Arion of Methymna
mythological figure · 3 works · 3 mentions · 4 anchored passages
Arion · the Methymnean
in the texts
Tusculan Disputations
Legendary poet said to have been rescued from the sea by a dolphin, invoked as an image of rescue in the closing simile.
one is at hand to take you up — either a dolphin, as it took up Arion of Methymna, or those Neptunian horses of Pelops, which are said to have whirled their chariots, suspended, across the waves;
Protrepticus
Legendary singer said to have charmed a fish with his music.
Amphion of Thebes and Arion of Methymna were both singers, and both are the stuff of legend;
To my mind, then, that Thracian Orpheus, and the Theban and the Methymnean — men who were no men — were deceivers;
The Histories
Lyre-player and dithyramb inventor rescued by a dolphin after being thrown overboard by Corinthian sailors
The Corinthians say (and the Lesbians agree) that the most marvellous thing that happened to him in his life was the landing on Taenarus of Arion of Methymna, brought there by a dolphin.
but a dolphin (so the story goes) took Arion on his back and bore him to Taenarus.
This is what the Corinthians and Lesbians say, and there is a little bronze memorial of Arion on Taenarus, the figure of a man riding upon a dolphin.