Paideia at Play, 17–49 Legal Strategy and Learned Display in Apuleius’ Apology J AMES B. R IVES The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Over the years, many scholars have expressed surprise and even disbelief that Apuleius’ Apology contains so much material that seems so little to the point. The variety and length of what are apparently digressions are indeed striking on even the most cursory glance: anecdotes, quotations, erudite dis- quisitions, displays of learning of every sort are piled on top of each other with an exuberance that seems entirely out of keeping with a serious court case. The usual approach to this material has been to dismiss it as entirely gratuitous, with no other purpose than to show off Apuleius’ erudition. 1 Oth- ers, in contrast, have suggested that this sophistic display in fact had a prac- tical purpose: Apuleius used it to associate himself with the proconsul, Clau- dius Maximus, as men of the same educated elite background, in contrast to the ignorant bumpkins who opposed him. 2 In this paper I extend the latter approach further by arguing that Apuleius’ displays of learning, far from being gratuitous, are in fact absolutely central to his strategy in countering the charge brought against him. My argument is necessarily somewhat hypothetical, as are indeed most arguments concerning the Apology that attempt to go beyond philological and literary analysis. The Apology is a text that to a large extent exists in glorious isolation; there are simply no other sources independent of the Apology itself that attest to the events or individuals with which it is con- cerned. Indeed, one could read the text purely as an example of Apuleius’ sophistic play, a fictional response to a hypothetical charge, a fantasy in the ————— 1 The strongest statement of this view is Gaide 1993, who argues that the first two sections of the speech are so inappropriate to an actual court case that they must have been added later. 2 Cf. especially Bradley 1997, 212–219, who argues that Apuleius presented himself as philosopher-counselor to Maximus, and Harrison 2000, 44–45.