Apologia. Florida. De Deo Socratis

by Apuleius, Christopher P. Jones (Translator)

Apuleius, one of the great stylists of Latin literature, was born ca. 125 AD in Madauros to a politically prominent family and received an elite education in the provincial capital Carthage and at Athens, where he began a lifelong allegiance to Platonic philosophy. In the later 150s, he married Pudentilla of Oea, a wealthy widow, and seems to have enjoyed a distinguished public career in Africa and perhaps as an advocate in Rome.

Although Apuleius is best known for his picaresque novel Metamorphoses or The Golden Ass (LCL 44, 453), he also wrote and declaimed on a wide variety of subjects. This edition contains the other surviving works of Apuleius that are considered genuine. Apologia is a speech in which Apuleius defends himself against in-laws who had accused him of having used sinister means, including magic, to induce Pudentilla to marry him. The Florida is a collection of twenty-three excerpts from speeches by Apuleius. De Deo Socratis ( On Socrates’ God ) locates Socrates’ invisible guide and protector ( daimonion ) within the more general concept of daimones as forces intermediary between gods and humans.

This edition, new to the Loeb Classical Library, offers fresh translations and texts based on the best critical editions.

Genres: Classics

448 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 170

About the author

People best know The Golden Ass , work of Roman philosopher and satirist Lucius Apuleius.

Apuleius (Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis “Africanus”; Berber: Afulay) wrote Latin-language prose.

This Berber of Numidia lived under the empire. From Madaurus (now M'Daourouch, Algeria), he studied Platonism in Athens and traveled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt. Several cults or mysteries initiated him.
In the most famous incident in his life, people then accused him of using magic to gain the attentions and fortune of a wealthy widow. Apuleius declaimed and then distributed a witty tour de force in his own defense before the proconsul and a court of magistrates convened in Sabratha, near ancient Tripoli, Libya.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apuleius

Reviews

[soph · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. The Apologia is quite possible the most guilty he could have sounded whilst trying to defend himself. The detour about ichthyology??? Yeah he so did it.

[Mateusz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I treated Apologia as a masterful choice for narrating one' own defense at court. Use of logic, reason, rhetoric, appeal ad personam, various figures of speech that were abudantly perfected for lifting the charges, praising the Arete (virtue), chastising the foolish, stupid and vile, while preserving a blend of magnificent styles. I guess that the most advanced lawyer nowadays wouldn't have the capacity to deliver, nor memorize, nor even dream about repeating such a variete of tools of the trade in the modern day at the judge's order. Dare I not mention modern politicians whose style, vocabulary, and the use of language would be considered that of a perverse, daft, demented ex-prostitute crone of the ancient days.

Florida is a beautiful collection of variete, so you will find many interesting expansions to the knowledge of a classicists, and dare I say I'm not one. Just a lover of classical philology and the muses. My favorite one was the comparison of Alexander the Great' limitations on artists that were allowed to portray him and the parallel wish of Apuleius that it would be his dream for philosophy, lady philosophy to be selective with those who are true philosophers, and discard those who falsely portray her in a crooked and most undelightful, ignorant light.

De Deo Socratis is a select work to further build on the daimonology (angeli bonum / daimonios) and beliefs related to thanatology of the ancients (well, descriptions of types of the dead-kin), as well as the concept of personal daimon that is shaped according to one's nature, inclination, and - hard work. I find it interesting to go back in time and compare it to much later - Iamblichus of Chalcis, as well earlier - Chaldean Oracles, and some fragments from Plutarchs's De Iside et Osiride et al.

[Caleb Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Apuleius is such a joyous challenge to read: effusive, quick-witted, full of irony and humor. It was a joy to read his "Apologia" and "De Deo Socratis."