The Shadow of an Ass: Philosophical Choice & Aesthetic Experience in Apuleius with Dr Jeffrey Ulrich

[Music] And our guest this morning is Professor Jeffrey Olrich. Dr. Dr. Olrich is an associate professor classics at Rutgers University. His research interests include the Roman novel, the reception of Greek philosophy in Latin literature and ancient sexuality. Jeff has authored several scholarly articles in Appalas and Latin literature. In his first monograph, the shadow of an ass philosophical choice and aesthetic experience in Appalas's metamorphoses is the topic of our discussion. So Jeff, welcome to the program. Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and um of course everybody on who watches the show knows I love to talk Appalas. So very excited. Um, so of course in Appalachas's brilliant novel Golden or the Metamorphoses, readers are led away on a whirlwind of 10 books of peer-esque earthy body uh adventures. You know, it's it's genius. Um however when confronted with the revelation of book 11 uh the reader is left at the crossroads so to speak they with a choice and reflection on their implication in the excesses of the previous 10 books. So several different theories have amassed over the years about the wrench of book 11. Um anywhere from sincere conversion readings, right? uh to the hermeneutical games that uh you know John Winkler uh in his classic and highly influential book um uh October and actor um talked about to the serial comics such as people like Stefon Till nowadays. uh your propos your proposed answer to this conundrum um builds upon previous scholarship such as you know Luca Greavarini but with several new aspects uh arguing that in Appalachas's work um reading is a constant choice for the scrupulous or close reader. Uh so can you talk about the problem of book 11 for a bit and uh give your answer um to this conundrum? Yeah, for sure. Thanks so much for that uh setup. Um book 11 is essentially the problem in Apile studies um because as you say it's um so uh unprepared for it's it it's sort of thrust upon the reader in a kind of surprise. Uh, in book one and the prologue, of course, um, Apileus sets out what seems to be a program of just kind of pleasurable, um, narrative, right? He's going to, uh, lay out just this kind of fun story about magic and he actually says, "Reader, pay attention. You'll enjoy it, right? Or you'll be happy." Um and that that kind of phrase is uh has been considered traditionally kind of a contract with the reader. Um a contract that Apilus in a sort of way breaks in book 11 because um all of a sudden uh it becomes kind of very serious. Uh all of a sudden uh Lucius, this guy who this sort of buffoonish character who turned into a donkey and kind of traveled the world looking at stuff and narrating his kind of debased encounters and lots of scatological humor and and sex and various kinds of um sort of grotesque things happen to him. And all of a sudden he has a vision of a goddess and he completely transforms his life in light of this vision of the goddess, right? And this uh kind of immediate transformation into something quite serious has been a problem for readers for a long time. So um so that's kind of the the summary of the problem. Is it serious? Is it still comic? Is Apileus uh kind of representing a sincere conversion at the end that's kind of tacked on or is he uh still kind of satirically mocking uh uh this character andor um satirically mocking religious experience and the sort of absurdities of conversion at large. Uh my solution is in a way to try and or my attempt is to try and move away from um the kind of assessment of uh sincere or uh kind of performative which is how people have traditionally looked at Lucius's uh conversion. He has this conversion in the end and people have said you know is it real? Is it is he is he basically still kind of um obsessive and a voyer and all of these sorts of things and it's just satarizing that. Um I want to kind of move away from uh this binary choice over whether Lucius's conversion is real or sincere. And one of the things I'm interested in in my book is in looking at how Apileus kind of implicates his readers, incorporates them into the narrative, and kind of foists upon them um a choice over whether or not uh they've actually been involved in this. and and and once you get to book 11, I think if you are a critic of Lucius um as many are, uh there's a kind of way in which the narrative uh holds up a mirror for the reader because you have been participating all along. And um so that's kind of a part of my solution is to is to really look closely at how Apilus um kind of incorporates implicates uh uh uh almost infects his readers in a way uh with their participation and then kind of makes them realize that they've been participating all along. And one of uh the ways that I try to do this with book 11, and I think we'll get into this more in the conversation, but one of the ways that I try to do this is by showing that Apilus is actually kind of incorporating a very uh uh uh kind of careful reworking of Platonic ideas about choice and participation and mimisis and all of these sorts of things into his narrative. And and as you know, and I think we'll get into this later, in book in book 11, I really see quite a detailed re reworking of the myth of in Plato's Republic, which is sort of all about, you know, it's a deadly serious myth about uh justice and and the choices that we make, right? And and you you do make that point in the book and we will get into that later that uh yeah the republic book 10 much like book 11 of the metamorphoses is kind of like the monkey wrench that Plato kind of throws at the previous nine books. Uh but we'll discuss that later. Um so let's get into this choice uh this reader response theory that you talk about. So during the high Roman Empire um and the phenomena knows known as the second sophistic contemporary reader response theory heavily focused on the dichotomy between Odysian knowledge uh you know from Odysius and his wanderings um and uh so you have Adysian knowledge and the education of Heracles uh so her Heracles choice um so can you tell us more about these um two dichotoies. Yeah, certainly. Um I think this is what I hope is um at least one of the kind of fundamental insights of my book is that there is in fact I mean reader response theory is something that people talk about sort of uh coming out of the the late 60s, early 70s and the 80s. this sort of model of uh taking the the meaning um out of the hands of the meaning that is sort of imputed to any given text. Taking it kind of out of the hands of the author and putting the onus on the reader um and saying that actually the the meaning making happens in the interaction between the reader and the text. This is kind of a um a theoretical movement that happened you know in the in the late 20th century. Um what I'm trying to argue in my book and one of the ways in which I'm trying to sort of reinterpret the metamorphosis uh Apileus's metamorphosis is uh by kind of um excavating this uh mode of doing reader response in antiquity particularly in the high Roman Empire and in the second sophistic as you say. And one of the things that I I do in a chapter of the book is I try to show that um you know there are these kind of two paradigms of uh of what I would call aesthetic experience in um in deep antiquity. And one is uh Odysius sort of in his various encounters with aesthetic pleasure. the sort of most um you know the most important one is listening to the sirens is Odysius in front of the sirens and his choice to still listen to them even though uh he's warned that uh that they're the knowledge they offer the song they sing will sort of lead him you know to crash on the rocks. Um even though he's warned against them he still listens to them. And so that's one kind of model of aesthetic response is to to sort of prioritize experiencing it because of the the knowledge that it could offer. And that's what um it says in the Odyssey is that the sirens they are knowledgeable of more of more things and they they know how to sing this song that will sort of bestow knowledge on you. Um that's one model. The other model that I see kind of cropping up in the imperial period and in the second sophistic is uh that of Heracles. The sort of choice of Heracles where he's sitting at a crossroads and he's faced between uh he's faced at this crossroads with choosing between Lady Virtue and Lady Vice. And they each sort of make arguments on why he should as to why he should follow them. and uh and one offers him a life of pleasure and and uh sort of all that comes along with it, right? Uh always full, always sort of satisfied uh you know sex with with women, all these sorts of things. And Lady Virtue offers him uh an alternative choice, a life that will be difficult um an uphill uh road, but one that will ultimately lead in the end to happiness. Uh now this is a story that's told about Heracles you know um we have it um basically from Zenapon but it's from the classical period it's an allegory that the sophisticus is uh supposed to have told um but what I try to do in my book is to show that actually um readers and critics