Image of Platonic philosopher, rhetorician, and author Lucius Apuleius.

Lucius Apuleius

(c. 124 - c. 171)

Born in a Roman colony in present-day Algeria around 123, Lucius Apuleius studied in Carthage and Athens, later traveling around the Mediterranean and becoming familiar with various religious mysteries. Having returned to Africa and married a wealthy widow, he found it necessary to defend himself against accusations from his in-laws that he practiced magic to win his bride and so delivered his Apologia. Scenes and themes from his work The Golden Ass, one of the few long prose narratives to survive from the ancient world, served as inspirations for Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron and for Miguel de CervantesDon Quixote.

Issues Contributed