This is a much rethought and reworked revision of the paper read at the UCLA-USC Latin Seminar in April 2007. I thank Tony Boyle, for the kind invitation and my fellow panellists, Ellen Finkelpearl and John Penwill, for a stimulating event. Between performance and publication, John Henderson and Ellen Finkelpearl aided this final reworking. Also, there appeared two important contributions to our reading of the Apologia: Binternagel (see n.12 below) and the six contributions on the Apologia in the collection of Riess (see n.2 below), which made me rethink several ideas. Any more rewriting would have meant reintroducing the playful framing tale behind the quotation buried in my title. For the record, ‘Plato, reread too late’ was an alternate title for Hopper’s, Edward painting Excursion into Philosophy (1959Google Scholar), which originated in a remark by Hopper’s wife, Jo, in response to the book that the dressed seated man on the bed next to the half-dressed sleeping woman in the painting was (not) reading—see Anfam, D., ‘Review of Gail Levin Edward Hopper: A Catalogue Raisonne’, The Burlington Magazine 141, no 1159 (1999), 630fGoogle Scholar., at 631. If I could give my talk again, I would make you look at Cy Twombly’s, Plato (1974Google Scholar)s for his own take on Apuleius the Platonist’s assemblage of the sky and the scribble.

1. Cavell, S., ‘Time and Place for Philosophy’, Metaphilosophy 39 (2008), 51–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 57, on Wittgenstein opening his Philosophical Investigations with a quotation from Augustine.

2. Hunink, V.J.C., ‘Apuleius Apology: Introduction’, in S.J. Harrison, J.L. Hilton, V.J.C. Hunink (eds), Apuleius: Rhetorical Works (Oxford 2001), 11–24Google Scholar, at 24. By becoming literature, the Apol. warrants a place next to Apuleius’ masterpiece the Met., as instigated by Azatlos, M., ‘Apuleius’ Apologia in a Nutshell: the Exordium’, CQ 55 (2005), 266–76Google Scholar, and delivered by the various contributions in Riess, W. (ed.), Paideia at Play: Learning and Wit in Apuleius (Groningen 2008Google Scholar). The most thoroughly literary treatment of the Apol. to date is May, R., Apuleius and Drama (Oxford 2007), 72–108Google Scholar, which reads the speech as court-room drama.

3. Hunink (n.2 above), 24.

4. Harrison, S.J., ‘Constructing Apuleius: The Emergence of a Literary Artist’, AncNarr 2 (2002), 143–71Google Scholar.

5. McCreight, T.D., ‘Exemplum or Historiola? Literature and Magic in Apuleius’ Apology’, SyllClass 15 (2004), 153–75Google Scholar, at 170.

6. Hillis Miller, J., Speech Acts in Literature (Stanford 2001Google Scholar), 3. The event of the speech could share in integrated approaches to other literary puzzles, such as the reality of Ovid’s exile and the authenticity of Plato’s letters; the most compelling discussions of these puzzles show how matters of ‘reality’ and ‘authenticity’ are at work in the texts themselves. For Ovid and exilic reality (although clearly ‘reality’ is not the right word), see Henderson, J., ‘Not Wavering But Frowning: Ovid as Isopleth (Tristia 1 through 10)’, Ramus 26 (1997), 138–71Google Scholar; for Plato and epistolary authenticity, see (clearly) Wohl, V., ‘Plato avant la lettre: Authenticity in Plato’s Epistles’, Ramus 27 (1998), 60–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. Helm, R., ‘Apuleius’ Apologie, ein Meisterwerk des zweiten Sophistik’, Altertum 1 (1955), 86–108Google Scholar, at 100–05.

8. See esp. Whitmarsh, T., Greek Literature and the Roman Empire (Oxford 2001Google Scholar), and the articles in Borg, B.E. (ed.), Paideia: The World of the Second Sophistic (Berlin 2004CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

9. Bradley, K.R., ‘Law, Magic, and Culture in the Apologia of Apuleius’, Phoenix 51 (1997), 203–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 216: ‘The language Apuleius and Claudius Maximus spoke was a code, a mystery, known only to those initiated into the words of doctrina, and as such it acted both as an intellectual marker and as a social marker, since learning on this scale could only be the preserve of the socially and economically advantaged.’

