Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)

Metamorphoses, known as The Golden Ass, Apuleius's second century Latin novel, is a primary literary text and the only Latin novel to survive complete, whose eleventh and final book recounts its narrator's initiation into the mysteries of Isis. Its authority is that of the original literary source itself for what it describes about Isiac initiation as one Roman era author portrayed it. Its limit is that it is a work of fiction, however informed by real religious practice, so a historical claim about actual Isis worship needs to be checked against archaeological and other primary evidence rather than taken directly from the novel's narrative. Cite it for the literary depiction itself.