Androcles

Androcles was a slave of a Roman proconsul, who lived in the 1st century AD and was known because he survived the animal baiting on fairytale way.

Tradition

Aulus Gellius in his Attic Nights handed the incident. It does, as a source of the work, the wonders of Egypt to the author Apion Plistonikes, who described himself as an eyewitness:

Androcles was a slave of the proconsul of the province of Africa. Since he was abused by his master, he fled and hid in a cave. A short time later, a lion came into the cave. The lion was injured on his paw. He came up to Androcles and held out his paw contrary, as he begged for his help. Androcles removed the thorn and the lion was soon back in good health. From now on, they stayed together. The Lion Androcles told her loose, dried the meat in the sun, as a fire would have betrayed his hiding place. After three years, however, he left the cave and was arrested by soldiers, brought to Rome and sentenced to death by the animal baiting in the Circus Maximus. But the lion, which he was exposed in the arena, was the lion, with whom he had lived together in the cave. So he has not eaten, but the lion came up to him and licked his feet. He was then pardoned and received the lion given that he led from now on, on a leash through the city.

George Bernard Shaw processed this story in his play Androcles and the Lion ( Comedy, 1912). This was filmed in 1952 by Chester Erskine. There was also a DEFA film implementation from 1968 for television, directed by Kurt Jung- Alsen with Herbert Köfer, Gerhard Bienert, Marita Böhme et al

Swell

• Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, 5, 14

• Slave
• Person ( 1st century )
• Roman
• Born in the 1st century
• Died in the 1st century
• Man