10. W. Riess, ‘Introduction’, in Riess (n.2 above), ix-xxi, at xi: ‘In the Apology, the performative display of literary erudition serves a concrete social purpose, i.e., to portray the defendant as culturally and morally superior to his rustic accusers and thus prove his innocence.’

11. J.B. Rives, ‘Legal Strategy and Learned Display in Apuleius’ Apology’, in Riess (n.2 above), 17–49, is a recent attempt to do this.

12. Binternagel, A., Lobreden, Anekdoten, Zitate—Argumentationstaktiken in der Verteidigungsrede des Apuleius (Hamburg 2008Google Scholar). For the interface between panegyric and citation in the speech, see T.D. McCreight, ‘The “Riches” of Poverty: Literary Games with Poetry in Apuleius’ Laus Paupertatis (Apology 18)’, in Riess (n.2 above), 89–104.

13. Throughout I make the distinction between quotation and citation. The former refers to the specific reproduction of another’s words, while the latter is a more general term for the process of referencing another’s words and works. The best general work in this field is still Compagnon, A., La seconde main ou le travail de la citation (Paris 1979Google Scholar).

14. The three Republican poets Aedituus, Porcius, Catulus mentioned at Apol. 9.8 are grouped together in Gellius (Gel. 19.8.10–14). For the argument that this means that there was a collection of these poets circulating at the time, see Luiselli, B., ‘Apul. De Mag. 9; Gell. 19, 9, 10 e Valerio Edituo, Porcio Licinio e Lutazio Catulo’, AFLC 27 (1960), 127–33Google Scholar. For a helpful comparison of Gellius and Apuleius, see Keulen, W., ‘Gellius, Apuleius, and Satire on the Intellectual’, in L. Holford-Strevens and A. Vardi (eds.), The Worlds o/Aulus Gellius (Oxford 2004), 223–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. For example, an argument for the significance of Theocritus for the Prologue of the Met. is supported with a footnote to Apol. 30.11, in Gibson, B., ‘Argutia Nilotici Calami: A Theocritean Reed?’, in A. Kahane and A. Laird (eds.), A Companion to the Prologue of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (Oxford 2001), 67–76Google Scholar, at 71 n.ll. For a more fleshed-out treatment of Theocritean and Hellenistic poetics in the Prologue, see Graverini, L., Le Metamorfosi di Apuleio: letteratura e identita (Pisa 2007), 1–55Google Scholar.

16. Rives (n.l 1 above), 39, smuggles Plato (and with him, Apuleius’ Platonism) in with the rest: ‘Homer is of course well represented, with four separate quotations, and Vergil puts in his expected appearance. As an avowed follower of Plato, Apuleius demonstrates his familiarity with the master’s writings by quoting from five separate works, not including the epigrams. But he also takes care to go beyond the standard authors and works, quoting Solon, Catullus, Afranius, Laevius, and an otherwise unattested poem of Ennius.’

17. The sophist tag has stuck due, in some part, to its use in the two major works on the whole Apuleian corpus: Sandy, G., The Greek World of Apuleius (Leiden 1997Google Scholar), and Harrison, S.J., Apuleius: A Latin Sophist (Oxford 2000Google Scholar). In fact, there has been a lot more hedging and glossing recently, especially with the emergence of the more banal and inoffensive term ‘intellectual’. For such hedging, in spite of the title, see S.J. Harrison, ‘The Sophist at Play in Court: Apuleius’ Apology and his Literary Career’, in Riess (n.2 above) 2–15, at 13, ‘Apuleius thus comes across as a learned, Platonist, bilingual literary intellectual with contemporary tastes’.

