Our authorities for the life of Apuleius are in the main the
_Apologia_, the _Florida_, and the last book of the _Metamorphoses_.
He has a passion for taking his audience into his confidence, and as a
result it is not hard to reconstruct a considerable portion of his
life. He was a native of Madaura, the modern Mdaurusch, a Numidian
town loftily situated above the valley of the Medjerda. The town was a
flourishing Roman colony (_Apol._ 24), and the family of Apuleius was
among the wealthiest and most important of the town. His father
attained to the position of _duumvir_, the highest municipal office
(_Apol._ loc. cit.), and left his son the considerable fortune of
2,000,000 sesterces (L20,000). As to the date of Apuleius' birth there
is some uncertainty. But as he was the fellow student (_Florida_ 16)
at Rome of Aemilianus Strabo (consul 156 A.D.), and was considerably
younger than his wife Pudentilla, whom he married about 155 A.D., when
she had 'barely passed the age of forty' (_Apol._ 89), the estimate
which places his birth about 125 A.D. cannot be far wrong. His name is
generally given as Lucius Apuleius, though the only authority for the
_praenomen_ is the evidence of late MSS., and it is not improbable
that the origin of the name is to be found in the curious
identification of himself with Lucius, the hero of the _Metamorphoses_
(xi. 27). At an early age the young Apuleius was sent to school at
Carthage (_Florida_ 18), whence on attaining to manhood he proceeded
to complete his education at Athens (_Florida_ loc. cit.). There he
studied philosophy, rhetoric, geometry, music, and poetry (_Florida_
20), and laid the foundations of that encyclopaedic, if superficial
knowledge, which in after years he so delighted to parade. On leaving
Athens he set forth on lengthy travels, in the course of which he
spent a large portion of his patrimony (_Apol._ 23). He speaks of the
temple of Hera at Samos as an eyewitness (_Florida_ 15), and elsewhere
mentions a visit to Hierapolis in Phrygia (_de mundo_ 17). Returning
from the East he came to Corinth, where--if we may accept his
identification of himself with the Lucius of the _Metamorphoses_--he
fell into the clutches of the priests of Isis, who played upon his
emotional and superstitious temperament to their hearts' content. He
was first initiated into the mysteries of Isis (_Metamorph._ xi. 23,
24). A few days after this auspicious event the goddess appeared to
him in a