Acknowledgments
Any project puts its author in debt to countless others, and this is especially true when that project has developed slowly over the course of a decade and been finished during a global pandemic. This book began as my musings to the captive audience of students in a course on Apuleius at Louisiana State University and then first manifested as a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South in Baton Rouge in 2012. I begin, therefore, by thanking the students from that original class and the audience for the talk.
In turning that talk into a book, I benefitted from the willingness of friends and colleagues to read some version or part of it: Nathan Bethell, Adam Kemezis, David Kutkzo, and Willie Major. I single out Evelyn Adkins, who graciously read a draft of the whole book, provided invaluable feedback, and kindly shared with me then-unpublished work of her own. I also thank Paolo Chirumbolo, Sanjaya Thakur, and Katherine McCloone for their conversation about and support of this project, and Nate French for his hospitality while I worked on the first draft.
As with all of my research, I could not have completed this project without the continued assistance of the staff in the Interlibrary Loan Services at Louisiana State University.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to the people I have worked with at Brill, including Mirjam Elbers, Millie Gall, and especially Giulia Moriconi, who has ably shepherded me through the process. I express my deepest regards also for the press’s readers for their thoughtful and detailed feedback on the manuscript.
I would also like to recognize the friends who supported me throughout, most notably my gaming group, Tom Kollai, Kristin and Chase Bishop, Terry Taylor, Roosevelt Payne III, and Brian Armitage. Special thanks to Sarah Janicki for daily doses of sanity and providing an outlet to vent.
Most importantly, I thank my family: the patriarch, Frank; aunt, Sandra; siblings, Hattie, Nick, and Adam; in-laws, Marissa and Abbey; and nieces, Claudia, Madeira, and Sage, who always checks up on me. I lost my mother, Charlene, while writing this, and make special mention of her here in part because she always got a kick out of seeing her name in print and I know she would have enjoyed this, too.
My final thanks is to you, lector. I ask that you intende—even if I cannot promise that laetaberis.