I. His Life and Works

One of the fullest and most vivid pictures of magic in the Magic and ancient Mediterranean world which has reached us is pro- ^^ "l^^ ^^ vided by the writings of Apuleius. He lived in the second in his century of our era and was not merely a rhetorician of great note in his day and the writer of a romance which has ever since fascinated men, but also a Platonic philosopher, an initiate into many religious cults and mysteries, and a stu- dent of natural science and medicine. To him has been ascribed the Latin version of Asclepius, a supposititious dialogue of Hermes Trismegistus. No author perhaps ever more readily and complacently talked of himself than
221
222
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Stylistic reasons for re- garding the Meta- morphoses as his first work.
Apuleius, yet it is no easy task to make out the precise facts of his life, partly because in his romance, The Metamor- phoses, or The Golden Ass, he has hopelessly confused himself with the hero Lucius and introduced an autobio- graphical element of uncertain extent into what is in the main a work of fiction; partly because his Apology, or defense when tried on the charge of magic at Oea in Africa, is more in the nature of special pleading intended to refute and confound his accusers than of a frank confession or accurate history of his career. However, he appears to have been born at Madaura in North Africa, to have studied first at Carthage and then at Athens, to have visited Rome and wandered rather widely about the Mediterranean world, but to have spent more time altogether at Carthage than at any other one place.
Besides the Metamorphoses and Apologia, with which we shall be chiefly concerned, four other works are extant which are regarded as genuine, The God of Socrates, The Dogma of Plato, Florida, and On the Universe. The order in which these works were written is uncertain, but it seems almost sure that the Metamorphoses was the first. In it Apuleius not only more or less identifies himself with the hero Lucius, who is represented as quite a young man, he also apologizes for his Latin and speaks of the difficulty with which he had acquired that language at Rome. But in the Florida'^ we find him repeating a hymn and a dialogue in both Latin and Greek, or, after delivering half an address in Greek, finishing it in Latin, or boasting that he writes poems, satires, riddles, histories, scientific treatises, orations, and philosophical dialogues with equal facility in either lan- guage.^ Instead now of craving pardon if he offends by his rude, exotic, and forensic speech, he feels that his repu- tation for literary refinement and elegance has become such that his audience will not pardon him a solitary solecism or a single syllable pronounced with a barbarous accent.^ It
Xap. i8
* "Tarn graece quam latine, gemi-
no veto, pari studio, simili studio." '^Florida, cap. 9.
cal rea-
VII APULEIUS OF MAD AURA 223
therefore looks as if the Metamorphoses was his first pub- Hshed effort in Latin and as if his pecuHar style had proved so popular that he did not find it necessary to apologize for it again. In the Apology he seems supremely confident of his rhetorical powers in the Latin language, and even the accusers describe him as a philosopher of great eloquence both in Greek and Latin.^ Three years before in the same town his first public discourse had been greeted with shouts of "Insigniter," and many in the audience at the time of his trial can still repeat a passage from it on the greatness of Aesculapius.^ In the Apology, too, he displays a more extensive learning than in the Metamorphoses and has writ- ten already poems and scientific treatises as well as orations. Indeed, practically all the doctrines set forth in his other philosophical works may be found in brief in the Apology.
Moreover, while in the Metamorphoses Apuleius ends Biographi- the narrative with what seems to be his own comparatively recent initiation into the mysteries of Isis in Greece and of Osiris at Rome, in the Apology ^ he speaks of having" been initiated in the past into all sorts of sacred rites, although he does not mention Rome or Isis and Osiris specifi- cally. It is implied, however, that he has been at Rome in more than one passage of the Apology. Pontianus, his future step-son, with whom Apuleius had become acquainted at Athens "not so many years ago," was "an adult at Rome" before Apuleius came to Oea. After they had met again at Oea and had both married there, Apuleius gave Pontianus a letter of introduction to the proconsul Lollianus Avitus at Carthage, of whom he says, "I have known intimately many cultured men of Roman name in the course of my life, but have never admired anyone as much as him." Perhaps Apuleius may have met Lollianus at Carthage, but in the Florida,'^ in a panegyric on Scipio Orfitus, proconsul of Africa in 163-164 A. D., he alludes to the time "when I moved among your friends in Rome." All this fits in nicely
^Apologia, cap. 4. °Caps. 55-56.
'Caps. 73 and SS- * Cap. 17.
