<P> Androcles (Greek: Ἀνδροκλῆς, alternatively spelled Androclus in Latin), is the main character of a common folktale that is included in the Aarne--Thompson classification system as type 156 . The story reappeared in the Middle Ages as "The Shepherd and the Lion" and was then ascribed to Aesop's Fables . It is numbered 563 in the Perry Index and can be compared to Aesop's The Lion and the Mouse in both its general trend and in its moral of the reciprocal nature of mercy . </P> <P> The earliest surviving account of the episode is found in Aulus Gellius's 2nd century Attic Nights . The author relates there a story told by Apion in his lost work Aegyptiacorum (Wonders of Egypt), the events of which Apion claimed to have personally witnessed in Rome . In this version, Androclus (going by the Latin variation of the name), is a runaway slave of a former Roman consul administering a part of Africa . He takes shelter in a cave, which turns out to be the den of a wounded lion, from whose paw he removes a large thorn . In gratitude, the lion becomes tame towards him and henceforward shares his catch with the slave . </P> <P> After three years, Androclus craves a return to civilization but is soon imprisoned as a fugitive slave and sent to Rome . 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 . 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: </P>

The lion with the thorn in its paw