This volume springs from the international colloquium ‘Les savoirs d'Apulée’, organised by Plantade and held at the University of Lyon in October 2016. It brings together fourteen contributions that share a common goal: to cast more light on the profound and diversified knowledge of the Latin rhetorician Apuleius of Madauros. The essays – mostly written in French, but also in English and Italian – are self-contained and treat topics of a disparate nature, but there are abundant connections between them that strengthen the consistency of the whole book. Plantade's introduction deals with the diversity of Apuleius’ knowledge: he offers a view differing from that in S. Harrison, Apuleius. A Latin Sophist (2000), since Plantade emphasises the originality and depth of Apuleius’ thought. Plantade highlights how Apuleius’ knowledge ranges from science and medicine, through philosophy and religion, to rhetoric and literature. This distinction serves as a guideline to collect the chapters under three headings: ‘Savoirs Pratiques’, ‘Savoirs Spirituels’ and ‘Savoirs Intertextuels’. The introduction also offers a summary of each paper, while abstracts in English can be found at the end of the volume, after the bibliography.

Part 1, ‘Savoirs Pratiques’, opens with a remarkable chapter by N. Lévi that discusses Apuleius’ understanding of the concept of polymathy, the key theme of this book, through a terminological analysis of the adjective multiscius – the Latin counterpart of πολυμαθής – in the Apuleian corpus. Lévi persuasively shows how Apuleius draws on previous views of this term to create a personal interpretation: multiscius coincides with erudition and has a mixed connotation, sometimes positive, but it never indicates the true wisdom of the philosophers. I. Ottria discusses Apuleius’ use of Greek terms in his literary works, mainly the Apologia, but also the Metamorphoses and the Florida. She suggests that Apuleius employs loanwords or Greek quotes only when necessary, and that they contribute to highlighting his knowledge of Greek while winking at his ideal addressees, who would have been equally fluent in Greek. Ottria's contribution is interesting and well argued, but the excessive length of some footnotes (nn. 35 and 39 cover almost a page) does not always make it easy to follow her argument. S. Barbara's dense chapter focuses on a rather under-researched topic: Apuleius’ toxicological knowledge, which emerges especially from Apol. 29–41 and Met. 10. Barbara compares these passages with ancient technical treatises and toxicological descriptions in other novels, arguing that Apuleius’ display underscores his status as a natural philosopher and a physician. S. Sabnis proposes a new interpretation of the role of the handmaid Photis in Lucius’ transformation into a donkey in Met. 3. According to her, this is not an accident provoked by Lucius’ uncontrolled curiosity, but it is rather due to Photis’ subtle intention to harm a Roman citizen, by turning him into a slave inferior to Photis herself. In doing so, as Sabnis argues, Apuleius demonstrates his understanding of slaves and slavery. This interpretation seems unconvincing to me for two reasons: first, there is no evidence that Photis intentionally aimed at harming Lucius; second, Lucius seems ultimately responsible for his uneventful transformation into a donkey, since he does not possess the proper magical knowledge mastered by the witch Pamphile, Photis’ mistress (Met. 3.21). M. Béraud also looks at slavery but from a different perspective: she discusses the occurrence of the legal term vicarius (i.e. a slave kept by another slave), which Apuleius employs at Met. 8.26 and which is alluded to at 10.13 to depict the abysmal status of the donkey. Through examining legal and epigraphic sources, Béraud suggests that Apuleius had a clear knowledge of this lower social status, through which he effectively characterises the misfortune of Lucius the ass. M. Lakhlif examines various passages of the Apologia that are particularly relevant to see how Apuleius discloses his knowledge of Roman law. This paper is very informative but somewhat modest in its conclusion, since it only shows that Apuleius knows the law and structures his defence speech accordingly.

