how he got disfigured by witches. Everyone laughs at the story, seeming not to believe it.
Despite this, Byrrhena warns Lucius,
…beware especially of the evil arts and immoral charms of that woman Pamphile, the wife of Milo who you say is your host. They call her the first among witches, mistress of every kind of fatal charm, who by breathing on twigs and pebbles and such like can drown all the light of the starlit globe in the depths of Tartarus and plunge the whole world into primal Chaos. No sooner does she spy a handsome young man than, captivated by his looks, she directs her gaze and all her desire towards him. She sows the seeds of seduction, invades his mind, and fetters him with the eternal shackles of raging passion. Then any who are unwilling, rendered loathsome by their reluctance, in a trice she turns them into a rock, or a sheep or some other creature; there are even those she annihilates completely. That’s why I fear for you and warn you to take care. She’s always on heat, and you are young and handsome enough to suit.’
“Pamphile” means “love everyone” - or, in this case, all handsome young men. One whose name means “light” should have a concern about a woman capable of drowning out all light. Milo’s name means yew - a tree that is famously poisonous. Lucius has put himself in a place of great danger.
Byrrhena is the lone sensible and wise person in the whole story. She tells Lucius to stay away from witchcraft, to leave Milo’s house and come to hers. There’s a parallel with Pyrrhonism here, as Pyrrhonism can be said to be about avoiding the bewitching tenets of philosophies. Another parallel is that Apulieus would have been aware of comes from the Pyrrhonist philosopher Timon’s famous but now-lost satire on philosophy, the Silloi, a work that was likely the first-ever satire focused on philosophy, and in this respect, a model for The Golden Ass. The first line of that satire was, “Tell me now all you busybody sophists.” It goes on to make fun of philosophers such as Zeno of Citium and Socrates for being busybodies.
Apuleius lived during an awkward era for being a Platonist, about which it is useful to recap some of the history of Platonism.
A few decades after Plato’s death, Plato’s idea of the Forms was being thoroughly discredited. Pyrrho returned from India with a new take on philosophy, and a new vision for it. His prescription for eudaimonia was not the common-sense ones that Democitus and Aristotle had given, but something clever and counter-intuitive. This new take encouraged others to likewise come up with clever and counter-intuitive approaches, first Epicurus, then Zeno of Citium, and finally Arcesilaus, the head of the Platonic Academy. Arcesilaus realized that what Socrates said in the early Platonic dialogues was similar enough to what Pyrrho was teaching that he could co-opt Pyrrho’s main ideas, ascribe them to Socrates, then re-orient the Academy to be about what Socrates taught rather than what Plato taught - bypassing any need to address the problems with the Forms. This he did, with great success, ushering in the phase of the Academy known as Academic Skepticism.
This worked well for a couple of centuries, but over time Stoicism became increasingly popular and came to dominate philosophical discourse to the point that some of the Academics started adopting Stoic positions. By the time Cicero wrote Academia, the Academy was in philosophical collapse. Some Academics, led by Aenesidemus, converted to Pyrrhonism. The remainder initiated a new phase in the Academy, a phase known as Middle Platonism. Aenisidemus disparaged these Platonists for being “Stoics arguing with Stoics.”
The most famous of the Middle Platonists was Plutarch, who indeed criticizes Stoicism. However, unlike its competitors - Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Pyrrhonism - what was left of Platonism at that time wasn’t philosophically coherent. Plutarch’s protege and philosophical heir, Favorinus, ends up abandoning Middle Platonism to attempt to revive Academic Skepticism. He also wrote a now-lost book in praise of Pyrrhonism - a book that was said to be his best. Plutarch also wrote some now-lost essays on Pyrrhonism that may have been favorable to Pyrrhonism.
During Apuleius's era it would appear that there was some sort of unwritten alliance between the Platonists and the Pyrrhonists. Sextus Empiricus remarkably avoided criticizing Platonists. He even found it important to give an analysis of why, despite many affinities, Plato should not be considered to be among the skeptikoi (fellow inquirers like the Pyrrhonists) - a position endorsed by earlier Pyrrhonists, such as Menodotus and Aenesidemus. (Outlines of Pyrrhonism I.33).
Byrrhena’s role in The Golden Ass may be an acknowledgment of this philosophical alliance, and a nod to Sextus of Chaeronea’s having become a Pyrrhonist. Lucius tells us he is descended on his mother’s side from Sextus. Given the chronology, that would likely mean that Lucius is Sextus’ grandson. His mother, Salvia, would be Sextus’ daughter. Although the chapter heading says that Byrrhena is Lucius’ aunt, she would seem to be, based on the text, technically Salvia’s same-age first or second cousin. “Salvia” connotes “healthy” and “safe.” It’s also the Latin name of the sage plant, and loosely connotes “wise.”