in the first and second century and actually even up to the 4th century are using these two paradigms Odysius and Heracles as kind of models for how you should read. Um you should read uh you know Lucian will say you should read like Odysius as he's listening to the sirens um but scornful and sort of attached to no mast right Odysius has to be tied down to a mast in order to uh to listen to the sirens and not be swayed by them. Uh Plutarch says you need to to listen you need to read just like Odysius. um visa v the sirens except you need to be tied down to right reason and you need to use that experience to protof philosophize. This is sort of one model of how you should read. You should do it philosophically. The alternative is um you have to read like Heracles at the at the crossroads and make a choice as to how you're going to read. And one of the things that I find very interesting about these as two kind of models of how you should experience aesthetic pleasure, two models of how you should encounter uh something that is enticing is that they're actually kind of the opposite of one another, right? One entails actually enjoying and indulging in the experience and then, you know, trying hoping that you'll come out on the other side. And the other one involves sort of sitting at a crossroads and making this choice at the very beginning. And um I sort of what I do in the rest of the book after kind of elucidating these models is I try to show that Apleas is kind of aware of this reader response discourse and is in fact sort of inviting the his own readers to engage with his novel in both ways. to be constantly sort of faced with choices to indulge but then to try and pull back to uh look at them and try and decide whether to participate. Amazing. Thank you for that answer. And and yes, I believe that you're right because um Lucian, who is a good uh source for understanding if something was kind of popular at the time since he parodies it and something isn't ripe for parody if if nobody's interested in it. But uh you look at something like Lucian's preliminary speech, the dream, where he kind of parodies this Heraclean choice where instead of uh virtue and vice, it's uh you have sculpture and culture. and they're kind of trying to get him to they're vying between him for that. Uh so very interesting and and as you say in the book um to understand what Appalas is doing in his reader response uh kind of theory in the metamorphoses or the golden ass you actually have to look to his uh epidemic speeches and his philosophical works um to kind of understand where he's coming from. So of course Appalas in his lifetime um he was not only known but he also kind of self he self-styled himself as a translator of Platonic wisdom. He was known as the philosophus platonicus. Uh he loosely translated some of Plato's works into Latin and seemed to promote a kind of popular plagonism in his speech and writings particularly and this is very important for your work for the North African audience. Um so can you discuss Appalas's relationship to Pltonism further? Yeah, of course. Absolutely. As you say, he was known as a Platonist. He called himself a Platonic philosopher in the apology. Um he we even have um an epigraph that we assume was attached to a statue um where the Carthaginians sort of dedicate this um to our Platonic philosopher. So it seems as if he was um knowledgeable uh that he sort of claimed that moniker of of being a platonist for himself um but also was sort of regarded as such. Um and as you say he translated Plato but loosely translated Platonic works, wrote some popularizing treatises as well as some uh frankly quite dry and uh kind of technical treatises like the de Platon uh or the demundo uh the on Plato and his dogma. Um now that's all um sort of you know agreed upon. Uh what scholars debate is uh you know whether or not this moniker of being a Platonic philosopher is uh serious or whether or not it is a form of uh what scholars will call self-fashioning or or you know in modern kind of terminology branding right um I think a a previous generation or sort of some of the scholarship that I'm responding to uh will say you know apleas uh was a platonist in so far as he you know he tried to leverage being a platonist uh as as kind of a procedure in branding or as uh kind of a a mode of self-fashioning showing himself to be a platonist as a way of advertising his work as a way of uh kind of uh trying to add more legitimacy or authority to his to his work. And I I think one of the things I'm hoping to do in the book is to take him a little bit more seriously as a platonist. I don't I mean this is kind of a a a more general approach that people have to the second sophistic that you know authors in the second sophistic are um alluding to engaging with um sort of high literary learning as a kind of procedure in in in performance as a procedure in you know kind of uh branding or self self-fashioning um I want to take a sort of more seriously and I I actually think he's doing something quite sophisticated with his Platonic uh illusions, with his uh intertextual engagement with Plato. And I think part of what he does across his corpus is kind of invite readers to take um a very uh diligent or precise or scrupulous or meticulous reading of the texts that they encounter. Uh we see this in the day platon where he kind of uses Odicius as um a paradigm of learning. He talks about looking into the mirror of Homer um looking into Homer as if into a great mirror. And he concludes the treatise actually with Odicius as a kind of paradigm of uh uh of of prudence and of wisdom of prudentia and of sapiientia. And he he kind of uh uses these models in the day platon in the day deoccrate in the on the god of Socrates. Um but in the middle he's really engaging with Socrates as a paradigm of replication. And one of the things that he uh is most interested in is showing um how Socrates invites us into a particular mode of engaging with texts uh into uh kind of a much what I would call deep reading or what other scholars have referred to as active reading. Right? that there is a kind of invitation to be an active reader in uh on the god of Socrates and to really um kind of try to pierce beneath superficialities what Apilus calls alana things which belong to others like uh parentage or fortune or wealth or whatever. Um he invites us in on the god of Socrates to do that. I also see that in the apology in his what is kind of a brutal invective against his accuser Amelana. Sapuile was of course brought to trial for seducing a widow with magic, right? And one of uh the ways that he engages with his accuser, one of the ways that he sort of responds to attacks his accuser is by sort of representing him as kind of an uneducated idiot, right? somebody who just hasn't really read very much. Um, and so it is kind of embedded in a brutal invective. But I see what I see in Apileus is kind of um a representation of uh of how one ought to be a deep reader. How you need to sort of really uh closely and diligently read things. And one of the heights of that of of that uh invective is when he kind of sets Amelianis as against his judge judge Max the judge is Maximus a sort of highly uh educated person. He sets them pits them against each other as sort of two models of living. And he says, you know, Maximus will understand what I've done because he has diligently read Plato's Fedrris, right? He is diligently read about the upper realm in Plato's Fedrris. Um, so I see, you know, Apileus' Platonism as not simply a kind of procedure of self-fashioning or or branding, but actually as a kind of invitation to read Plato deeply and then I think he himself becomes kind of an intermediary of Plato and uh, you know, specifically sort of North African Platonism, which I think we'll talk about more in a bit. Right. Absolutely. And and I before we get into the metamorphoses, I I really would like to focus a little bit on the um the diamond of Socrates feel it's a very important uh text that he's a very important speech that he's giving the popularizing form of plagonism that is similar to something that uh for instance Plutarch had right so um and somebody like John Dylan would say that they're drawing from a common source um in terms of like is popularizing treatis on plagonism and the diamondology and you really talk about this in your article on uh Appalas and Roman diamondology and how he translates that to the Roman realm and I feel it's important for the metamorphosis. So let's kind of um you could kind of discuss that a bit. Yeah, of course. You know, it's interesting you bring up John Dylan because I think this is this is um you know, in addition to the kind of self-fashioning model of dealing with Apile's Platonism, there's also been this kind of on the other side of the disciplinary spectrum from ancient philosophers, this sort of um uh uh reduction of Apileus as a real philosopher, right? He's not a quote unquote real philosopher because he's just um kind of reproducing a common source like you say, right? And John Dylan has this sort of uh kind of hilarious if a little bit uh you know uh uh uh I don't I don't quite know what the word is. He has this