63

My accusers claim the statuette is a horrific, ghostly skeleton. Luckily, it is my custom to carry with me among my books a statuette of a god to worship on festival days. I had this Mercury fetched, and here it is, a traditional, attractive image of the god.

(1)

Tertium mendācium vestrum fuit: "Your third lie was," introducing an indirect statement fōrmam ... fabricātam (esse).

omnīnō: construe with ēvīscerātam. "emaciated or outright eviscerated."

fōrmam: "the appearance (of the statuette)."

fabricātam: there is plenty of authority for the participle being used both passively (as in Vergil, Aeneid 2.46 in nostras fabricata est machina muros) and as deponent (as in Tacitus, Annals 4.5.1 pontes et scalas fabricati); but here Apuleius has employed it in both ways in the same chapter (Butler).

lārvālem: "ghoulish" (Jones). Apuleius elsewhere describes larvae as ghostly bogeymen.

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De Deo Socratis 15, trans. Jones:

There is also a class of demons in a second sense—the human soul that has renounced its body after doing its years of service in life; in early Latin I find this called a “lemur.” Well, in this class of “lemurs” the one who is assigned responsibility for his descendants, and inhabits the home with his serene and untroubled influence, is called the “household lar”; if however because his life has deserved the opposite he has no fixed abode and is doomed to aimless wandering in a kind of exile, a bogeyman powerless against good people but dangerous to wicked ones, the traditional name for his class is often “larva.” 

(2)

Quodsī compertum habēbātis tam ēvidēns signum magīae:  sī habēbātis hoc tam ēvidēns signum magīae (esse) compertum.

habēbātis: "you were considering."

competum: "proven."

exhibērem: supply sigillum as direct object.

mihi ... nōn dēnūntiāstis: "did you not send me official notice," "did you not call on me to," with ut + subj in an indirect command.

in rem absentem: "against the thing (the statuette) in absentia."

līberē mentīrī: "to lie freely," because the object isn't there to contradict the narrative being promoted by the accusers.

Cuius tamen falsī facultās: "the ease of this lie" = "the ease with which you could have told this lie," subject of adēmpta est.

opportūnitāte quādam meae cōnsuētūdinis: "by a certain advantage of my custom" = "by a bit of good luck stemming from my custom" The advantage is to Apuleius, not the accusers. The genitive is either of source/origin (the advantage comes to Apuleius from his habit) or predicative (the advantage which has taken away their ability to lie so easily IS his custom of carrying statuettes with him wherever he goes).

vōbīs: "from you," dative of disadvantage.

(3)

eam: > eō, īre.

gestāre: frequentative > gerō, "to carry around."

(4)

perquam: adv. "extremely," modifies impudentī.

dictitārī: "was being repeatedly talked about."

iussī curriculō īret aliquis: order: iussī (ut) aliquis curriculō īret. The omission of ut after iubeo is not common, but see OLD iubeo 3.b.

curriculō: "by sprinting" = "at full speed," used adverbially.

ex hospitiō meō: "from my lodgings" in Sabratha, where he was staying for the duration of the trial.

Mercuriolum: the statuette of Mercury.

Sāturnīnus iste: "that Saturninus who you were questioning," or maybe just = hic Sāturnīnus, as iste = hic is common enough in Apuleius.

Oeae: locative.

(5)

Cedo tū eum: "you, hand him over." Eum = Mercuriolum. Cedo tu appears to be a standard formula for direct address of an attendant; it will be used again at 69.6, 94.7, and 100.1 (Hunink).

videant, teneant, cōnsīderent: jussive subjunctives, "let (everyone, the people here) see, hold, consider (the statuette)."

Em vōbīs: (em = en) "look for yourselves," addressing those assembled in general. Em + dat. is common in Plautus.

quem: "(at the statuette) which."

Audītisne: "are you hearing?" now addressing Aemilianus et al.

mendāciī vestrī: objective genitive.

Nōn vōs ... dispudet: "Doesn't it make you ashamed of," + gen. The word is found in Plautus and Terence, but only in this passage with a genitive (Butler).

(6)

lārva: the most common term used to indicate malevolent ghosts (Costantini p. 215). For the meaning "skeleton," see  Petronius, Satyricon 34.8.

appellitābātis: "you all kept calling," frequentative > appellō.

daemonium: this is a Latinized rendering of the Greek τὸ δαιμόνιον. The Latinized term is mostly employed by Christian authors who consider all the traditional deities as evil daemonia, but it is in non-Christian sources that we find daemonium connected with magic (Costantini p. 214).

sollemne: "ordinary," LS sollemnis II.B.

Accipe quaesō, Maxime, et contemplāre: supply sigillum or Mercuriolumas direct object.

bene ... trāditur: "is well handed over" = "is religiously correct to be handed over."

(7)

vidē: sets up a series of indirect questions, introduced with quam and ut, each translated "how." 

quam decora et ... plena (facies) sit.

quam hilaris ... vultus (sit)

ut decenter ... lanugo ... deserpat.

ut ... capillus ... appareat.

quam lepide ... pinnulae emineant.

quam ... festive ... vestis substricta sit.

The details are traditional. With this description compare the bronze statuette of Mercury from the first century AD now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

sūcī palaestricī plēna: the statuette, made of dark ebony, must have looked shiny. For sucus as the vital fluid of human beings, see OLD sucus 3.b. The adjective palaestricus brings in the positive association of the wrestling school, or, as we might say, of sports in general. Mercury was a popular god among athletes, and his statues could be found in sports schools. Apuleius had already spoken of his own sucus at 4.10 and joked on himself as a palaestrita at 48.2 (Hunink).

utrimque: "on both sides (of his face)."

lānūgō: adolescent fuzz was a stock feature of poetical descriptions of youthful male beauty from Homer onwards (Hunink).

malīs dēserpat: "creeps down his cheeks." The word deserpo occurs only here and (in a similar context) in Statius, Thebaid 6.586 (Butler).

sub īmō pilleī umbrāculō: "under the bottommost brim of his hat."

appāreat: "peeks out."

(8)

super tempora: "above his temples."

parēs pinnulae: "the paired featherlets" = "the pair of little wings."

substricta sit: "drawn tight" with a string or cord, OLD substringo 1.b.

(9)

Hunc quī sceletum audet dīcere: order: (is) quī audet dīcere hunc (Mercuriolum) esse sceletum.

Hunc dēnique quī lārvam putat: order: dēnique, (is) quī putat hunc (esse) lārvam.

larvāns: the passive participle larvātus, "possessed by evil spirits," "demented," occurs in Roman comedy and Apuleius's Metamorphoses (9.31). The active participle larvāns, if the reading of the manuscript is correct, would be a uniquely attested back-formation meaning "possessing with evil spirits" or "bewitching" (see above on larva and OLD larvo). Butler and Jones emend to larvātus.