I would like to thank Farouk F. Grewing for discussing this paper with me at different stages of its composition and for helping me to format it for publication. Further thanks go to the anonymous referee who has made some very helpful suggestions. 1 Hijmans 1995:364–365 (Table 1). See 362n2, for a comprehensive bibliography on the question. 2 E.g. Wlosok 1969, Walsh 1988:75–78. 3 Labhardt 1960:224; Schmidt 1995. 4 Joly 1961:34, Hijmans 1995:passim. 5 Cf. Heine 1978:33. SATIRE, PROPAGANDA, AND THE PLEASURE OF READING APULEIUS’ STORIES OF CURIOSITY IN CONTEXT ALEXANDER KIRICHENKO T HE ADJECTIVE CURIOSUS as well as its various cognates occur in Apuleius’ Golden Ass with such conspicuous frequency 1 that it is hardly surprising that curiosity is universally recognized as one of its central leitmotifs. Most commonly, critics who discuss the curiosity theme in Apuleius interpret the story of its protagonist Lucius, transformed into an ass as a result of his curiosity for magic and assisted in regaining his human form by the goddess Isis, as a straightforward moral fable about a just punishment for sinful curiosity. 2 Some scholars even go so far as to see in Apuleius’ novel the primary source of the later Christian comprehensive condemnation of curiosity and, thus, to ascribe to it the role of one of the most important milestones in the development of the concept of curiosity in Western thought in general. 3 At the same time, it has repeatedly been pointed out that, despite the fact that curiosity in Apuleius is explicitly condemned on a few occasions, it is also often mentioned with undeniably positive connota- tions. 4 Those who emphasize disjunction and ambivalence in Apuleius’ treatment of curiosity appeal to his careless inconsistency, 5 postulate