Preface and acknowledgements / F. Bistagne, C. Boidin, and R. Mouren -- Apuleius' travels: historical and geographical diffusion -- The medieval Ass: re-evaluating the reception of Apuleius in the High Middle Ages / Robert H.F. Carver -- The White Goddess in Mexico: Apuleius, Isis, and the Virgin of Guadalupe in Latin, Spanish, and Nahuatl sources / Andrew Laird -- The Ass goes east: Apuleius and orientalism / Carole Boidin -- The afterlife of Psyche -- How to tell the story of Cupid and Psyche: from Fulgentius to Galeotto Del Corretto / Julia Haig Gaisser -- Psyche's textual journey from Apuleius to Boccaccio and Petrarch / Igor Candido -- An Apuleian masque? Thomas Heywood's Love's Mistress (1634) / Stephen Harrison -- Echoes of Apuleius' novel in Mary Tighe's Psyche: Romantic imagination and self-fashioning / Regine May -- A fashionable model? Formal patterns and literary values -- Apuleius and Martianus Capella: reception, pedagogy, and the dialectics of canon / Ahuvia Kahane.

The Afterlife in Early Christian Carthage explores how the visionary experiences of early Christian martyrs shaped and informed early Christian ancestor cult and the construction of the cemetery as paradise. Taking the early Christian cemeteries in Carthage as a case study, the volume broadens our understanding of the historical and cultural origins of the early Christian cult of the saints, and highlights the often divergent views about the dead and post-mortem realms expressed by the church fathers, and in graveside ritual and the material culture of the cemetery. This fascinating study is a key resource for students of late antique and early Christian culture.

This book examines the comic and philosophical aspects of Apuleius' Metamorphoses, the ancient Roman novel also known as The Golden Ass. The tales that comprise the novel, long known for their bawdiness and wit, describe the adventures of Lucius, a man who is transformed into an ass. Carl Schlam argues that the work cannot be seen as purely comic or wholly serious; he says that the entertainment offered by the novel includes a vision of the possibilities of grace and salvation.

Belief in the afterlife is still very much alive in Western civilisation, even though the truth of its existence is no longer universally accepted. Surprisingly, however, heaven, hell and the immortal soul were all ideas which arrived relatively late in the ancient world. Originally Greece and Israel - the cultures that gave us Christianity - had only the vaguest ideas of an afterlife. So where did these concepts come from and why did they develop? In this fascinating, learned, but highly readable book, Jan N. Bremmer - one of the foremost authorities on ancient religion - takes a fresh look at the major developments in the Western imagination of the afterlife, from the ancient Greeks to the modern near-death experience.

This book explores the visual narratives of a group of decorated tombs from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt (c.300 BCE-250 CE). The author contextualizes the tombs within their social, political, and religious context and considers how the multicultural population of Graeco-Roman Egypt chose to negotiate death and the afterlife.

In ancient Rome, it was believed some humans were transformed into special, empowered beings after death. These deified dead, known as the manes, watched over and protected their surviving family members, possibly even extending those relatives’ lives. But unlike the Greek hero-cult, the worship of dead emperors, or the Christian saints, the manes were incredibly inclusive—enrolling even those without social clout, such as women and the poor, among Rome's deities. The Roman afterlife promised posthumous power in the world of the living. While the manes have often been glossed over in studies of Roman religion, this book brings their compelling story to the forefront, exploring their myriad forms and how their worship played out in the context of Roman religion’s daily practice. Exploring the place of the manes in Roman society, Charles King delves into Roman beliefs about their powers to sustain life and bring death to individuals or armies, examines the rituals the Romans performed to honor them, and reclaims the vital role the manes played in the ancient Roman afterlife.

With contributions from leading scholars and detailed catalog entries that interpret the spells and painted scenes, this fascinating and important work affords a greater understanding of ancient Egyptian belief systems and poignantly reveals the hopes and fears about the world beyond death.