Androcles and the Lion
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Androcles ( el, Ἀνδροκλῆς, alternatively spelled Androclus in
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
), is the main character of a common
folktale A folktale or folk tale is a folklore genre that typically consists of a story passed down from generation to generation orally. Folktale may also refer to: Categories of stories * Folkloric tale from oral tradition * Fable (written form of the a ...
about a man befriending a lion. The tale is included in the Aarne–Thompson classification system as type 156. The story reappeared in the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
as "The Shepherd and the Lion" and was then ascribed to Aesop's Fables. It is numbered 563 in the
Perry Index The Perry Index is a widely used index of "Aesop's Fables" or "Aesopica", the fables credited to Aesop, the storyteller who lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC. The index was created by Ben Edwin Perry, a professor of classics at the Un ...
and can be compared to Aesop's ''
The Lion and the Mouse The Lion and the Mouse is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 150 in the Perry Index. There are also Eastern variants of the story, all of which demonstrate mutual dependence regardless of size or status. In the Renaissance the fable was provided w ...
'' in both its general trend and in its moral of the reciprocal nature of mercy.


Classical tale

The earliest surviving account of the episode is found in
Aulus Gellius Aulus Gellius (c. 125after 180 AD) was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his ''Attic Nights'', a commonplace book, or ...
's 2nd century ''Attic Nights''. The author relates there a story told by Apion in his
lost work A lost work is a document, literary work, or piece of multimedia produced some time in the past, of which no surviving copies are known to exist. It can only be known through reference. This term most commonly applies to works from the classical ...
''Aegyptiaca''/Αἰγυπτιακά ''(Wonders of Egypt)'', the events of which Apion claimed to have personally witnessed in Rome. In this version, Androclus (going by the
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
variation of the name) is a runaway slave of a former Roman consul administering a part of
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
. He takes shelter in a cave, which turns out to be the den of a wounded
lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphi ...
, from whose paw he removes a large thorn. In gratitude, the lion becomes tame towards him and henceforward shares his catch with the slave. After three years, Androclus craves a return to civilization but is soon imprisoned as a fugitive slave and sent to
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
. There he is condemned to be devoured by wild animals in the Circus Maximus in the presence of an emperor who is named in the account as Gaius Caesar, presumably
Caligula Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (31 August 12 – 24 January 41), better known by his nickname Caligula (), was the third Roman emperor, ruling from 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the popular Roman general Germanicu ...
. The most imposing of the beasts turns out to be the same lion, which again displays its affection toward Androclus. After questioning him, the emperor pardons the slave in recognition of this testimony to the power of friendship, and he is left in possession of the lion. Apion, who claimed to have been a spectator on this occasion, is then quoted as relating:
Afterwards we used to see Androclus with the lion attached to a slender leash, making the rounds of the
taberna A ''taberna'' (plural ''tabernae'') was a type of shop or stall in Ancient Rome. Originally meaning a single-room shop for the sale of goods and services, ''tabernae'' were often incorporated into domestic dwellings on the ground level flanking ...
e throughout the city; Androclus was given money, the lion was sprinkled with flowers, and everyone who met them anywhere exclaimed, "This is the lion, a man's friend; this is the man, a lion's doctor".
The story was repeated a century later by
Claudius Aelianus Claudius Aelianus ( grc, Κλαύδιος Αἰλιανός, Greek transliteration ''Kláudios Ailianós''; c. 175c. 235 AD), commonly Aelian (), born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus ...
in his work ''On the Nature of Animals''.