sort of hilarious way of phrasing middle platonis. He calls middle platonism, he says it's like those um Midwestern states that one just wants to fly over to get from, you know, one thing to the other thing, right? That it's like you want to go straight from Plato to neoplatanism and you just want to skip over those silly neoplatanists or middle platonists, right? Um, and I think this is this is sort of the other piece of this um of of the denigration of Apilus's sort of like real intellectualism is because people see middle platonism as not not a very serious thing. But I think what he's doing in something like uh the on the god of Socrates is he's actually functioning like an intermediary of Plato like a like a translator of Plato to um a North African audience. And in fact at one point he says in the speech something like you all will hear Plato's divine opinion and then he says with me as your interpre as your interpreter with me as your intermediary in that sense and this is sort of what I talk about in that chapter. Apulus really um embodies he becomes himself kind of a don for his reader. he is um a translator bringing messages, bringing the divine opinion of Plato to an audience, right? And so it's not, you know, um in the in the sort of John Dylan criticism, it's not kind of doing philosophy in the kind of innovative way that he wants where they're creating new where Apilus is creating a new philosophical movement. I think Apileus sees himself rather as somebody who is in fact a translator of uh this sort of philosophical uh approach to living to an audience. And in this sense he's both kind of a literal translator of Plato from Greek to Latin. Um he's also kind of a cultural translator of Platonism to a sort of North African context. And then in that sense I think he becomes you know as I say in the chapter um kind of a don for his reader an intermediary who is bringing messages bringing knowledge to people and that's kind of my approach is to say you know I don't you know sure we can say it's like you know um I don't know the Midwest that you the sort of what they call the flyover states right but I actually think uh there's something quite valuable in what aus is doing and then If he's translating platonism in a kind of popularizing form in on the god of Socrates, what he's doing, I think in the metamorphosis is actually accommodating platonism to an entirely new genre which is in fact in my view quite uh innovative and sort of deeply philosophical. So absolutely and I thought that this was uh worth reading before we move on from John Dylan's the middle plagonist. What we must what he writes what we what we must always bear in mind is that Appalausis despite his protestations is not a philosopher and his value as evidence is thus dependent upon how well he is relaying to us his sources or s his source or sources. So yeah, kind of dismissive to say the least. Yeah, very dismissive and very much like, you know, his value is as a source, not as a not as a as an innovator, right? But I actually think his what he's doing with different genres is quite innovative. Absolutely. I I find the Roman um narrative genre in general much more innovative than it gets credit for, especially something like Petronius, but that's another show. Um but actually before we move on Jeeoff I didn't put this in the agenda but um I feel it's important for later when we talk about the mimedic contagion and uh contagion uh but could you explain the importance of the mirror talk there's a lot of talk of mirrors and the apologia and um if you could kind of touch upon that for a bit. Yeah for sure for sure. Um it's actually this this book uh is is um you know a kind of rewrite and evolution of my uh of my dissertation which was actually entirely about mirrors. Um so all I all I focused on in the dissertation was mirrors. And so you'll see sort of some um a lot of details about mirrors that maybe have snuck into the book uh or maybe were not stripped away from the dissertation. But the apologia has um the apology has uh sort of a long praise of the mirror what scholars call the louse speculi. This is in part because apleas um one of the subsidiary charges that is sort of proof that he used magic to seduce this widow. Um one of those subsidiary charges is that he uses mirrors to sort of um you know do up his appearance. It's a sort of this is a cosmetic device that is often associated with um you know sort of erotics and you know women using mirrors and that sort of thing in so far as it it eventually also takes on a life as a kind of philosophical metaphor for self-nowledge and for uh kind of uh growth of the self. Um it is acceptable but but you're not really supposed to be the kind of person um you know it is it is a little bit uh coded to be the kind of person who carries around a handheld mirror in antiquity. Um and so in the apology has this long praise of the mirror for and it's a sort of rebuttal of why his accusers don't really understand his ownership and use of a mirror and it falls in a couple of stages. Um but the two ones that I really focus on in my book are in two different chapters of the book. One is that he alludes to um sort of previous examples of users of mirrors. The most important of which is Socrates who suggests that um uh that you know his students his disciples should use mirrors to um essentially uh as a spur to virtue, right? And what he basically says is, you know, a beautiful uh man who looks into a mirror will not want to sort of um uh make ugly his appearance by his character. So he'll want to sort of live up to his uh to his uh beauty in his actions and his virtue and his customs and his habits. And so also an ugly man will want to uh uh compensate for their ugliness. uh by virtue by making by making up for it with virtue and Socrates is sort of the the classic representation of this because he was notoriously ugly looking like a seder with the sort of snub nose and so forth. So that's one piece of his um praise of the mirror. But the second piece and the one that's sort of more important for what you're asking about mimemetic contagion um is Apileus's kind of almost theory of mimisis theory of imitation that shows up in the apology and this is in apology 14 where he gives this long praise of how the mirror is better than other forms of representation. He names sort of statuary painting and um and embossing, right? He names these other forms of kind of representation and then he says the mirror is better than all of them because it registers its its viewer um in time, right? It sort of registers changes over time in its viewer. Whereas other forms of representation, if you paint someone, if you make a statue of someone, they um uh uh ultimately no longer represent the object of depiction after a short period of time. And then he uses this very sort of powerful phrase. He says and they fix their you know the object of representation in the manner of a corpse. He says ritu kadaawis in the manner of a corpse. They sort of fix the viewer. And um this is kind of a very interesting and has a complex relationship to platonic ideas about mimisis and representation and uh mirrors in particular. And sort of one of the things that I talk about in the book is how Apilus is doing this very kind of subtle dance with the end of Plato's Republic uh with book 10 where he he uses a mirror and says it creates nothing. It's sort of a empty image and Apilus is kind of privileging the mirror over other other devices. Does that kind of answer your question? Yeah, absolutely. I feel it it we needed it to set up what's going to come later because there's a lot of discussion about mirroring and things like that. So let's get into the metamorphosis. Um you know to forest is of course the asenos aros the golden ass um it's a book filled with reflections and shadows that upon further look um have much deeper meanings which you explore within your monograph. Um, so the protagonist, Lucius, he's the typical uh bumbling bumbling young man. He's kind of similar to Enculpius. So these both of these guys are like uh overly educated young men who uh look at their world in terms of myth and epic poetry. What Jean Bagio Kante uh termed mythomania in his book, The Hidden Author. um that they understand their worlds through the lens they understand their world and often very mundane situations through the lens of myth and epic poetry. So could you discuss this concept a bit? Yeah, sure. Absolutely. And this is a this is kind of an important um piece especially of the chapter on u mimemetic contagion and um the idea of how we engage with myth or how we engage with stories. um you know the Roman novel I mean of course we only have Petronius and Apulus in the imperial period as sort of exemplars of the Roman novel and both of them seem to have these kind of buffoonish elites who uh like to read their circumstances they're often as you say mundane or quotidian circumstances um in light of this kind of um uh lofty myth in in sort of lofty mythical terms and um it's really kind of a form of grandiosity or sort of delusions of grandeur where they'll see their sort of personal life situations in terms of you know really famous myths and one of