Literature and history.

Episode 73, The Golden Ass.

This program is on one of the earliest full novels that has come down to us from

antiquity, a rollicking adventure story called The Golden Ass, written by a Roman provincial

author named Apuleus, likely sometime in the 160s, CE. In a sentence, the novel

is about a strapping young adventurer named Galusius who wants to learn about magic and witchcraft, ends up being transformed

into a donkey, has a long series of perilous adventures, and in the end is able to change back into his human form through the aid of the goddess ISIS.

While the story of Lucius's transformation and redemption is the main narrative threat of the novel.

The Golden Ass is embroidered from beginning to end with dozens of inset narratives, the lengthiest

of which, a 50 or so page long treatment of the myth of Cupid and

psyche is a novella in its own right. Let's talk a bit about the earliest

novels that have survived. The Golden Ass is preceded in literary history by the

Satiracon of Petronius, a now incomplete novel likely a hundred years

younger than the Golden Ass, as well as an ancient Greek novel called

the Coloradoi, written by an author called Cariton of Aphrodisias sometime around the same time.

The latter usually gets the credit for being the earliest novel to survive in

full from antiquity. We have no reason to suspect that either the Satyricon or the Golden

Ass or the Coloraway were the first long works of prose fiction

to be written in Latin and Greek, and I think the sophistication of these works suggests

a long prehistory of prose narratives in the ancient

Mediterranean that's now lost.

So while the earliest roots of prose fiction are unknown, half a dozen or so long romantic adventure stories do survive in full

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