Lucius’ father’s name we are told is Theseus, after the famous holder of that name. Plutarch wrote an essay on Theseus. This essay includes the famous Ship of Theseus paradox - a paradox about identity, a thought experiment about what constitutes knowledge. Apuleius is telling us here, “how many parts of Sextus’s family can I replace while keeping it the same family?”
How did the philosopher Sextus and his wise daughter end up being the ancestors of foolish Lucius?
I suggest that Apuleius intended his novel to be, in part, a practical joke played on Sextus and is about a perceived weakness in Pyrrhonism. (Spoiler alert!)
Might Marcus Aurelius have been aware of this practical joke? In Meditations 1.9 Marcus makes a point of saying that Sextus set “the example of a family governed in a fatherly manner.” In other words, Sextus was a good father and grandfather - not what you’d be led to believe in Apuleius's scandalous novel. Marcus also remarks about Sextus’ apathia. Perhaps that was in reaction to Sextus’ apathia about how he and his family were mocked by Apuleius in The Golden Ass.
I think Apulieus gives us a hint that he’s playing a practical joke on Sextus. The hint begins with Lucius’ departure from Milo’s house to attend a party at Byrrhena’s home, Photis warns Lucius:
Take care to come back early, because there’s a gang of wild young noblemen who disturb the common peace. There are people murdered, and their bodies are left lying in the street, and the town’s too far from the nearest army barracks to put an end to all their slaughter. Envy of your fine clothes, and their contempt for foreigners might count against you.
And before departing the party to return back to Milo’s house, Byrrhena says to Lucius,
Ever since Hypata was founded, tomorrow has been a unique holiday, a day when we seek to propitiate the sacred god of Laughter, with pleasant and joyful rites. Your presence will make it a happier occasion for us, and I hope you’ll think of something witty of your own to honour the great god with, so we can recognise his divinity more gloriously than ever.
On his way back to Milo’s, an elaborate practical joke is played on Lucius in which all of the citizens of Hypata are co-conspirators - perhaps in the way that all of the characters in the book are co-conspirators in a practical joke played on Sextus.
An element in the practical joke is that Photis was commanded by Phamphile to get the hair of a handsome blond Boetian young man. She does so, but is confronted by the barber who takes it from between her breasts. The reader knows that the handsome young man not native to town is the grandson of Sextus of Charonea - a Boetian. Photis replaces the hair with that of goats, but maybe there’s still some of the young man’s hair, as Lucius is drawn to the scene.
Apuleius hat-tips that there’s wisdom in Sextus’ Pyrrhonism, while simultaneously making great fun of his foolish fictional grandson in order to deliver a subtle critique of Pyrrhonism.
So where is this subtle critique of Pyrrhonism? (Major spoiler alert!)
The most perplexing and unexpected thing of all in The Golden Ass is its conclusion. I propose that this conclusion makes sense if The Golden Ass is understood to be a practical joke made on Sextus Empiricus of Chaeronea.
In the novel, Apuleius employs the word “philosopher” or “philosophize” four times. Once in the beginning, to describe Sextus. (And surprisingly not Plutarch, who is instead described as famous.) The words are next used twice in a row, on Lucius’ final day as an ass:
As for the Athenians, those brilliant lawmakers, those masters of every art and science, what sort of trial did they grant Socrates? That man of divine wisdom, he whom the Delphic oracle declared greater in knowledge than all other mortals, was faced with the malice and deceit of a wholly worthless faction, accused of corrupting the young whom rather he kept in hand, then murdered with a deadly cup of poisonous hemlock. Yet his legacy to his fellow citizens is a permanent reminder of their injustice, since to this day the greatest philosophers are of his noble persuasion, and in studying the highest happiness swear by his very name.Lest you disapprove of my fit of indignation, and say to yourself: ‘Is every ass to turn philosopher now?’
Apuleius is giving a hint here that Lucius is becoming a philosopher, and this presages his becoming human again. Lucius, however, is only a philosopher relative to his former foolish self. All he does here is to recount the most famous story in Greek philosophy. This hardly counts as an insight.
The final usage of “philosopher” is shortly before his transformation back into a human. The night before he is to be restored to human form he has a vision that Isis spoke to him, giving him instructions about an opportunity she was going to provide to him to save himself. The next day there would be a procession in her honor. In describing this procession, Lucius mentions that among the people dressed up in various roles, one is dressed as a philosopher, implying that what’s about to come has the appearance of philosophy about it, albeit only in a pro forma way, as a character in a parade.