the examples that I think is um that is sort of just to give an example in Petronius right um in Culpius right after the the uh uh banquet of Tmalcio he sort of enters into this uh picture gallery and he's looking at all these pictures of, you know, mythical relationships between the gods and young boys. Of course, at this point, Encopius has just lo lost his his um beloved, his his lover boy um and his lover boy, Gaiton. And um and so he walks into this gallery and he sees pictures of you know Zeus and Ganymede and other other gods with their sort of beloveds with their individual beloveds. And then he sort of exclaims in this gesture that is in fact kind of a quotation of Virgil's Anied. He says, "Oh, how the gods touch upon mortal things, right? Or how mortal things even touch upon the gods, right?" And uh the idea here is that, you know, he's just lost his his beloved in this very kind of mundane quotidian absurd circumstance, but he goes in and he sees the gods um and their versions of losing their beloveds. and he he reads his life in terms of those divine um erotic encounters. That's uh kind of what mythomania means, I think, in terms of what uh Kante is describing where you sort of read your life, your own circumstances in terms of these kind of grandiose uh in sort of grandiose ways in terms of um of great mythical or divine characters. And I think this is a very important and Luca Graini talks about this um to a certain extent a very important kind of way of reading Lucius as well who uh is kind of going around looking at his encounters um through different lenses through the lens of myth but also as I talk about in the book um through sort of like idealized philosophical models what I call philosophical philosophical mania right that he's sort of like looking at his his encounter with Fodus, his like very lowbrow kind of erotic encounters in terms of these idealized kind of um platonic moments. He's seeing himself in Action. He's seeing himself in these various as a Hercules, as a you know, as these different kind of mythical figures even in the most absurd kind of mundane situations. Absolutely. Um and uh this ties into my next question. Um and this is a very important concept not only for Appalaus but also for uh the Greek novels in general. Um this concept of uh ecosis and ecosis for the audience members who don't know is uh I'll just read this from the Oxford classical dictionary fourth edition. Exorcis is a um an extended and detailed literary description of any object real or imaginary. Um the rhetorics thus systematized into a rhetorical exercise poetic technique stretching from the description of the shield of Achilles in the Iliad um you know into the Greek novels. Um and of course ecoris is usually within the novels um meditation on a work of art or a painting. Um so um this is of course extremely important for um several examples in the golden ass. statuary of Diana and the choice of Paris in book 11 where he's watching this kind of pantomime going on. Um so can you discuss the concept of mimemetic andastic contagion and the golden ass and how this ties into the choice of Appalas um and how this ties up and how sorry cut and how this ties into the choice Appalas sets up for the learned reader. Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, this is sort of the the details of one of the uh uh chapters in the book is to look at these two kind of um conceptual uh uh theoretical models. the one mimemetic contagion. I'm really um depending to a certain extent on on Robert Germany's book which is entitled mimemetic contagion but which is about um Terrence's unic and um the influence that art has on one of the characters in in that uh play. Um I think one of the ways of talking so so I think the point is that mimemetic contagion is not sort of merely uh the notion that life can come to imitate art but it's even sort of more um it's an anxiety that uh art has the capacity to kind of escape its frame and kind of break out of its frame, seep out of its frame, whatever sort of metaphor you want to use and ultimately propagate itself in the life of a viewer or reader. Um, mimemetic contagion is really about how, you know, it's not you, you know, the boundaries between life and art are perhaps more porous than we think and uh that in fact an engagement with any mode of art may have uh real life consequences in a reader or in a viewer. And then ecorsis as you say that ecraes are all over the novel. Um, ecoris is sort of a subcategory. Uh, ecfrastic contagion which which is sort of discussed by Tim Whitmar in this great article on Heliodoris. Um, efrastic contagion is sort of the the literary version of that where you have a description of a work of art. often in the novels it's a description of a work of art that may in fact seep beyond the boundaries of that description and then it happens inside of the novels as in the case of uh Lucius with the the statuary ensemble of Acton but it also possibly and this is sort of what I'm interested in in the book seeps out of the novel and into the real life of readers so the example of um the statue ensemble of Acton is super interesting because um essentially Lucius uh uh sees uh this myth on display in his aunt Berina's uh atrium. It's a myth of uh Diana and Acton. This is of course the story where Diana um the goddess, the virginal goddess, the huntress goddess Diana is uh bathing and is uh spied upon by this hunter who in other versions of the tale is maybe innocently not intending to be a voyer hunting in the woods. Um event sort of incidentally in other versions he spies upon the goddess. In Apileus's version, uh there's a statue of Acton which is very much sort of an intentional voyer trying to catch a glimpse of this goddess bathing. Um Apileus tells us this tale through Lucius. Um Lucius gives an ephysis of this tale. But what's interesting when we talk about the reason I talk a lot about mimemetic and ecrastic contagion is because Lucius is influenced very explicitly in uh uh or very clearly by his encounter with this statuary ensemble. What we see in later um moments in later sort of episodes in the novel is that Lucius himself um a he becomes you know the the punishment that Acton receives is that he is transformed into a quadruped and is sort of threatened and and ultimately ripped apart by his dogs. he experiences this sort of like very painful death um where he becomes a quadruped head, a four-legged creature and then ultimately suffers uh this this painful kind of getting ripped apart. Uh Lucius soon after seeing this um statuary ensemble likewise tries to see a naked sort of divine figure uh that's Palm File, the woman who is sort of the witch or sorceress that is under the roof of Milo. He tries to spy on this um woman getting naked and transforming herself and he in turn gets transformed into a quadruped. Throughout the novel, he gets threatened by um sort of various creatures that might rip him to shreds until uh he sees this pantomime of the judgment of Paris. Um and as a spectator of this pantoime, he himself is soon to become the spectacle. Um, and he is supposed to be put on stage in kind of a a redo of Pacifi, a redo of sort of like um, you know, a population of a of a quadruped with a with a woman. And the closure of the novel, which I think is is deeply uncomfortable, um should be deeply uncomfortable for readers, is that ultimately Lucius himself becomes a statue in an ensemble of a goddess where he's sort of voyerizing the goddess. And we then play the role of Lucius sort of standing outside um looking at this statuary ensemble of a voyer who has been sort of recently transformed. And so what what I'm trying to argue in the book is that we move from mimemetic contagion where Lucius is kind of infected by this um artistic ensemble by this display to the point where he actually becomes the object of display and that we as readers are then invited to be um a little bit wary of our experience because ecrastic contagion um that is to say ephasis of these um statuary ensembles of these artistic representations might seep out of the book and infect our lives. I think that's sort of the my my my end point is that there's a kind of internal audience looking upon Lucius in this statuary ensemble and we have to wonder whether or not we're part of that audience that's sort of looking at Lucius and will that sort of seep out of the book and infect our lives. Does that sort of make answer your question? Yes. And I I kind of want to stay on um the the ecrastic contagion for a bit longer uh because there is a very interesting parallel that you draw in the book or an example that you point out in the book from the Greek novels specifically Iliodoris and the problematic nowadays. But it made sense in terms of the philosophical science of the day. the um the con when paracia is conceived uh this is a perfect example of the art kind of infecting the viewer uh especially at this this particular sensitive moment in time. So I don't know if you could talk about that uh for a bit because because I feel it's it's important because it's not just an app this is kind of everywhere. This was a philosophical concept that you found in in a lot of