Apuleius

 The Latin writer Apuleius of Madaura was a professional rhetorician, a novelist and an amateur Platonist. His handbook of Platonism and his essay on the guardian spirit of Socrates are valuable sources on Middle Platonism. The handbook is comparable to that of his probable contemporary Alcinous, but covers only physics (including metaphysics) and ethics. Apuleius was born in Madaura in North Africa, of respectable provincial family. He received the best rhetorical education available in Carthage and then, around AD 150, set out for Athens to study philosophy. It is possible that, when there, he studied with the Platonist Calvenus Taurus, whose lectures Aulus Gellius also attended, but we cannot be certain. None the less, Apuleius acquired in Athens a good working knowledge of Platonism, which he puts to various uses. After more time in North Africa, he returned to practise as a lawyer and rhetorician in Carthage, where he was celebrated in an inscription of c. AD 161 as a rhetorician, poet and Platonic philosopher. At some time after this he composed his chief contribution to philosophy, a basic handbook, On Plato and his Doctrine, of a similar nature to that of the more-or-less contemporary text of Alcinous. This is written in a flat, scholastic style, very unlike that of his rhetorical compositions, so much so that its authenticity has been questioned, but without adequate grounds.