Apuleius and Antonine Rome : Historical Essays

413 Pages·2017·2.99 MB·English

by  Keith Bradley

APULEIUS AND ANTONINE ROME:
HISTORICAL ESSAYS
PHOENIX
Journal of the Classical Association of Canada
Revue de la Société canadienne des études classiques
Supplementary Volume l
Tome supplémentaire l
KEITH BRADLEY
Apuleius and Antonine Rome:
Historical Essays
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press 2012
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
Printed in Canada
ISBN 978-1-4426-4420-5
Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper
with vegetable-based inks.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Bradley, Keith, 1946–
Apuleius and Antonine Rome : historical essays / Keith Bradley.
(Phoenix supplementary volumes ; 50)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4426-4420-5
1. Apuleius – Criticism and interpretation. 2. Rome – Social life and customs.
3. Rome – Civilization. I. Title. II. Series: Phoenix.
Supplementary volume (Toronto, Ont.) ; 50
PA6217.B73 2012 873'.01 C2011-908093-1
We are grateful for fi nancial assistance for the publication of this book from
the journal Phoenix, through the Mary White Fund, and from the University of
Notre Dame.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the fi nancial assistance to its publishing
program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the fi nancial support of the Government
of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its p ies.
For Nicholas and Luke
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Abbreviations xv
1 Law, Magic, and Culture in Apuleius’s Apology 3
2 Contending with Conversion: Refl ections on
the Re-formation of Lucius the Ass 23
3 Romanitas and the Roman Family:
The Evidence of Apuleius’s Apology 41
4 Animalizing the Slave: The Truth of Fiction 59
5 Fictive Families: Family and Household in
Apuleius’s Metamorphoses 79
6 Sacrifi cing the Family: Christian Martyrs and Their Kin 104
7 Apuleius and Carthage 126
8 Appearing for the Defence: Apuleius on Display 147
9 Apuleius and the Sub-Saharan Slave Trade 164
10 Apuleius and Jesus 181
viii Contents
11 Lucius and Isis: History in Apuleius’s Metamorphoses 205
12 Apuleius and Adultery in the Age of the Antonines 229
Appendix 257
Supplement of Images 265
Notes 283
Bibliography 349
Index 385
PREFACE
This book brings together a number of historical essays about the Latin au-
thor Apuleius of Madauros and the second-century Roman world to which
he belonged. They are the product of a long-standing interest in Apuleius
prompted in the fi rst instance by a fascination with his Apology and the
possibilities I thought I once saw in the work for investigating the life, so-
ciety, and culture of a particular region of the Roman empire in the high
imperial age. My original intention was to attempt a sociocultural study of
the Apology, the speech, or a version of the speech, Apuleius made when
defending himself in court in Sabratha in Tripolitania in the middle of the
second century on charges of practising magic; but for reasons both personal
and professional that project was abandoned. Instead I offer here the resi-
due, a sequence of self-contained essays composed while exploring the initial
possibilities. Some are new, but most have been previously published. I pre-
sent the new and re-present the old, the latter lightly revised and amended,
in the hope that as a collection the sum might be greater than its parts and
contribute thereby to the study of Apuleius and the world in which he lived.
The need to preserve the integrity of each item inevitably results in some
duplication of material from one essay to another, for which I ask the read-
er’s forbearance. I am aware that re-presenting might seem to some extent
self-indulgent.
The essays appear in their original order of composition and deal with
a variety of topics not confi ned to starting points in the Apology. When
I began to examine Apuleius’s speech, it proved impossible not to engage
with his other literary compositions as well, especially The Golden Ass, or
Metamorphoses, the serio-comic story of a man magically transformed into
an ass and the adventures and misadventures he has before recovering his
human form. This meant in turn discovering how appealing Apuleius has
x Preface
become to contemporary literary critics; I frequently refer accordingly to
the often absorbing, and sometimes helpful, contributions literary schol-
ars have made to Apuleian studies. My interests, however, are historical, by
which I mean that I am concerned with questions of how Apuleius’s writ-
ings reveal the society and culture that produced them, or, more broadly, of
how works of Latin literature permit something of the Roman past to be
understood. I assume from the outset that a work of literature is in the fi rst
instance a historical document from which perspectives may be opened on
the society in which its author lived and wrote, and my essential object is
to explore those perspectives. I have no interest in the notion that history
is simply a set of facts and dates, a notion that underlies certain studies of
Apuleius that tend to deny his works historical meaning. Instead I approach
Apuleius’s writings as expressions of the age in which they came into being
and attempt to recover something of what they express.
Recovery is a key concern. It is a commonplace that the purpose of his-
tory is to explain change over time from the record of past events. In ancient
history, however, especially in ancient social and cultural history, this is a far
from straightforward enterprise. The rise and fall of Rome’s Mediterranean
empire, the general shape of Roman history, can be understood with relative
ease (I stress ‘relative’). But with social and cultural matters the situation
is different. The problem is one of evidence and verifi cation. The materials
that remain from Roman antiquity present overwhelmingly the views of an
educated, socially privileged minority, and the views therefore of the lower
sectors of society, the mass of the population, are very diffi cult to penetrate.
Moreover, whether in quantity or quality or type, the materials are hardly
ever comparable across the various periods of the thousand years of history
involved, and effective comparison with one era and another is for the most
part close to impossible. As P.A. Brunt succinctly put it: ‘Unfortunately there
are all too many parts of Greek and Roman history for which the evidence,
or what passes as evidence, is too meagre, confl icting or dubiously authentic
to warrant virtually certain conclusions.’ To write the history of social insti-
tutions and mentalities in which change can be convincingly identifi ed and
accounted for is a formidable task.
It is with the more modest subject of circumstantial recovery, therefore,
of capturing the socially and culturally specifi c in the age of Apuleius, that
my essays are concerned. Much of what I have to offer is about imagining
empathetically the historical context in which Apuleius lived, and the essays
are, quite literally, attempts to revivify some aspects of the Antonine past
to which Apuleius’s writings provide access. My approach is in the broad-
est of senses historicizing, by which I mean that the historical meaning of
Apuleius’s texts may be sought through any apposite type of illustration.
But I use the word ‘meaning’ advisedly, conscious that it is an indeterminate