writing. So um if you could talk about that a bit. Yeah for sure. Yeah absolutely. In fact I should say at the outset that Robert Germany in his book one example that he sort of draws upon is actually from Zenapon of Ephesus. The canopy at the very beginning of Zenapon of Ephesus sort of um infects the the the beautiful couple the sort of ideal couple with uh a kind of new ideology. It sort of changes their lives. The fact that they're making love under this canopy. But as I say in the book, the sort of most extreme example of mimemetic contagion um is the is the conception of of Caraclea in Heliodoris's Ethiopica because it's a very weird scene, right? Um one of the reasons it's sort of problematic today is because of course she's um Ethiopian, but she's the only white Ethiopian and she's born of two uh uh dark-skinned Ethiopian parents. And the explanation that the novel gives for this is um that while um her mother and father, Hyospies and Perca, her father and mother I should say, Hyospies and Perca while they're having sex um Pina glances upon uh happens to gaze upon a painting of Andromeda. And this painting of Andromeda of this naked Andromeda um sort of comes to life inside of her. It actually makes an imprint on the fetus of Karaclea. And that's why Karaclea is um white-kinned rather than dark skinned. And so this is a quite literal kind of representation of the anxiety that art can in fact enter into the real world and become part of the real world. And one of the things that I talk about in the book, and this is I have to um give a shout out to Alio Capatini who kind of um helped elaborate on this for me, but there are in fact certain paintings of Andromeda um as she's coming down off the rock and she's being um led down by Perseus. um her her Perseus's dark hand is kind of uh grasping her arm and she actually she's all white except for a ring around her arm and so a ring of dark skin around her arm. And so if that if Heliodoris is sort of playing with an actual well if if he's kind of alluding to this notion of mimemetic contagion there could be an actual literal painting that he's thinking of that is actually imprinting itself on you know the fetus of Kaclea. we see kind of a version of mimemetic contagion in action where um you know where art comes to life in the real world and what's so fascinating in the in the in the version in Heliodoris is at the end of the novel they have to kind of authenticate Caraclaya by holding her next to a setting her aside next to a painting and they have to be like are you real are you a real version of this Andromeda oh she looks just like the painting actually so there's a weird way in which you know the real life person has to get authenticated by the misus and there's I think this is kind of across the novels in a very interesting way um that they're they're they're all kind of dealing with this anxiety about um art maybe coming to life and actually sort of entering the real world in a meaningful way and that's something that you point out just alluding back to Appalas's um speeches um where he's talking about the statute that they they want to put up of him. He he has that same kind of anxiety about the representation as well. So very interesting. Yeah, absolutely. He's very he's very anxious. Sorry, I'm just trying to look in the book real quick. He is very anxious um about uh being made into a statue himself about about that own sort of representational afterlife uh you know kind of uh uh fixing him in some way and he he sort of loses his own agency. It's very interesting. So I want to return to Appalachas's relationship to Plletonism a bit more especially in relationship to the golden ass. Um it has been long recognized in Appalian scholarship that uh the metamorphoses is a kind of kabastis. It it's a comic inverse Odysius. It's it's the an it's like this ridiculous version of Odysius in a way. Um as such there are several illusions to Plato um in the metamorphoses uh most notably from Plato's Fedris and the Republic. Of course this is nowhere uh more uh relevant than actually the the first book where uh Lucius is on the road and then he hears Aristoy's tale of Socrates who a little bit on the nose that the character's name is Socrates, right? Like like Warren Smith in my talk with him, he said he could have named that guy anything. He didn't need to name him Socrates, but you know, it's kind of on the nose there. Um, but before we get into that, I feel it's really important to um talk about the voice of the prologue because as Jeffrey Benson has pointed out, this is almost like a donic voice. And this kind of alludes to earlier about your concept of Appalas seeing himself as a a donic intermediary translating this platonic concepts these platonic concepts to his um North African audience. So you could talk about the problem of the voice of the prologue for a bit. Yeah, it's a big it's a big problem, right? Um in terms of uh this is one of the sort of um conundrums of Apile studies is uh and there have been many attempts to solve it is who's actually speaking the prologue. And one of, you know, the reasons that it's a problem is because in the middle of the prologue, the speaker says, um, quis, which is just a simple question, but he says, "Who is that?" Right? And this, um, ille, this this demonstrative pronoun that's sort of pointing at a person, it's very unclear whether or not it's pointing at Lucius. and and he goes on to describe a kind of elite Greek from um from essentially all of the all of the sort of great cultures of ancient Greece. He has sort of roots in Athens and Sparta and Corinth. And he goes on to describe his sort of um his own education. And then from the prologue as it ends with this phrase that I mentioned earlier, this um uh pay attention, you'll be happy. um after it ends it goes right into narrative discussion of of essentially this you know typhonic choice on the road illusion this sort of on then illusion to Plato's Fedrris so the the prologue is a problem because it doesn't actually make clear who the speaker is and people have suggested all sorts of things maybe it's Apilus maybe it's Lucius maybe there's a switch in the speaker maybe it's the the book talking to readers it's sort of the book uh sort of announcing itself. the particular phrase quis um and and some of that um some of that um phrasiology around there um some people have seen as almost kind of an illusion to Cloudis and what happens in kind of comic prologues that um a prologist will come out and kind of announce himself and then give uh give the nature of the plot. Um, but I am, as you know, uh, mostly aligned with Jeffrey Benson that this is that I think that this is kind of a a an invitation to see the voice of the speaker as as a kind of don for the reader. And I think that this is re um, asserted in a way in the end of the novel when you have this um, what people refer to as the madorans problem. there's a a a second kind of um uh calling into question of the identity of the speaker of the novel because at the beginning he's Greek he's from Corinth and Athens and Sparta and at the end um he has a dream and in the dream um it's said that you know um or rather the priest that he encounters a priest who has a dream and in the priest's dream it said that a man from Madros will come to him and Lucius all of a sudden becomes a man from Modaros and then he becomes an ille he becomes a new sort of speaker he becomes that quissil gets sort of reinstituted in the end of the novel in a new kind of identity so it's a problem but it's one where I think Apulus is actually um heightening kind of emphasizing the dmonic nature of this voice and of the way that it's actually interacting with the reader. Um, and and you know, in the book I go into some detail um, and in one of the articles kind of about how I think it's a donic voice specifically that uh, kind of plays with uh, the don of Socrates that Socrates is a don in the symposium. um he's sort of described as a damone in the symposium and I think I think the voice of the speaker is supposed to kind of um uh evoke this notion that that Lucius is in fact kind of playing the role of Daimon the speaker of this novel is kind of playing the role of an almost socratic Don for us. Yeah, absolutely amazing. And and uh I really I I've always been partial to the the book theory that it's the book talking just because I find that really hilarious. But uh very uh interested in this yeah this concept of the diamonic voice and especially after reading your work. Um very convincing especially Jeffrey Benson's book the invisible ass um yeah he talks about that as well. Um I wanted to stay on the first book of the metamorphoses, the opening scene, Aristoiny's tale. Um and especially the importance of Plato's Fedrris to this uh this text because um Fedrris was the most widely read text of all of Plato during the second sophistic. And um this opening scene is not only important here, but it's also important for something like Lucip and Clyophon uh a Greek novel as well. Uh so this opening of like two people just kind of taking a leisurely stroll or or kind of going out and having this discussion about stuff um is uh really influential. And uh