Slavery and Interspecies Solidarity in Androcles and the Lion: Egyptian and Aesopic Perspectives

Abstract: The Tale of Androcles and the Lion follows a familiar tradition of human/non-human animal friendship but draws a rare equivalence between human and animal trafficking. As I argue, the story's juxtaposition of slavery and non-human animal suffering reflects the culturally mixed, Greco-Egyptian background of its original author, Apion. Through comparisons with the Greek Life of Aesop and the Demotic Myth of the Sun's Eye , I show how Apion balances Aesopic and Egyptian frames for slave and lion. The interconnection of these two frames helps explain the story's ambivalent ending, when a manumitted Androcles becomes the owner of his former companion.