Talk:The Golden Ass

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The below bold portion was added by an anon user:

In 1517, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote his own version of the story, as a terza rima poem, though never completed his work.

Can anyone verify this if is accurate? --Stbalbach 02:18, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Apocryphal comment...

This claim sounds apocryphal... In the 20th Century, T. E. Lawrence carried a small copy of the "Golden Ass" in his saddlebags all through the Arab Revolt. It was Lawrence who first introduced the book to his friend Robert Graves, who later translated the work. Can anyone verify it?--Undegaussable 14:14, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non-justifiable claim / expression of opinion

Apuleius' style is as amusing as his stories, for though he wasn't a Roman by birth he was a master of Latin prose and could play with the rhythm and rhyme of the language better than a native could.

I'm a big fan of Apuleius, and he is undeniably a master of Latin prose, but the latter part of this claim is unsubstantiated and, I argue, unsubstantiable. It's ultimately a subjective assessment as to whether his prosody is better than native Romans -- whether comparing him to other extant Latin authors (Petronius was also masterful in the same genre) or to his imagined contemporaries (which is useless since they haven't survived for comparison).