Androcles, a Roman slave of the first century a.d. According to Aulus Gellius, a Latin writer of that period, Androcles ran away from his cruel master in Africa and hid in a cave. There he found a lion suffering from a thorn in its paw, and removed the thorn. He eventually was captured and, as punishment for running away, was sent into the arena with a hungry lion. The lion, instead of eating Androcles, licked his hand. It was the lion he had befriended. Man and lion were then set free.
George Bernard Shaw in his play Androcles and the Lion (1912) uses the story as a basis for satirical comment on the early Christian movement and its martyrs. Androcles is made a docile Greek tailor who has been converted to Christianity.
