Our authorities for the life of Apuleius are in the main the _Apologia_, the _Florida_, and the last book of the _Metamorphoses_. He has a passion for taking his audience into his confidence, and as a result it is not hard to reconstruct a considerable portion of his life. He was a native of Madaura, the modern Mdaurusch, a Numidian town loftily situated above the valley of the Medjerda. The town was a flourishing Roman colony (_Apol._ 24), and the family of Apuleius was among the wealthiest and most important of the town. His father attained to the position of _duumvir_, the highest municipal office (_Apol._ loc. cit.), and left his son the considerable fortune of 2,000,000 sesterces (L20,000). As to the date of Apuleius' birth there is some uncertainty. But as he was the fellow student (_Florida_ 16) at Rome of Aemilianus Strabo (consul 156 A.D.), and was considerably younger than his wife Pudentilla, whom he married about 155 A.D., when she had 'barely passed the age of forty' (_Apol._ 89), the estimate which places his birth about 125 A.D. cannot be far wrong. His name is generally given as Lucius Apuleius, though the only authority for the _praenomen_ is the evidence of late MSS., and it is not improbable that the origin of the name is to be found in the curious identification of himself with Lucius, the hero of the _Metamorphoses_ (xi. 27). At an early age the young Apuleius was sent to school at Carthage (_Florida_ 18), whence on attaining to manhood he proceeded to complete his education at Athens (_Florida_ loc. cit.). There he studied philosophy, rhetoric, geometry, music, and poetry (_Florida_ 20), and laid the foundations of that encyclopaedic, if superficial knowledge, which in after years he so delighted to parade. On leaving Athens he set forth on lengthy travels, in the course of which he spent a large portion of his patrimony (_Apol._ 23). He speaks of the temple of Hera at Samos as an eyewitness (_Florida_ 15), and elsewhere mentions a visit to Hierapolis in Phrygia (_de mundo_ 17). Returning from the East he came to Corinth, where--if we may accept his identification of himself with the Lucius of the _Metamorphoses_--he fell into the clutches of the priests of Isis, who played upon his emotional and superstitious temperament to their hearts' content. He was first initiated into the mysteries of Isis (_Metamorph._ xi. 23, 24). A few days after this auspicious event the goddess appeared to him in a vision and bade him set forth homewards. He therefore took ship for Rome, where for the space of a year he dwelt, a fervent worshipper at the temple of Isis on the Campus Martius. Once more visions of the night began to afflict him; he consulted the priests and discovered the cause; he required yet to be initiated into the mysteries of Osiris. The priests of Corinth had worked upon his credulity to such good effect, that he found himself in serious financial difficulties, but by practising as a lawyer he succeeded in