The Golden Ass of Apuleius, which I am in the process of translating, is like a telescope. Through this work of the mid-second century a.d., you can see a whole hemisphere and 4,000 years of literature, from the bards of pre-alphabetic Asia Minor in one direction to the New Orleans of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces in the other.
The Roman author (actually a cosmopolitan North African) was also an orator, with all the learning typical for that profession. He could whip out a homily based on Homer; spoof contemporary book fashions; stuff his narrative with incidents and personalities …
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