Narration and Nutrition in Apuleius' Metamorphoses

Abstract

Unusual things are to happen to Lucius in Hypata. Since he finds himself lodged at the home of the town's foremost miser, he tactfully refuses hospitality and sets off to procure his own food for dinner. After a little bargaining, he manages to purchase some fish at a reasonable price – but life is not going to be that easy. He is spotted by an acquaintance from Athens who has confirmed the ‘Peter Principle’ by rising to the position of public overseer of the market. Pythias is wonderfully officious: when he learns how much the fish have cost his friend, he is outraged and immediately drags Lucius back to the fish-seller, scolds the miscreant merchant, and as a curious climax to his absurd performance:et profusa in medium sportula iubet officialem suum insuper pisces inscendere ac pedibus suis totos obterere. qua contentus morum seueritudine meus Pythias ac mihi, ut abirem, suadens: ‘sufficit mihi, o Luci’, inquit, ‘seniculi tanta haec columella.’ his actis consternatus ac prorsus obstupidus ad balneas me refero prudentis con-discipuli ualido consilio et nummis simul priuatus et cena lautusque ad hospitium Milonis ac dehinc cubiculum me reporto.Then he emptied the fish out of my basket and ordered one of the minor officials to jump on them and to trample them to smithereens. After which, this friend of mine, Pythias, smiling complacently at the rigour with which he fulfilled his duties, motioned me to depart.‘I am satisfied, Lucius,’ he said. ‘That is enough reproof for the old scoundrel.’Speechless and flabbergasted, I wandered off to the Baths, bereft of both food and money through this high-handed procedure of my judicious fellowstudent. I bathed and refreshed myself, and then returned to Mi1o's house, and into my bedroom.