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Description

This is an auction for THE GOLDEN ASSE OF LUCIUS APULEIUS.

Translated by William Adlington.

From Wikipedia:

"Apuleius was a Latin-language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorian. He was a Numidian who lived under the Roman Empire. He studied Platonism in Athens, travelled to Italy, Asia Minor, and Egypt and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the attentions (and fortune) of a wealthy widow. He declaimed and then distributed a witty tour de force in his own defence before the proconsul and a court of magistrates convened in Sabratha, near ancient Tripoli, Libya. This is known as the Apologia. His most famous work is his bawdy picaresque novel, the Metamorphoses, otherwise known as The Golden Ass. The only Latin novel that has survived in its entirety, it relates the ludicrous adventures of one Lucius, who experiments with magic and is accidentally turned into a donkey. In this guise he hears and sees many unusual things, until escaping from his predicament in a rather unexpected way. Within this frame story are found many digressions, the longest among them being the well-known tale of Cupid and Psyche. The Metamorphoses ends with the (once again human) hero, Lucius, eager to be initiated into the mystery cult of Isis; he abstains from forbidden foods, bathes, and purifies himself. The adventures of the ass stand at the beginning of the picaresque novel tradition which eventually produced Fielding’s ‘Tom Jones’…”