Category:Androcles (subject)

Androcles, as a Christian, is a fictitious character, created by Loius Feuillade and Bernard Shaw in 1912. According to different trajectories, the two authors took up an ancient tale about a slave who was delivered to the beasts in the arena and spared by a lion whose wounds he had healed in the wilderness.

Overview

The story of Androcles as a (1st cent.?) fugitive slave spared by the lion in the arena is told by Aulus Gellius (Pliny the Elder and other Roman authors). Ever since it has been retold with uncountable variants from the Middle Ages up to contemporary times.

The emphasis on the persecution of early Christians following the publication of Quo Vadis? (1895) by Henryk Sienkiewicz led authors to reimagine the story in a Christian context. Already in Loius Feuillade's Aux lions, les chrétiens!'' (1911) an unnamed Christian sent to the beasts is spared by the lion, which remembers the act of mercy received in the wilderness.

In 1912 Louis Feuillade and Bernard Shaw were ready to offer a "Christian" version of the old narrative. Androcles was now a slave because of his Christianity, and the incident was located in a time of religious persecution, in the 1st century under Emperor Nero according to Feuillade and in the 2nd century under Emperor Antoninus Pius according to Shaw. The Shaw version became the standard narrative on stage and in numerous cinematic and television productions.

In 1952 the story of Androcles and the Lion also became a feature film, in an adaptation by Chester Erskine and Ken Englund.