The Golden Ass

Written sometime in the late 2nd century CE, Apuleius’s The Golden Ass, a picaresque novel about a man turned into a donkey, intersperses its main narrative with many raunchy comic tales. In writing about its magic-obsessed hero, Apuleius, a Numidian philosopher living in the Roman Empire, possibly drew on his own experiences of being accused of using magic to seduce a wealthy widow—something he had to defend against in court. 

The Golden Ass is the only complete ancient Roman novel to survive to the present day. It became a popular Renaissance-era read when it was translated into English in the 16th century. The works of writers from Shakespeare to C.S. Lewis show the marks of its influence.

Plot Summary

The Golden Ass follows Lucius, a handsome, cocky young Greek man, as he takes a journey to Thessaly. Along the way, he listens to fellow traveler Aristomenes tell a story about an evil witch who imprisoned, murdered, and reanimated his buddy Socrates (and peed on Aristomenes’s face for good measure). While Aristomenes’s traveling companion doesn’t believe this tale, Lucius argues that truth is often much stranger than fiction—and gets very interested in the magic and witches he might find in Thessaly.

Lucius arrives in Hypata, the same Thessalonian city where Aristomenes’s story took place, and makes himself at home with the old miser Milo, a friend of a friend. He meets up with his aunt Byrrhena, who warns him to avoid Milo’s wife Pamphile, a dangerous witch with a taste for young men. Lucius agrees to steer clear of her, and instead has an affair with Milo’s sexy servant Photis. Meanwhile, Lucius learns of another tale of magic: The sad story of Thelyphron, who had his ears and nose stolen by witches while he tried to guard a corpse from them.

Stumbling home drunk from one of Byrrhena’s parties, Lucius kills three robbers breaking into Milo’s house. He is arrested for murder and has an agonizing day trying to explain that he acted to defend his host’s home. But at last, it’s revealed that the robbers were only three goatskin bags animated by magic, and the whole trial was just a joke in honor of the god of Laughter.

Photis explains to Lucius that Pamphile animated the bags by mistake—she was trying to cast a spell on a young man she has her eye on. As proof, Photis takes Lucius to watch through the keyhole as Pamphile transforms herself into an owl. This miraculous sight makes Lucius hungry for magic, and he gets Photis to steal some of Pamphile’s magic ointment for him so that he can turn into an owl too. But Photis accidentally grabs the wrong pot, and Lucius finds himself transformed into a donkey. The only cure for being an ass, it turns out, is to eat fresh roses. But before Lucius gets the chance, bandits break into the house, steal Milo’s treasures, and load them onto Lucius’s back to make their escape.

The unfortunate Lucius finds himself a donkey in the employ of the bandits. While he’s living in the bandits’ mountain stronghold, he overhears their tales of criminality and the story of Cupid and Psyche. When that long story ends, Lucius sees the opportunity to make his escape, and takes Charite with him—but the bandits recapture the pair and vow to gruesomely kill them.

Before the bandits can carry out their threats, a handsome young man arrives, and through tales of his bold exploits, he becomes the bandits’ leader. He throws a feast, gets the bandits drunk—and when they’re asleep, ties them up and makes off with Charite, riding on Lucius’s back. It turns out he’s Charite’s beloved fiancé Tlepolemus. The young couple gets married, while Lucius ends up with a series of unscrupulous donkey-keepers who mistreat and abuse him. Lucius escapes when a bear devours his master, a sadistic young boy threatening to have him castrated—but he’s recaptured just in time to hear the terrible news that both Charite and Tlepolemus are dead. A jealous rival for Charite’s love has killed Tlepolemus, and Charite has vengefully blinded the rival and killed herself.

Lucius leaves town with Charite’s servants and is sold to an unscrupulous priest named Philebus. An ill-timed bray from Lucius accidentally outs Philebus and his companions as not-so-chaste gay men, so they must all flee town.

Lucius passes from owner to owner, until he at last finds some comfort with two brothers, a pastry chef and a cook, and becomes famous for enjoying human food. As a celebrity donkey, he lives a comfortable life until he at last runs away from an unpleasant performance (having sex with a murderer live on stage).

Fleeing, he comes to the ocean, where he submerges himself in the water and prays to the moon goddess Isis for assistance. She appears to him, tells him how to de-donkey himself, and instructs him to devote his life to her. Lucius eats the roses from a procession in her honor and returns to his life as a humbler, wiser human. He becomes first an initiate in Isis’s cult, then a priest in her husband Osiris’s service, and ever after lives a joyful life of religious devotion.