Legal Strategy and Learned Display in Apuleius' Apology

Abstract

In this paper I argue that Apuleius’ displays of learning in the Apology, far from being gratuitous, are central to his strategy in countering the charge brought against him. The key issue at stake in the trial, for both the prosecution and Apuleius himself, was the claim that Apuleius was a magus, which was in essence a claim that he possessed socially suspect knowledge and used it for socially subversive ends. Accordingly, Apuleius’ overall objective in his defense was to demonstrate that his knowledge was instead socially respectable. Although an important part of his strategy was to present himself as a philosopher, a status that at that time was eminently respectable, debates over who counted as a real philosopher meant that this line of argument could get him only so far; he needed to supplement his claim to be a philosopher with something more immediate. He thus put his knowledge on display in forms that were instantly recognizable as safe, familiar, and socially respectable: the standard grammatical forms of the quotation, the list, and the ‘problem’. These displays of learning accomplished something that more explicit arguments could not: they shaped the audience’s perceptions of him in ways that were both subtle and immediate. By parading his knowledge in such familiar and socially respectable forms, Apuleius was able through his very behavior to disprove the charge that it constituted something sinister and subversive, and hence to refute the accusation that he was a magus.

James B. Rives is Kenan Eminent Professor of Classics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage (1995) and Religion in the Roman Empire (2006) as well as numerous articles on aspects of religion in the Roman world; he has also published a translation, with introduction and commentary, of Tacitus'Germania (1999).