page_title: Arion
section_title: Mythological parallels
hierarchical_section_title: Arion / Family / Mythological parallels
caption_attribution_description: English: Youth playing the flute and riding a dolphin. Red-figure stamnos, 360–340 BC. From Etruria. Español: Un joven flautista cabalga sobre un delfín. Estamno de figuras rojas, 360-340 a.C. Procedencia&#160;: Etruria. Français&#160;: Jeune flûtiste chevauchant un dauphin. Stamnos à figures rouges, 360-340 av. J.-C. Provenance&#160;: Étrurie.
context_page_description: Arion was a kitharode in ancient Greece, a Dionysiac poet credited with inventing the dithyramb: "As a literary composition for chorus dithyramb was the creation of Arion of Corinth," The islanders of Lesbos claimed him as their native son, but Arion found a patron in Periander, tyrant of Corinth. Although notable for his musical inventions, Arion is chiefly remembered for the fantastic myth of his kidnapping by pirates and miraculous rescue by dolphins, a folktale motif.
  Herodotus says "Arion was second to none of the lyre-players in his time and was also the first man we know of to compose and name the dithyramb and teach it in Corinth". However J.H. Sleeman observes of the dithyramb, or circular chorus, "It is first mentioned by Archilochus … Arion flourished at least 50 years later … probably gave it a more artistic form, adding a chorus of 50 people, personating satyrs… who danced around an altar of Dionysus. He was doubtless the first to introduce the dithyramb into Corinth".
context_section_description: The 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.
  A similar story of told of the founding of 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. According to Pausanias, he was worshiped as a hero who named both the city and the river, Taras after himself.
  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.
caption: A musician riding a dolphin, on a Red-figure stamnos, 360–340 BC. From Etruria. In this case the musician is a aulete rather than a kitharode, as he is playing the flute (aulos) rather than a kithara.
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