224 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
with the statements in the closing chapters of the Metamor- phoses concerning his rising fame as an orator in the courts of law and "the laborious doctrine of my studies" at Rome. We may therefore reconstruct the course of events as fol- lows. After meeting Pontianus at Athens and concluding his studies in Greece, Apuleius came to Rome, where he remained for some time, perfecting his Latin style, engaging in forensic oratory, and publishing the Metamorphoses. Pontianus, who was younger than Apuleius, either accom- panied or followed his friend to Rome, in which city he was still residing after Apuleius had returned to Africa. But Pontianus, too, had left Rome and come back to his African city of Oea to settle the question of his mother's proposed second marriage, before Apuleius, who had prob- ably revisited Carthage in the meantime and was now travel- ing east again with the intention of visiting Alexandria, arrived at Oea and was induced to wed the widow, who was considerably older than he. On the delicate question of this lady's exact age depends our dating of the birth of Apuleius and the chronology of his entire career. At the trial of Apuleius for magic Aemilianus, the accuser, declared that she was sixty when she married Apuleius, and he had previ- ously proposed to marry her to his brother, Clarus, whom Apuleius calls "a decrepit old man." ^ On the other hand, Apuleius asserts that the records, which he produces in court, of her being accepted in infancy by her father as his child show that she is "not much over forty," ^ — a tactful ambiguity which, inasmuch as we no longer have the records, it would probably be idle to attempt to fathom. No men- The chief, if not the only, objection to dating the
Metamor- Metamorphoses before the Apology is that nothing is said m th" ^^ ^^ ^" ^^^ latter.^ But obviously Apuleius, when on trial Apology. for magic, would not mention the Metamorphoses unless his * Apologia, cap. 70. that he places the Apology earlier.
' Cap. 8g. But for the reasons already given
•To Professor Butler (Apulei I agree with the article on Apu- Apologia, ed. H. E. Butler and A. leius in Pauly and Wissowa and S. Owen, Oxford, 1914) this diffi- its citations that the Metamor- culty seems so insurmountable phases is Apuleius's first work.
VII APULEIUS OF MAD AURA 225
accusers forced him to do so. They may not have yet heard of it or it may at first have been published anonymously, although the probability is that Apuleius v^ould not have spent three years at Oea without bringing it to his admirers' attention. Or they may know of it, but the judge may not have admitted it as evidence on the ground that they must prove that Apuleius has practiced magic. The Metamor- phoses does not recount any personal participation of Apuleius himself in magic arts, unless one identifies him throughout with the hero Lucius; it purports to be a Latin rendition of Milesian tales ^ and does not seem to have been taken very seriously until the church fathers began to cite it. Or the accusers may have dwelt upon it and Apuleius simply have failed to take notice of their charge. All these suppositions may not seem very plausible, but on the other hand we may ask, how would Apuleius dare to write a work like the Metamorphoses after he had been accused and tried of magic? One would expect him then to drop the subject rather than to display an increasing interest in it. But let us turn to his treatment of that theme in both those works, and first consider the Metamorphoses.
IL Magic in the Metamorphoses
Vast power over nature and spirits is attributed to magic Powers
ned magic
and its practitioners in the opening chapters of the Metamor- \q^^^
phases. "By magic's mutterings swift streams are reversed, the sea is calmed, the sun stopped, foam drawn from the moon, the stars torn from the sky, and day turned into night." ^ While such assertions are received with some scepticism by one listener, they are largely borne out by the subsequent experiences of the characters in the story and by the feats which witches are made to perform. These are sometimes humorously and extravagantly presented, but as crime and ferocious cruelty are treated in the same spirit,
* The work opens with the state- called Milesian manner," and that ment that the author "will stitch "we begin with a Grecian story." together varied stories in the so- 'I, 3.
perform- ances.
226 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
this light vein cannot be regarded as an admission of magic's unreaHty. On the contrar}', the magic of Thessaly is cele- brated with one accord the world over.^ Meroe the witch can "displace the sky, elevate the earth, freeze fountains, melt mountains, raise ghosts, bring down the gods, ex- tinguish the stars, and illuminate the bottomless pit." ^ Submerging the light of starry heaven to the lowest depths of hell is a power also attributed to the witch Pamphile.^ "By her marvelous secrets she makes ghosts and elements obey and serve her, disturbs the stars and coerces the divinities." * Its actual In none of the episodes recorded in The Golden Ass,
however, do the witches find it necessary or advisable to go to quite so great lengths as these, although Pamphile once threatens the sun with eternal darkness because he is so slow in yielding to night when she may ply her sorcery and amours.'^ The witches content themselves with such accom- plishments as carrying on love affairs with inhabitants of distant India, Ethopia, and even the Antipodes, — "trifles of the art these and mere bagatelles" ; ^ with transforming their enemies into animal forms or imprisoning them helpless in their homes, or transporting them house and all to a spot a hundred miles off;"^ and, on the other hand, with break- ing down bolted doors to murder their victims,^ or assum- ing themselves the shape of weasels, birds, dogs, mice, and even insects in order to work their mischief unobserved ; ^ they then cast their victims into a deep sleep and cut their throats or hang them or mutilate them.^^ They often know what is being said about them when apparently absent, and they sometimes indulge in divination of the future. ^^ But to whatever fields of activity they may extend or confine them-
MI, I. 'Ill, 16.
'1,8. « I, 8.
