"Metamorphoses" of Apuleius Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Golden Ass

"The Golden Ass" is a collection of eleven books. It is this title that is often used because of confusion because Ovid's "Metamorphoses" and Apuleius' "Metamorphoses" titles are the same. Augustine of Hippo, also known in Latin as Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis, is said to have been the first one to refer to it as "Asinus aureus", or "The Golden Ass".

It was written in the second century AD. Apuleius was a Roman-Berber philosopher.

Answer: Lucius

The main character, Lucius, loves to do magic. Sometimes he's just not very good at it. He wanted to go to Thessaly in the first place because it was an area famous for sorcery. He gets there, but eventually it leads him into trouble.

Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis is the author's name. He was born in Madaura, known today as Algeria. He was a Berber-Roman writer. It is interesting that the author used his own first name as the name of the main character in his novel.

Answer: Meroe

Meroe is the evil witch who slits Socrates throat. Socrates' heart is stolen by Meroe, who puts a gauzelike substance in the opening where his neck was cut open. When morning comes Socrates seems to be fine. He later decides to go to a nearby river. Once there, he bends over, causing the filling in his neck to fall out so that he dies there on the spot. (This Socrates is not the same one that is the famous Greek philosopher.) This all happened before Lucius and Aristomenes make it to Thessaly.

Answer: Thelyphron

It was Thelyphron who was a guest at Lucius' aunt's home in Hypata. The aunt's name was Byrrhena. Thelyphron tells of the time he was a child in need of money who had the seemingly simple job of guarding a corpse. Later that night, a spell of drowsiness was cast over him and he dreamed of the corpse he was guarding having his nose and ears severed off. Unfortunately when he woke up, it was Thelyphron whose nose and ears were cut off, and not the corpse as in his dreams. To make things even worse, she replaced them with fake wax ears and a nose.

Answer: festival of laughter

Risus was known as the Latin God of Laughter. The event was known as the Risus Festival. Lucius gets entirely too intoxicated and strange things happen on his way back home.

The festival was written about in ancient literature. It has not been seen or referenced in Roman civic records. Most scholars believe this was just a literary tale. Gelos is the Greek name for the Roman god Risus.

Answer: three wine skins

His new flame, the intoxicating maid Photis, tells Lucius that his trip home from the celebration is on a path where thieves like to stake out their next victims. So, before he even goes home for the night, he already has that on his mind. He sees three blurry figures, and thinking they are thieves, attacks them with his sword. He is so drunk that he staggers home to his aunt's house and passes out in bed, not knowing what has happened to the thieves.

A wine skin was used to contain wine. It was usually made from the skin of a sheep or goat. Evidently these wine skins were of a pretty large size, and by the way they hung, Lucius decided to protect himself.

The next morning, Lucius is awakened and taken away for the murder of these three thieves. Lucius doesn't understand that this was all part of the celebration, and nothing he did that night resulted in murder. When it was all said and done, the entire murder case was just a fun attempt to make Lucius the butt of a joke. It was, after all, a celebration to the god of Laughter.

Answer: an owl

The novels tells of how her nose gets harder and harder until it turns into a beak. Her toes turn into talons. In the original Latin she was turned into a "strix", which is usually referred to as a screech-owl. This is important because she could shape-shift back into human form.

This part of the story is in Book Three. Pamphile has her metamorphosis when she takes off all of her clothes, whispers into a secret lamp, and then bathes herself in the owl-changing ointment, all under the peering sight of Lucius and Photis.

Answer: donkey

Lucius, during his own metamorphosis, has a significantly different experience than the witch Pamphile did when changing into an owl. He changes into a donkey instead. Photis, who is somewhat a sort of apprentice witch, picks up the wrong bottle by mistake, and gives it to Lucius, who drinks it, and turns into a donkey, or the titular Golden Ass.

It is important that he still has his human mind, though initially it must have driven him nearly mad. Having his human mind, sadly, gets him into more and more problems, but could it help him turn back to human form some day?

Answer: fresh roses

When the next morning comes, the house he was staying in has been ransacked by thieves. Lucius was also stolen, being taken and used as a pack mule to haul gold and other items of worth. In time Lucius is owned by two brothers, one of whom was a baker, and the other one a cook.

They soon discover that their new donkey loves to eat human foods like certain pastries and meat. Their new donkey even performs human-like tricks. He can nod, yes, when asked a question, lay back when sitting at the table, and he even likes to dance. Eventually they make a lot of money from Lucius by showing their "educated donkey" doing human-like tricks.

Answer: Isis

It is the Egyptian god Isis, who listens and responds to Lucius and his "Prayer to the Moon". Isis explains to Lucius that she is basically every female deity known and that it should be her that he addresses. Isis sees Lucius crying and wants Lucius to understand that she is all of these gods he is mentioning. Isis calls herself the "manifestation of all life". Isis tells him that from this day on, that he is only to address her for help.

Isis gets into some rather wordy response about herself to Lucius, by explaning that all the many regions of the world that people might know her by some other name. Here is a direct quote from the novel, "the Ethiopians which dwell in the Orient, and the Egyptians which are excellent in all kind of ancient lore, and by proper ceremonies are they accustomed to worship me, do call me Queen Isis."

Isis "shows" herself as a radiant and glorious vision and tells Lucius that she is going to grant his freedom to become human again. The next day, during the Feast of Isis, Lucius is to go to the priest who is wearing a crown of roses, and ask for the roses from the priest. He eats them and changes back to human form. He dedicates himself into the cult of Isis and Osiris by working for them as a lawyer in Rome.