Editing Arion (section)

==Kidnapping by pirates==
[[File:Boucher, François, Arion on the Dolphin, 1748.jpg|thumb|left|''Arion on the Dolphin'', by [[François Boucher]] (1748) [[Princeton University Art Museum]]]]

According to [[Herodotus]]' account of the [[Lydia]]n empire under the [[List of kings of Lydia#Mermnadae|Mermnads]],<ref>Herodotus, ''Histories'' I.23-24.</ref> Arion attended a [[music]]al competition in [[Sicily]], which he won. On his return trip from [[Taranto|Tarentum]], whose [[Taras (mythology)|onomastic founder]] has a similar story, avaricious sailors plotted to kill Arion and steal the rich prizes he carried home. Arion was given the choice of [[suicide]] with a proper burial on land, or being thrown in the sea to perish. He asked for permission to sing a last song to win time.
[[File:Jan Muller, after Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem, Arion on a Dolphin, c.1590, NGA 153993.jpg|alt=Arion sitting on a dolphin having escaped his death. He holds his harp.|thumb|Jan Muller after [[Cornelis van Haarlem]], ''Arion on a Dolphin'' (c. 1590) [[National Gallery of Art]]]]
Playing his [[kithara]], Arion sang a praise to [[Apollo]], the god of poetry, and his song attracted a number of [[Dolphins in mythology|dolphins]] around the ship.  Some argue that the dolphins were sent by Apollo to rescue Arion.<ref>Reading Herodotus: A Guided Tour Through the Wild Boars, Dancing Suitors (Debra Hamel), Dolphins (Jason Skog)</ref> At the end of the song, Arion threw himself into the sea rather than be killed, but one of the dolphins saved his life and carried him to safety at the sanctuary of [[Poseidon]] at [[Cape Matapan|Cape Tainaron]]. When he reached land, being eager for his journey, he failed to return the dolphin to the sea and it perished there. He told his misfortunes to [[Periander]], the Tyrant of Corinth, who ordered the dolphin to be buried, and monument raised to it. Shortly after, word came to Periander that the ship on which Arion had sailed had been brought to Corinth by a storm. He ordered the crew to be led before him, and inquired about Arion, but they replied that he had died and that they had buried him. The tyrant replied: "Tomorrow you will swear to that at the Dolphin's monument." Because of this he ordered them to be kept under guard, and instructed Arion to hide in the dolphin's monument the next morning, attired as he had been when he had thrown himself into the sea. When the tyrant brought the ship's crew to the dolphin's monument and ordered them to swear by the departed spirit of the dolphin that Arion was dead, Arion came out of the monument. In amazement, wondering by what divinity he had been saved, the ship's crew was silent. The tyrant ordered them to be [[Crucifixion|crucified]] at the dolphin's monument. Apollo, because of Arion's skill with the kithara, placed him and the dolphin among the stars.<ref>[[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''Fabulae'', 194</ref> This dolphin was [[Catasterism|catasterised]] as the constellation [[Delphinus]], by the blessing of Apollo.

[[File:Parc de Versailles, Bosquet des Dômes, Arion, Jean-Melchior Raon 01.jpg|thumb|upright|''Arion, playing his [[kithara]] and riding dolphins''. Sculpture by [[Jean Raon]] ({{Interlanguage link multi|Grove of the Domes|fr|3=Bosquet des Dômes}}, [[Gardens of Versailles]])]]

The story as Herodotus tells it was taken up in other literature.<ref>See [[Aulus Gellius]], ''Noctes Atticae'' XVI.19; [[Plutarch]], ''Conv. sept. sap.'' 160-62; see William Roberts, "Classical sources of [[Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant|Saint-Amant]]'s 'L'Arion'", ''French Studies'' '''17'''.4 (1963:341-350).</ref> [[Lucian|Lucian of Samosata]] wittily imagined the dialogue between Poseidon and the very dolphin who bore Arion.<ref>Lucian, ''Dialogi Marini'' 8.</ref>