'II. 5- 'I Q-io
MIX, 15. The wording of the « j' ^j^'
translated passages throughout ^ ' ■^'
this chapter is mainly my own, but ^^^t' ^^ ^" , jv
I have made some use of existing H. 20 and 30; lA, 29.
English translations. "I. n; H, 11.
VII APULEIUS OF MAD AURA 227
selves, their violent power is irresistible, and we are given to understand that it is useless to try to fight against it or to escape it. Its secret and occult character is also empha- sized, and the adjective caeca or noun latehrae are more than once employed to describe it.^
Yet there are also suggested certain limitations to the Its limita- power of magic. The witches seem to break down the bolted doors, but these resume their former place when the hags have departed, and are to all appearances as intact as before. The man, too, whose throat they have cut, whose blood they have drained off, and whose heart they have removed, awakes apparently alive the next morning and resumes his journey. All the events of the preceding night seem to have been merely an unpleasant dream. The witches had stuffed a sponge into the wound of his throat - with the adjuration, "Oh you sponge, born in the sea, beware of crossing running water." In the morning his traveling com- panion can see no sign of wound or sponge on his friend's throat. But when he stoops to drink from a brook, out falls the sponge and he drops dead. The inference, although Apuleius draws none, is obvious ; witches can make a corpse seem alive for a while but not for long, and magic ceases to work when you cross running water. We also get the impression that there is something deceptive and illusive about the magic of the witches, and that only the lusts and crimes are real which their magic enables them or their employers to commit and gratify. They may seem to draw down the sun, but it is found shining next day as usual. When Lucius is transformed into an ass, he retains his human appetite and tenderness of skin,^ — a deplorable state of mind and body which must be attributed to the imper-
^11, 20, 22; III, 18. of the tribe, drag him a hundred
'Very similar practices are re- yards or so from the camp, cut up
counted by A. W. Howitt, Native his abdomen obliquely, take out
Tribes of South-East Australia, the kidney and caul-fat, and then
PP- 355-96; "the medicine-men of ?tuff a handful of grass and sand
hostile tribes sneak into the camp into the wound." in the night, and with a net of a
peculiar construction garotte one ' VI, 26.
228
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
The
crimes of witches.
Male magicians.
Magic as an art and discipline.
fections of the magic art as well as to the humorous cruelty of the author.
In The Golden Ass the practitioners of magic are usually witches and old and repulsive. We have to deal with won- ders worked by old-wives and not by Magi of Persia or Babylon. As we have seen and shall see yet further, their deeds are regarded as illicit and criminal. They are "most wicked women" (nequissimae mulieres),^ intent upon lust and crime. They practice devotiones, injurious impreca- tions and ceremonies.^
Male practitioners of magic are represented in a less unfavorable light. An Egyptian, who in return for a large sum of money engages to invoke the spirit of a dead man and restore the corpse momentarily to life, is called a prophet and a priest, though he seems a manifest necromancer and is himself adjured to lend his aid and to "have pity by the stars of heaven, by the infernal deities, by the elements of nature, and by the silence of night," ^ — expressions which are certainly suggestive of the magic powers elsewhere ascribed to witches. The hero of the story, Lucius, is ani- mated in his dabblings in the magic art by idle curiosity combined with thirst for learning, but not by any criminal motive.^ Yet after he has been transformed into an ass by magic, he fears to resume his human form suddenly in public, lest he be put to death on suspicion of practicing the magic art.^
Magic is depicted not merely as irresistible or occult or criminal or fallacious; it is also regularly called an art and a discipline. Even the practices of the witches are so dig- nified, Pamphile has nothing less than a laboratory on the roof of her house, — a wooden shelter, concealed from view but open to the winds of heaven and to the four points of the compass, — where she may ply her secret arts and where she spreads out her "customary apparatus." ^ This consists
*II, 22.
"I, 10 ; VII, 14; IX, 23,29. "11, 28.
MI, 6; III, 19. •Ill, 29. •III. 17.
VII APULEIUS OF MAD AURA 229
of all sorts of aromatic herbs, of metal plates inscribed with cryptic characters, a chest filled with little boxes containing- various ointments,^ and portions of human corpses obtained from sepulchers, shipwrecks (or birds of prey, according as the reading is navium or avium), public executions, and the victims of wild beasts.^ It will be recalled that Galen repre- sented medical students as most likely to secure human skeletons or bodies to dissect from somewhat similar sources; and possibly they might incur suspicion of magic thereby.
