Syphax, king of the Massaesyli in W. Numidia, fought for the Carthaginians during the second Punic war, and was finally defeated and captured by Scipio in 203 b.c. After his fall Masinissa, King of the Massyli, was left supreme in Numidia.
duumvir. The chief magistrates in a colonia were styled duumviri iure dicundo.
the dignity of my position. This is generally interpreted as meaning that Apuleius himself had become duumvir. It is more likely, considering his age and his continued absences from Madaura, that it means merely the position acquired for him by his father's distinguished office.
[Chapter 25.] Magician is the Persian word for priest. 'The name magi applied to all workers of miracles, strictly designates the priests of Mazdeism, and well-attested tradition made certain Persians the inventors of genuine magic, the magic which the Middle Ages styled the black art. If they did not invent it, for it is as old as humanity, they were at least the first to give magic a doctrinal basis and to assign it a place in a well-defined theological system.... By the Alexandrian period, books attributed to Zoroaster, Hostanes, and Hystaspes were translated into Greek.' Cumont, Les Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain, p. 227. Cp. Pliny, N.H. xxx. 7. Plato, Alcibiades i. 121 e.
Zoroaster, son of Oromazes, the founder of the ancient religion of Persia (Mazdeism).
[Chapter 26.] Plato. The allusion is to Charmides, p. 157 a. Socrates offers Charmides a charm to cure the headache. But the charm will do more than cure the headache. 'I learnt it, when serving with the army, of one of the physicians of the Thracian King Zamolxis. He was one of those who are said to give immortality. This Thracian said to me ... "Zamolxis, our king, who is also a god, says that as you ought not to attempt to cure the eyes without the head or the head without the eyes, so neither ought you to attempt to cure the body without the soul,"... "For all good and evil, whether in the body or in human nature, originates, as he declared, in the soul, and overflows from thence, as from the head into the eyes. And therefore if the head and body are to be well, you must begin by curing the soul; that is the first thing. And the cure has to be effected by the use of certain charms, and these charms are fair words; and by them temperance is implanted in the soul, and where temperance is, there health is speedily implanted, not only to the head, but to the whole body."' (Jowett's Translation.) Apuleius scarcely makes a fair use of Plato's words, which he has so far detached from their context as to give them almost entirely a new meaning.
Zamolxis, probably an indigenous deity of the Getae. Greek legend made him a Getan slave of Pythagoras, who on manumission went home, became priest of the chief deity of the Getae, and taught the Pythagorean doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
[Chapter 27.] Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, born about 499 b.c. He came to Athens and had great influence there, being the friend of Pericles and Euripides. He was, however, banished for unorthodoxy and died at Lampsacus aged 72.
Leucippus, the founder of the atomic theory. His exact date and place of birth are uncertain.
Democritus of Abdera, born about 450 b.c. He developed the atomic theory of Leucippus.