At the turn of the first century, the Roman Empire despatched criminals by setting wild animals on them, before a paying public. On one such occasion, a large and ferocious lion surprised everyone, and disappointed the presiding official, Gaius Caesar, the Emperor’s grandson, by frisking up to one of the condemned men like a pet dog.

Required to explain the lion’s docile behaviour, the criminal, a runaway slave named Androcles, revealed that they had shared a cave in Egypt for three years, after he had cured the lion’s painful paw. By sheer chance, they had now been reunited in that very arena. Androcles received a pardon, and man and lion became one of Rome’s tourist attractions.

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