Arion
Ἀρίων
A poet who, moments from being thrown into the sea, summoned a dolphin with song.
When sailors plotted to kill him for his riches, he asked one last favor: to sing a single song.
He finished the song and leapt into the sea himself — and a dolphin, drawn by the sound, carried him on its back to shore.
That dolphin rose into the sky and became the constellation Delphinus.
SourcesHerodotus, Histories
Commonly confused
Arion was a real poet of the seventh century BC. Herodotus recorded this episode in his history — but even he presented it as a story he had heard secondhand.