The Story of Androcles and the Lion

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1:00Sound up. I'm Alex, this is Alex Cantrowitz. I'm the host of Big Technology podcast, a long time reporter and an on air contributor to CNBC. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing the business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it, asking where this is all going, they come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more. your wallet, your career choices, and meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties. Listen to big technology podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. Many hundred years ago, they lived in the north of Africa, a poor Roman slave called Androccalees. His master had great power and authority in the country, but he was a hard, cool man, and his slaves led a very unhappy life. They had little to eat, had to work hard and were often punished and tortured if they failed to satisfy their master's captors. All along, Androccalees had born with the hardships of his life, but at last he could

2:02be at no longer and he made up his mind to run away. He knew that it was a great risk before he had no friends in that foreign country with whom he could seek safety and protection, and he was aware that if he was overtaken and caught he would be put to a cruel death. But even death, he thought, would not be so hard as the life he now led, and it was possible that he might escape to the sea coast and somehow someday get back to Rome and find a kind of master. So he waited till the old moon had rained to a tiny gold thread in the skies, and then one dark night he slipped out of his master's house, and creeping through the deserted forum and along the silent town, he passed out of the city into the vineyards and cornfields lying outside the walls. In the cool night he walked rapidly, from time to time he was startled by the sudden vacuum of a dog, or the sound of voices coming from some late revelers in the villas, which stood beside the road along which he hurried. But as he got further into the country, the sound ceased, and there was silence and doubt on us all around him.

3:03When the sun rose, he had already gone many miles away from the town on which he had been so miserable. But now a new terror appeased him, the terror of great loneliness. He had gotten to a wild, barren country where there was no sign of human habitation. A thick growth of low trees and thorny, mimosa bushes spread out before him, and as he tried to treat his way through them, he was severely stretched and his scant garments torn by the long thorns. Besides, the sun was very hot, and the trees were not high enough to afford him any shade. He was worn out with hunger and fatigue, and he longed to lie down and rest, but to lie down on that fierce sun would have meant death, and he struggled on, hoping to find some wild berries to eat, and some water to quench his thirst. But when he came out of the scrubwood, he found he was as badly off as before, a long, low line of rocky cliffs rose before him, but there were no houses, and he saw no hope of finding food. He was so tired that he could not wander further, and seeing a cave which looked cool and dark on the side of the cliffs, he crept into it, and stretched to his tired limbs on the

4:07sandy floor, the vast asleep. Suddenly, he was awakened by a noise that made his blood run cold, the roar of a wild beast sounded in his ears, and as he started trembling and in terror to his feet, he beheld a huge, tawny line with great glisten and white teeth, standing in the entrance of the cave. It was impossible to fly for the line bad the way, a movable with fear, and Rockley stood rooted to the spot, waiting for the lion to spring on him and tear him from lung. But the lion did not move, making a low moan as if in great pain, it stood looking its huge paw from which and Rockley's now saw that blood was flowing freely. Seeing the poor animal on such pain and noticing how gentle it seemed, and Rockley's forgot his own tear and slowly approached the lion, who had up its paw as a fasting the man to help it. Then, Rockley saw that a monster thorn had entered the poor, making a deep cut, and causing great pain and swelling. Swiftly but firmly, he drew the thorn out and pressed the swelling to try to stop the flowing of the blood. Relieved of the pain, the lion quietly lay down at and Rockley's feet, slowly moving

5:11his great bushy tail from side to side as a dog does when it feels happy and comfortable. On that moment, and Rockley's and the lion became dervoted friends, after the lion for a little while at his feet, looking the poor wounded poor, the lion got up and limped out of the cave. A few minutes later, a return with a little deed rabbit in its mouth, which it put down on the floor of the cave beside and Rockley's. The poor man, who was starving with hunger, cooked the rabbit somehow and ate it. In the evening, lead by the lion, he found a place where there was a spring at which he quainted his dreadful thirst. And so for three years, and Rockley's and the lion lived together in the cave, wandering about the woods together by day, sleeping together at night. For on some of the cave was cooler than the woods, and in winter it was warmer. At last the longing and and Rockley's heart to live once more with his fellow mean became so great that he felt he could remain in the woods no longer, but that he must be turned to a town and take his chance of being caught and caught as a runaway slave. And so one morning he left the cave and wandered away in the direction where he thought

6:14the sea in the large town's lay, but in a few days he was captured by a band of soldiers who were patrolling the country in search of fugitives slaves, and he was put in chains and sent as a prisoner to Rome. Here he was cast into prison and tried for the crime of him run away from his master. He was condemned as a punishment to be torn to pieces by a wild beast on the first public holiday in the Great Circus at Rome. When the day arrived and Rockley's was brought out of his prison, dressed in a simple short tunic and with a staff round his right arm. He was given a lance with which to defend himself. A full-arm hope as he knew he had to fight with a powerful line which had been kept without food for some days to make it more savage and blood-thirsty. As he stepped into the arena of the huge circus, above the sound of the voices of thousands on thousands of spectators, he could hear the savage roar of the wild beasts from their cages below the floor on which he stood. Of a sudden the silence of expectation fell on the spectators for signal had been given

7:15and the cage containing the line with which and Rockley's had to fight had been shut up into the arena from the floor below. A moment later with a fierce string and a savage roar the great animal had sprung out of its cage into the arena and with a bound had rushed at the spot where and Rockley stood trembling. But suddenly, as he saw and Rockley's the line stood still, wondering. Then quickly but quietly it approached him and gently moved its tail and looked the man's hands and formed upon him like a great dog and Rockley's petted the line's head and gave a sub of recognition for he knew that it was his own line with whom he had loved and lodged all those months and years. And seeing the strange and wonderful meeting between the man and the wild beast, all the people marveled and the impure from his high seat above the arena sent for And Rockley's and begged him to tell his story and explain this mystery. And the impure was so delighted with the story that he said And Rockley's was to be released and to be made a free man from that hour and he rewarded him with manning in order that the line was to belong to him and to accompany him wherever he went.

8:20And when the people in Rome met And Rockley's walkin' followed by his faith the line, they used to point at him and say, that is the line the guest of the man and that is the man the doctor of the line. And of the story of And Rockley's and the line, from the animal story book, edited by Andrew Lang.