I I was wondering if you could discuss this opening scene and Lucius's typhon typhonic choice uh for a bit especially when um Aristo and Socrates Aristo is telling the tale of Socrates and um the the other interlocutor is kind of like saying this is a ridiculous story just stop telling it and Lucius as opposed to being like um you know a Socrates about it well I should probably more focus on myself and uh learning about myself before I you know that that uh that busybodiness right that uh that curiosas that uh uh this concept of just being in everybody's business Lucius is like well I'll believe anything I think anything is possible so we could talk about this for a bit yeah of course um you're right that this is sort of the most important um uh uh platonic dialogue for this time period for the second sophistic seemed to have been woven into the educational system quite um uh quite robustly or sort of a robust part of the of the educational system. It shows up all over the second sophistic, right? And Michael Trap has this very important article from 1990, I think, about all of the all of the times that you see this um showing up in authors uh such as Lucian, Plutarch, Longus, uh Achilles, Tatius, Diorsum, right? It's really all over the place in the second sophistic. Um, and so it's not a surprise to see sort of a version of it, uh, kind of adapted to Apileus's novel. Um, what's interesting though about what Apileus does with this, so the original scene is comes from the beginning of the Fedrris and it's a moment where um, you know, they're they're taking this walk outside the walls of Athens and Socrates who's never seems like he's never really even been outside the city and they get to this sort of hollowed place that seems to be um, kind of infused with the divine, infused with the gods, nymphs, and so on and so forth. And um and Fedrris asks Socrates about a myth there about the myth of of Bereas and Orthia. And he asks him essentially, do you believe it's true? And there Socrates kind of refuses to say yes or no. He sort of famously refuses to rationalize this myth. He says, "I could, you know, I could come up with some rationalization like a skeptic, like a wise person, like you wise young people. I could come up with some sort of skeptical interpretation where I dismissed it." But he says, "I'd rather, you know, instead of doing that, I'd rather use this myth as a way to kind of investigate myself, fulfill the Delphic maxim, figure out um what kind of a creature I am." And then he says, "Whether I am, you know, um, uh, whether I am more complicated and puffed up than Typhon, the sort of famous, um, famously hybrid, uh, complicated creature, or whether I am a simpler, gentler sort of thing." Um, now that's what happens in the original Fedrris. What's interesting about what Apileus does with this at the beginning of the Metamorphosis is it's it's not only very tongue and cheek, it's not only very on the nose. I kind of agree that, you know, naming him Socrates and especially having him go to Thessaly, which is where, you know, his friends try to get him to go in the Kredo. So, it's this sort of like weirdly fanfiction version of Socrates. Um, like what if he had actually, you know, skipped town, left the jail, and gone to Thessal, what would he become like? And this is sort of what he'd become like. I agree that it's very on the nose. But what's interesting about what Apilus does there is he kind of does this very parodic version of this um opening of the fedrris. If the opening of the fedrris is about um you know self-nowledge and trying to investigate oneself and use sort of stories and myths to come to understand uh the nature one's own nature better. um Lucius has no interest in this sort of thing and he in fact um you know in the fedrris it's two interlocutors walking outside the walls of the city having this conversation and Lucius sort of adds himself perhaps unwantedly to this group of two travelers who are having this conversation about the nature of stories and whether or not they're true and then he just bursts in without any clue about what this story is actually about. He hasn't heard it yet. And he bursts in with a whole theory of why it must be true and why we have to believe it and why, you know, the value of the story exists in its ability to sort of make our journey a little bit lighter and to sort of distract us. And so what's interesting is he takes Apileus takes this sort of um Fedran model of the typhonic choice of using stories and myths to um investigate oneself to try and um understand one's own nature better. and he shows Lucius as this kind of antisoccratic um interlocular who has no interest in um a whether or not the story is true and b um whether or not it has any value as a tool of sort of self-improvement or self-nowledge or um sort of self assessment. rather he's interested in um the story as a tool of distraction, as a kind of means of escaping the harsh road of life. And this is where kind of once again the Heraclean uh choice between a rough path and a smooth path kind of comes in because he takes very much the antisoccratic uh almost like a parody of Socrates. He takes the smooth path and the smooth path is tell me your you know interesting uh kind of uh you know unbelievable tale. I want to believe it and it's going to you know whether or not it's true. It's still um it still makes the the journey better because I don't have to because I get to sort of escape the tedium and and suffering of of the path. Does that kind of answer answer your question? Yes. Yes, absolutely. I think that um I think that it's kind of all over the place in terms of the um the choice that Lucius eventually makes at the end to go from um an Odysius figure to a a Socratic figure. And this ties into my next question, the the last book of the republic, right? Um so the last book of the republic of and of course the myth of her is a very important text um you know in the platonic corpus um it's also a very problematic text but it's also um interesting in the fact that it shows a guest chosing choosing to be um instead of like this adventurous person who know who learn tries to learn everything um he chooses just to be like a normal guy who's not interested in other people's affairs at all. He just wants to live like a like a normal life. So, this is very important um for Lucius's transformation in the in the golden ass. So, could you discuss uh the Republic's relationship to Appalas's novel um especially the prologue in book 11? Yeah. Uh certainly, certainly. I think I think there's some something sort of interesting. Um so so as you know you know the the my final interpretation of book 11 and maybe I'll just put my cards out on the table um at the very beginning but my final interpretation of book 11 is that what Apilus does is kind of brilliantly rewrite the myth of in the genre of the novel. If the myth of is as you say um a kind of jarring conclusion to the republic, right, the republic has sort of nine books of of intense argumentation about the nature of justice and what one what path one should take in life and it uses sort of that same metaphor of taking certain roads and whether or not the road is harsh or or smooth. If it does that for nine books, it closes in this very odd kind of esqueological myth. Um, and one of the interesting pieces of this myth, um, it's not just interested in sort of some of the the same uh uh philosophical questions as as Apileas's uh uh uh on the god of Socrates for instance about you know the nature of externals and superficialities and so on and so forth. But it actually concludes with um this kind of parade of figures from myth um who come forward in the myth of at the very end and receive new lives. They receive sort of um they come they come from their home life and they get um rearticulated. They have a reincarnation of a sort in this sort of um esqueological setting in this judgment in this final judgment scene. They get a new life. They get to choose it, but it's also kind of given to them. It's both a feature of of fortune, fortuna or tuhe. Um, and it's also uh kind of partially on them to make the choice. These characters like Ajax and Agamemnon and Orpheus from the mythical cycles, from the Trojan cycle, and so on and so forth, they come forward and they get new lives and they uh get reincarnated as something else. And um what's interesting about what Apilus is doing is the book of uh the Isis book, book 11 is in part about Lucius getting a new life. Um and and before he gets this new life, he too witnesses a kind of parade of figures from um from earlier books in the novel uh kind of coming back to life and being um adapted under Isis's um under sort of the eegis of Isis's grace into being sort of transformed into new figures. And this, I argue, is all a setup for Lucius's final uh uh transformation, right? He's transformed into an ass early in the book, early in the novel. That's part partially because of his sort of failure to um take the typhonic choice seriously and his failure to um do this kind of self-investigation of his own motives and his own interests. But in the end, in the Isis book, he um comes back uh once he has an anamorphosis, once