[[Augustine of Hippo]]<ref>Augustine, ''[[City of God (book)|City of God]]'', i.14.</ref> asserted that pagans "believed in what they read in their own books" and took Arion to be a historical individual. "There is no historicity in this tale", according to Eunice Burr Stebbins,<ref>Stebbins, ''The Dolphin in the Literature and Art of Greece and Rome'', 1929:67.</ref> Arion and the dolphins are given as an example of "a folkloristic motif especially associated with Apollo" by Irad Malkin.<ref>Malkin, ''Religion and Colonization in Ancient Greece'', 1987:219.</ref> [[Erasmus]] instanced Arion as one of the traditional poet's topics that sound like ''historia'' rather than ''fabulae'', though he misremembered that Augustine had taken the Arion story to be historical.<ref>Erasmus, ''divus Augustinus historiam estimat'', quoted by Peter G. Bietenholz, ''Historia and Fabula: myths and legends in historical thought from antiquity to the Modern Age'' 1994:155.</ref>

=== Mythological parallels ===
The pirates episode may be seen as a doublet of the fate of [[Melicertes]], where the leap into the sea was that of his mother, Ino, transformed into the "white goddess" [[Leucothea]]. Melicertes was carried more dead than alive to the shores where the [[Isthmian Games]] were celebrated in his honour, as he was transformed to the hero Palaimon, who was placated with a nocturnal chthonic rite, and the whose winners were crowned with a barren wreath of spruce.<ref>Burkert 1983:198f. "To [[Plutarch]] this seemed more a mystery initiation (τελετή) than an athletic and folk festival" (p 197).</ref>

A similar story of told of the founding of [[Taranto|Taras]] in Megale Hellas ([[Magna Graecia]]), modern Taranto, Apulia, Italy. When a son of Poseidon called Taras was shipwrecked, his father rescued him by sending a dolphin which he rode to traverse the sea from the promontory of Taenarum to the south of Italy. Brought ashore, Taras founded the city of the same name.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newworldtreasures.com/dolphin.htm|title=Boy On A Dolphin Ancient Greek Coin Jewelry|website=Newworldtreasures.com|access-date=26 June 2019}}</ref> According to [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], he was worshiped as a hero who named both the city and the river, Taras after himself.<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], ''Description of Greece'' 10. 10. 8</ref>

Another parallel is the myth of Dionysus and the sailors, related in the [[Homeric Hymns]]: Tyrrhenian pirates try to lash the god to the mast, but the wood itself starts to sprout and the mast is entwined with ivy (like the god's [[thyrsus]]); the sailors leap into the sea and are transformed into dolphins. This is especially interesting because Arion is credited with the invention of the [[dithyramb]], a dionysiac song form.

===Scholarly interpretations===
In light of the above parallels, [[Walter Burkert]] interprets the story as a significant development in the history of Dionysiac cult: "Released from this gloomy background, the cheerful and liberating legend of the sixth century further developed the image of the dolphin-rider under the colours of the renewed cult of Dionysus.".<ref>Burkert 1983:198f</ref> [[C. M. Bowra]]<ref>Bowra, "Arion and the dolphin", ''MR'' '''20''' (1963:121-34, reprinted in Bowra, ''On Greek Margins'' (1970:164-81).</ref> tied the myth to the period following the expulsion from Corinth of the aristocratic [[Bacchiadae]], who traced their descent from Dionysus: "the cult of the god had to develop new and more democratic forms."<ref>Burkert 1983:201)</ref>

Stewart Flory<ref>Stewart Flory, "Arion's Leap: Brave Gestures in Herodotus" ''The American Journal of Philology'' '''99'''.4 (Winter 1978:411-421).</ref> identified Herodotus' characteristic use of the episode in a historicising context as an example of what Flory calls his "brave gestures", a man faced with death performs with calm dignity some spirited but unnecessary gesture that demonstrates contempt for danger.