XXXIX explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Deception and Appearance

  The priests use fraudulent lots and divination to deceive villagers, and later try to lie their way out of theft, highlighting the theme of deception.

• Fortune and Suffering

  Lucius endures the misery of forced labor in the mill, contrasting his past fortune as a man with his current suffering as an ass.

• Transformation and Identity

  Lucius's continued existence as an ass allows him to observe human behavior and gain wisdom, reflecting on his transformed state.

Characters to notice

• Lucius

  Narrates his experiences as an ass, sold to a baker and forced to work in a mill, reflecting on his past human life.

• Philebus

  Leader of the priests of the Syrian goddess; arrested and imprisoned for stealing a gold cup.

Key passages

• “Coniuncti terram proscindunt boves ut in futurum loeta germinent sata”

  The oxen tied and yoked together till the ground so that it may bring forth its increase.

  This is the lot used by the priests to deceive people, interpreted to match various inquiries.

• “Oh good Lord what a sort of poor slaves were there; some had their skin black and blue, some had their backs striped with lashes, some were covered with rugged sacks, some had their members only hidden: some wore such ragged cloths, that you might perceive all their naked bodies, some were marked and burned in the heads with hot irons, some had their hair half clipped, some had locks of their legs, some very ugly and evil-favoured, that they could scarce see, their eyes and face were so black and dim with smoke, like those that fight in the sands, and know not where they strike by reason of dust: And some had their faces all mealy.”

  Lucius describes the miserable and brutalized condition of the slaves working in the mill, with their bodies scarred, burned, and covered in grime.

  This vivid description emphasizes the harshness of labor and the degradation of the slaves.