18. This is the working principle of Sandy (n.l7 above). As the usefulness of the term ‘Second Sophistic’ continues to be debated (especially by the work of Tim Whitmarsh), there has been a lot more glossing of Apuleius’ identity recently. For a balanced approach to Apuleius’ image within the perspective of his later reception, see Gaisser, J., The Fortunes of Apuleius and the Golden Ass: A Study in Transmission and Reception (Oxford 2008), 1–39Google Scholar.

19. For the role of Plato in the cultural syllabus of Second Sophistic Hellenic paideia, see De Lacy, P., ‘Plato and the Intellectual Life of the Second Century A.D.’, in G. Bowersock (ed.) Approaches to the Second Sophistic: Papers Presented at the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Philological Association (University Park 1974), 4–10Google Scholar, and Trapp, M.B., ‘Plato’s Phaedrus in Second-Century Greek Literature’, in D.A. Russell (ed.), Antonine Literature (Oxford 1990), 141–73Google Scholar.

20. For example, compare Apuleius with Dio Chrysostom or Aulus Gellius. Trapp, M., ‘Plato in Dio’, in S. Swain (ed.), Dio Chrysostom: Politics. Letters, Philosophy (Oxford 2000), 213–39Google Scholar, at 213: ‘Plato’s name is not often mentioned in the surviving corpus of Dio’s work, occurring only five times in the seventy-six genuine pieces; even if three further thinly veiled allusions are added, that only yields a total of eight.’ On Gellius’ use of Platonic citation in terms of his general Platonism, see Gersh, S., Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism: The Latin Tradition (Notre Dame 1986), 207–23Google Scholar, although see also Gersh, S., ‘Medieval Legacy from Ancient Platonism’, in S. Gersh and M J.F.M. Hoenen (eds), The Platonic Tradition in the Middle Ages (Berlin 2002), 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘Apuleius was, unlike Gellius, a real Platonic philosopher. Therefore, the citation of Plato’s dialogues in his various writings goes beyond the preservation of miscellaneous pieces of information to the actual conceptual elaboration of Plato’s teachings.’

21. See Schindel, U., ‘Apuleius—Africanus Socrates? Beobachtungen zu den Verteidigungsreden des Apuleius und des platonischen Sokrates’, Hermes 128 (2000), 443–56Google Scholar, and, most recently, W. Riess ‘Apuleius Socrates Africanus? Apuleius’ Defensive Play’, in Riess (n.2 above), 51–73.

22. Socrates is a major presence across the works of Dio, Lucian, Epictetus and Maximus of Tyre.

23. For this Cynic-Socratic image in Dio, see A. Brancacci, ‘Dio, Socrates, and Cynicism’, in Swain (n.20 above), 240–60. In Apuleius, see Keulen, W., ‘Comic Invention and Superstitious Frenzy in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses: The Figure of Socrates as an Icon of Satirical Self-Exposure’, AJP 124 (2003), 107–35Google Scholar.

24. Riess (n.21 above), 69.

25. Although see now McCoy, M., Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists (Cambridge 2008Google Scholar).

26. See Warneck, P.A., Descent of Socrates: Self-knowledge and Cryptic Nature in the Platonic Dialogues (Bloomington 2005), 49–118Google Scholar.

27. For the philosopher’s inability to defend himself in court, see Gorg. 521e. See also the digression at Tht. 172c-177c, with Waymack, M., ‘The Theaetetus 172c-177c: A Reading of the Philosopher in Court’, SJPh 23 (1985), 481–89Google Scholar, together with the analogy of the cave at Rep. 7.516e-517e. For the interrelationship between these in light of Socrates’ own trial, see Schofield, M., ‘Plato in his Time and Place’, in G. Fine (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Plato (Oxford 2008), 41–44Google Scholar.

28. For the argument that Plato’s Apology is modelled as a response to Gorgias’ Palamedes see Coulter, J.A., ‘The Relation of the Apology of Socrates to Gorgias’ Defense of Palamedes and Plato’s Critique of Gorgianic Rhetoric’, in K.V. Erickson (ed.), Plato: True and Socratic Rhetoric (Amsterdam 1979), 31–69Google Scholar.

