us. Beside those already mentioned
there have come down to us two books on the life and philosophy of
Plato,[3] a highly rhetorical treatise on the 'Demon of Socrates', and
a free translation of the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise 'on the
Universe', though Apuleius is regrettably far from making due
acknowledgement of his debt to the original. None of these works can
be described as interesting, though the treatise on the 'Demon of
Socrates' contains some characteristic purple passages.

[Footnote 3: He regarded Plato as his master above all others. We find
_Platonicus_ attached to him as an honorific title in the MSS.]

It would, however, scarcely be an exaggeration to say that more of
Apuleius' works have perished than survived. He has told us in the
_Florida_ (20) that he has written dialogues, hymns, music, history,
and satire. And we have copious references to works from his pen,
that, perhaps fortunately, no longer exist. Beside the three poems
which survive in the _Apologia_ and a translation of a passage of
Menander, preserved in a manuscript once at Beauvais, but now lost
(Baehrens, _Poet. Lat. Min._ 4, p. 104), he mentions a hymn to
Aesculapius, written both in Latin and Greek (_Florida_ 18), and a
panegyric in verse on the virtues of Scipio Orfitus (_Florida_ 17). He
wrote also another novel entitled _Hermagoras_, a collection of famous
love-stories of the past, sundry 'histories', a translation of the
_Phaedo_, and numerous scientific works, dealing with problems of
mathematics, music, astronomy, medicine, botany, and zoology.

The glory won by Apuleius during his lifetime survived after his
death. Augustine knows his works well. He recognizes his importance as
a writer, but abhors him as a magician. Apuleius is a thaumaturge
against whom the faithful need to be warned. 'The enemies of
Christianity,' says Augustine (_Ep._ 138), 'venture to place Apuleius
and Apollonius of Tyana on the same or even a higher level than
Christ.' But in the same letter he speaks of him as a 'great orator'
whose fame still lives among his fellow countrymen of Africa. Above
all the _Golden Ass_ has kept his name alive to our own day. Even
those who know nothing of the work as a whole, or who would relegate
it to obscurity for its occasional gross indecency, know and love the
story of Cupid and Psyche, if not in the original at least in many a
work of art, and in the pages of La Fontaine, Walter Pater, or William
Morris.

As migh