8 h 59 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 8 h 59 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if your hunger for magic leaves you with a donkey’s body—and a clear view of everyone’s secrets?
In The Golden Asse by Apuleius, Lucius travels to Thessaly eager to see real witchcraft. Warnings only sharpen his curiosity. With help from Fotis, a quick-witted maid and his lover, he reaches for a chance to change his shape. He hopes to fly as a bird. Instead, he becomes a donkey.
Now a beast of burden, Lucius passes through a world of robbers, priests, millers, cooks and cheating wives. Nobody thinks to hide anything from an animal. His adventures mix laughter with cruelty, while stories open inside other stories. At their center lies the fairy tale of Cupid and Psyche, where beauty and curiosity bring dangers of their own.
What you’ll discover
- Curiosity with a cost Follow a man whose need to see forbidden things puts his human shape at risk.
- Secrets before a donkey See what people reveal when they think the creature watching cannot tell their stories.
- Magic in the kitchen Meet Fotis, whose teasing warmth draws Lucius closer to her mistress’s dangerous spells.
- Cupid and Psyche Step into a fairy tale of beauty, envy and curiosity within Lucius’s rough adventures.
- Laughter with sharp edges Explore the Roman world through a restless tale where mischief and cruelty travel together.
Who will love it
This is for readers who love a wild adventure with a sly narrator, fans of fairy tales and myths, and anyone curious about daily life in the Roman world.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A human mind inside a donkey
- Warnings only sharpen his curiosity
- The wrong ointment takes his freedom
- Psyche also pays for looking
- Rescue does not bring lasting safety
- Each owner reveals another human failing
- Seeing everything does not mean freedom
- Stories keep echoing the main adventure
Who’s who
- LuciusA young traveller of good family who loves magic and gossip, he becomes a donkey and wants only to find roses to be human again.
- FotisQuick, warm maid in the house of Milo, she is Lucius's lover and his link to the witch Pamphile's secrets.
- PamphileWife of the miser Milo and a witch who changes shape into an owl and enchants young men she fancies.
- ByrrhenaWealthy cousin of Lucius who welcomes him with feasts and warns him to stay away from witchcraft.
- CharitesA bride stolen by robbers on her wedding day, she hopes to return to the man she loves.
- LepolemusCharites's bridegroom, who disguises himself as a bandit to rescue her from the robbers' den.
- PsycheA princess so beautiful that people worship her instead of Venus, she loves a husband whose face she must not see.
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The Golden Asse
by Apuleius · 170
A curious young man rubs on a magic ointment and becomes a donkey, with his mind still human.
Challenging2–5 hours to read20 languages
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In short
Imagine rubbing a magic ointment on your skin, hoping to grow wings, and feeling your fingers harden into hooves. That is the fate of Lucius, a young man of good family who cannot stop poking into secrets.
The Golden Asse at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h 55 min3 h 50 min fast, 5 h 50 min slow
- Length
- 69,600 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- about AD 170by Apuleius
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A road in Thessaly fills Lucius with witch stories
Lucius rides into Thessaly on business, a region famous for witches who can turn rivers backward and change men into animals. On the road he overhears two travellers arguing. One laughs at the other for telling lies, and Lucius, hungry for wonders, begs to hear the story.
The teller is Aristomenus, a merchant who buys honey and cheese. He found his old friend Socrates in rags, robbed on the road and taken in by a wine seller named Meroe. She is a witch who has turned a former lover into a beaver and a rival innkeeper into a frog. That night two witches burst into the friends' barred room. Aristomenus hides under his collapsing bed and watches them drive a sword into the throat of the sleeping Socrates.
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Details
- First published
- 170
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 5 h 50 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Apuleius. The Golden Asse. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-golden-asse.
Apuleius. (2026). The golden asse. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-golden-asse (Original work published ca. 170)
Apuleius. The Golden Asse. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-golden-asse.
@book{apuleius2026golden,
author = {Apuleius},
title = {The Golden Asse},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-golden-asse},
note = {First published ca. 170}
}
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What is The Golden Asse about?
It tells how a curious young man named Lucius is turned into a donkey by a magic ointment and is passed from owner to owner while keeping his human mind, seeing the cruelty and comedy of the Roman world.
Who wrote The Golden Asse and when?
Apuleius, a Roman writer from North Africa, wrote it in Latin in the second century. It is also called the Metamorphoses and runs to eleven books, and it is the only Roman novel to survive whole.
What is the story of Cupid and Psyche in The Golden Asse?
An old woman tells it to a kidnapped girl in the robbers' cave. Psyche is a princess who marries an unseen husband, breaks his rule by looking at him, and must complete tasks set by Venus.
The author
Apuleius
125–170 · Ancient Roman novelist and philosopher
2nd-century Numidian Latin-language writer, rhetorician and philosopher.
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