29. The creative rewriting of the Apol. occurs in the Met., namely in the Risus Festival (Met. 3.2–11) and the Judgement of Paris (Met. 10.30–34).

30. On the status of the Florida as a selection from a larger collection ‘Carthaginian Orations’, see Lee, B.T., Apuleius’ Florida: A Commentary (Berlin 2005), 13fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31. On this passage and the pivotal importance of Fl. 18 in general, see R. Fletcher, The Impersonation of Philosophy: Apuleius’ Platonism (Cambridge forthcoming).

32. There have been various attempts to characterise the Apuleian corpus; for a succinct overview, see Hunink, V.J.C., Apuleius of Madauros: De Magia (Amsterdam 1997), 20–23Google Scholar.

33. On the dating of the trial, see Hunink (n.32 above), 12, and Hammerstaedt, J., ‘Apuleius; Leben und Werk’, in J. Hammerstaedt, P. Habermehl, F. Lamberti, A.M. Ritter, P. Schenk (eds), Apuleius: Über die Magia (Darmstadt 2002), 9–22Google Scholar, at 15.

34. For details of these lost Apuleian works cited in the Apol. see Hunink (n.32 above), 22, and Harrison (n.17 above ‘The Sophist…’).

35. For an overview of the MS tradition of Apuleius, see Reynolds, L.D. (ed.), Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics (Oxford 1983), 15–19Google Scholar. Translations of Apol., Fl. and Soc. are available in Harrison, Hilton and Hunink (n.2 above), although there are no modern translations of PI. or Mu. For discussion of the debates over the authenticity of Mu. and PL., see Beaujeu, J., Apulée: Opuscules philosophiques (Du dieu de Socrate, Platan et sa doctrine, Du monde) et fragments (Paris 1973), ix-xxixGoogle Scholar and Harrison (n.17 above Latin Sophist), 174–80.

36. Hijmans, B.L., ‘Apuleius orator: “Pro se de Magia” and “Florida”’, ANRW II.34.2 (1994), 1708–84Google Scholar, at 1709: ‘Rhetorical production forms a considerable part, perhaps too large a part when seen in a list of titles which include lost works.’

37. For the full list, see Hijmans, B.L., ‘Apuleius Philosophus Platonicus’, ANRW 11.36.1 (1987), 395–475Google Scholar, at 398; for discussion, see Harrison (n.17 above Latin Sophist), 20–32.

38. J. Henderson, ‘In Ya (Pre)face’, in Kahane and Laird (n.15 above), 188–97, at 189.

39. Regen, F., Apuleius philosophus Platonicus: untersuchungen zur Apologie (De magia) und De mundo (Berlin 1971CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Hijmans (n.37 above) extends Regen’s arguments further.

40. O’Brien, M.C., Apuleius’ Debt to Plato in the Metamorphoses (Lewiston 2002), 4–8Google Scholar.

41. The collection of Reiss (n.2 above).

42. I discuss the use of Platonic quotation in De Mundo and De Platone in light of the phenomenon in the Apologia in Fletcher (n.31 above).

43. On this Latinisation, see Harrison (n.17 above Latin Sophist), 136–73, and Fletcher, R., ‘No Success Like Failure: Apuleius and the Task of the Translator’, in M. Paschalis, S. Panayotakis, G. Schmeling (eds.), Readers and Writers in the Ancient Novel (Groningen 2009), 184–96Google Scholar.

44. For discussions of the knowledge of Greek in North Africa, see Thieling, W.,, Der Hellenismus in Kleinafrika (Leipzig/Berlin 1911Google Scholar); Kotula, T., ‘Utraque lingua eruditi: une page relative à l’histoire de l’éducation dans l’Afrique romain’, in J. Bibauw (ed.), Hommages à Marcel Renard II (Brussels 1969), 386–92Google Scholar; Vössing, K., Schule und Bildung im Nordafrika der rbmischen Kaiserzeit (Brussels 1997), 375fGoogle Scholar.; Sandy (n.17 above), 9–12. For the loss of Greek passages in the transmission of the bilingual dialogue advertised at the end of Fl. 18 and the opening of the ‘False Preface’ of Soc., see Lee (n.30 above), 169.

