the quarter-deck, dressed in his full costume, and there to play 

 and sing, and promising that, as soon as his song was ended, he 

 would destroy himself. Delighted at the prospect of hearing the 

 very best singer in the world, they consented, and withdrew 

 from the stern to the middle of the vessel: while Arion dressed 

 himself in the full costume of his calling, took his lyre, and 

 standing on the quarter-deck, chanted the Orthian [a very high 

 pitched lively and spirited song]. His strain ended, he flung 

 himself, fully attired as he was, headlong into the sea. The Cor- 

 inthians then sailed on to Corinth. As for Arion, a dolphin, they 

 say, took him upon his back and carried him to Taenarum, 

 where he went ashore, and thence proceeded to Corinth in his 

 musician's dress, and told all that had happened to him. Peri- 

 ander, however, disbelieved the story, and put Arion in ward, 

 to prevent his leaving Corinth, while he watched anxiously for 

 the return of the mariners. On their arrival he summoned them 

 before him and asked them if they could give him any tidings of 

 Arion. They returned for answer that he was alive and in good 

 health in Italy, and that they had left him at Tarentum, where 

 he was doing well. Thereupon Arion appeared before them, 

 just as he was when he jumped from the vessel : the men, aston- 

 ished and detected in falsehood, could no longer deny their 

 guilt. Such is the account which the Corinthians and Lesbians 

 give; and there is to this day at Taenarum an ofFering of Arion's 

 at the shrine, which is a small figure in bronze, representing a 

 man seated upon a dolphin." {The History of Herodotus, Clio, 

 1, 23-24.) 



Commenting on this tale the poet Bianor, in The Gree\ An- 

 thology {Declamatory Epigrams, 308), remarks, "So the sea 

 presumably contains fish whose righteousness exceeds that of 

 mankind." 



Coins of Methymna, in Lesbos, Arion's birthplace, show him 

 riding a dolphin. In one form or another the dolphin is repre- 



10 



