Stelios Panayotakis Underworld Journeys in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses Introduction In the famous prologue to Apuleius’ Metamorphoses the speaker claims (literary) ancestry from Athens, Corinth, and Sparta, cities indicated through metonymy as “Attic Hymettus, the Isthmus of Corinth, and Spartan Taenarus, fruitful lands immortalized in yet more fruitful books” (1,1,3).1 The early mention in the novel of Taenarus, a place celebrated in literature as the entry-point of famous heroes to the Underworld, foreshadows the account of Psyche’s journey to Hades through the same entrance precisely halfway through the entire text (6,18–20). The infernal journey and the vision of afterlife are continued, at another level, in the last book of the novel, in which the hero Lucius becomes a devotee of Isis and is initiated into her mysteries (11,6 and 11,23). This meaningful arrangement reflects the importance of the theme of kata- basis, the descent to the Underworld, in Apuleius’ novel. The terminology describing a journey to and from the land of the dead, used both literally and figuratively, includes ad inferos demeare (9,31,1; 11,6,6; cf. 8,7,4) or derigere (6,16,3) or descendere (6,17,2) or festinare (1,16,3); ab inferis emergere (3,10,3) or eripere (8,20,1) or recurrere (6,20,4) or reducere (2,28,1; cf. 11,18,2); ad Tar- tarum manesque commeare (6,17,1), ad Tartarum ire and inde redire (6,17,4); in barathrum se praecipitare (2,6,2), infernum meatum decurrere (6,20,1), ad Orcum festinare (6,29,7), and ad diem remeare (10,11,3). Apuleius is fond of using rhyming pairs (either existing or new) suggesting this kind of journey, such as demeare / remeare (1,19,3), and demeacula / remeacula (6,2,5).2 Moreover, since magic is the area par excellence which allows communication between the upper and the lower spheres, witches are presented in the early books as persons with powers over the stars and the Underworld alike (1,8,4; 2,5,4; 3,15,7);3 direct 1 Translations of passages from the Metamorphoses are by E. J. Kenney (Penguin Classics, 1998). Unless otherwise indicated, the text is cited from the edition by M. Zimmerman (Oxford Classical Texts, 2012). 2 See Zimmerman (2000), 183; Keulen (2007), 132–133 and 345. 3 (Of Meroe) 1,8,4: potens caelum deponere, terram suspendere, fontes durare, montes diluere, manes sublimare, deos infimare, sidera extinguere, Tartarum ipsum inluminare; (of Pam- phile) 2,5,4: quae […] omnem istam lucem mundi sideralis imis Tartari et in vetustum chaos submergere novit; 3,15,7: obaudiunt manes, turbantur sidera, coguntur numina, serviunt elementa. VR_9783525540305_Tanaseanu-Doebler_Ilinca_Reading_Vorumbruch – Seite 234