45. For example, Tarrant, H., ‘Shadows of Justice in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’, Hermathena 167 (1999), 71–89Google Scholar, is a brilliant reading of the Met. through Plato’s Republic, albeit without recourse to Apuleius’ own Platonic works. In general, re Platonic reading of the Met., see Penwill, J.L., ‘Reflections on a “Happy Ending”: The Case of Cupid and Psyche’, Ramus 27 (1998), 160–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 177f. n.27.

46. Gersh (n.20 above), 8: ‘The largest concentration of passages occurs in Apuleius’ Apologia. Here, he cites by name the Phaedrus, the Timaeus, and the Laws—including Greek quotations of the first and last work—and without giving titles the Alcibiades I and the Epistulae 2—where the key phrases actually occur in Greek.’

47. As in the amazing performance of Krabbe, J., Lusus Iste: Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (Dallas 2003), 373–414Google Scholar.

48. C. Brittain, ‘Plato and Platonism’, in Fine (n.27 above), 526–52, at 526.

49. As grouped together by Brittain (n.48 above), 536 n.44.

50. These stages are found at Apul. Pl. 2.183f.; 2.185–87; 2.187–89 respectively.

51. See the various papers in Griswold, C.L. (ed.), Platonic Writings/Platonic Readings (London 1988Google Scholar).

52. In Fletcher (n.31 above) I offer a reading of De Platone that emphasises Apuleius’ ‘drama of exegesis’ through the various dogmatic ‘voices’ within the text, from Plato himself to the text’s readers.

53. May (n.2 above). For the Apol. as tragedy, see Hunink, V J.C., ‘Some Cases of Genre Confusion in Apuleius’, in R.R. Nauta (ed.), Desultoria Scientia: Genre in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses and Related Texts (Leuven 2006), 33–42Google Scholar, at 33–37.

54. For Aemelianus as senex and Pudens as adulescens see May (n.2 above), 80f. and 100. For Rufinus as leno, see Nauta (n.53 above), 35.

55. This reading of Plato’s biography on to the structure of the Apologia is supported by my reading of the Florida as a tessellated portrait of the Apuleian Platonic philosopher in Fletcher (n.31 above).

56. Harrison (n.17 above, ‘The Sophist…’), 13, also includes, under what he dubs ‘main citations or open allusions’, the following: the catalogue of Greek poets by toponym (9.6); the catalogues of puella-pseudonymns in Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus (10.3); the references to Lucilius (10.4), Virgil (10.5) and Aemilianus as Charon (23.7); anecdotes on Agesilaus (from Xenophon), Socrates and Demosthenes (15.1–9), ‘a name-dropping doxography on optical theories’ (15.12–16.6) and a list of Roman exempla to demonstrate the virtues of poverty (17.7–23). For another list see Rives (n.l1 above), 39 n.64., while for more extended and directed discussion see Binternagel (n.12 above), 211–24.

57. Plato first appears as a source for the eloquence and beauty of Zeno of Elea. It is worth dwelling on this citation, a near footnote, here and now, as it shows just how careful we need to be when speaking for Plato (and Apuleius). Firstly, we discover that Zeno’s beauty is emphasised in the Parmenides (127b), but his mode of argumentation is presented in the Phaedrus (261d), as noted by Hunink (n.32 above), 25. While the general consensus is that Apuleius uses this Platonic footnote to comment only on the beauty of Zeno, it is the Phaedrus passage that is a more compelling intertext. At Phdr. 261b, Socrates and Phaedrus are discussing the nature of rhetoric and how in the Law-Courts and Assembly there are speeches on opposite sides which are similar and dissimilar, but which are part of the same art of speaking. Apuleius makes this exact point when dealing with Pudentilla’s letter, wherein the same words support both the defence and the prosecution (Apol. 81–83—on which see pp. 65–67 below).