All this makes it clear that to work magic one must have Materials materials. The witches seem especially avid for parts of ^"^PWed. the human body. Pamphile sends her maid, Fotis, to the barber's shop to try to steal some cuttings of the hair of a youth of whom she is enamoured ; ^ and another story is told of witches who by mistake cut off and replaced with wax the nose and ears of a man guarding the corpse instead of those of the dead body.^ Other witches who murdered a man carefully collected his blood in a bladder and took it away with them.^ But parts of other animals are also employed in their magic, and stones as well as varied herbs and twigs. ^ In trying to entice the beloved Boeotian youth Pamphile used still quivering entrails and poured libations of spring water, milk, and honey, as well as placing the hairs — ^which she supposed were his — with many kinds of incense upon live coals. "^ To turn herself into an owl she anointed herself from top to toe with ointment from one of her little boxes, and also made much use of a lamp.® To regain her human form she has only to drink, and bathe in, spring water mixed with anise and laurel leaf, — "See how great a result is attained by such small and insignificant herbs !"^ — while Lucius is told that eating roses will re- fill, 21. «II, 5. "Surculis et lapillis et id
I, 10; II, 20-21. genus frivolis inhalatis."
'HI, 16. 'Ill, 18.
*II, 23-30. "HI, 21.
•I, 13. »III, 23.
230
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Quacks and char- latans.
Store him from asinine to human form.^ The Egyptian prophet makes use of herbs in his necromancy, placing one on the face and another on the breast of the corpse; and he himself wears linen robes and sandals of palm leaves.^
Besides materials, incantations are much employed,^ while the Egyptian prophet turns towards the east and "silently imprecates" the rising sun. As this last suggests, careful observance of rite and ceremony also play their part, and Pamphile's painstaking procedure is described in precise detail. Divine aid is once mentioned ^ and is perhaps another essential for success. More than one witch is called divina^ and magic is termed a divine discipline.^ But we have also heard the witches spoken of as coercing the gods rather than depending upon them for assistance. Their magic seems to be performed mainly by using things and words in the right ways.
Besides the witches (magae or sagae) and what Apuleius calls magic by name, a number of other charlatans and superstitions of a kindred nature are mentioned in The Golden Ass. Such a one is the Egyptian "prophet" already described. Such was the Chaldean who for a time as- tounded Corinth by his wonderful predictions, but had been unable to foresee his own shipwreck.'^ On learning this last fact, a business man who was about to pay him one hundred denarii for a prognostication snatched up his money again and made off. Such were the painted disrepu- table crew of the Syrian goddess who went about answering all inquiries concerning the future with the same ambiguous couplet.^ Such were the jugglers whom Lucius saw at Athens swallowing swords or balancing a spear in the
'in, 25. 'U, 28.
' Examples are : I, 3, magico susurramine; II, i, artis magicae nativa cantamina ; II, 5, omnis carminis sepulchralis magistra creditur; II, 22, diris cantamini- bus somno custodes obruunt ; III, 18, tunc decantatis spirantibus
fibris; III, 21, multumque cum lucerna secreta collocuta.
*I, II, quo numinis ministerio.
^ I, 8, saga, inquit, et divina ; IX, 29, saga ilia et divini potens.
'Ill, 19.
'II, 12-14.
*VIII, 26-27; IX, 8.
VII
APULEWS OF MAD AURA 231
throat while a boy climbed to the top of it.-^ Such were the physicians who turned poisoners."
Other passages allude to astrology ^ besides that already Various cited concerning the Chaldean. Divination from dreams is ^ also discussed. In the fourth book the old female servant tells the captive maiden not to be terrified "by the idle fig- ments of dreams" and explains that they often go by con- traries ; but in the last book the hero is several times guided or forewarned by dreams. Omens are believed in. Starting left foot first loses a man a business opportunity,^ and another is kicked out of a house for his ill-omened words."^ The violent deaths of all three sons of the owner of another house are presaged by the following remarkable conglomera- tion of untoward portents: a hen lays a chick instead of an tgg ; blood spurts up from under the table ; a servant rushes in to announce that the wine is boiling in all the jars in the cellar; a weasel is seen dragging a dead snake out-of-doors; a green frog leaps from the sheep-dog's mouth and then a ram tears open the dog's throat at one bite.^
Of scientific discussion or information there is little in Some bits
of science
the Metamorphoses. When Pamphile foretells the weather and for the next day by inspection of her lamp, Lucius suggests religion, that this artificial flame may retain some properties from its heavenly original. '^ The herb mandragora is described as inducing a sleep similar to death, but as not fatal; and the beaver is said to emasculate itself in order to escape its hunters.^ We should feel lost without mention of a dragon in a book of this sort, and one is introduced who is large enough to devour a man.^ It is interesting to note for pur- poses of comparison, — inasmuch as we shall presently take up the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, a Neo-Pythagorean, and later shall learn from the Recognitions of Clement that the apostle Peter was accustomed to bathe at dawn in the *I, 4. 'II, 11-12.
*X, II, 25. *X, II. For bibliography on the
'VIII, 24; XI, 22, 25. mandragora see Frazer (1918) I,
* I, 5. 2>77, note 2, in his chapter, "Jacob
" II, 26. and the Mandrakes."
" IX, 33-34- -VIII, 21.
