"The Satyricon" of Petronius and the "Metamorphoses" (or "The Golden Ass") of Apuleius are the only novels written at Rome before AD 200 to have survived. The genre is the comic romance, the literature of relaxation in the ancient world. This study defines the genre and sets it in the context of other forms of fiction of the period. It shows that both Petronius and Apuleius introduced important innovations into the traditional comic romance. A critical...