Apuleius was a North African Roman citizen of the second century A.D.; he was a pagan. He firmly believed that his worship of the goddess Isis was valid pursuit of the One True Faith. In his classic picaresque adventure, The Golden Tale of the Ass (aka The Golden Ass), Apuleius contrived to present a comic odyssey with a moral purpose designed to convince readers of Isis' value as a goddess deserving of devotion.
All odysseys lead to home eventually. In The Golden Ass, Apuleius designs a spiritual odyssey for his hero, the man-turned-ass Lucius; all of Lucius' beastly travails lead, eventually, to the homecoming of its hero into "the mindful love of the Goddess" (248): "O Lucius, what a happy and blessed man are you, whom the august deity has selected for such direct honours . . . the day that you have so constantly desired is come" (248). An analysis of The Golden Ass must begin with an acceptance of the sincerity and legitimacy of Apuleius' pagan beliefs. These are integral to his worldview and literary orientation.
The Golden Ass was not intended solely for an audience of like-thinking Isis worshippers. It was read and clearly understood by the society of cosmopolitan and small-city citizens who populated the Roman Empire. This is not a parochial work of art. As such, the literary orientation of The Golden Ass relies heavily on the Greek mythic traditions which were accepted in the Roman Empire of Apuleius' day. Those myths, of course, had been spread throughout the regions of Asia Minor and the eastern Mediterranean during the Hellenic cultural expansionism fostered by Alexander the Great conquests, half a millennium before Apuleius' time; they were enjoying a revival as a source of Roman popular interest in the second century A.D. The very familiarity of the myths worked to Apuleius' favor. He could satirize the traditional Graeco-Roman gods without seeming to make direct attack, because so much of what he...