58. In the recent trend of reading Apuleius’ Met. through Hellenistic poetics, this reference to Plato’s lepida carmina has not been pressed. (Although see the brief comments of S. Tilig, ‘Elo-quentia ludens—Apuleius’ Apology and the Cheerful Side of Standing Trial’, in Riess [n.2 above], 105–32, at 118.) In fact, perhaps Apuleius has a role to play in considering the interface between Hellenistic epigram and Plato?

59. On the role of these poems and Apuleius’ own creations in the speech as a whole, see Hunink, V.J.C., ‘Two Erotic Poems in Apuleius’ Apology’, in C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History IX (Paris 1998), 448–61Google Scholar. I disagree with Hunink when he states: ‘At any rate, the poem clearly refers to physical, sexual contact. And no matter how much Apuleius refers to Plato as his model and to noble, Platonic love, such clear imagery is not to be found in Plato’s epigrams.’ In fact, sexual imagery is in the eye of the beholder—kissing Agathon and burning with love for Dion seem sexual to me, but that’s just me!

60. All quotations from the Apol. are taken from the revised text of Hunink (n.32 above).

61. On the status of the Platonic corpus at this time, see Tarrant, H., Thrasyllan Platonism (Ithaca 1993Google Scholar). On the questionable place of the Epigrams within the corpus, see T.H. Irwin, ‘The Platonic Corpus’, in Fine (n.27 above), 63–87, at 64 n.5.

62. For discussions of Plato’s poetry, see Ludwig, W., ‘Plato’s Love Epigrams’, GRBS 4 (1963), 59–82Google Scholar.

63. For the Dion poem in general, see Bowra, CM., ‘Plato’s Epigram on Dion’s Death’, AJP 59 (1938), 394–404Google Scholar.

64. Butler, H.E. and Owen, A.S., Apulei Apologia sive pro se de Magia Liber, with introduction and commentary (Oxford 1914), 10Google Scholar, commenting on the Latin translations of these poems found in early editions which include the penultimate line of the Dion poem, state: ‘The additional line from the epitaph of Dion is wholly out of place here.’

65. Hunink (n.32 above), 52 with n.l.

66. On which see now Dorandi, T., ‘ attributo a Aristippo nella storia della biografia antica’, in M. Erler and S. Schorn (eds.), Die griechische Biographie in hellenistischer Zeit (Berlin 2007), 157–72Google Scholar.

67. Apuleius’ uses of sources for Plato’s biography is known—Speusippus (Pl. 1.2.183f.)

68. Nussbaum, M., ‘Madness, Reason, and Recantation in the Phaedrus’, in The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (New York 1986), 228–42Google Scholar.

69. Nussbaum (n.68 above), 230.

70. Nussbaum (n.68 above), 230.

71. On the possibility of illiteracy, see Hunink (n.32 above), 50f.

72. On Apuleius’ use of Plautus throughout the speech, as elsewhere, see May (n.2 above).

73. Harrison (n.17 above Latin Sophist), 55.

74. On Apuleius’ neoteric playfulness in this part of the speech, see Tilig (n.58 above), 113–19, although with no mention of the play on ineptus.

75. Previously at Apol. 3.12 and later at Apol. 27.5 he refers to all the inepta used by the prosecution against him.

76. For a discussion of this intriguing passage, see Gorman, R., The Socratic Method in the Dialogues of Cicero (Stuttgart 2005), 122fGoogle Scholar.

