had taken the resolution to slay Lucius, and sew the lady up in his hide, when a young man offered himself as a volunteer to the horde, and they were induced, from his commanding stature, his boasted achievements, and the rich prize he threw into the common stock, to take him at once as their leader. The youth was the lady's lover, and by his manoeuvres soon effected her deliverance. All the inhabitants of her native city turned out to welcome her when she made her triumphal entry on the back of Lucius, and he, to testify his sympathy in the public rejoicing, made the place ring with brayings, according to his own account, as loud as thunder. It would be tedious to follow him through his succeeding misfortunes, so we will pass to the time he spent in the service of a band of mendicant priests. He has described this passage of his life at some length. The priests presented a fantastic appearance. Their faces were painted, and the insides of their eyelids darkened after the manner of Eastern women. They wore white tunics striped with purple, turbans, and yellow sandals. Their arms were bare, and in their hands were large swords or axes. In this guise they danced along in procession, with a wild step to the music of flutes, cymbals, and castanets, till they arrived at the mansion of some rich proprietor, who was willing to repay a grand exhibition of their rites. Those rites were gloomy and hideous. As the band entered they made the premises ring with discordant howlings, and ran to and fro with frantic gestures. They whirled their heads till their long hair stood out on end, and tore their flesh with their teeth and knives. Then one of the party, taking the lead, and panting deeply, pretended to be the subject of a more complete possession;-as though, says Lucius, the presence of the gods made men weak instead of strong. In a loud chaunt, he accused himself of some imaginary violation of their rules, requiring for its expiation punishment from his own hand. Seizing a whip, strung with the knucklebones of sheep,-the peculiar implement of their order,--he lashed himself severely, without betraying the least sense of pain. This exhibition continued till the earth was moistened with blood. At its close the spectators vied in offering them money and presents of every kind, which the flagellants, well provided with wallets for the purpose, greedily scraped together and piled upon Lucius, who discharg | ed the double function of a "locomotive granary and temple." In this way they plundered the whole neighborhood. Once, indeed, they were discovered while performing some disgraceful orgies, and compelled, for fear of public ridicule, to decamp. But no sooner had they got beyond the reach of this report, than they were again received everywhere with reverence. Nor was this feeling confined to the lower classes. On their approach to a town of considerable importance, one of the principal inhabitants, "a religious man and one that feared the gods greatly," hearing the cymbals, came out to meet them, and hospitably entertained them during their stay. At another place, they were pampered for several days at the public expense. Here they were held in high repute for their skill in divination. They were consulted on all the important emergencies of life,-the choice of a wife, the purchase of a farm, the success of a journey, or an expedition against banditti. Their fees were large, and their labor small, for they answered all comers in one formula, which the craft of the priests interpreted to suit each particular case. length, however, their knavery was exposed. Under pretence of celebrating their secret rites, they repaired to the temple of the Mother of the Gods, and stole thence a sacred goblet. The theft was speedily discovered; the whole band was summarily thrown into prison; and Lucius put up to auction. At An He was bought by a baker, “a kindhearted and highly respectable man." We are careful to give his character, that his establishment may not be supposed to imply monstrous inhumanity. It was one of the workhouses into which were crowded the slaves who formed the manufacturing population of the Roman world. We are not often admitted to see their interior. Profound indifference rather than any desire of concealment has caused our exclusion. cient writers did not care to describe what none cared to read. But this indifference had for some time been giving way. Seneca had laid down a new rule for the treatment of slaves, that a man should do to his inferiors as he would his superiors should do to him. Hadrian and Antoninus Pius took the first steps towards embodying in laws the maxims of the Stoic philosopher. The absolute jurisdiction of life and death over slaves was transferred from their masters to the prefect of the city. They were allowed to appeal to him in cases of cruelty, starvation, and