232
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Magic in other Greek romances.
sea, — that Lucius, while still in the form of an ass, in his zeal for purification plunged into the sea and submerged his head beneath the wave seven times, because the divine Pythagoras had proclaimed that number as especially appro- priate to religious rites.^ **It has been said that The Golden Ass is the first book in European literature showing piety in the modern sense, and the most disreputable adventures of Lucius lead, it is true, in the end to a religious climax." But, adds Professor Duncan B. Macdonald, "Few books, in spite of fantastic gleams of color and light, move under such leaden-weighted skies as The Golden Ass. There is no real God in that world; all things are in the hands of en- chanters; man is without hope for here and hereafter; full of yearnings he struggles and takes refuge in strange cults." 2
While magic plays a larger part in The Golden Ass than in any other extant Greek romance, it is not unusual in the others to find the hero and heroine exposed to perils from magicians, or themselves falsely charged with magic, as in the Aethiopica of Heliodorus, where Charicles is "con- demned to be burned on a charge of poisoning." ^ In the Christian romances, too, as the Recognitions will show us later, there are plenty of allusions to magic and demons. Meanwhile we are reminded that in the Roman Empire accu- sations of magic were made not merely in story books but in real life by the trial for magic of the author of the Metamorphoses himself, and we next turn to the Apology which he delivered upon that occasion.
Form of the Apologia.
IIL Magic in the Apology
The Apologia has every appearance of being preserved just as it was delivered and perhaps as it was taken down by shorthand writers ; it does not seem to have undergone the subsequent revision to which Cicero subjected some of his orations. It must have been hastily composed, since
*XI, I.
•Macdonald (1909), p. 128.
"VIII, 9.
VII APULEIUS OF MAD AURA 233
Apuleius states that it has been only five or six days since the charges were suddenly brought against him, while he was occupied in defending another lawsuit brought against his wife.^ There also are numerous apparently extempore passages in the oration, notably those where Apuleius alludes to the effect which his statements produce, now upon his accusers, now upon the proconsul sitting in judgment. From the Florida we know that Apuleius was accustomed to improvise.^ Moreover, in the Apology certain statements are made by Apuleius which might be turned against him with damaging effect and which he probably would have omitted, had he had the leisure to go over his speech care- fully before the trial. For instance, in denying the charge that he had caused to be made for himself secretly out of the finest wood a horrible magic figure in the form of a ghost or skeleton, he declares that it is only a little image of Mercury made openly by a well-known artisan of the town.' But he has earlier stated that "Mercury, carrier of incanta- tions," is one of the deities invoked in magic rites ; "* and in another passage ^ has recounted how the outcome of the Mithridatic war was investigated at Tralles by magic, and how a boy, gazing at an image of Mercury in water, had predicted the future in one hundred and sixty verses. But this is not all. In a third passage ® he actually quotes Pythagoras to the effect that Mercury ought not to be carved out of every kind of wood.
* Cap. I. Osiris, says Budge at p. 85, "a 'Florida, caps. 24-26. figure was fashioned in such a 'Caps. 61-63. The following way as to include the chief char- passages from E. A. W. Budge, acteristics of the forms of these Egyptian Magic (1899), perhaps gods, and was inserted in a rect- furnish an explanation of the true angular wooden stand which was purpose and character of Apu- intended to represent the coffin or leius's wooden figure: p. 84, chest out of which the trinity "Under the heading of 'Magical Ptah-Seker-Ausar came forth. Figures' must certainly be in- On the figure itself and on the eluded the so-called Ptah-Seker- sides of the stand were inscribed Ausar figure, which is usually prayers. . . ." Such a figure in a made of wood ; it is often solid, coffin might well be described by but is sometimes made hollow, the accusers as the horrible form and is usually let into a rectangu- of a ghost or skeleton, lar wooden stand which may be * Cap. 31. either solid or hollow." To get ° Cap. 42. the protection of Ptah, Seker, and ' Cap. 43.
234 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Philosophy If in the Metamorphoses the practice of magic is im- magic. py^g^j chiefly to old-wives, in the Apology a main concern of Apuleius is to defend philosophers in general ^ and himself in particular from "the calumny of magic." ^ Epimenides, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Ostanes, Empedocles, Socrates, and Plato have been so suspected, and it consoles Apuleius in his own trial to reflect that he is but sharing the undeserved fate of "so many and such great men." ^ In this connection he states that those philosophers who have taken an especial interest in theology, "who investigate the providence of the universe too curiously and celebrate the gods too enthusias- tically," are the ones to be suspected of magic; while those who devote themselves to natural science pure and simple are more liable to be called irreligious atheists.
Magic But what is it to be a magician, Apuleius asks the ac-
^ "^ • cusers,* and therewith we face again the question of the definition of magic, and Apuleius gradually answers his own query in the course of the oration. Magic, in the ordinary use of the word, is described in much the same way as in the Metamorphoses. It has been proscribed by Roman law since the Twelve Tables ; it is hideous and horrible ; it is secret and solitary; it murmurs its incantations in the dark- ness of the night.^ It is an art of ill repute, of illicit evil deeds, of crimes and enormities.^ Instead of simply calling it magia, Apuleius often applies to it the double expres- sion, magica maleficia.'^ Perhaps he does this intention- ally. In one passage he states that he will refute certain charges which the accusers have brought against him, first, by showing that the things he has been charged with have nothing to do with magic ; and second, by proving that, even if he were a magician, there was no cause or occasion for his having committed any maleficiuni in this connection.'
