Apuleius (c. 124–after 170 CE) was a North African Latin writer, philosopher and rhetorician from Madauros. He studied Platonism, traveled widely and defended himself against a charge of magic in the Apology. The Golden Ass, or Metamorphoses, is the only complete surviving Latin novel.
The Golden Ass is a comic, erotic, violent and religious novel about curiosity transformed into degradation and salvation. Lucius, a young man fascinated by magic, travels in Thessaly, a region famous for witches.
