Appion relates, that this narrative was told by Androclus, who explained all this to the people, inscribed and handed about on a tablet. Therefore, by the universal request, Androclus was discharged and pardoned, and, by the voice of the people, the lion was given him. “We afterwards,” he relates, “saw Androclus, and the lion, confined only by a slight cord, go round the city and to the taverns. Money was given to Androclus, the lion was covered with flowers, and all who met them exclaimed, “This is the lion who was the man’s friend! This is the man who was the lion’s physician!”

PERSEUS AND MEDUSA

The Library, Book II

Apollodorus

Translated by Sir James George Frazer, 1921

The Library is a collection of Greek myths and heroic legends which bears the name of Apollodorus, a Greek scholar of the second century BC, but it is much more likely that it dates to the second or early third century AD. Authorship of the Library is therefore usually attributed to ‘Pseudo-Apollodorus’. This story begins with Acrisius, King of Argos, and his daughter Danaë, and ends with Danaë’s son Perseus and his beheading of the monster (Gorgon) known as the Medusa. These myths were famous long before they were boiled down to their bare essentials by Pseudo-Apollodorus.