ABSTRACT
One of the curiosities of literature in the Early Roman Empire is the appearance of a story about a man changed into an ass and back again. The outline of the Ass-Romance is the same in both extant versions until the final transformation: one Lucius seduces a sorceress's maid in order to transform himself into a bird; the experiment fails and he becomes an ass instead. The series of adventures which follows gives him a sequence of owners, including robbers, their beautiful victim, priests of Atargatis, a miller, a gardener and a woman with bestial tastes. Once the robbers are en route, Lucius tries a trick: he wants to lighten his burdens by pretending to be lame, but a fellow ass who tries to dodge first is thrown over a cliff and goes down in a dance of death. Sometimes a folktale version reveals details that are integral to the tradition, but have been omitted by Apuleius.
