Apuleius Rhetorical Works

by Apuleius; Harrison, S. J.; Hilton, J. L.; Hunink, Vincent

• ISBN13: 9780198152927
• ISBN10: 0198152922
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-12-06
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

These rhetorical texts by Apuleius, second-century Latin writer and author of the famous novel Metamorphoses or Golden Ass, have not been translated into English since 1909. They are some of the very few Latin speeches surviving from their century, and constitute important evidence for Latinand Roman North African social and intellectual culture in the second century AD. They are the work of a talented writer who is being increasingly viewed as the major literary artist of his time in Latin.The Apologia, Apuleius' self-defence against a charge of magic delivered in North Africa in AD 158-9, has been well described as 'a masterpiece of the Second Sophistic'. It is a brilliant lively and colourful piece and is the only full Latin oration preserved from the second century AD, andprovides important evidence for contemporary North African life.The Florida ('flowery pieces') is a collection of excerpts deriving from an earlier anthology of Apuleian speeches, most apparently delivered at Carthage in the 160s AD. As a whole, these passages offer a unique view of the rhetorical practice of a performing intellectual in Latin in the secondcentury AD. They also give important information on civic life in Carthage through their treatment of proconsuls and the local senate.The De Deo Socratis, probably also from the 160s, is an oration in the form of a popular philosophical lecture on the 'god' of Socrates, the inner voice which, according to Plato, advised him;. This is the only surviving sophistic declamation in Latin. The material is treated brilliantly byApuleius, being much ornamented with poetic quotation and rhetorical and stylistic pyrotechnics.

Author Biography

S. J. Harrison is Fellow and Tutor of Classics, Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
John L. Hilton is Lecturer in Classics, University of Natal, Durban.
Vincent Hunink is Lecturer at the Katholieke Univeriteit Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Table of Contents

Note on Abbreviations	viii
Contributors	ix
General Introduction: Life and Writings of Apuleius	1	(10)
Stephen Harrison
Apology
Introduction	11	(14)
Vincent Hunink
Translation	25	(98)
John Hunink
Florida
Introduction	123	(14)
John Hilton
Translation	137	(40)
John Hilton
`False Preface' On the God of Socrates
Introduction	177	(4)
Stephen Harrison
Translation	181	(4)
John Hilton
On the God of Socrates
Translation	185	(10)
Stephen Harrison
Translation	195	(22)
Stephen Harrison
Bibliography	217	(6)
Index	223