For thousands of years, philosophies of honor and shame were dominant in many societies describing those who led exemplary lives of good moral standing in the society as opposed to those who did not and experienced great shame in their cultures. Although today the concept of honor has been watered down to fit the vision of capitalist society, in ancient Greece honor was a very prestigious title to be considered, and historically only men could be identified with honor. Furthermore, the importance of honor and shame in their culture is represented in many ancient Greek works. This article will therefore analyze the characters of Apuleius' honorable and shameful acts of Milo and Lucius in his famous novel The Golden Ass, through Halvor Moxnes' essay on the ideologies of honor and shame in Greek society. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay To begin, it is clearly evident that Apuleius' character, Milo, is generally depicted as a shameful character throughout the novel as he expresses aspects of negative shame. To illustrate, Milo is born with a certain degree of honor attributed according to Moxnes, this means that Milo being a rich man was born with a preconceived degree of honor based on his family and wealth. This honor is then ignored as Milo is a very stingy man and will not spend his money under any circumstances, this can be seen when Lucius comes to stay at Milo's house in Thessaly and has to sit on the floor because Milo only has one chair, as as well as buying food to eat. This contradicts how Moxnes looks at honor as it is Milo's job to make his guest as comfortable as possible as it is his honor to do so, but instead he does not and does not carry out the honor given to him within his own home and much less in society. Furthermore, Milo continues to be seen as a shameful character as he is the man of his family but is unaware of the true nature of the women in his house. To demonstrate, in Moxnes' essay, he talks about the honor given to the male head of the house, as they hold power and keep those under his power in check and it is seen from this quote, "in order to maintain his honor a man had to be able to defend the chastity of the woman under his dominion and his protection”. Milo, is unable to express his dominant honor within his home since his wife Pamphile habitually practices magic and has other lovers depicted. from "just now dying for the love of a good-looking young Boeotian, and is furiously bringing all the tricks and artifices of his art to bear upon him" (Apuleius 131), in this quote Photis is speaking to Lucius about the his lover Pamphile and his desires for other lovers. This clearly demonstrates Milo's negative shame within ancient Greek society as he is evidently unable to keep those under his authority, mainly his wife Pamphile disciplined as he takes other lovers under his family. Therefore, due to Milo's extreme stinginess and lack of male authority towards his family members, according to Moxnes' analysis of theologies of honor, Milo is a shameful character in Greek society. In Greek society, Lucius from Apuleius' novel is considerably an honorable man, but is ultimately tormented by his curiosity about magic and leads him to possess negative shame. In this case, Lucius is a very curious man who lives in the house of Milo in Thessaly, Lucius was also born with honor attributed since he is known and.