The Problem of Genre. When was the "novel" invented in western literature? This is a topic on which the experts cannot agree. Some would say the first novel was The Princess of Cleves, a French tale written in the seventeenth century. Others would point to English authors of the eighteenth century. But a case can be made that the genre has precursors, if not actual examples, in the ancient prose writings of such authors as Achilles Tatius, Chariton, Heliodorus (in Greek), and Apuleius (in Latin). For Apuleius, the last pagan author mentioned in this brief glance at Roman literature, we do not even have a first name. His most famous work is the prose Metamorphoses in eleven books, but he also published a collection of samples of oratory and a good number of Platonist philosophical writings.

Greek Borrowings. The Metamorphoses of Apuleius is the...