Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/A/Arion

Arion. A lyric poet and musician of Methymna, in the Island of Lesbos, who flourished about six hundred years before the Christian era. Ile was immensely rich, and when travel-ling from Lesbos into Italy, his companions assaulted him, to rob him of his wealth; but he entreated the seamen to suffer him to play on his harp before they cast him into the sea : he played sweetly, and then threw himself into the sea, where a dolphin, drawn thither by the sweetness of his music, received him on his back, and carried him to Cape Taenarus.

"He on his crouching back sits all at ease,

With harp in hand, by which he calms the seas,

And for his passage with a song he pays."

He had previously resided at the court of Periander, King of Corinth, and had amassed his fortune by the profession of music. From Cape Taenarus, he returned to the court of Periander, who ordered all the sailors who had conspired to throw him overboard to lie crucified on their return. He invented the dithyrambic measure, and composed many hymns.