Apuleius

Apuleius was born in 125 AD in Madauros, Africa, a Roman province on the border of Gaetulia and Numidia, near present-day Constantine. In other words, today he would be considered Algerian. He was known for his good looks; a preserved image of him on a medallion shows a handsome and smiling face, not without a hint of light irony, and he seems to have had a particular sensitivity to a well-groomed appearance. Born into an upper-middle-class family, he studied rhetoric in Carthage, a significant field at the time, as it encompassed a vast area of human knowledge: literature, philosophy, the art of correct thinking and speaking, and additionally, it was an art that paved the way to administration and politics or at least to a brilliant career as a lawyer. He then went to Athens, where he studied the Greek language, literature, and philosophy, in which he excelled. At the same time, being curious by nature, he delved into mysticism and magic. On his return journey to Carthage, he stopped in Oea, Libya—modern-day Tripoli—where his romance and subsequent marriage to a wealthy widow led him to court, as her natural heirs claimed he had seduced her with magic. Apuleius defended himself and was acquitted. After this unpleasant adventure, we find Apuleius in Carthage with the title of Sacerdos Provinciae. He became so famous as an orator and lawyer, as well as a servant of the muses, that a statue was erected in his honor while he was still alive. "The Golden Ass or The Metamorphoses," one of the earliest novels in Western literature, is estimated to have been written around 161 AD, when he was about thirty-five years old.