Skip to content

purple motes

Artifacts to help you imagine more.

  • subscribe by email
  • how to navigate
  • topic index
  • about Douglas Galbi
  • terms of use / disclaimer

Highlights

  • Abelard castrated
  • Byzantine wife saves husband
  • Amphitryon & Geta duped
  • Chastelaine de Vergi tragedy
  • Aristotle’s advice to Alexander
  • Empress Theodora: woman leader
  • Tristan & Isuet
  • Xanthippe & Socrates
  • New Modern Sexism Scale

Apuleius’s Metamorphoses

Metamorphoses, also known as The Golden Ass (Asinus aureus), is a Latin prose work of Apuleius of Madaurus. It was written in the middle of the second century. The narrator-protagonist is a man called Lucius. In the course of the story, he is transformed into an ass by a mis-selection of a magic potion. In the end, he returns to human form through his initiation into the cult of Isis. Metamorphoses strings together sensational episodes with subtle connections and unifying bombastic, comically overwrought language. At the same time, it shows sharp insight into gender and the realities of men’s lives.

Martianus Capella, updated: the marriage of Gynecology and Hercules

Martianus Capella’s 5th-century Latin work, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (Marriage of Philology and Mercury) has been sadly, tediously misunderstood. … Read the post Martianus Capella, updated: the marriage of Gynecology and Hercules

Photis lovingly consoled Lucius after triple-murder trial farce

In Apuleius’ Metamporphose, look to Photis consoling Lucius for enlightenment about love amid horrid criminal injustice and mass incarceration of men. … Read the post Photis lovingly consoled Lucius after triple-murder trial farce

oracles of Astrampsychus: understanding fate in everyday life

Oracles of Astrampsychus provided authoritative, standard, obscure answers specific to 92 different questions of mundane life in the ancient world. … Read the post oracles of Astrampsychus: understanding fate in everyday life

Psycho and Aphrodite through Apuleius’s Metamorphoses

Psycho and Aphrodite is a parody of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius’s Metamorphoses and the story of the Afghan cover girl in the National Geographic. … Read the post Psycho and Aphrodite through Apuleius’s Metamorphoses

Greco-Roman adultery tales & Apuleius’s Metamorphoses

In Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, adultery tales of Book 9 ridicule Platonic philosophy with the biological significance of understanding scandalous stories. … Read the post Greco-Roman adultery tales & Apuleius’s Metamorphoses

Posts pagination

Previous page Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Next page