Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Arion of Methymna in Lesbos, greatest lyre-singer of his age and reputed inventor of the dithyramb, spent time at Periander’s Corinth and then toured Italy and Sicily, growing rich. Homeward bound for Corinth, he hired a Corinthian ship. At sea the crew plotted to seize his wealth and cast him overboard. Arion offered his goods for his life; refused, he won leave to sing one last time in full costume on the poop. He chanted a high nome and threw himself into the sea. A dolphin, drawn by the music (or sent by Apollo), took him on its back and carried him to Taenarum in Laconia. From there he came to Corinth in his stage dress and told Periander; the tyrant kept him under guard until the sailors arrived and claimed they had landed Arion safe in Italy—whereupon they were confronted and convicted. Herodotus says he heard the tale from Corinthians and Lesbians, and that a bronze dedication of a man on a dolphin stood at Taenarum. The story is classical legend at the edge of history: a real citharode, a tyrant’s court, and a dolphin-rescue that Greek piety could believe of Apollo’s creatures. Catalogued among local and lesser myths as the canonical Herodotean wonder-tale of music’s power over the sea.