Part 2, ‘Savoirs Spirituels’, begins with H.K. Mimbu's chapter on Apuleius’ religious knowledge that emerges from Metamorphoses 11. Mimbu expressly criticises scholars who argue for a comic reading of Book 11, accentuating the ideas expressed by J.J. Winkler, Auctor & Actor (1985). That Book 11 should not be seen as a mere parody has been cogently proposed in L. Graverini, Le metamorfosi di Apuleio: letteratura e identità (2007), pp. 57–105, which is, however, not mentioned here. Mimbu's chapter seems to spring from the need to accentuate Apuleius’ genuine religious interest and concern in the Metamorphoses. This assumption is disputable per se since Lucius’ persona might not necessarily mirror the author's own self. Furthermore, through using synchronic anthropological evidence from religions that are chronologically and geographically distant (there is a particular interest in Christian sources), Mimbu resorts to vague interpretative categories that seem hardly to relate to Apuleius’ socio-cultural milieu. A. Motta throws new light on the information concerning Plato's life that Apuleius reports at the beginning of the De Platone. She compares Apuleius’ account with other versions of Plato's life and stresses the importance and the innovative aspects of Apuleius’ thought. As Motta cogently argues, Apuleius for the first time ascribes to Plato and his philosophy that divine veneer that becomes conventional in late-antique biographies of the philosopher. Silence as a sign of superior knowledge in the Metamorphoses is the topic of E. Adkins's contribution. She draws on the category of ‘mystical silence’ described by P. Van Nuffelen (‘Words of Truth’, Hermathena 182 [2007], 9–10) and suggests that Apuleius employs silence in Book 11 – particularly Met. 11.23.5 – to mark Lucius’ initiation into the mysteries. By comparing this silence with the ideas in Plut. Mor. 505f (a passage from De garrulitate, not De curiositate as at p. 210), Adkins shows how mystery silence was commonly understood as a sign of divine knowledge in Imperial times. Adkins also compares this new attitude with the troubles aroused from Lucius’ prior uncontrolled curiosity, which are mirrored in the tale of Cupid and Psyche. F. Collin's chapter presents a Platonic reading of the Metamorphoses, focusing on the central role of the goddess Isis in Book 11: she is the figure who gives order and meaning to Lucius’ life, emancipating him from his previous accidental mishaps. To substantiate the importance and originality of these ideas, it would have been interesting to see more engagement with the recent discussions of the Platonic aspects of the Metamorphoses in S. Tilg, Apuleius’ Metamorphoses. A Study in Roman Fiction (2014), pp. 57–83, C. Moreschini, Apuleius and the Metamorphoses of Platonism (2015), pp. 59–115, G. Puccini, Apulée: roman et philosophie (2017), pp. 129–292, and especially W.H. Keulen et al. (edd.), Apuleius Madaurensis Metamorphoses. Book XI. Text, Introduction and Commentary (2015).

Part 3, ‘Savoirs Intertextuels’, opens with E. Finkelpearl's suggestion that Apuleius may have drawn on Aesop's Fables concerning donkeys in the Metamorphoses. Finkelpearl highlights Apuleius’ general knowledge of Aesop, which clearly emerges from the False Preface of the De deo Socratis 4, then homes in on possible parallels between Aesop, Babrius, Phaedrus and the Metamorphoses. She ultimately argues that Apuleius – similarly to the author of the Greek ass-novel and the Onos – uses a well-known corpus of fables and frames some of them within the more complex narrative of the novel. L. Nicolini's thought-provoking study shows how Apuleius incorporates in his Metamorphoses elements from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Nicolini's methodological standpoint is that such intertexts in the Metamorphoses are not necessarily due to Apuleius’ intention of explicitly alluding to Ovid: Apuleius’ knowledge of Ovid's renowned poem induces him to draw on Ovid's Metamorphoses in specific scenes where Ovid's thematic influence is evident. Thus, Nicolini suggests that, in order to identify what portions of the Metamorphoses are likely to have been influenced by Ovid, it is not only necessary to identify scattered linguistic parallels, but also to look at the content of each passage and its possible connections with a section of Ovid's poem. Through discussing different cases, she concludes that this type of intertexts has no allusive meaning: they are learned and almost automatic borrowings that enrich the literary texture of Apuleius’ novel.

The last two chapters are authored by the editors: Plantade reprises the innovative idea (first proposed in ‘Lybica Psyche’, in B.T. Lee, E. Finkelpearl and L. Graverini [edd.], Apuleius and Africa [2013], pp. 174–202) that Apuleius’ tale of Cupid and Psyche might have been inspired by a Berber oral tradition. Plantade argues that Apuleius looks to Dio of Prusa, Or. 5. as a model: at the beginning of this speech, Dio exhorts his audience not to refrain from working on an African myth (μῦθον Λιβυκόν), especially if this legend can become an allegory of a higher truth. Since the tale of Cupid and Psyche can, indeed, be seen as an allegory of the Platonic soul (cf. C. and S. Panayotakis, ‘The Human Characters in the Tale of Cupid and Psyche’, in S. Harrison [ed.], Characters and Characterisation in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses [2015], pp. 125–45), Dio would have offered Apuleius a strong example, enabling him to integrate his knowledge of Northern African folktales into the sophisticated narrative of the Metamorphoses. Finally, Vallat's chapter proposes that Apuleius draws on the genre of the epigram to satirise his accusers in the Apologia: Apuleius reprises themes and expressions found in Catullus and especially Martial. According to Vallat, these allusions are, however, hidden within the prose of the speech. Apuleius, in fact, did not want to openly imitate epigrams, a genre unsuitable for a judiciary speech, but to subtly borrow some themes and expressions in order to show his erudition to his ideal audience, particularly the judge Claudius Maximus. Perhaps, the sparse evidence discussed by Vallat might not always be seen as intentional allusions but as a mechanical reuse of a vast literary erudition – as suggested in Nicolini's chapter – induced by a certain context, specifically that of the invective against his enemies. No doubt, however, Vallat throws more light on Apuleius’ own knowledge and employment of epigrammatic poetry.

The book is well edited and it contains a useful index auctorum at the end. The editors and the contributors should be warmly congratulated on a stimulating volume that makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Apuleius’ multifaceted profile, thus satisfying fully the expectations raised by the title.