# The Golden Ass — Character guide

> Key figures in The Golden Ass by Apuleius.

- [Lucius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/lucius.md): Lucius arrives in Hypata as a well-born traveler with a taste for gossip, wine, and forbidden knowledge, lodging with a miserly host whose household hides a witch. His curiosity is both his charm and his flaw: he cannot 
- [Psyche](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/psyche.md): Psyche is so lovely that crowds abandon Venus's altars for her, and the goddess's jealousy drives her family to expose her on a rocky crag as a bride for a monster. Instead she is carried into a palace of invisible serva
- [Fotis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/fotis.md): Fotis runs her master's kitchen and, it turns out, knows far more about her mistress Pamphile's witchcraft than a servant should. She is warm, quick-tongued, and entirely willing to trade favors with the handsome guest, 
- [Milo](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/milo.md): Milo of Hippata receives Lucius into his home with the manners of a man who counts every coin and every cup of wine. He is a cautious, skeptical old businessman who laughs at soothsayers and warns against trusting fortun
- [Byrrhena](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/byrrhena.md): Byrrhena is a grand lady of Hypata, related to Lucius by blood and eager to show him the city's finest houses and dinners. She is worldly, generous, and genuinely fond of her young kinsman, but her warning that Pamphile 
- [Pamphiles](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/pamphiles.md): Pamphiles is a respectable matron by day and a sorceress by night, capable of turning herself into a bird and of taking bloody revenge on those who cross her. Her jealousy is as dangerous as her magic: the tale of Socrat
- [Venus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/venus.md): Venus rules the world's desire until a king's daughter, Psyche, begins receiving the garlands and prayers meant for her; the insult curdles into a rage she cannot temper. She is not a distant Olympian but a jealous propr
- [Cupid](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/cupid.md): Cupid is introduced as a rash, lawless boy who runs the night corrupting lawful marriages, and his mother treats him as a weapon she can aim. Yet he is also the god whose own fire can turn back on him, and the story's ea
- [Charites](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/charites.md): Charites is a new bride whose world collapses when her husband Lepolemus is carried home gored, and she keeps his image dressed as Bacchus before her day and night. When his cousin Thrasillus presses for marriage before 
- [Thrasillus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/thrasillus.md): Thrasillus is Lepolemus's companion on the hunt and the architect of his death, severing the horse's legs and driving a spear through his friend's thigh so the wound will read as a tusk. He performs mourning flawlessly e
- [Lepolemus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/lepolemus.md): Lepolemus is the rescuer who, while the bandits lie drunk, carries the kidnapped girl out on the narrator's own back and returns with citizens to loot the cave and execute the sleepers. He marries the maiden he recovered
- [Socrates](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/socrates.md): Traveler who tells the story of his encounter with the witch Meroe.
- [Aristomenus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/aristomenus.md): Storyteller who recounts Socrates's misadventures with Meroe.
- [Meroe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/meroe.md): Powerful witch who takes revenge on her lover Socrates.
- [Diophanes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/diophanes.md): Soothsayer who predicts Lucius's journey but is himself robbed.
- [Thrasileon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/thrasileon.md): Bandit who disguises himself in a bear skin to infiltrate a house.
- [Lamathus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/lamathus.md): Captain of the thieves who dies during a raid.
- [Myrmex](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/myrmex.md): Slave entrusted to guard a treasure, later seduced by Philesiterus.
- [Philesiterus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/philesiterus.md): Lover who bribes Myrmex to gain access to a married woman.
- [Barbarus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/barbarus.md): Husband who discovers his wife's infidelity through a hidden witness.
- [Demochares](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/demochares.md): Wealthy man who plans a gladiatorial show with bears.
- [Jupiter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/jupiter.md): King of the gods who intervenes in the Cupid and Psyche story.
- [Mercury](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/mercury.md): Messenger god who proclaims Venus's reward for finding Psyche.
- [Zephyrus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/zephyrus.md): West wind who carries Psyche to Cupid's palace.
- [Isis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/isis.md): Isis appears to the narrator at his lowest, naming herself as the one the Egyptians call Queen Isis, and issues precise instructions: join the procession, take the roses from the priest's hand, and be restored. She is no
- [Osiris](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/osiris.md): God who appears to Lucius in a vision after his initiation.
- [Pithias](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/pithias.md): Lucius's former schoolmate who becomes an aedile in Hypata.
- [Ceres](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/ceres.md): Goddess of harvest who also refuses Psyche's plea for aid.
- [Philebus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/philebus.md): Priest of the Syrian goddess who travels with Lucius the ass.
- [William Adlington](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters/adlington.md): Translator of the English edition of The Golden Ass.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_golden_ass_se/characters