* Caps. 1-3. mcnt soupgonnes de Magie, Paris,
'Cap. 2. 1625.
•Caps. 27 and 31. For the same * Cap. 25. thought applied in the case of " Cap. 47.
medieval men see Gabriel Naude, * Cap. 25.
Apologie pour tons les grands ' Caps. 9, 42, 61, 6^.
^"rsonoges qui ont este fiusse- " Cap. 28.
VII APULEWS OF MAD AURA 235
That is to say, maleficium, literally "an evil deed," means an injury done another by means of magic art. The pro- consul sitting in judgment takes a similar view and has asked the accusers, Apuleius tells us,^ when they asserted that a woman had fallen into an epileptic fit in his pres- ence and that this was due to his having bewitched her, whether the woman died or what good her having a fit did Apuleius. This is significant as hinting that Roman law did not condemn a man for magic unless he were proved to have committed some crime or made some unjust gain thereby.
Does Apuleius for his part mean to suggest a distinction Good and between magia and magica maleficia, and to hint, as he did not do in the Metamorphoses, that there is a good as well as a bad magic? He cannot be said to maintain any such dis- tinction consistently; often in the Apology magia alone as well as maleficium is used in a bad sense. But he does sug- gest such a thought and once voices it quite explicitly.^ "If," he says, "as I have read in many authors, magus in the Persian language corresponds to the word sacerdos in ours, what crime, pray, is it to be a priest and duly know and un- derstand and cherish the rules of ceremonial, the sacred cus- toms, the laws of religion?" Plato describes magic as part of the education of the young Persian prince by the four wisest and best men of the realm, one of whom instructs him in the magic of Zoroaster which is the worship of the gods. "Do you hear, you who rashly charge me with magic, that this art is acceptable to the immortal gods, consists in celebrating and reverencing them, is pious and prophetic, and long since was held by Zoroaster and Oromazes, its au- thors, to be noble and divine?" ^ In common speech, how- ever, Apuleius recognizes that a magician is one "who by his power of addressing the immortal gods is able to accom- plish whatever he will by an almost incredible force of in- cantations." But anyone who believes that another man possesses such a power as this should be afraid to accuse him,
* Cap. 48. " Cap. 25. ' Cap. 26.
236 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
says Apuleius, who thinks by this ingenious dilemma to prove the insincerity of his accusers. Nevertheless he pres- ently mentions that Mercury, Venus, Luna, and Trivia are the deities usually summoned in the ceremonies of the ma- gicians.^ Magic and It will be noted that Apuleius connects magic with the gods and religion more in the Apology than in the Metamor- phoses. There his emphasis was on the natural materials employed by the witches and their almost scientific labora- tories. But in the Apology both Persian Magi and common magicians are associated with the worship or invocation of the gods, and it is theologians rather than natural philoso- phers who incur suspicion of magic.
Magic and But it may be that the reason why Apuleius abstains in
science • • •
the Apology from suggesting any connection or confusion
between magic and natural science is that the accusers have already laid far too much stress upon this point for his lik- ing. He has been charged with the composition of a tooth- powder,- with use of a mirror,^ with the purchase of a sea- hare, a poisonous mollusc, and two other fish appropriate from their obscene shapes and names for use as love-charms,* He is said to have had a horrible wooden image or seal con- structed secretly for use in his magic, ^ to keep other instru- ments of his art mysteriously wrapped in a handkerchief in the house, ^ and to have left in the vestibule of another house where he lodged "many feathers of birds" and much soot on the walls. "^ All these charges make it evident that natural and artificial objects are, as in the Metamorphoses, consid- ered essential or at least usual in performing magic. More- over, so ready have the accusers shown themselves to inter- pret the interest of Apuleius in natural science as an evi- dence of the practice of magic by him, that he sarcastically remarks ^ that he is glad that they were unaware that he had read Theophrastus On beasts that bite and sting and Ni-
*Cap. 31. "Cap. 61,
* Cap. 6. " Cap. 53-
• Cap. 13. ' Cap. 58. *Caps. 30, 33, "Cap. 41,
VII APULEIUS OF MAD AURA 237
cander On the bites of wild beasts (usually called Theriaca),^ or they would have accused him of being a poisoner as well as a magician.