Isis tells Lucius that her priest in this procession would be carrying the roses that Lucius needed as an antidote to the witch’s potion. She had instructed her priest to allow Lucius to come up to him and eat the roses. He does this and returns to human form.
As if the novel was not already strange enough, the narrative then jarringly shifts from one wild tale after another to a rather dull accounting of how Lucius then attached himself to the cult of Isis and had multiple initiation ceremonies as he moved up in the ranks. Lucius tells us nothing about any wisdom he gains, but a lot about the garments he wore for the initiations.
Every reader is perplexed by this ending. The Greek tale Apuleius borrowed from to construct his novel has an ending nothing like this. Its ending is more fitting to the rest of the story. (See for yourself. You’ll understand why I do not summarize that ending here.) Clearly, the ending is intentional, but what was Apuleius trying to tell us?
There’s no scholarly consensus, except that Plutarch’s essay on Isis - which is still today one of our best sources on ancient Egyptian religion - must be an important key.
I think the ending is intentionally aporetic, for three reasons:
To mimic the aporetic endings of many of the Platonic dialogs
To entice readers to continue to think about and discuss the novel
As part of the joke for Sextus, whose Pyrrhonism is similarly aporetic
Lucius’ conversion to becoming a devotee of Isis has a Pyrrhonist theme in it and a Plutarchian one.
In the summary of Pyrrhonism given by Pyrrho and preserved by Eusebius, Pyrrho says that once one sees the world from the perspective of the Pyrrhonist Three Marks of Existence, one will experience aphasia - speechlessness.
Although Isis has told Lucius well in advance of exactly what will happen, and Lucius intently reviews here commands, when, as foretold, he is transformed back into a man, Lucius says,
As for me, I stood speechless, utterly dumfounded, rooted to the spot, unable to grasp with my mind so sudden and great a joy, lost for what I might begin to say, where to find utterance for this rediscovered voice, what auspicious speech might serve to inaugurate use of my re-found tongue, what fine words could express my gratitude to so powerful a goddess.
The Plutarchian theme is complex. Earlier in this essay I pointed out how bad some students are at understanding philosophy. Lucius is a scion of the most famous philosophical family of his era. His grandfather is the philosopher Sextus, whose lectures the Emperor attends. He’s also closely related to the famous philosopher Plutarch. He’s received the best education possible. And - he’s a philosophical failure. What should be done about such young people?
Epictetus gives us a hint about how important this question was then. Here’s Epictetus diatribe against Plutarch/Favorinus/Platonists/Academics in Discourses 2.20. It’s worth reading in its entirety to understand the Stoic accusations.
What say you, philosopher? What do you think of piety and sanctity? "If you please, I will prove that they are good." Pray do prove it; that our citizens may be converted, and honor the Deity, and may no longer neglect what is of the highest importance. " Do you accept these demonstrations, then? " I have, and I thank you. "Since you are so well pleased with this, then, learn these contrary propositions: that there are no gods, or, if there are, that they take no care of mankind, neither have we any concern with them; that this piety and sanctity, so much talked of by many, are only an imposition of boasting and sophistical men, or perhaps of legislators, for a terror and restraint to injustice." Well done, philosopher. Our citizens are much the better for you. You have already brought back all the youth to a contempt of the Deity. "What! does not this please you, then? Learn next, that justice is nothing; that shame is folly; that the paternal relation is nothing; the filial, nothing. " Well said, philosopher; persist, convince the youth; that we may have many more to think and talk like you. By such doctrines as these, no doubt, have our well-governed states flourished! Upon these was Sparta founded! Lycurgus, by his laws and method of education, introduced such persuasions as these: that it is not base to be slaves, rather than honorable; nor honorable to be free, rather than base! They who died at Thermopylae, died from such principles as these! And from what other doctrines did the Athenians leave their city?
And yet they who talk thus marry, and produce children, and engage in public affairs, and get themselves made priests and prophets. Of whom? Of gods that have no existence. And they consult the Pythian priestess, only to hear falsehoods, and interpret the oracles to others. Oh, monstrous impudence and imposture!