Later use

Later versions of the story, sometimes attributed to Aesop, began to appear from the mid-sixth century under the title "The Shepherd and the Lion". In
Chrétien de Troyes Chrétien de Troyes (Modern ; fro, Crestien de Troies ; 1160–1191) was a French poet and trouvère known for his writing on Arthurian subjects, and for first writing of Lancelot, Percival and the Holy Grail. Chrétien's works, including ''E ...
' 12th-century romance, "
Yvain, the Knight of the Lion , original_title_lang = fro , translator = , written = between 1178 and 1181 , country = , language = Old French , subject = Arthurian legend , genre = Chivalric romance , fo ...
", the knightly main character helps a lion that is attacked by a serpent. The lion then becomes his companion and helps him during his adventures. A century later, the story of taking a thorn from a lion's paw was related as an act of Saint
Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, th ...
in the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine (). Afterwards the lion joins him in the monastery and a different set of stories follows. The later retelling, "Of the Remembrance of Benefits", in the ''Gesta Romanorum'' (Deeds of the Romans) of about 1330 in England, has a mediaeval setting and again makes the protagonist a knight. In the earliest English printed collection of Aesop's Fables by
William Caxton William Caxton ( – ) was an English merchant, diplomat and writer. He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into England, in 1476, and as a printer (publisher), printer to be the first English retailer of printed boo ...
, the tale appears as ''The lyon & the pastour or herdman'' and reverts to the story of a shepherd who cares for the wounded lion. He is later convicted of a crime and taken to Rome to be thrown to the wild beasts, only to be recognised and defended from the other animals by the one that he tended. A Latin poem by
Vincent Bourne Vincent Bourne, familiarly known as Vinny Bourne (1695 – 2 December 1747), was an English classical scholar and Neo-Latin poet. __TOC__ Life Even near contemporaries could find little biographical information about Vincent Bourne. His father's ...
dating from 1716–17 is based on the account of Aulus Gellius. Titled ''Mutua Benevolentia primaria lex naturae est'', it was translated by
William Cowper William Cowper ( ; 26 November 1731 – 25 April 1800) was an English poet and Anglican hymnwriter. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scen ...
as “Reciprocal kindness: the primary law of nature”.
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
's play '' Androcles and the Lion'' (1912) makes Androcles a tailor; he is also given Christian beliefs for the purposes of the play, which on the whole takes a skeptical view of religion. The first film adaptation of the story in the US was also made in 1912. Afterwards there were several others for both cinema and TV. Rob Englehart's ''The Lion, the Slave and the Rodent'' (2010) was a much later American approach to the fable. A one-act chamber opera for five voices, it combined the story of Androcles with the fable of “
The Lion and the Mouse The Lion and the Mouse is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 150 in the Perry Index. There are also Eastern variants of the story, all of which demonstrate mutual dependence regardless of size or status. In the Renaissance the fable was provided w ...
”.


Artistic depictions


Prints and paintings

Renaissance prints of the story are based on the Classical accounts. Agostino Veneziano depicts the slave Androcles being freed by the emperor in a work from 1516–17 now in the LACMA collection. There is also an early pen and wash drawing by
Baldassare Peruzzi Baldassare Tommaso Peruzzi (7 March 1481 – 6 January 1536) was an Italian architect and painter, born in a small town near Siena (in Ancaiano, ''frazione'' of Sovicille) and died in Rome. He worked for many years with Bramante, Raphael, and la ...
dating from the 1530s in the
Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is the list of ...
. Dependent on the account by Aulus Gellius, it depicts Androcles walking through a doorway with the lion on a lead at his heel. Other artists have preferred the scene of Androcles pulling the thorn from the lion's paw, as in Bernhard Rode's print of 1784. A later American example is
Walter Inglis Anderson Walter Inglis Anderson (September 29, 1903 – November 30, 1965) was an American painter and writer. Anderson died from cancer November 30, 1965, at the age of 62. Early life and education Anderson was born in New Orleans to George Walter A ...
's block print scroll of 1950, which was based on his 1935 painting. Paintings of the subject began in the 18th century. That by
Charles Meynier Charles Meynier (1763 or 1768, Paris – 1832, Paris) was a French painter of historical subjects in the late 18th and early 19th century. He was a contemporary of Antoine-Jean Gros and Jacques-Louis David. Biography Meynier was the son of a ...
, which was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1795, is now lost. However, a study for the painting has recently been discovered and shows Androcles as a nearly naked warrior brandishing his sword in the stadium while the lion lies on the ground and is – following the account of Aulus Gellius – "gently licking his feet". There are also studies for an unachieved painting by American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner dating from his student years in 1885-6. They include a lion licking its paw and a kneeling and grey-bearded Androcles. At mid-century in 1856 comes “Androcles and the Lion” by the English artist Alexander Davis Cooper (1820–95). There a young man in Arab dress looks towards the viewer as he walks across a desert landscape with his hand in the lion’s mane. In the 20th century, Jean-Léon Gérôme depicted Androcles in a painting tentatively dated 1902 and now in the
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires) The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes ("National Museum of Fine Arts") is an Argentine art museum in Buenos Aires, located in the Recoleta section of the city. The Museum inaugurated a branch in Neuquén in 2004. The museum hosts works by Goya, Remb ...
. There Androcles is sitting cross-legged on the floor of the cave as he draws the thorn from the lion's paw while it roars in agony.
Briton Riviere British people or Britons, also known colloquially as Brits, are the citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Overseas Territories, and the Crown dependencies.: British nationality law governs mo ...
's 1908 painting of him standing to perform the same task is in the
Auckland Art Gallery Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is the principal public gallery in Auckland, New Zealand. It has the most extensive collection of national and international art in New Zealand and frequently hosts travelling international exhibitions. Set be ...
. Another approach was to show the earlier incident of Androcles surprised in the cave by the lion's entrance. This was the subject chosen by Vassily Rotschev (d.1803) soon after returning to Russia from training in Rome. It was also the choice of the Chinese painter
Xu Beihong Xu or XU may refer to: People and characters * Xu (surname), one of two Chinese surnames ( or /), transliterated as Xu in English * ǃXu, a name for the ǃKung group of Bushmen; may also refer to the ǃKung language or the ǃKung people * ǃXu ...
. His "Slave and Lion" dates from a stay in Berlin during the early 1920s and shows the lion entering the mouth of a cave while Androcles cowers against the wall.


