The odyssey of Lucius integrates several stories, passible of grouping
in two distinct narrative sets: the first one, formed by the story of ‘Cupid and
Psyche’ and the episodes of Charite and Haemus/Tlepolemus; the second one,
formed by the adultery and crime stories of books IX and X. In sharp contrast
with the stories of adultery and crime - which, usually, agree to the ideological
stadium of Lucius’ manifest decay -, the first narratives offer euphoric examples
of victories on the most varied forms of Fortuna’s expression. Besides, those
stories echo strong literary influences of well established genres, such as the
heroic narrative, in the case of Haemus; the idyllic narrative in Cupid and
Psyche story; the tragic one, in the outcome of the story of Charite and
Tlepolemus. The conjugation of the literary nature of the texts with elements as
the extension and the thematic, structural and syntactic organization, raises the
issue about their definition in the Asinus aureus ’ structure. The present paper
aims at showing how these stories don’t represent narratives merely complementary
of Lucius’ odyssey, but state as central odysseys as this one - viewed,
however, from the standpoint of the conventional values of the genre defining
each one of them.