Chapter CXXIX

Read the various stories of _Metamorphoses_[619] by Lucius of Patrae. The style is clear, pure, and agreeable; avoiding innovations in language, the author carries to excess his tales of marvels, so that he may be called a second Lucian. The first two books are almost translations from Lucian’s _Lucius_ or _The Ass_, unless Lucian borrowed from Lucius, which, if I may hazard the conjecture, is the case, although I have not been able to find out for certain which wrote first. For it seems that Lucian, having cut down the more copious work of Lucius and removed all that seemed unsuitable for his purpose, combined what was left into a single composition, in which the words and arrangement of the original were preserved, and gave the title of _Lucius_ or _The Ass_ to what he had borrowed. Both works are full of mythical fictions and disgraceful indecency. The only difference is that Lucian, as in all his other writings, ridicules and scoffs at heathenish superstitions, whereas Lucius, taking quite seriously and believing the transformations of men into other men and brutes, and of brutes into men, and all the idle talk and nonsense of ancient fables, set them down in writing and worked them up into a story.