gross personal affront. It is to this altered state of public feeling we probably owe the following account of Lucius's first view of the human inmates of their common abode : "What a stunted set of human beings did I see before me! Their lacerated backs and shoulders, shaded rather than covered with ragged cloaks, were marked with black and blue wheals; | per of the Lord with such disgust, that no man allowed his wife to go to it without a feeling of suspicion. His next master was a gardener, who drove him every morning to the neighboring market with a load of fresh vegetables, and on his return shared with him his evening meal of "rancid lettuces as coarse as brooms." While here, he had an opportunity of observing two significant instances of the insecurity of life and property at a distance from the:: some had only a slight covering round the waist, The baker had a wife, who took an extra ordinary dislike to Lucius. Before day-break, while in bed, she called out for the new ass to be harnessed to the wheel; her first act, on getting up, was to order him to be beaten; and he was the last led back to the manger. In return, he has described her character in terms of the bitterest hatred : "The heart of that most detestable woman was like a common cesspool, in which all the evil dispositions of our nature were collected together. There was actually no description of wickedness wanting. She was cruel, malevolent, abandoned, drunken, obstinate, close-fisted, avaricious in grasping, profuse in dissipation, an enemy to good faith, a foe to chastity. Then despising and trampling under foot the deities, in place of the true worship, she set up a false and impious imagination of a god, whom she might style the Only God; and, deceiving her neighbors and betraying her miserable husband by the pretence of her empty observances, she abandoned herself to morning draughts of wine and unceasing adultery." The character may be summed up in one sentence the lady was a Christian. Such, at least, has been the supposition of the most learned critics. She is not indeed called by the name, but some of the features bear the closest resemblance to, and none are at variance with, the popular conception of the character. The word which expresses her creed, "an imagination of a God," is the same which, a quarter of a century afterwards, Tertullian mentions as specifically applied by heathens to the Christian faith. The empty observances, and the morning draughts of wine recall to our minds the letter Pliny wrote to Trajan, and the charge of impurity finds an illustration in the remark of Tertullian, that the heathen viewed the sup There was a cottager whose small farm adjoined the domains of a youthful and rich proprietor, who employed his family influence, and his position at the head of his party, to lord it over the city. He made open war upon his poor neighbor, killed his sheep, drove away his oxen, and trampled down his growing corn. After robbing him of the fruits of his industry, he became eager to eject him from his field, and upon some pettifogging quibble, laid claim to the whole property. The cottager, anxious to save enough of his patrimony for a grave, called together a large party of his fellow-citizens to beat his bounds. They expostulated in the mildest terms with the great man, but were answered with threats. A voice then exclaimed that it was vain for him to play the tyrant because of his wealth, for the law gave protection to the poor against the insolence of the rich. The words fell like oil upon fire. The tyrant maddened bade his shepherds let slip their dogs, and hark them. on to the attack. The faster the party fled, the more keenly the hounds pursued, and many were torn in pieces. In the end, how ever, some satisfaction is made to our sense of But the tyranny of the wealthy was not the only species of oppression to which the poor in the provinces were exposed. The military quartered in the district treated the inhabitants with despotic insolence, and hardy indeed was the civilian, who, with justice on his side, dared to contend against a soldier. It is the history of all governments, which depend for their maintenance on the army. As the gardener was riding home on Lucius, musing over the occurrence just related, he was awakened from his reverie by a gaunt legionary demanding the ass for the use of his commanding officer, and enforcing the demand with a blow. The gardener wiped away the blood which streamed from his head, and mildly begged him to spare so sluggish and unsafe an animal. But the soldier was inexorable, and was on the point of ending the controversy by dashing out the brains of the civilian, when the gardener, by a feint, tripped him up, and pommelling him soundly, left him for dead. He seized his sword, and rode off with it at full speed to hide himself till the affair blew