The Significance of the Title in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses

When we read the title “Metamorphoses” in ancient books we naturally think of a work like that of Ovid, a work containing a fairly large number of separate myths, generally quite short, and relating, in almost every case, to some ancient and frankly mythical character. The Metamorphoses of Ovid, the Μεταμορφώσεων Συναγωγή of Antoninus Liberalis, and a short list in Westermann’s Paradoxographi Graeci are, I believe, the only published remains of this literature. Other books entitled “Metamorphoses” are known to us from citations in Antoninus, Suidas, and the grammarians, under the names of Parthenius, Didymarchus, Nestor of Laranda, Theodorus, and the sophist Hadrian. To be sure, some of these are otherwise mere names to us, but it is nevertheless certain, from the manner in which they are cited, that their books dealt with the same sort of material as Ovid’s. Among other books of the same class, though with different titles, may be mentioned the earlier works of Nicander (Ἑτεροιούμενα), Antigonus (Ἀλλοιώσεις), and Boius (Ὀρνιθογονία), from some of which Ovid undoubtedly derived suggestions and material for his own work. Now obviously all of these books belong to a definite category. They represent a distinct and well-defined literary tradition centering about the title “Metamorphoses.” Their purpose was no doubt often artistic and epideictic, for many of them were written in verse. But they also had a didactic purpose. They were intended to familiarize the budding rhetorician with classical mythology, to provide him with a handbook of the stock materials indispensable to the professional sophist.¹

In view of this literary tradition, anyone reading Apuleius for the first time experiences some surprise; for he finds that Apuleius’ work differs toto caelo from other books of the same title. Instead of [229|230] a series of stories relating to changes, which seems to be implied by the plural title if by nothing else, he finds, properly speaking, only one. He notices further that this one, instead of being antiquarian, is modern and has nothing to do with classical mythology; that it is several times as long as any myth related in Ovid; that, instead of being heroic or serious, it is farcical; that the man experiencing the change into an ass is a writer² of high social standing; and, in short, that the work is a brilliant piece of literary extravaganza having much more in common with Lucian’s True History or Petronius’ Saturae than with the usual antiquarian compilations called “Metamorphoses.” Confronted with these facts one naturally inquires, Why did Apuleius use this title, seemingly so inappropriate to his work? Can it be that this title is, after all, appropriate? If so, just what does it imply? This latter question, strangely enough, is seldom or never asked. The possibility that Apuleius’ title is appropriate, but intended in a somewhat unusual sense, has in the past been ignored. Almost without exception, scholars have hitherto assumed (without saying much about it) that the title “Metamorphoses” is inappropriate, and that it has been erroneously retained by Apuleius from the original Greek Μεταμορφώσεις, from which he derived his main story, and which, unlike Apuleius’ book, is supposed to have contained a series of separate stories, each involving a transformation and so justifying the plural title in the usual sense. In the same way Helm explains the words of Apuleius on the first page of the Metamorphoses: At ego tibi sermone isto Milesio uarias fabulas conseram—figuras fortunasque hominum in alias imagines conuersas et in se rursum mutuo nexu refectas ut mireris (“But I would like to tie together different sorts of tales for you in that Milesian style of yours, and to caress your ears into approval with a pretty whisper, if only you will not begrudge looking at Egyptian papyrus inscribed with the sharpness of a reed from the Nile, so that you may be amazed at men’s forms and fortunes transformed into other shapes and then restored again in an interwoven knot”). These words, in their most natural interpretation, do not fit the subject-matter of the Metamorphoses, since they seem to promise several stories of change. Therefore, says Helm, they...