inhabitants of her native city turn out to welcome
her, when she makes her triumphal entry,
mounted on the back of Lucius; and he, to
mark his sympathy with the general rejoicings,
makes the place ring with brayings, according
to his own account, as loud as thunder.

Poor Lucius subsequently passes into the
service of some mendicant priests.  Their
faces were painted, and their eyelids darkened,
after the manner of Eastern women.
They wore white tunics striped with purple,
turbans, and yellow sandals.  Their hands
were bare, and in them they carried large
swords or axes.  In this guise they danced
along in procession with a wild step, to the
music of flutes, cymbals, and castanets, till
they arrived at the mansion of some rich
proprietor who was willing to repay a grand
exhibition of their rites.  These rites were
gloomy and hideous.  As the band entered,
they made the premises ring with discordant
howlings, and ran to and fro with frantic
gestures.  They whirled their heads till their
long hair stood out on end, and tore their
flesh with their teeth and knives.  Then one
of the party taking the lead, and panting for
breath, pretended to be the subject of a more
complete possession, as though, says Lucius,
the presence of the gods make men weak
instead of strong.  In a loud chaunt he accuses
himself of some imaginary violation of
their rules, requiring for its expiation punishment
from his own hand.  Seizing a whip
strung with the knuckle-bones of sheep — the
peculiar implement of his order — he lashes
himself severely, without betraying the least
sense of pain.  This exhibition continues
until the earth is moistened with blood.  At
its close, the spectators vie with each other
in offering them money and presents of every
kind; which the flagellants, well provided
with wallets for the purpose, greedily scrape
together, and pile upon the unhappy Lucius,
who discharges the double function of a locomotive
granary and a temple.  Thus they
continue their career; but at length their
knavery is detected.  Under pretence of
celebrating their sacred rites, they repair to
the temple of the Mother of the Gods, and
steal therefrom one of the sacred goblets.
The theft is speedily discovered; the whole
band is summarily thrown into prison, and
Lucius is put up to auction.

He is purchased by a master-baker, a kind-hearted
and highly-respectable man; but the
baker has a wife, who takes an extraordinary
dislike to Lucius.  At daybreak, while in
bed, she calls out for the new ass to be harnessed
to the wheel; her first act on getting
up is to order him to be beaten; and he is
the last led back to the manger.  His next
master is a market-gardener, who drives him
every morning to the neighbouring market
with a load of fresh vegetables; and, on his
return, shares with him his evening meal of
rancid lettuces, as coarse as brooms.  While
here, he has an opportunity of observing two
significant instances of the insecurity of life
and property at a distance from the centre of
government : —

There is a cottager, whose small farm
adjoins the domains of a youthful and rich
proprietor, who employs his family influence
and his position as head of his party, to lord
it over the city.  He makes war upon his
poor neighbour, kills his sheep, drives away
his oxen, and tramples down his growing
corn.  Not content with robbing him of the
fruits of his industry, he becomes eager to
eject him from his field, and, upon some
pettifogging quibble, lays claim to the whole
property.  The poor farmer expostulates
with him.  The tyrant's answer is to bid his
shepherds let slip their dogs, and hark them
on to the attack.  The faster the party flies,
the keener the hounds pursue, and the poor
cottager is torn in pieces.

One day, as the gardener is riding home on
Lucius, musing on the circumstance just
related, he is awakened from his reverie, by
a gaunt legionary demanding the ass for the
use of his commanding officer, and enforcing
the demand with a blow.  The gardener
wipes away the blood which streams from his
head, and mildly begs him to spare so sluggish
and unsafe an animal.  But the soldier is
inexorable, and is on the point of ending the
controversy by dashing out the brains of the
civilian, when the gardener, by a feint, trips
him up, and, pommelling him soundly, leaves
him for dead.  He recovers, however, and
his comrades take up his cause, and lay an
information against the gardener for refusing
to give up a silver dish, which, as they allege, he
has found.  With their help the magistrates
discover his hiding-place, and throw him into
prison to answer the charge; and there being
now no one to object, the soldier takes possession
of Lucius.

He passes into the hands of a rich Corinthian,
who, being anxious to signalise his accession
to office by an exhibition of more than usual
magnificence, the slaves who have charge of
Lucius leave him on the sea-shore, close to the
Temple of Sois.  He prays heartily to the
goddess, and one of the priests offers him a garland,
which he tastes; the transformation is
reversed, and he recovers his former shape.

After this he goes to Rome, and is initiated
into the mysteries of Osiris, and, in conclusion,
to use his own words, "Thenceforward I fulfilled
all my duties as a member of that ancient
college; and with a head newly and thoroughly
shaved, joyfully exposed my bald pate to the
gaze of the multitude, wheresoever I went."

Thus runs the old story of the old storyteller,
otherwise known as the Golden Ass of
Apuleius.

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