over. The soldier slunk to barracks, ashamed and afraid, for by the Roman articles of war, the soldier who parted with his sword was to be treated as a deserter. His comrades took up his cause, and laid an information against the gardener, for refusing to give up a silver dish, the property of their commanding officer, which, they alleged, he had found. With their help, the magistrates discovered his hiding-place, and threw him into prison to answer the charge; and there being no one now to object, the soldier took possession of Lucius. Cenchreæ, laid himself down to sleep in a retired spot on the sea-shore. When he awoke, the moon was just rising above the waves. He prayed to her, as the Queen of Heaven, to save him from his debased condition, and restore him to his former self. In answer to his prayer, Isis appeared,—revealing herself as the one deity worshipped under many names, and bidding him wait till the morrow for deliverance. In return, she demanded that he should consider the remainder of his life pledged to her service, to be spent in diligent obedience, devout ministrations, and inviolable purity. There In the morning, the streets of Cenchreæ were filled with crowds running hither and thither, preparing to celebrate the festival of Isis. Its contrast with the gloomy rites we witnessed just now is too marked not to be intentional. Their dismal howlings told of We are fast approaching the end of his sin and expiation, the song of this is of mercy wanderings. He passed into the hands of a and thankfulness. They were sullied with rich Corinthian, who being anxious to signal- hypocrisy and crime, this is all joy and ize his accession to office by an exhibition of purity. Even the objects of nature are supmore than usual magnificence, had come to posed to sympathize in the rejoicings of the Thessaly to collect wild beasts and gladia-day. The ceremonial is minutely described. tors. To his surprise, he discovered in Lucius In front, were humorous representations of the power of living upon human food, and, the different pursuits of mankind. in consequence, determined upon assigning was the hunter, the soldier, the gladiator, him a part in the spectacle. What that part the magistrate, the philosopher, the fowler, was, we must pass over in silence. On any the fisherman, each with the emblems of his supposition--whether these chapters contain craft. There were also animals, connected an account of an actual occurrence, or are by mythological fancy with the worship of merely a caricature-the fact, that a man of Isis. A tame bear sat in a car, in the garb high character should write, and hearers of a matron; the part of Ganymede was perlisten to them, is evidence of depravity we formed by an ape; and an ass, with a pair might have disbelieved, had it not been cor- of wings glued to his back in imitation of roborated by pictures and pieces of sculp- Pegasus, walked beside a Bellerophon in the ture still remaining. The exhibition opened person of a decrepit old man. Next came with a ballet. Change the close atmosphere the procession. A troop of women preceded of a modern opera-house for a spacious the image of the goddess, carrying mirrors amphitheatre open to the sky-the glare of on their shoulders, to reflect her figure. gas lamps for the bright light of a spring Some with ivory combs imitated the action morning-and we can have no difficulty in of dressing her hair; others sprinkled perpicturing to ourselves the "Judgment of fumes along the path, or brandished torches. Paris," as it was represented that day at They marched to the chant of a chorus, with Corinth. The mazy dance of the corps of an accompaniment of flutes and cymbals. ballet girls, the scenery, the pantomime-in Then followed the main body of the initiated a word, the whole representation might be -a crowd of men and women of all ranks modern, except that public opinion in Corinth and ages, dressed in white linen. The men allowed a nearer approach to the costume in had their heads shaved. Priests of tall which the goddesses appeared on Mount Ida, stature carried the sacred vessels-a golden than would be tolerated now-a-days, even in lamp like a boat, a palm tree, an altar, a poses plastiques. model of the left hand, to signify fair dealing, and a winnowing-fan. Next were borne aloft the emblems of the gods-the dog Anubis, with his faces half sable, half gold; a cow, the type of production; an ark; and lastly, an object in the likeness neither of beast, nor The slaves who had the charge of Lucius were so engrossed with the spectacle, that they left him to his own devices. He took advantage of the opportunity to escape, and galloping away to the neighboring town of bird, nor even human being-a small urn, covered with hieroglyphics, with a handle of the shape of an asp, the peculiar symbol of the goddess. The high-priest closed the