Androclus (slave)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Illustration at page 107 in Europa's Fairy Book.png

Androclus was a slave of a Roman proconsul who lived in the 1st century AD and was known for miraculously surviving a Damnatio ad bestias .

Lore

Aulus Gellius narrated the event in his Attic nights . He gives as the source the work The Miracles of Egypt by the author Apion Plistonikes , who described himself as an eyewitness:

Androclus was the slave of the proconsul of the province of Africa . Since he was mistreated by his master, he fled and hid in a cave. A short time later a lion also came into the cave. The lion's paw was injured. He came up to Androclus and held out his paw as if asking for help. Androclus removed the thorn and the lion was soon well again. From now on they stayed together. The lion shared his prey with Androclus, who 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, taken to Rome and sentenced to death by the Damnatio ad bestias in the Circus Maximus . But the lion he was exposed to in the arena was the lion he had lived with in the cave. He wasn't eaten like that, but the lion came up to him and licked his hands. Thereupon he was pardoned and received the lion as a present, which from then on he led through the city on a leash.

Reception in film and literature

George Bernard Shaw processed this story in his play Androcles and the Lion (comedy, 1912) . This was filmed in 1952 by Chester Erskine . The DEFA fairy tale film adaptation based on Shaw's adaptation for television Androclus and the Lion , directed by Kurt Jung-Alsen with Herbert Köfer , Claus Schulz , Gerhard Bienert , Marita Böhme a . a. took place in 1968 .

The story also appeared as children's book material. In 1970 it was published by Verlag Carl Ueberreuter, Vienna / Heidelberg under the title “Androclus and the Lion” with illustrations by Janusz Grabianski, retold by Gwen Marsh, translated from English by Ingrid Weixelbaumer. A Pixi picture book with the same title by the author Birthe Dietz and the illustrator Iben Clante was published in 1979.

In Christian hagiography there is a similar story in the legend of St. Jerome ; therefore the saint is usually represented iconographically with a lion.

See also

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Another version can be found in Aelianus , De natura animalium 7,48
  2. ^ Pixi book. The large catalog , accessed on: August 7, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Androclus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Androclos (Catalan); Androcles (English); Androclès (French)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION roman slave
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century
DATE OF DEATH 1st century