@ndroeles and the ion.

BSHE story of Androcles and the lion is told by Dion Cassius, a
Roman historian of undoubted veracity. Androcles was the
slave of a noble Roman, who was pro-consul of Afric, or Africa.
He had been found guilty of a fault for which his master was
) coing to put him to death, but he found an opportunity to
escape, and fled into the deserts of Numidia. As he was wandering among the
barren sands, and almost dead with heat and thirst, he saw a cave in the rock.
Finding just at the entrance a stone to sit upon which was shaded from the
fierce heat of the sun, he rested for some time.

At length, to his great surprise, a huge, overgrown lion stood before him,
and, seeing him, immediately walked toward him. Androcles gave himself up
for lost; but the lion, instead of treating him as he expected, laid his right paw
on his lap, and, with a low moan of pain, licked his hand. Androcles, after
having recovered himself a little from his fright, plucked up courage enough to
look at the paw which was laid on his lap, and observed a large thorn init. He
immediately pulled it out, and by squeezing it very gently made a great deal of
poisonous blood and matter run out, which probably freed the lion from the
great pain he wasin. The lion again licked his hand, and, with a brighter look
in his eyes, left him, soon returning, however, with a fawn he had just killed.
This he laid down at the feet of his benefactor, and went off again in pursuit of
more prey, not limping now as he did when Androcles first saw him, but bound-
ing along as if his paw had never had anything the matter with it.

Androcles, after having subsisted upon the fawn and other food which the
lion brought him for several days, at length got tired of this frightful solitude
and savage companionship, expecting that any moment the lion might forget
his act of kindness and devour him. So he resolved to deliver himself into his
master’s hands and suffer the worst effects of his displeasure.

Now his master, as was customary for the pro-consul of Africa, was at that
time collecting together a present of the largest lions that could be found in the
country in order to send them to Rome, that they might furnish a show for the
Roman people, and upon Androcles, his slave, surrendering himself, he ordered
him to be carried to Rome as soon as the lions were sent there, and that for his
crime he should be exposed to fight one of the lions in the amphitheatre for the
pleasure of the people.

This was all carried into effect. Androcles, after having been all alone in
the wilderness, with the probability of being torn.to pieces by lions, was now