Apulée

Apulée (in Latin Apuleius , certain manuscripts of the Renaissance lend the to him praenomem of “Lucius”) is a writer born with Madaure in Numidie (today Me daourouch in Algeria) towards 123 - 125 a. J. - C.. One is unaware of the exact date of his death (towards 170), the character has a share of mystery besides.

Biography

Apulée was born in an easy family from Madaure, his/her father was Duumvir city and was to leave with his brother and him a comfortable heritage of 2 000 000 of sesterces. Although completely Roman by his culture and his work, Apulée remained always attached to his origins, not hesitating to assert later “mid- Numide and mid- gétule”. Saint Augustin said of him: “on our premises, African, Apulée, in its capacity as African, is most popular”. Its degree of adhesion to the Romanitas is the subject of a debate.

He studies rhetoric and the literature with Madaure, then with Carthage, and finally with Athens, where it is interested in the Philosophie Neo-Platonist and in the Sophisme. Endowed with a Talent of speaker, he becomes lawyer in Rome before carrying out a career of itinerant lecturer in his native land. Speaking as well Latin as the Greek , it can even pass without problem of one language to the other during the same speech.

During one of its voyages, it meets at OAS (current the Tripoli) a widowed rich person, Emilia Pudentilla, which it marries. Shown by its in-laws to have used of magic, he successfully pleads his own cause at the time of a lawsuit with Sabratha into 158 (: he will be discharged) and consigns his pleading in a Apologie . From its time, Apulée was regarded as a follower of the magic, even like a miracle-worker. It is especially a gifted man of an exceptional curiosity, in all the fields, initiate with several Eastern worships (of which that of the goddess Isis) and who was perhaps priest of Esculape.

Work

Apulée wrote many Latin works, in a language considered to be “invaluable”, but with a clear expression. One can distinguish the works “rhetorics” ( Métamorphoses , Apologie , Floridas ) and “philosophical” ( De Deo Socratis , De Platone and eius Dogmate and De Mundo ]). One of them, the Apology , is a work of circumstance (cf above).

Among the preserved works, most known is the Metamorphoses , also known under the name of the gold Ass: it is the first large Romance in prose of Latin language, eleven books, and the only one which was preserved completely. The hero is transformed into ass because of his curiosity for the magic. One finds there the tale of Amour and Psyché and, at the end, a glorification of the Isis goddess.

Floridas ( Florida ) contain several of its speeches and conferences, on varied topics.

Apulée in addition wrote several tens of opuscules on topics as varied as philosophy, the Religion, medical popularization or the Science S. most of these texts are lost, but those which we have would be most interesting. The Of deo socratis (On the “demon” or god of Socrate) is a talk of the Platonic doctrines concerning the gods and the demons. The Of mundo (On the world) freely adapts a treaty wrongfully allotted to Aristote.

Several works were allotted to him of which treaties of Médecine, Herboristerie and Astronomie, the such Asclépius or Dialog of Aslcépius and Hermes Trismégiste , or the Peri Hermeneias , treated of formal logic.

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