he becomes a human again, Isis transforms him into a human again. Um his priest says he's lost his curiosity. Um and this is a sort of famous problem in Apile studies. What does it mean that does did he actually lose his curiosity? Does he, you know, is he is his curiosity just redirected or whatever? But what I'm trying to argue in in my analysis of book 11 is that actually what this does is it replicates what happens to Odysius in the myth of in the myth of after this parade of characters. The last person in that parade of characters is the soul of Odysius comes forward and makes a life choice. And the the life he chooses is one um of argmosune of basically not cur not curious right he chooses an incurious life of an individual. In this sense, Odysius in the myth of um kind of chooses to become more like Socrates, right? He chooses the life that Socrates is sort of advocating for in that typhonic choice, right? In that typhonic choice, he's advocating don't investigate the things of other people. Don't be a busy body. Don't sort of be interested in other people's stuff. instead um you know follow the life of a a sort of arrogone person of a of a uncurious person about other people's things. Odysius in the end of the myth of makes this same choice and what I argue in the book is that Apileus is in fact sort of um rewriting in this mythical or in this novelistic kind of landscape in the genre of the novel. He's kind of rewriting a version of this transformation from an Odicius into a Socrates. And I think uh catabossis has a whole lot to do with it, right? Becoming an ass is a form of a catabosis. I think the republic is a story of ups and downs, right? The republic begins with the with a a word kbane. I went down. It begins with the word for catabossis. So the beginning is a catabsis. You go, you know, you have these moments of ascent and then you go back down into the cave and then finally the myth of is a kind of catabsis and Apilus I think is kind of replicating this in the structure of the of the metamorphoses that we have a series of kind of catabes and anabes of of going down and going up. And then finally we conclude with this um kind of replication of the myth of where Lucius himself performs one final catabsis to the underworld and then returns to become kind of a daimone for us. Absolutely. And before we get into this very important aspect of your argument in the book, um I wanted to um stay on the the last book for a second, specifically the the very last sentence, which is a point of contention for a lot of scholars in terms of how the rest of the book should be interpreted, right? Um, you have uh so many different answers to this question, but how how has this last sentence been interpreted? I know Winkler uh points out for instance that this is uh kind of the key to knowing that this book is kind of like a kind of like a a joke in a sense, like a you know parody. But um lots of other scholars have different answers uh you know serial comic things like that. So, you could kind of talk about this last sentence and and how it ties into uh looking at the rest of the previous books. Yeah, it's a great question and I it's one that I um have uh kind of a complicated answer to, but I will. So, so maybe I'll maybe I'll sort of review some of the problems of the last sentence and then talk about my answer to it. Um there are there are kind of two main problems with the last sentence that that scholars like to kind of focus on. one is that Lucius um shaves his head again and he he's had now multiple initiations to Isis and then finally in the end to Osiris's cult and he shaves his head again and then it says in this very sort of elaborate um peripherysis this s sort of like very um elaborate phrasing that he uncovers his bald head and he reveals it and and then he says I I having uncovered ed my bald head and revealed it. I joyfully went around performing my duties in uh the cult of Osiris, right? He and the word that he uses in the very end there is this word obam um obetto which is um it's a complicated word to translate. It means you know um to go around sometimes it means to die. Um so some scholars have seen um in it that that this sort of form of conversion is a form of death especially because this is the opposite of how um Avid's metamorphosis ends with weewam I will live um Apulus's metamorphosis ends with abbomb I was dying um so there's a couple of problems with with this sentence one is the baldness people think it's sort of buffoonish and kind of a joke that he's bald again and that he's sort of doubly bald. And some people see this last word as problematic both in its um meaning in what the word means. Does it actually mean I went around or does it is it sort of a a kind of death that it is is conversion a kind of death of self? Um and then there's a second problem with that word which is which is abbomb is in the imperfect tense which is very important for for Winkler's argument that the the transformation is sort of never completed right the imperfect tense is the tense of of incompleted action. It it sort of it keeps going. He's never really finished and it kind of highlights the distance between the narrator and and and the character of the book. But also it it seems to suggest that actually this conversion isn't isn't really complete or real. It's just going to keep going on forever. So these are sort of the the problems that people identify with the with that last sentence. And I have kind of two answers which actually show up um in fact at the beginning and at the end of my book. The one is uh is about the baldness. Um, one of the interesting things about the baldness in that phrase is that is in fact this periphist that he uses this sort of um double phrase to explain that he's shaved his head again and he's uncovering his head. He uses these two terms of of sort of revealing and uncovering my head. And I argue in the beginning of the book that actually um this is exactly the phrasing more or less except in Greek that Socrates uses in Plato's Fedrris when he gives what they call a palenode. There's a there's a a kind of the Fedrris um I don't know how how much detail to get in here, but the Fedrris basically in the Fedrris Socrates gives two speeches about love and the first speech about love is kind of debased and about sort of like a utilitarian kind of um or or a kind of um I don't know objectifying love where you where you just take what you want. And in the second speech, he he describes love as a kind of divine experience. And in between these speeches, he apologizes to Aeros, the god of love, um, for giving a debased speech. And he says, I'm going to give a sort of redeemed speech. And then he uses this phrase as as he's transitioning from one speech to the other. He says, "I'm going to uncover my head because I'm no longer ashamed and I'm going to deliver a palanode." Right? So, on the one hand, Apileus sort of quotes this moment, this moment of palenode um at the very end of his text, which I think is odd and I think is worth sort of thinking about. Is there a palenode? Is rereading the text itself a kind of palenode? um is sort of Winkler's retrospective reading. Could we actually talk about a kind of palenotic reading where he's you're rereading the book with a newly un with a new understanding of the meaning and actually all of it sort of changes under the eegis of ISIS. So that's sort of one answer I have to the final sentence um is this this phrasing about the baldness. Um the second one is about this this term abom which can mean to die but cannot mean it here. It really can't mean the sort of grammatically syntactically that's not possible. In fact, the phrase that um it is much more akin to is this usage of the word which means to perform duties and it is a usage of the word that is specifically used in Apiles of dimonies of these of these intermediary figures that they obo that they perform duties for the gods. Right? So in my view, Apilus is in fact flagging the sort of dmonic nature um the intermediary nature of his novel with this final word. He's using he's using it in a way that signals that actually this text is supposed to be a kind of intermediary for you the reader. Um and I think that's really that's the only way syntactically that the word can work in this in this uh in this translation. um for reasons I don't need to get into. So, you know, scholars want it to mean to die. They want it to mean they want the imperfect tense to have some sort of great significance. But to me, I think the most important piece is that Apilus is playing the role again and again of intermediary for his reader. Lucius, his sort of buffoonish um you know, character is actually playing the role of intermediary for his for his readers. Absolutely. And this ties perfectly into the last question I have which is very important and a crux of your argument and uh crux of interpreting the novel and Appalas's conception of himself as an intermediary. Um, and of course this of course this of course gets into the um the change at the end of the novel from this young learned rich Greek be beautiful rich Greek young man to this poor man from Maduros. Um, so this actually ties um