77. This ‘Platonised’ line of Afranius should be seen in close connection with Apuleius’ use of Virgil in Soc. when he quotes the famous address of Nisus to Euryalus (Soc. 15.150 = Aen. 9.184f.) to expound his demonological theory. The use of poetry for philosophical ends is of course a very Platonic move and is in fact at work more generally with the role of Homeric quotation in the Apologia, as two references to Homer are mediated through the philosophical authorities of Crates (22.5) and Pythagoras (31.5f.). For the use of Homer in the Apologia, see V.J.C. Hunink, ‘Homer in Apuleius’ Apology’, in Riess (n.2 above), 75–87.

78. Harrison (n.17 above, ‘The Sophist…’), 6, sees this passage as showing literary range—‘a poet-philosopher in the manner of the great Plato, but also a Latin poet of interest following the tradition of Catullus and in the fashion of contemporary archaising.’ However, we could argue for a more competitive interaction between Catullus and Plato within Apuleius’ text.

79. For this and subsequent quotations from PL., I use Moreschini, C., Apulei opera philosophica (Stuttgart 1991Google Scholar).

80. Apuleius rarely names Platonic dialogues elsewhere in the corpus. There are none in PL (a marked difference from Alcinous’ Didask.), although the Symposium is named at Soc. 6.133 and the Theaetetus in the possibly spurious Peri Hermeneias 4.267.

81. Harrison (n.17 above, ‘The Sophist…’), 13, includes the catalogue of unmentioned (memo-rassem, ‘I would have recalled’) Greek literary greats (Theocritus, Homer, Orpheus, comedy, tragedy, history) at 30.11 and Virgil in Apuleius’ reference to Mezentius at 56.7.

82. This is not the place to rehearse the significance of the speech for conceptions of ancient magic, on which see Graf, F., Magic in the Ancient World (London 1997Google Scholar). McCreight (n.4 above) is an excellent literary extension of Graf’s work and his conception of the magical anecdote or historiola is an important complement to my conception of citation.

83. Apuleius’ Greek reads (‘to play a carefree game/diversion in life’): Plato’s Greek reads: (‘and should one take a break and lay aside accounts about the things that always are, deriving instead a carefree pleasure from surveying the likely accounts about becoming, he would provide his life with a moderate and sensible diversion’, PI. Tim. 59c-d). The general accuracy of Apuleius’ Platonic quotations implies that this one is purposefully manipulated to exemplify the master’s own play versus philosophical seriousness; however, Apuleian scholars have tended to miss the joke here. For example, Riess (n.21 above), 62, coolly states that Apuleius in this passage ‘tries again to justify his experiments through referring to Plato, but his allusion to Plato’s Timaeus is very free’.

84. For example, see Graf (n.82 above), 83, and Cheak, A., ‘Magic through the Linguistic Lenses of Greek mágos, Indo-European *mag(h)-, Sanskrit māyā and Pharaonic Egyptian Heka’, Journal for the Academic Study of Magic 2 (2004), 260–86Google Scholar. In her extended discussion, bringing in parallels from the Republic and Laws, Binternagel (n.12 above), 225–38, keeps the discussion firmly on the question of the magus and does not explore the passage’s context in the Alcibiades more generally.

85. Denyer, N., Plato: Alcibiades (Cambridge 2001), 179CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Apuleius makes an explicit connection between the four virtues and the rational and irrational parts of the soul in an interesting passage of impersonation (PI. 2.6.228f.). Prudentia and sapientia combined are dubbed the virtue that is the spectatrix and diiudicatix of everything. This virtue is then divided into the disciplina of sapientia that is concerned with metaphysical (‘human and divine affairs’), while the scientia of prudentia deals with the ethical (‘good and bad’). These two dimensions can be seen in the combination of the ‘worship of the gods’ and the ‘kingly matters’ of the Alcibiades quotation.

86. The term sermocinatio for Platonic dialogue is very interesting. Butler and Owen (n.64 above), 69, and Hunink (n.32 above), 90, lead us to Quint Inst. 9.2.31.

87. McCreight (n.2 above at 170f.) discusses the interface between magic and writing, while also describing Apuleius’ use of Platonic writing as a ‘magical way of lending support to his attempts at persuasion’.

