Excerpt from Cupid Psyche Other Tales From the Golden Ass of Apulcius Empire, we are apt, not unnaturally, to turn our eyes to the central city, with its tyrannies and its cruelties, wallowing in sordid magnificence, as it is presented to us in the words of Tacitus or Juvenal. The effects of enormous irresponsible power centralized in one man, for good or for evil, are so striking, as almost to bedazzle our eyes, and to hold them from looking more keenly at the picture, or attempting to pass beyond the city walls. Knowing what was to come, we espy the seeds of decay in mind and morals and it needs more than a common insight to realize that there was life and health in the national organism, that its ruin was not then inevitable, and that there was in the world a great deal of sincerity and kindliness. But at the. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.