The third great interest in the Greek Romances besides adventure and love was religion. To this Apuleius gave a new emphasis and a new importance. In the center of his novel in the inset story of Cupid and Psyche he pictures the old familiar Olympian gods in their conventional mythological characters, but as realistically and with as implicit a satire as Lucian used in his “Dialogues of the Gods.” Venus is a very jealous and cruel step-mother. Jupiter is a lusty, amorous, irresistible king. Cupid is at first undutiful, mischievous and wanton. The story of Lucius and Isis is, however, a serious story of a great religious experience. Through prayer, visions, priestly instruction, ceremonials, initiation and communion Apuleius becomes one with the goddess to whom he is to devote the rest of his life. The worship of Isis is pictured spiritually from the depths of experience by Apuleius who according to his own statements had actually been many times initiated in her cult.[371] Throughout these three parts of Apuleius’ novel with their successive emphasis on adventure, love and religion, virtually all the conventional devices of the Greek Romances are employed. In the stories of adventure there are rapidly shifting scenes, though in a more limited spatial area. The Greek love romances lie according to the time of their action in the geography of the colonies of great Greece or within the boundaries of the hellenistic-oriental world from Byzantium to Egypt, from Sicily to Babylon. The action is carried out through long sea voyages, varied with storms and shipwreck. The wide world, the spatial separations are overcome only through the faithfulness of the lovers. The Ass-story takes place in narrower compass, in old Greece between Patrae, Hypata and Corinth. To Lucian’s geographical set Apuleius adds Rome. In these two versions of the Ass-story all the life of mankind is represented concretely and in close perspective. The action concerns little people living in one locality or for purposes of trade taking short journeys hither and thither on land.[372] Other conventional devices in Apuleius’ stories of adventure are the introduction as important characters of robbers and robber chieftains, narratives with emphasis on external events, descriptions like that of the robbers’ cave.