74 FABULOUS HISTORY 



through the Orthian measure.* Having concluded, 

 he threw himself into the sea, and they sailed on from 

 Corinth. But Arion, sitting on a dolphin's back, 

 was conveyed to Taenarus, &c. &c. These things 

 are still told by the Corinthians and Lesbians. 

 There is a small brazen votive tablet of Arion near 

 Tsenarus, of a man mounted upon a dolphin's 

 back.f 



graph. Murphy says it was not his ordinary dress he wish- 

 ed to die in, but one peculiar to him as a musician. 



* So called, because sung at the highest and strongest pitch 

 of the voice. " OpQiov enim Gneci dicunt quod arduum est, 

 et quam altissima voce elevatum. — Gesnerus. 



f Herodotus, sx ^a Kto«n>tf. — This story did not escape the 

 biting irony of Lucian, whose talent for ridicule has rarely 

 been surpassed. He has a dialogue between Neptune and 

 the very dolphin who bore Arion in safety to Tsenarus, and 

 makes him repeat Herodotus's story, as u having heard 

 the whole of it while swimming round the ship." Lucian 

 also accounts for the fabled attachment of the Dolphin to 

 the human race, by making this one remind Neptune that 

 they were changed from men to dolphins by Bacchus. Ovid 

 relates the transformation in his third book of Metamor- 

 phoses, where Bacchus himself, in the semblance of his 

 companion Acastes, is the speaker: — ■ 



<£ At Lybis obstantes dum vult obvertere remos, 

 In spatium resilire manus breve viditj etillas 

 Jam non esse manus jam primas posse vocari. 

 Alter ad intortos cupiens dare brachia funes 

 Corpore desiluit; falcata novissima cauda est 

 Qualia dimidise sinuantur cornua lim%.' 



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