Apuleius shows that he really is a student, if not an au- Medical thority, in medicine and natural science. The gift of the scientific tooth-powder and the falling of the woman in a fit were inci- knowledgt dents of his occasional practice of medicine, and he also sees leius. no harm in his seeking certain remedies from fish.^ He repeats Plato's theory of disease from the Timaeus and cites Theophrastus's admirable work On Epileptics.^ Mention of the mirror starts him off upon an optical disquisition in which he remarks upon theories of vision and reflection, upon liquid and solid, flat and convex and concave mirrors, and cites the Catoptrica of Archimedes.* He also regards himself as an experimental zoologist and has conducted all his researches publicly.^ He procures fish in order to study them scientifically as Aristotle, Theophrastus, Eudemus, Lycon, and other pupils of Plato did.® He has read innumer- able books of this sort and sees no harm in testing by ex- perience what has been written. Indeed he is himself writ- ing in both Greek and Latin a work on Natural Questions in which he hopes to add what has been omitted in earlier books and to remedy some of their defects and to arrange all in a handier and more systematic fashion. He has pas- sages from the section on fishes in this work read aloud in court.
Throughout the Apology Apuleius occasionally airs his He repeats scientific attainments by specific statements and illustrations errx)!-^'^ from the zoological and other scientific fields. Indeed the
^ Nicander lived in the second at Paris, which O. M. Dalton century B.C. under Attalus III (Bycantine Art and Archaeology, of Pergamum. Of his works p. 483) says "is evidently a pains- there are extant the Theriaca in taking copy of a very early orig- 958 hexameters and another poem, inal, perhaps almost contemporary the Alexipharmaca, of 630 lines; with Nicander himself." ed. J. G. Schneider, 1792 and ^ Cap. 40. 1816; by O. Schneider, 1856. 'Caps. 49-51. There is an illuminated eleventh * Caps. 15-16. century manuscript of the Then- "Cap. 40. aca in the Bibliotheque Nationale ° Cap. 36.
238 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
presence of such allusions is as noticeable in the Apology as was their absence from the Metamorphoses. But they go to show that his knowledge was greater than his discretion, since for the most part they repeat familiar errors of con- temporary science. We are told — the story is also in Aris- totle, Pliny, and Aelian — how the crocodile opens its jaws to have its teeth picked by a friendly bird,^ that the viper gnaws its way out of its mother's womb,^ that fish are spontane- ously generated from slime,^ and that burning the stone gag- ates will cause an epileptic to have a fit.* On the other hand, the skin shed by a spotted lizard is a remedy for epilepsy, but you must snatch it up speedily or the lizard will turn and devour it, either from natural appetite or just because he knows that you want it.^ This tale, so characteristic of the virtues attributed to parts of animals and the human motives ascribed to the animals themselves, is taken by Apu- leius from a treatise by Theophrastus entitled Jealous Ani- mals. Apparent In defending what he terms his scientific investigations
o^"maei(f fi"oni the aspersion of magic Apuleius is at times either a and occult trifle disingenuous and inclined to trade upon the ignorance of his judge and accusers, or else not as well informed him- self as he might be in matters of natural science and of oc- cult science. He contends that fish are not employed in magic arts, asks mockingly if fish alone possess some prop- erty hidden from other men and known to magicians, and affirms that if the accuser knows of any such he must be a magician rather than Apuleius.® He insists that he did not make use of a sea-hare and describes the "fish" in question in detail,''' but this description, as is pointed out in Butler and Owen's edition of the Apology,^ tends to convince us that it really was a sea-hare. In the case of the two fish with obscene names, he ridicules the arguing from similarity of names to similarity of powers in the things so designated, as
*Cap. 8. 'Cap. 51.
' Cap. 85. ' Caps. 30, 42.
' Cap. 38. ' Cap. 40.
' Cap. 45- " P. 98.
virtue.
VII APULEIUS OF MAD AURA 239
if that were not what magicians and astrologers and believ- ers in sympathy and antipathy were always doing. You might as well say, he declares, that a pebble is good for the stone and a crab for an ulcer,^ as if precisely these remedies for those diseases were not found in the Pseudo-Dioscorides and in Pliny's Natural History."^
It is hardly probable that in the passages just cited Apu- Despite an leius was pretending to be ignorant of matters with which ^f ]^^ow\°" he was really acquainted, since as a rule he is eager to show edge, off his knowledge even of magic itself. Thus the accusers affirmed that he had bewitched a boy by incantations in a secret place with an altar and a lamp ; Apuleius criticizes their story by saying that they should have added that he employed the boy for purposes of divination, citing tales which he has read to this efifect in Varro and many other authors.^ And he himself is ready to believe that the hu- man soul, especially in one who is still young and innocent, may, if soothed and distracted by incantations and odors, forget the present, return to its divine and immortal nature, and predict the future. When he reads some technical Greek names from his treatise on fishes, he suspects that the accuser will protest that he is uttering magic names in some Egyptian or Babylonian rite.^ And as a matter of fact, when later he mentioned the names of a number of celebrated ma- gicians,^ the accusers appear to have raised such a tumult that Apuleius deemed it prudent to assure the judge that he had simply read them in reputable books in public libraries, and that to know such names was one thing, to practice the magic art quite another matter.
