Plato and Apuleius: The Art of Defense

Werner Riess (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)

This paper will redefine the communis opinio that Apuleius regarded himself as a second Socrates, a Socrates Africanus (J. Tatum, Apuleius and the Golden Ass, Ithaca/NY–London 1979, 105). While the similarities between Apuleius’ speech in his own defense, the Apologia, and Plato’s fictitious defense speech of Socrates, are indeed striking (U. Schindel, “Apuleius – Africanus Socrates? Beobachtungen zu den Verteidigungsreden des Apuleius und des platonischen Sokrates,”Hermes 128, 2000, 443-456), there are also considerable deviations from the Platonic model. It will be argued that these differences stem not only from the completely different context in which Apuleius’ trial took place, but also from Apuleius’ changed notion of sophia and his standpoint towards death.

Admiring Socrates and Plato, Apuleius, at first glance, considered himself a philosophus Platonicus, called the speech in his own defense Apologia, thus explicitly referring to Plato’s fictitious defense speech of Socrates, and wrote a philosophical treatise on demonology (De deo Socratis). Apuleius designed his whole speech as a grand metaphor echoing the speech of the Platonic Socrates. Whereas Socrates was accused of asebeia, Apuleius had to confront charges of magic. Socrates defended himself by claiming that true religion is philosophy. Apuleius took the same stance. Whereas Socrates was sued for having seduced and corrupted young men, Apuleius was sued for having seduced and corrupted the rich widow Pudentilla. Both defendants had to face the death penalty, Apuleius at least in theory. So did Apuleius indeed feel that he was a second Socrates, a Socrates Africanus?

A striking difference between Socrates and Apuleius is their very different notion of sophia. Socrates drew a sharp line between himself and his predecessors, the so-called pre-Socratics. It is true that Socrates had admired Anaxagoras in his younger years, but he finally abandoned the natural sciences and embraced questions concerning mankind (Plato, Apol. 3). Apuleius, in contrast, blended religion, mystery cults, and magic, as is typical of the eclectic and syncretistic 2^nd century AD. He was highly interested in the sciences, boasted his knowledge about natural phenomena and displayed encyclopedic knowledge, for example in his treatise on fish.

The second difference is the totally different standpoint towards death. Whereas Socrates was prepared to die—he was calm and accepted death as unavoidable (Xen., Apol. 8-9: to avoid old age; Plato, Phaedo: he believes in a life hereafter)—Apuleius seemed to be full of self-confidence and did not even consider the possibility of a conviction to the death penalty in his speech. If it is true that religious deviance was at stake rather than a direct charge of magic (J. Rives, “Magic in Roman Law: The Reconstruction of a Crime,” Classical Antiquity 22, 2003, 313-339, 322-328), Apuleius was free enough to understand this trial as yet another opportunity of self-representation and self-display. Apuleius deliberately created a contrast between his explicit allusions to the Platonic Socrates and his own self-consciousness so deviant from that of the historic Socrates. The result is a subtle tone of underlying irony that further enhanced his strategy of defense.