Appearances Can Be Deceiving: Costume and Identity in Apuleius's Metamorphoses, Florida, and Apology

Abstract

In Book 11 of Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, a stark naked Lucius, having eaten the prescribed roses from the hands of a priest of Isis, gradually appears where before there had only been his asinine form.1 Almost immediately, a member of the Isiac procession steps forward, clothing the naked man in the linen tunic off of his own back: the first physical mark of the last major metamorphosis of the novel, that of man to priest (11.14). This Apuleian moment can be compared to the same scene of transformation in the Onos, in all likelihood an epitome of Apuleius’s Greek source text, in which Loukios, after eating roses in the middle of the amphitheater, returns to his human form.2 Unlike Lucius in the Metamorphoses, in the Onos, Loukios remains naked as he begs the provincial governor for his life and his “re-clothing” goes unmentioned.3