I leoni provavano gratitudine? La mirabolante storia di Androclo (e di altri) e il dibattito antico sugli animali

Before taking on the ‘folk tale’ connotations that it would later assume in the post-classical era, the motif of the man healing the lion had been one of the key arguments within the philosophical debate of the imperial age on the moral status of animals. Within the frame-work of the existing Greco-roman accounts, the story of Androclus and the lion, as Apion tells it, assumes a particular relevance. This version, translated into Latin by Gellius, lacks all the ‘ani-malistic’ and philosophical implications added by the subsequent accounts, thus being ready to be ‘canonized’ in the following centuries.