Apuleius’ tale of Cupid and Psyche has been popular since it was first written in the second century CE as part of his Latin novel Metamorphoses. Often treated as a standalone text, Cupid and Psyche has given rise to treatments in the last 400 years as diverse as plays, masques, operas, poems, paintings and novels, with a range of diverse approaches to the text. Apuleius’ story of the love between the mortal princess Psyche (or “Soul”) and the god of Love has fascinated recipients as varied as Romantic poets, psychoanalysts, children’s books authors, neo-Platonist philosophers and...

Between the two World Wars, many European countries propagated nationalist and racist narratives based on idealized images of a distant past. The role of ancient history (both as a scientific discipline and as a repository of figures, places, people) in the elaboration of these narratives in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany is well-documented, whereas significantly less is known about how ancient history was studied and mobilized in other national contexts during the Interwar period. The comparative approach of this study is invited by the substantial agreement among contemporary historians...