ABSTRACT

What constituted identity in the ancient world? How did the inhabitants of the Roman Empire construct their identity (or identities)? These questions have loomed large in recent discussions within all the subfields of classical studies. In Latin literature, some attention has been devoted to the prominent second-century CE author Apuleius, and the debate has centered on whether to consider him a Roman, a Greek, or an African. 1 One recent analysis judged Apuleius an author who, “through his name, literary culture, and education, is fundamentally Roman in cultural identity.” 2 Another suggested that he wrote the Metamorphoses in Rome and aimed it at a Roman audience. 3 A third held that he brought “Greek intellectual achievements” to Latin-speaking regions of the western Mediterranean, while a fourth argued that he introduced “ Romanitas ” by “transmitting in his own person elements of a dominant philosophical and literary idiom to a local African population.” 4 In his philosophical pursuits, which were so well known they may have caused the citizens of his hometown Madauros in Numidia to erect a statue in his honor, he was a “Socrates Africanus,” according to three further scholars. 5 Against these views aligning Apuleius closely with Greece or Rome, there are studies that place greater emphasis on the parts of his oeuvre concerning the plight of those subjected to imperial authority. These studies tend to be more sophisticated and nuanced, allowing for the construction of multiple national identities in different circumstances. Thus one scholar has emphasized Apuleius' provincial origins, suggesting that he “identified himself with Africa” yet that “the culture within which [he] . . . operated was highly Romanized.” 6 Another has claimed that he wrote for more than just Roman readers, interpreting a reference to his hometown in the Metamorphoses as “a nice way to give a hint to an African audience, invited to sympathize with an African character-author.” 7 The latest work of these scholars has painted a picture of Apuleius as an author with “a double, hybrid, and shifting cultural identification” who was pulled “toward the dominant elite culture and a significant identification with the marginalized local population.” 8 Finally, there is the broader view of a modern analyst who specified that Apuleius was neither Greek, nor Roman, nor African, but “Western.” 9