really well this actually ties it very importantly into the provenence of the novel. Um because depending on Appalachas's what point in time you put it in Appalachas's career, it could be earlier, it could be later. Um I'm partial to the later just because he doesn't mention it in the Appalogia. Um but um scholars have posited several different points of origin and time and place for the metamorphoses as well as the intended readership. A lot of people think that it was written for a Roman audience. Uh but you argued that it's it's essential to take the role of North Africa seriously, especially because Appalas um if you look at all of his works, he really takes it seriously that he's translating these concepts for a North African audience. Um so Appalas's intended readers and trans and the transmission of the text North Africa plays an extremely important role because um the mo the earliest um the earliest references to Appalas and we won't talk about Tertullian but you know they're talked about that backstage about how he's probably um talking about Appalas is or referring to the golden ass and his against the Valentinians uh in one of the sections. But um you know you have people like Augustine who are the first kind of people to talk about Appalas. Um so tell us more about the importance of North Africa in um Appalas's uh transmission of these ideas to his audience. Yeah, absolutely. I think um let's see where to begin. It's um this is one of the complicated stories because we don't know when Apilus wrote the metamorphosis or where he wrote the metamorphosis. Um it's kind of open season for people to try and guess at who his intended audience is and or was and um and sort of where he was pitching this novel. um the kind of traditional story and one of the seinal pieces on this is uh um I think by Ken Dowen, but I would have to maybe double check. Um uh but the traditional story is that um you know he's he's pitching this at a Roman readership. One of the pieces of evidence for this or the primary piece of evidence for this is that it's a very um literary elusive novel that you know it's um full of references that seem to be directed to Rome to Romans right references um that seem very erudite and um and uh kind of learned right and I think um this is kind of the the other kind secondary piece of evidence is that Apilus would be pretty unique in pitching um his writing to a provincial audience to an audience outside of Rome. Um and then there's a kind of archaeological piece to it which is um you know this house that Filippo Coarelli found in Aia um that you know may or may not have been inhabited by Apuas. there's some there's some evidence that um some people think this is Apileus's house and it you know um has some sort of mystical components um embedded in it and so on and so forth. So people tell a lot of stories. Um you know there are a lot of ways to tell the story about how Apilus moved to Aia and started sort of writing for Romans um at a certain point in time and then if you line it up with certain periods in his career it seems to work. Um I think um there's been something of a reaction against this kind of traditional story. Um some of the big shots in this are, you know, so um Julia Giser um talks about the transmission of Apilus's metamorphosis and um what she labels the African connection, which is to say that almost all of the references and illusions to Apulus that we have to his metamorphosis in particular um seem to come for the most part out of North Africa as you said, Augustine, but there are others all seem to come for the most part out of North Africa. Um, but that's a problematic kind of connection because, you know, they don't really appear for 150 years aside from maybe this statue that that alludes to, you know, the the the uh the Platonic philosopher, this sort of epigraph to the statue, which seems to allude to Apilus, but doesn't allude to the metamorphoses. The earliest references we have to the metamorphoses are much much later. but out of North Africa. Um the sort of second uh line of attack that people take or or approach that people take is something like what Luke Graini does in his book literature and identity um in Apuas's golden ass. Uh he really investigates how Apulus kind of um alludes to uh how how his his learned illusions have a kind of a North African um provincial patina uh patina to them. Excuse me. A north a North African provincial patina to them. Um one uh kind of example of this is the fact that the novel ends in Corinth for Luca Graini. This is kind of an interesting alignment with Carthage because Corinth is, you know, yet another city that was kind of raised by the Romans in the 2n century B.CE. Um, and so, you know, there's a kind of uh shared uh past with Corinth that would be appealing to Carthaginians. So there's there's a the the geer kind of African connection. The transmission of this text is only through North Africa it seems. There's b the gravini approach which is that um you know illusions um in Apilus's novel specifically illusion illusions to Virgil um seem in large part to have a kind of African spin to them, a North African spin to them. Um, and what I am suggesting sort of in light of a recent article by Luca Gillo about, you know, how Tertullian was was likely reading Apilus' metamorphoses within 20 to 30 years is I'm suggesting that if if that's actually true, if Tertullian is reading the metamorphosis and alluding to it, which is to say he's reading it and then also expecting his readers to understand and recognize is the illusion. Then that changes the way that we read this closing problem of the metamorphosis. This modernis problem, the matern problem, the fact that Lucius transforms from a sort of rich elite Greek into a um poor uh a poor man from Madar from from Madawas, right? which is you know people have been bothered by this kind of inconsistency that that Lucius starts out Greek and ends ends North African. Well, if we take the African sort of readership seriously then actually this is a very interesting kind of reader response. This is very interesting in terms of my reader response approach because Madoren actually sort of um reorients the relationship of the reader to the text, right? Lucius goes to um a priest that's named specifically Asinius, right? Which is, you know, the word essentially that means ass, right? He goes to a a man from Madaros goes to the assman to be initiated into, you know, the cult of Isis and Osiris. And and that if if in fact this is being read by North Africans, that completely changes our relationship to this text. That that jarring sort of transformation of Lucius into a man from Madaros is in fact kind of implicating the reader, if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. Because he uh it forces the reader to self-identify if especially if it's a North African uh reading this text. Um it forces them to look at the their implication in this debauchery that's happened in the past 10 books. Fun debauchery, but you know, still you gota have a philosophical choice. Uh you know. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's that's what I'm trying to argue at the end of the book is is that is that that meadowans really does actually implicate the reader and sort of point it becomes and if it works together with that quiz ila who is that that where is that demonstrative pointing it points back at you at the reader it sort of makes it uh very complicated and very um interesting to read this book right because you have participated and then all of a sudden it jarringly you know, points out that a a man from Madaros goes to Asman to be initiated into the into the cult of the gods, right? And it turns out, oh, wait a second, maybe I'm doing that. Maybe I'm the man from Madaros, you know, going to the Assan to to to figure out the divine. Um, and there there is a a sort of I think there's a kind of jarring um uh uh implication of the reader in that moment for sure. Yeah, maybe I'm being seduced by the sweet sounds of cicas. We didn't get to the cicada is of course very important in the federus but uh very important to your work in grain arguments as well. Um but yeah um Jeff this has been fantastic. I I always love talking but this has been an especially special conversation. Um if you have anything you feel we missed or you want to emphasize before we go or if you have anything to plug feel free to use this time. Um, I don't think so. I think we I think we we covered it all. I really appreciate your um you you know, you read my book very thoroughly and I um and and you asked some really great questions and I feel like I'm really grateful to you for for this time that uh this has been a great conversation. Absolutely. And everybody go check out Jeff's articles on academia. Um and uh you know, lots of great stuff. Uh if you I know the book's a bit pricey. ask your library to order it, you know. Um, uh, and and a lot of the the articles do shed some light on the book as well. So, uh, a nice nice teaser and taster for that. Um, but, uh, yeah, Jeeoff, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much, uh, for talking Appalas with me and sharing your time and knowledge. [Music]