The Golden Ass

Before the bandits can carry out their grisly threats against Charite and Lucius, news comes to the mountain lair: The bandits have gotten away with robbing Milo scot-free. As it turns out, Lucius himself has been blamed for the crime, accused of casing the joint and then running away after the burglary. Lucius can see how all the evidence points that way, but the injustice of the accusation hurts and frustrates him: he tries to cry “Not guilty!” but can only bray “Not!”

Not long after, a muscular, towering recruit who calls himself Haemus arrives. Through tales of his exploits as the leader of another successful robber band, Haemus gets elected chief of the bandits, and thriftily persuades his new colleagues not to murder Charite, but to sell her to a brothel instead. Charite seems delighted by this, and Lucius is disgusted—especially when he spots Charite enthusiastically kissing the new bandit chief. So much for love and loyalty: “At that moment, the character of all women, as a class, was subject to a donkey’s censure” (144).

But when Haemus gets the bandits so drunk they fall asleep, and then ties them up, Lucius finally catches on: This is no robber, but Tlepolemus, Charite’s beloved fiancé.