up the remains of their supper.  This greatly amuses them all, and their lord orders him to be brought to his table.  A buffoon, or parasite, who sat among the guests, exclaims “Give him a cup of wine,” and he was taught various tricks.  His fame increases so that his master only admits people to see him on payment.  Finally being taken to the circus, and afraid that some of the wild beasts might eat him by mistake, he slips away and gallops to Cenchroea, where he prays to the goddess Iris, and is by her restored to his human form.  The descriptions in this work are often very beautiful, and the humour in describing the misfortunes of the ass is excellent.

In contrast to the humour of Lucian and Apuleius, we may place that of the Emperor Julian, an ascetic and devotee, who was nephew of Constantine the Great, and brought up a Christian.  Julian’s early life was spent in terror, for Constantius, Constantine’s son, imprisoned him at Milan, after having put his elder brother to death.  Perhaps this treatment at the hands of a Christian may have prejudiced him against the new religion, or his mild disposition may have been scandalized at the fierceness of theological controversies, or at the lives of many of the converts.  His early education and experiences of life were more inclined to imbue him with principles of toleration than to make him a zealous Christian, and, finally, when he arrived at the age of twenty, he determined to return back into Paganism.  This retrograde movement, not altogether out of keeping with his quaint character and love of antiquity, has stamped him with the opprobrious title of the “Apostate,” but in moral excellence he was superior to the age in which he lived.  Many of his writings show a sense of humour, such as that he wrote in Lutetia (Paris) on “Barley wine” the drink of the Gauls.

  “Who and whence art thou, Dionyse? for, by true Bacchus
   I know thee not, but Jove’s great son alone,
   He smells of nectar, thou of goats, truly the Celts
   For want of grapes made thee of ears of corn;
   Wherefore thou shouldst be Cereal called, not Bacchus,
   Pyrogenes and Bromos, not Bromion."[27]

Julian’s principal work is on the Caesars.  He commences it by saying that he is not addicted to jesting, but he will relate a sort of fable in which all the gods and Caesars are called to a great banquet.  Accordingly, he introduces various characters.  Julius Caesar seems in his pride to wish to dispute the throne even with Jupiter.  Augustus he compares to a chameleon, sometimes one colour, sometimes another; one moment a visage full of sorrow, another smiling.

Tiberius has a fierce countenance, and shows the marks of intemperance and debauchery.  “Take care he does not pull your ear,” says Bacchus, “for thus he treated a grammarian.”  “He had better,” returned Silenus, “bemoan himself in his solitary island, and tear the face of some miserable fisherman."[28]