Arion

thumb|A musician riding a dolphin, on a Red-figure stamnos (360–340 BC) from Etruria. In this case the musician is an aulete rather than a kitharode, as he is playing the flute (aulos) rather than a kithara.thumb|Arion riding a Dolphin, by Albrecht Dürer (c. 1514)thumb|Arion on a Sea Horse, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1855)Arion (; ) was a kitharode in ancient Greece, a Dionysiac poet credited with inventing the dithyramb. 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.

== Origins == Arion was a native of Methymna in Lesbos, and, according to some mythological accounts, a son of Cyclon or of Poseidon and the nymph Oncaea. All traditions about him agree in describing him as a contemporary and friend of Periander, tyrant of Corinth. He appears to have spent a great part of his life at the court of Periander, but respecting his life and his poetical or musical productions, scarcely anything is known beyond the story of his escape from the sailors with whom he sailed from Sicily to Corinth.