Androclus, or Androcles, a Roman slave who once pulled a thorn out of a lion's paw and dressed the wound. Androclus was afterwards condemned to be thrown to the lions in the Circus Maximus, and encountered the same lion that he had helped; the beast, instead of attacking him, fawned on him and caressed him. The story is told by Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticæ, v, 14.
Andrϫcium, in botany, the male system of a flower; the aggregate of the stamens.
Andromache (an-drom´a-kē), in Greek legend, wife of Hector, and one of the most attractive women of Homer's Iliad. The passage describing her parting with Hector, when he was setting out to battle, is well known and much admired (Iliad, vi, 369-502). Euripides and Racine have made her the chief character of tragedies.
Androm´ĕda, in Greek mythology, daughter of the Ethiopian king Cepheus and of Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia having boasted that her daughter surpassed the Nereids, if not Hēra (Juno) herself, in beauty, the offended goddesses prevailed on their father, Poseidōn (Neptune), to afflict the country with a horrid sea-monster, which threatened universal destruction. To appease the offended god, Andromeda was chained to a rock, but was rescued by Perseus; and after death was changed into a constellation. The legend forms the subject of tragedies by Euripides and Sophocles, and Ovid introduced it into his Metamorphoses.
Androm´eda. See Ericaceæ.
Androni´cus, the name of four emperors of Constantinople.—Andronicus I, Comnenus, born 1110, murdered 1185.—Andronicus II, Palæologus, born 1258, died 1332. His reign is celebrated for the invasion of the Turks.—Andronicus III, Palæologus the Younger, born 1296, died 1341.—Andronicus IV, Palæologus, reigned in the absence of John IV. In 1373 he gave way to his brother Manuel, and died a monk.
Androni´cus, Livius, the most ancient of the Latin dramatic poets; flourished about 240 B.C.; by origin a Greek, and long a slave. A few fragments of his works have come down to us.
Androni´cus of Rhodes, a peripatetic philosopher who lived at Rome in the time of Cicero. He arranged Aristotle's works in much the same form as they retain in present editions.
Androni´cus Cyrrhestes (sir-es´tēz), a Greek architect about 100 B.C., who constructed at Athens the Tower of the Winds, an octagonal building, still standing. On the top was a Triton, which indicated the direction of the wind. Each of the sides had a sort of dial, and the building formerly contained a clepsydra or water-clock.
Andropo´gon, a large genus of grasses, mostly natives of warm countries. A. Schœnanthus is the sweet-scented lemon-grass of conservatories. Others also are fragrant.