88. Hunink (n.32 above), 90. See also Butler and Owen (n.64 above), 69: ‘Apuleius makes a most unscrupulous use of Plato’s words.’

89. Schlam, C.C., The Metamorphoses of Apuleius: On Making an Ass of Oneself (London 1992), 46fGoogle Scholar., reads this passage in the Apol. as also important for the Met. and ideas of soothing stories and myths.

90. Charm. 157a-b.

91. On the idea of ‘barbarian wisdom’ within Hellenism, see Momigliano, A., Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization (Cambridge 1971Google Scholar), and Kaldellis, A., Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition (Cambridge 2008), 168–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

92. For a discussion of this passage as it relates to Pythagoras and Florida 15, see Fletcher, R., ‘The Best of Intentions? Intertextuality and the Philosopher’s Vita’, in D. van Mal-Maeder, A. Burnier and M. Loreto Nunez (eds.), Jeux de voix: énonciation, intertextualité et intentionalité dans la littérature antique (Bern 2009), 257–83Google Scholar, and Fletcher (n.31 above).

93. Along with the Symposium, the Phaedrus is perhaps the most referenced Platonic work in discussions of the Met.. For the myth, see Penwill, J.L., ‘Slavish Pleasures and Profitless Curiosity: Fall and Redemption in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses’ Ramus 4 (1975), 49–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 78 n.31; E.J. Kenney, ‘Psyche and her Mysterious Husband’, in Russell (n.19 above), 175–88, at 184f.; Schlam (n.89 above), 94.

94. On which, see Moreschini, C., Apuleio e il platonismo (Florence 1978), 71Google Scholar, and Hijmans (n.37 above), 421–24.

95. Binternagel (n.12 above), 207f., reads the focalisation as implying that only the attentive listeners with a knowledge of the Platonic passage are addressed. However, if we consider the ‘Second-Time’ reader, this could be an exhortation to the potentially attentive reader.

96. On these stories, see Morrow, G. R., Plato’s Cretan City (Princeton 1960), 515–18Google Scholar.

97. The form censet is utilised throughout Pl. to express Plato’s teachings; on its usage see Fletcher (n.31 above).

98. Hunink (n.32 above), 173, wonders why Apuleius didn’t use Cicero’s translation of this very passage (Cic. Leg. 2.45). In fact, at the end of Mu. (38.374), Apuleius makes his own Latin translation from a passage of Plato’s Laws (4.715e). My argument shows that keeping Plato’s Greek is part of the drama of unveiling Plato’s presence through direct quotation. For another approach to Apuleius’ conception of the power of the Greek language, see Fletcher (n.43 above).

99. Most significantly in Soc. where Apuleius asks Plato to respond to an imagined interlocutor using his (Apuleius’) voice (Soc. 6.132) and when we are asked to imagine we are listening to Plato speaking through Apuleius’ voice (Soc. 16.155).

100. Kingwell, M., Practical Judgments: Essays in Culture, Politics, and Interpretation (Toronto 2004), 281Google Scholar.

101. Harrison (n.17 above, ‘The Sophist…’), 14, notes that citations are ‘much more sparsely distributed’.

102. In addition, there is a reference to the letter as ‘wrongly read and evilly interpreted’ (28.5). There is also a passing reference to the letter as the source of the wooden statue charge (61.1).

103. On the letter’s personification via this image, see May (n.2 above), 105.

104. I see a confluence between quasi ipsa uerba Platonis and quasi confessionem mulieris.

105. For this imagery, evident from the exordium onwards, see Hunink, V.J.C., ‘Apuleius, Pudentilla, and Christianity’, VChr 54 (2000), 80–94Google Scholar.

106. O’Brien (n.40 above), 7.

107. Levinas, E., Totality and Infinity (New York 1979), 33CrossRefGoogle Scholar, quoting Rimbaud. As to why Levinas quotes Rimbaud, see Robbins, J., Altered Reading: Levinas and Literature (Chicago 1999), 117–31Google Scholar.