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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,"〔Pickard-Cambridge, Sir Arthur Wallace. 1927. ''Dithyramb Tragedy and Comedy''. Second edition revised by T.B.L. Webster, 1962. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-19-814227-7.〕 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.〔The dolphin's love of music and of humans was proverbial among Greeks (Euripides, ''Electra'' 435f; for the folktale motif, see Stith Thompson, ''Motif Index of Folk Literature'' (Bloomington IN) 1955-58) ''s.v.'' B300-B349, and B473, B767.〕 Herodotus (1,23) 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 (c 665 BC)… 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".〔J.H. Sleeman, ed. ''Herodotus Book I''.〕 Arion is also associated with the origins of tragedy: of Solon John the Deacon reports: “Arion of Methymna first introduced the drama (action ) of tragedy, as Solon indicated in his poem entitled ''Elegies''".〔Solon, Fragment 30a W, noted in Eric Csapo and Margaret Christina Miller, ''The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and beyond: from ritual to drama'', 2007 "Pre-Aristotelian fragments", p. 10.〕 ==Kidnapping by pirates== According to Herodotus' account of the Lydian empire under the Mermnads,〔Herodotus, ''Histories'' I.23-24.〕 Arion attended a musical competition in Sicily, which he won. On his return trip from Tarentum, 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. Neither prospect appealed to Arion: as Robin Lane Fox observes, "No Greek would swim out into the deep from a boat for pleasure."〔Fox, ''Travelling Heroes in the Epic Age of Homer'', 2008:170.〕 He asked for permission to sing a last song to win time. Playing his kithara, Arion sang a praise to Apollo, the god of poetry, and his song attracted a number of dolphins around the ship. 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 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 in 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 monument of the dolphin the next morning, attired as he was when he threw himself into the sea. When the tyrant had brought them there, 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, they were silent. The tyrant ordered them to be crucified at the monument of the dolphin, but Apollo, because of Arion's skill with the kithara, placed him and the dolphin among the stars.〔Hyginus, ''Fabulae'', 194〕 This dolphin was catasterised as the constellation Delphinus, by the blessing of Apollo. The story as Herodotus tells it was taken up in other literature.〔See Aulus Gellius, ''Noctes Atticae'' XVI.19; Plutarch, ''Conv. sept. sap.'' 160-62; see William Roberts, "Classical sources of Saint-Amant's 'L'Arion'", ''French Studies'' 17.4 (1963:341-350).〕 Lucian of Samosata wittily imagined the dialogue between Poseidon and the very dolphin who bore Arion.〔Lucian, ''Dialogi Mortuorum'' 8.〕 Augustine of Hippo〔Augustine, ''City of God'', i.14.〕 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", also according to Eunice Burr Stebbins,〔Stebbins, ''The Dolphin in the Literature and Art of Greece and Rome'', 1929:67.〕 and Arion and the dolphins are given as an example of "a folkloristic motif especially associated with Apollo" by Irad Malkin.〔Malkin, ''Religion and Colonization in Ancient Greece'', 1987:219.〕 Yet there are many more or less reliable historical accounts from many periods of people being saved by dolphins. 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.〔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.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Arion」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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