Sculptures

Androcles also became a sculptural subject.
Jan Pieter van Baurscheit the Elder Jan Peter van Baurscheit the Elder (1669–1728) was a sculptor from the Southern Netherlands. Elder was born in Wormersdorf as the son of the mayor there, and moved to Antwerp, where he first apprenticed to the nephew of Pieter Verbrugghen the El ...
's sandstone statue, executed between 1700 and 1725, is now at the
Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the St ...
in Amsterdam and shows a triumphant figure bestriding a very small lion that rears up to look at him. Its frisky behaviour brings to mind Aulus Gellius’ description of the lion “wagging his tail in a mild and caressing way, after the manner and fashion of fawning dogs”. In 1751 the English monumental sculptor Henry Cheere created two white marble chimneypieces showing the slave bending over the lion's paw to draw out the thorn. One is in the Saloon at
West Wycombe Park West Wycombe Park is a country house built between 1740 and 1800 near the village of West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, England. It was conceived as a pleasure palace for the 18th-century libertine and dilettante Sir Francis Dashwood, 2nd Barone ...
, and the other is now in the
Lady Lever Art Gallery The Lady Lever Art Gallery is a museum founded and built by the industrialist and philanthropist William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme and opened in 1922. The Lady Lever Art Gallery is set in the garden village of Port Sunlight, on the Wirral ...
. A continental example by Jean-Baptiste Stouf was sculpted in 1789 and is now only known through the modern bronze reproduction at the
Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of ...
. Formerly it was in the
Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
and showed Androcles tending the lion's paw. In the 19th century Androcles became a subject for French table ornaments. One from 1820 shows him sword in hand in the arena as the lion crouches at his feet, while another from 1825 has him tending the injured paw. About 1898, Jean-Léon Gérôme, who was soon to paint that scene too, produced a sculpture of Androcles leading the lion about on his tour of the Roman taverns. Titled ''Le Mendiant'' (the beggar), it is made of bronze gilt and shows the former slave standing with one hand on the lion's mane and a begging bowl at his feet. On its stand is the inscription ''Date obolum Androcli'' (spare a penny for Androclus). In the 20th century the American sculptor
Frederick Charles Shrady Frederick Charles Shrady (October 22, 1907, East View, New York — January 20, 1990, Easton, Connecticut) was an American painter and sculptor, best known for his religious sculptures. Biography The son of the sculptor Henry Merwin Shrady ...
incorporated the theme of removing the thorn from the paw into a modernistic design.


Medals

The legend has figured on medals for various reasons over the course of four centuries. One attributed to Gioacchino Francesco Travani, using a design by
Gian Lorenzo Bernini Gian Lorenzo (or Gianlorenzo) Bernini (, , ; Italian Giovanni Lorenzo; 7 December 159828 November 1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his ...
, was struck in 1659. It depicts on one side a relief bust of
Pope Alexander VII Pope Alexander VII ( it, Alessandro VII; 13 February 159922 May 1667), born Fabio Chigi, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 7 April 1655 to his death in May 1667. He began his career as a vice- papal legate, an ...
surrounded by an acanthus leaf border. On the reverse a lion prostrates itself at the feet of an armed Androcles. The complimentary Latin inscription reads 'Domenico Jacobacci to the generous prince: Even a wild animal remembers a favor'. Jacobacci was the donor of the medal, which commemorates a pope who had been generous in rebuilding parts of Rome. The lion represents the grateful city paying homage at the feet of the 'warrior' on its behalf. The image of the grateful beast was a natural choice for the medals awarded in yearly recognition of prize-winners at the Royal Dick Veterinary College in Edinburgh. Struck in copper and silver during the 1890s, they picture Androcles kneeling to relieve the suffering lion. In the background are a cliff on the left and palm trees on the right; Androcles is depicted with African features. A more schematic representation now forms the logo of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at
Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...
. In the 20th century, the Dutch Medal of Recognition 1940–1945 also pictured the scene of relieving the lion and was awarded to those who aided the Dutch during the period of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, or afterwards helped those who had suffered from the German occupation. The subject was chosen because a lion was the national symbol. The theme of gratitude is reinforced by the inscription about the edge: ''Sibi benefacit qui benefacit amico'' (He benefits himself who benefits a friend).


Notes


References

* ''The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius'', with An English Translation by John C. Rolfe. London 1927, Book I, section XIV
p. 255ff


Further reading

* * * * *


External links

* *

by
D. L. Ashliman Dee L. Ashliman (born January 1, 1938), who writes professionally as D. L. Ashliman, is an American folklorist and writer. He is Professor Emeritus of German at the University of Pittsburgh and is considered to be a leading expert on folklore an ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Androcles 1st-century Romans Aesop's Fables Imperial Roman slaves and freedmen Legendary Romans ATU 150-199