train, and, forewarned in a dream, paused at the approach of Lucius, to offer him his garland. He tasted, and the promise of the deity was fulfilled. The transformation was reversed. His neck, his ears, his teeth, reassumed their human dimensions, and his tail, the feature in his asinine incarnation most galling, completely vanished. The priest explained to him the events of his life. In youth, notwithstanding the advantages of birth, social position, and learning, he had given way to debasing pleasures and illfated curiosity. But the punishment which the blindness of Fortune had inflicted, had brought him to a better mind. Calamity had no hold over those whose lives the goddess claimed for herself. "Let the unhallowed behold, let them behold and acknowledge their error. Lo, delivered from his former woes by the providence of the mighty Isis, Lucius has triumphed over his destiny. Still, to be more secure, enlist in our sacred army. Devote thyself from this hour to the observance of our ritual, and freely take the yoke of its service; for when thou hast begun to serve the goddess, thou wilt more truly enjoy liberty.' When the rites of the day were celebrated, and the mimic ship sacred to Isis had been launched, to secure a prosperous navigatiou for the season, the crowd dispersed to spread abroad the fame of the miracle, and Lucius prepare to obey the monition of the goddess. A sense of religious awe delayed awhile his initiation. The ritual was difficult of observance. It ordained a severe rule of abstinence, and a life of the utmost circumspection. The high-priest, too, checked his impatience, representing the impiety of haste as no less than that of disobedience to the call. At length, however, the will of the goddess was clearly revealed, and he was admitted to initiation. He was bathed and sprinkled with pure water. Ten days of fasting were then prescribed. On the evening of the tenth day, the people flocked from all directions, according to ancient custom, to present him with their offerings. Presently the profane were ordered to withdraw, and the priest led him into the innermost sanctuary. We will hear from himself what he saw : "I approached the abode of death; with my foot I pressed the threshold of Proserpine's palace. I was transported through the elements, and con ducted back again. At midnight I saw the bright light of the sun shining. I stood in the presence of the gods, the gods of heaven and of the shades And below; ay, stood near and worshipped. now have I only told thee such things, that, hearing, thou necessarily canst not understand; and, being beyond the comprehension of the profane, I can enunciate without committing a crime." In the morning the people were again admitted to see him, placed like a statue in the middle of the temple, in a linen robe embroidered with hieroglyphics, and a crown. of palm leaves. This was his spiritual birthday, and was spent in festivity and social intercourse. On the third day the same rites were repeated, and the initiation was then complete. Though Lucius has told us that it is beyond our comprehension, there can be little doubt but that the ceremony typified death and a resurrection. After this he went to Rome, and was there initiated into the mysteries of Osiris, which differed widely from those of Isis, in the mode of their celebration, though the two deities were closely connected, or, more Osiris properly speaking, substantially one. revealed to him that he should become famous for his forensic success; and to distinguish him from the great body of his sacred profession, appointed him to a high office among the Pastophori, an order whose. duty it was to bear the pall in the processions of the god. "Thenceforward," says Lucius, " I fulfilled my duty as a member of that ancient college; and, with a head newly and thoroughly shaved, joy. fully exposed my bald pate to the gaze of the multitude whithersoever I went." Such is the outline of a story which acquired considerable popularity from the middle of the second to the fourth century. Its interest was increased by a curious theological discussion. When in their controversies with their heathen neighbors, the early Christians appealed for confirmation to the miracles of our Lord, they were met by a counter-appeal to current accounts of wonders performed by reputed magicians. Apuleius was ranked in this class, and the metamorphoses of Lucius, under which name he was supposed to represent himself, were quoted among his miracles. Lactantius and Jerome in the third century both allude to the dispute. At a later period Marcellinus applied to his father for an answer. The answer is remarkable. Apuleius has himself denied any knowledge of magic; and Augustin was obviously inclined to give credit to the denial, though he was staggered by the universality of the rumor, and from feeling that