Apuleius affirms that one of his accusers had consulted Attitude
he knows not what Chaldeans how he might profitably marry toward
° ^ _ •' •' astrology.
off his daughter, and that they had prophesied truthfully that her first husband would die within a few months. "As for what she would inherit from him, they fixed that up, as
^ Cap. 35. Giessen, 1908, p. 224.
'So Abt has pointed out: Die * Caps. A^-AZ-
Apologie des Apuleius von Ma- * Cap. 38.
dau^a und die antike Zauberei, * Cap. 90.
' 240 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
they usually do, to suit the person consulting them." ^ But in this respect their prediction turned out to be quite incor- rect. We are left in some doubt, however, whether their failure in the second case is not regarded as due merely to their knavery, and their first successful prediction to the rule of the stars. Elsewhere, however, Apuleius does state that belief in fate and in magic are incompatible, since there is no place left for the force of spells and incantations, if everything is ruled by fate.^ But in other extant works ^ he speaks of the heavenly bodies as visible gods, and Lauren- tius Lydus attributes astrological treatises to him.* His theory In one passage of the Apology Apuleius affirms his be-
lief with Plato in the existence of certain intermediate be- ings or powers between gods and men, who govern all div- inations and the miracles of the magicians.^ In the treatise on the god or demon of Socrates ® he repeats this thought and tells us more of these mediators or demons. Their na- tive element is the air, which Apuleius thought extended as far as the moon,'^ just as Aristotle ^ tells of animals who live in fire and are extinguished with it, and just as the fifth element, that "divine and inviolable" ether, contains the di- vine bodies of the stars. With the superior gods the demons have immortality in common, but like mortals they are sub- ject to passions and to feeling and capable of reason.^ But their bodies are very light and like clouds, a point peculiar to themselves. ^° Since both Plutarch and Apuleius wrote essays on the demon of Socrates and both derived, or thought that they derived, their theories concerning demons from Plato, it is interesting to note some divergences be- tween their accounts. Apuleius confines them to the atmos- phere beneath the moon more exclusively than Plutarch does; unlike Plutarch he represents them as immortal, not merely long-lived; and he has more to say about the sub-
' Cap. 97.
" Cap. 43.
'Cap. 84.
• Cap. 6.
*De mundo, cap. i; De deo
'■ De deo Socratis, cap. 8.
Socratis, cap. 4.
^ Hist. Anim., V,_ 19.
* De mens., IV., 7, 73 ; De os-
^ De deo Socratis, cap. 13.
tent., 3, 4, 7, 10, 44, 54.
^'' Ibid., caps. 9-1'^
VII APULEIUS OF MAD AURA 241
stance of their bodies and less concerning their relations with disembodied souls.
Apuleius would have been a well-known name in the Apuleius middle ages, if only indirectly through the use made by nr'ddle Augustine in The City of God ^ of the Metamorphoses in ages, describing magic and of the De dec Socratis in discussing demons.^ He also speaks of Apuleius in three of his letters,^ declaring that for all his magic arts he could win neither a throne nor judicial power. Augustine was not quite sure whether Apuleius had actually been transformed into an ass or not. A century earlier Lactantius * spoke of the many marvels remembered of Apuleius. That manuscripts of the Metamorphoses, Apology and Florida were not numerous until after the twelfth and thirteenth centuries may be in- ferred from the fact that all the extant manuscripts seem to be derived from a single one of the later eleventh century, written in a Lombard hand and perhaps from Monte Cas- sino.^ The article on Apuleius in Pauly and Wissowa states that the best manuscripts of his other works are an eleventh century codex at Brussels and a twelfth century manuscript at Munich,^ but does not mention a twelfth century manu- script of the De deo Socratis in the British Museum.'^ An- other indication that in the twelfth century there were manu- scripts of Apuleius in England or at Chartres and Paris is that John of Salisbury borrows from the De dogmate Pla- tonis in his De migis curialiiim} In the earlier middle ages there was ascribed to Apuleius a work on herbs of which we shall treat later.
^ XVIII, 18. 395 A.D. and 397 A.D. G. Huet,
*VIII, 14-22. "Le roman d'Apulee etait-il
* Epistles 102, 136, 138, in Migne, connu au moyen age," Le Moyen PL, vol. 23. Age (1917), 44-52, holds that the
* Diz'in. Instit., V, 3. Metamorphoses was not known
* Codex Laurentianus, plut. 68, directly to the medieval vernacu- 2. _ The same MS contains the lar romancers. See also B. Stum- Histories and Annals (XI-XVI) fall. Das Mdrchen von Amor und of Tacitus. A subscription to the Psyche in Seinem Fortleben, Leip- ninth book of the Metamorphoses zig, 1907.
indicates that the original manu- * CLM 621.
script from which this was de- ' Harleian 3969.
rived or copied was produced in " VII, $•