What is "androcles"

Androcles or Androclus is the name given by some sources to 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.

Androcles is the legendary Roman slave who escapes death when thrown into the arena with a lion because the lion recognizes him as the man who once extracted a thorn from its foot

Androcles also may refer to:

• Androcles (politician) (fl. ca. 415 BCE), politician opposed to Alcibiades at time of the Sicilian Expedition
• Androklos, Androcles, or Androclus, legendary founder of Greek city of Ephesus in Asia Minor