Apuleius’ The Golden Ass is the only surviving novel of the second century Roman Empire. The Golden Ass can be interpreted to having many themes. In Apuleius’s Metamorphoses; politics, religion, and violence are conjoined, but can be analyzed into their own characteristics. Regardless of the novel being fiction, Apuleius purposely injects stories with meaning to be extracted for different understandings. These stories were written with comedic purposes to emphasize how often the crimes, government, and supernatural forces at that time were the center of controversy. Apuleius’ stories shows Roman society in such a way it is clear and realistic of the time. There are arguments that without religion, there would be no Roman Empire.
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Violence is another aspect that has been integrated since the beginning of Rome. The various kinds of violence show how prevalent and uncared for they were. Sexual violence like infidelity sometimes backfired on men causing repercussions. Infidelity was never one sided on the topic of gender, and is perceived as normal and comedic. So saying, he stripped and taking the lamp in with him started to scrape the encrusted deposits off the rotten old jar. Meanwhile her smart young gallant made the man’s wife lean face downwards across the jar, and without turning a hair gave her too a good going-over. (129) This shows the way, Rome, a male dominated society does not value, and mistreats women. Both men and women in this novel cheat, with most of the women involved in infidelity being violent. A thought of consequence of infidelity could be the biting off of balls or castration. (11)
It was expressed that females were aggressively strong and showed little care for the consequences infidelity. It contradicts the stereotypical view of a militarily strong Rome. Rape was portrayed as a very sensitive topic. There was no written consequence for rape, but it was known if the perpetrator was caught he’d be given the worse possible punishment. With no designated person to call in such a predicament, sometimes all a female could do was refuse to yield to his criminal lust and resist his attempt to rape her. (151) Rape was almost …show more content…
Political and criminal violence exists because of the complete absence of government. A police force is absent allowing for countless crimes to take place. Most instances of crime involved yelling and calling on people to come help. (27) The only way to defend against crime was to be armed. The Roman government could be seen as an entire different entity, that had and wanted nothing to do with Roman society other than taxes. The lack of a government and no repercussions to crime deeply rooted the idea that violence was the only way to receive
Most people …show more content…
Violence is another aspect that has been integrated since the beginning of Rome. The various kinds of violence show how prevalent and uncared for they were. Sexual violence like infidelity sometimes backfired on men causing repercussions. Infidelity was never one sided on the topic of gender, and is perceived as normal and comedic. So saying, he stripped and taking the lamp in with him started to scrape the encrusted deposits off the rotten old jar. Meanwhile her smart young gallant made the man’s wife lean face downwards across the jar, and without turning a hair gave her too a good going-over. (129) This shows the way, Rome, a male dominated society does not value, and mistreats women. Both men and women in this novel cheat, with most of the women involved in infidelity being violent. A thought of consequence of infidelity could be the biting off of balls or castration. (11)
It was expressed that females were aggressively strong and showed little care for the consequences infidelity. It contradicts the stereotypical view of a militarily strong Rome. Rape was portrayed as a very sensitive topic. There was no written consequence for rape, but it was known if the perpetrator was caught he’d be given the worse possible punishment. With no designated person to call in such a predicament, sometimes all a female could do was refuse to yield to his criminal lust and resist his attempt to rape her. (151) Rape was almost …show more content…
Political and criminal violence exists because of the complete absence of government. A police force is absent allowing for countless crimes to take place. Most instances of crime involved yelling and calling on people to come help. (27) The only way to defend against crime was to be armed. The Roman government could be seen as an entire different entity, that had and wanted nothing to do with Roman society other than taxes. The lack of a government and no repercussions to crime deeply rooted the idea that violence was the only way to receive