What are you doing, man? You contradict yourself every day; and you will not give up these paltry cavils. When you eat, where do you put your hand, - to your mouth, or to your eye? When you bathe, where do you go? Do you ever call a kettle a dish, or a spoon a spit? If I were a servant to one of these gentlemen, were it at the hazard of being flayed every day, I would plague him. "Throw some oil into the bath, boy." I would take pickle, and pour upon his head. "What is this?" Really, sir, I was impressed by a certain semblance so like oil as not to be distinguished from it. "Give me the soup." I would carry him a dish full of vinegar. "Did I not ask for the soup?" Yes, sir; this is the soup. "Is not this vinegar?" Why so, more than soup? "Take it and smell it, take it and taste it." How do you know, then, but our senses deceive us? If I had three or four fellow-servants to join with me, I would make him either choke with passion and burst, or change his opinions. But now they insult us by making use of the gifts of nature, while in words they destroy them. Those must be grateful and modest men, at least, who, while eating their daily bread, dare to say, "We do not know whether there be any such beings as Demeter, or Core, or Pluto." Not to mention that while they possess the blessings of night and day, of the annual seasons, of the stars, the earth, and the sea, they are not the last affected by any of these things; but only study to give out some idle problem, and when they have thus relieved themselves, go and bathe; but take not the least care what they say, nor on what subjects, nor to whom, nor what may be the consequence of their talk,- whether any well-disposed young man, on hearing such doctrines, may not be affected by them, and so affected as entirely to lose the seeds of his good disposition; whether they may not furnish an adulterer with occasions of growing shameless in his guilt; whether a public plunderer may not find excuses from these doctrines; whether he, who neglects his parents, may not gain an additional confidence from them.
"What things, then, in your opinion, are good and evil, fair and base,- such things, or such things?" But why should one argue any more with such as these, or interchange opinions, or endeavor to convince them? By Zeus! one might sooner hope to convince the most unnatural debauchees, than those who are thus deaf and blind to their own ills.
Contrast this with what Plutarch says of Isis:
…those that are initiated into the holy rites, since this consecration, by a strict regimen and by abstinence from many kinds of food and from the lusts of the flesh, curtails licentiousness and the love of pleasure, and induces a habit of patient submission to the stem and rigorous services in shrines, the end and aim of which is the knowledge of Him who is the First, the Lord of All, the Ideal One. Him does the goddess urge us to seek, since He is near her and with her and in close communion. The name of her shrine also clearly promises knowledge and comprehension of reality; for it is named Iseion, to indicate that we shall comprehend reality if in a reasonable and devout frame of mind we pass within the portals of her shrines.
Apuleius faces a problem here. The really honest counter-argument to Epictetus cannot be revealed. Religion is a godsend for fools like Lucius who cannot be reached by philosophy. The Golden Ass is Apuleius’ attempt to say the unsayable with regard to the noble lie that is known to benefit those who believe it.
Why did Apuleius pick the story of a man being transformed into an ass? Perhaps he was inspired by something Sextus Empiricus wrote in Outlines of Pyrrhonism (I.61-78). In Sextus’ discussion of the first mode of Aenesidemus (one of the stock arguments Pyrrhonists use against claims of knowledge) Sextus says:
…we shall not have a proof justifying us in preferring our own phantasiai to those of the so-called "non-rational" animals. If, therefore, the phantasiai differ because of the difference of animals, and it is impossible to decide between them, then it is necessary to suspend judgment concerning the external objects.
But for good measure we go on to match up the so-called "non-rational" animals with human beings as regards phantasiai. For, after our serious arguments, we do not consider it unseemly to poke a little fun at the Dogmatists, wrapped, as they are, in the fog of their discussions with themselves. … we shall for even more good measure carry our joking still further and base the argument on just one animal – the dog, if you will – which seems to be the humblest of all. For we shall find that even in this case the animals that are the subject of the argument are not inferior to ourselves as regards the credibility of the appearances.
Sextus’ joke, however, falls flat for modern readers as it requires background knowledge of the various philosophical doctrines about “non-rational” animals, but Sextus goes on to show that those doctrines have silly contradictions in them. The whole point of Sextus’ argument here is that we have no reason to accept the (particularly Stoic) doctrine that animals are not rational.
Apuleius grabs this idea and runs with it, giving the reader the experience of being an ass - one of those non-rational animals, all the while making elaborate philosophical jokes, many small ones but one grand one, as the whole novel is a practical joke on the man who inspired it.
It’s probably intentional on Apuleius’ part that there’s no obviously definitive interpretation of his novel. Not only have whole books been written on how to interpret the novel, there’s even a book on just the prologue to the novel. If you’ve read the novel and enjoy going down this rabbit hole like I have, here are my suggestions for further reading.
Alexander Kirichenko, Asinus Philosophans: Platonic Philosophy and the Prologue to Apuleius' Golden Ass
Alexander Kirichenko, A Comedy of Storytelling Theatricality and Narrative in Apuleius’ Golden Ass
Winkler, John J., Auctor & Actor: A Narratological Reading of Apuleius’s Golden Ass
thank you!