1 The Metamorphoses of Apuleius: From Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages

Abstract This chapter explores the Metamorphoses of Apuleius from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. From Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages various strategies to accommodate, within a Christian culture, the pagan pantheon of classical Greece and Rome evolved. Apuleius was not only born into the Christian era but, as an educated philosopher, in a position to embrace or reject Christian Truth. In the Metamorphoses, he could actually be seen to be advocating an Egyptian cult which, at the beginning of the first millennium, was one of Christianity's strongest rivals.