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11 - The Politics of Transgender Representation in Apuleius’ the Golden Ass and Loukios, or the Ass
- Edited by Allison Surtees, University of Winnipeg, Canada, Jennifer Dyer, Memorial University of Newfoundland
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- Book:
- Exploring Gender Diversity in the Ancient World
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 24 September 2020
- Print publication:
- 31 March 2020, pp 157-168
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- Chapter
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Summary
In the second-century ad novels Loukios, or the Ass and Apuleius’ The Golden Ass (also known as the Metamorphoses), the man-turned-into-a-donkey Lucius is sold to a group of priests of the Syrian Goddess. Like the priests of Cybele with whom they are frequently linked, these figures are infamous in Greek and Latin literature for ecstatic music and dance, transvestism, self-castration, and suspect sexuality. In both the Greek and Latin novels, the first-person narrator Lucius calls them cinaedi, Graeco-Roman scare figures of gender and sexual deviance. The priests, however, never use this derogatory term, instead calling themselves ‘girls’ (puellae: Met. 8.26; korasia: Onos 36) and using feminine grammatical forms. In their own words, they construct feminine identities, adding to the evidence that some of the followers of Cybele and the Syrian Goddess – commonly referred to as galli – were transwomen and other assigned-male-at-birth individuals with diverse gender identities and sexual orientations (Roscoe 1996; Taylor 1997: 336, 371; Adkins 2014: 35–55; Blood 2015; Blood forthcoming; Carlà- Uhink 2017: 16–19). I argue that in the Greek and Latin novels, the primary locus of the priests’ contested identities is their speech. By juxtaposing Lucius‘ interpretation of the priests’ speech with their own words, I highlight the role of language as a mechanism of power, focusing on who has the authority to impose meaning and how this affects those whose social labels are at odds with their own identities and self-representations.
While Apuleius’ Latin novel is longer and has a different ending than the Greek Loukios, or the Ass (hereafter referred to by its abbreviated Greek name Onos), both relate the story of Lucius, a Roman Greek aristocrat who is transformed into a donkey. After a year of being stolen, bought and sold, he changes back into a man. Based on the similarities between these novels and the comments of the ninth-century patriarch Photios, they are thought to derive separately from a third novel, the lost Greek Metamorphoseis of Lucius of Patrae (Phot. Bibl. 129; van Thiel 1971: 1–21; Mason 1994, 1999a, 1999b).
THE SKIN OF A SWALLOW: APULEIUS, METAMORPHOSES 6.26
- Evelyn Adkins
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- Journal:
- The Classical Quarterly / Volume 69 / Issue 1 / May 2019
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 14 June 2019, pp. 457-461
- Print publication:
- May 2019
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In Book 6 of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, Lucius contemplates his possible death at the hands of the robbers. After one robber threatens to throw him off a cliff, he remarks to himself how easily such an act would kill him (Met. 6.26):
‘uides istas rupinas proximas et praeacutas in his prominentes silices, quae te penetrantes antequam decideris membratim dissipabunt? nam et illa ipsa praeclara magia tua uultum laboresque tibi tantum asini, uerum corium non asini crassum, sed hirudinis tenue membranulum circumdedit. quin igitur masculum tandem sumis animum tuaeque saluti, dum licet, consulis?’
‘Do you see that ravine nearby and the sharp rocks jutting into it which will impale you before you hit the bottom and tear you limb from limb? For that wondrous magic of yours gave you only the appearance and hardships of an ass, but in truth it surrounded you not with the thick hide of an ass but with the thin little membrane of a leech. Why not, therefore, take up your manly spirit at last and seek your safety while you can?’
Lucius seems to contradict the description of his metamorphosis at 3.24: pili mei crassantur in setas, et cutis tenella duratur in corium, ‘my hair thickens into bristles and my thin skin hardens into hide’. Met. 6.26 suggests that Lucius’ metamorphosis may not be as complete as it initially seemed: his skin is not the thick hide of an ass but the delicate membrane of a leech. This passage is further complicated by a textual dispute: where all modern editions and most translations read hirudinis, ‘leech’, our earliest and best manuscripts have hirundinis, ‘swallow’. I propose that we should restore ‘swallow’ on the testimony of these manuscripts and because it better reflects Lucius’ initial desire for an avian rather than an asinine transformation. My examination of this passage will also highlight the liminal nature of Lucius’ metamorphosis. Despite his apparent physical transformation, he remains caught between the human and the animal worlds in both mind and body.
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