Lucius Apuleius is best known to us as the author of The Golden Ass, one of the most famous romances in the world, containing as it does the story of Cupid and Psyche. His importance to the study of witchcraft rests on the fact that The Golden Ass is a romance of witchcraft, and illustrates the beliefs which were held about witches in the pre-Christian world.
This work of Apuleius proves that witchcraft was not, as some modern writers have claimed, an invention of the Middle Ages, On the contrary, witchcraft was known, feared and respected in ancient Greece and Rome.
Lucius Apuleius was a priest of Isis, who was born at Madaura, a Roman colony in North Africa, early in the second century A.D. His family was wealthy, and he traveled quite extensively for those times, in search of education and insight into religious mysteries.
He was once himself accused of practicing black magic. He had married a wealthy widow, older than himself, and the widow’s jealous family brought an accusation against him of having bewitched her into matrimony. However, Apuleius successfully defended himself in court by a brilliant and witty speech, which was later published under the title of A Discourse on Magic (Apulei Apologia sive pro se de Magia Liber, with introduction and commentary by H. E. Butler and A. S. Owen, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1914).