those who started the difficulty would not appreciate so simple a solution. Adopting therefore the popular version, he contrasted him with David. Born in the higher ranks, highly educated and of great eloquence, he never with all his arts succeeded in obtaining any judicial office in the republic. And yet his actions showed that he was not insensible to ambition. He did his best, and his failure was due to want of power, not of will. David, on the contrary, not by magic, but by pleasing God, rose from a shepherd to a king. Without much astuteness, the heathen opponent might have replied that Apuleius was not really ambitious. He retired early in life from Rome to his native place Madaura, and there reached the highest judicial post a colony had to offer. He speaks with pride of succeeding to his father's office, and it is a fair conclusion that his ambition looked no higher. Be this as it may, the answer seems to have proved good as an argumentum ad homines, for we hear no more of the question. questionably," from the beginning to the end of the "adventures of his hero Lucius, it was himself whom he intended to personate;" while nearly all modern scholars of authority take a different view. This last is our opinion. If we except, perhaps, the scene describing the initiation, they have apparently no more in common than any other novelist of manners and his hero; though much that the hero relates must most probably consist of the experience of the novelist. Apuleius hated magic, because it had exercised a real and unpleasant influence upon his life. While studying at Athens, he became intimate with a young man, Pontianus, an African like himself. Pontianus's mother, Pudentilla, was a rich lady of forty, who had remained in widowhood thirteen years, for the sake of her sons. That reason no longer applied; and now her own inclination prompted, her family advised, and her physicians prescribed, matrimony. Pontianus fixed upon Apuleius as worthy of being his mother's husband and his own stepfather; and he proceeded in the matter like an adept in But we should wrong Augustin were we match-making. Apuleius happened to be to suppose his "strong, capacious, and visiting at Ea, the modern Tripoli, where argumentative mind could rest satisfied Pudentilla lived, on his way to Alexandria. with this solution. In his work "On the Pontianus sounded him on the subject of City of God," he has attempted to account marriage, and seing his unwillingness, enfor the phenomenon consistently with phi- treated him not to risk his health by travellosophy and religion. If true, it must be ling that winter, but to wait till next year, attributed to the agency of demons, beings when he would himself accompany him,to whom the power of creation, or of effect- begging him meanwhile to remain in their ing real transformations, is denied by God, house, which was healthy, and commanded and the power of producing deceptive ap- a view of the sea. Apuleius acquiesced, and pearances alone conceded. Through some common studies cemented his friendship with inexplicable exercise of that power, the the lady. The favorable moment at length phantasy of one man, that part of us which, arrived; when after the delivery by Apuleius though itself incorporeal, assumes with of a very successful public lecture, Pontianus strange rapidity in thought, or sleep, a told him that the whole of Ea agreed he thousand corporeal shapes, is made to appear would make an excellent husband for Pudento another in the form of an animal; in such tilla. She was, he admitted, a widow witha manner that, while the one, far removed out personal attractions; adding, with a and buried in deep sleep, imagines himself an shrewd knowledge of his friend's weaknesses, animal carrying a load, the other sees, not a that to reserve himself in hope of a match real animal, but the appearance of an animal, for beauty or money, was unbecoming a carrying a load, which, if real, is carried by friend and a philosopher. His wish to travel the unseen demon. Our first impulse is to was the difficulty; but soon he became as laugh, but Augustin had to explain the evi- eager to win the lady as if he had made the dence of persons who testified to having offer. Now her connections began to object. heard of, and actually seen, such tansforma- Pontianus was gained over to their faction, tions. The controversy has left no trace, and every obstacle was placed in the way of except that of compelling each succeeding the lovers, of course without success. The editor to examine the proof of identity be- opposition, nevertheless, did not cease even tween Apuleius and his hero. The earlier upon the marriage. They prosecuted him in commentators are nearly equally divided on the Court of the Proconsul for dealing in the subject. Sir George Head says, "Un-magic, and so obtaining the lady's affections. |