Deborah Lyons

Arion the Methymnian and Dionysos

Methymnaios: Myth and Cult in Herodotus’
Histories
The poet Arion of Methymna is the protagonist of one of Herodotus’ most beloved
tales (1.23–34), which he incorporates into his account of the reign of the tyrant
Periander of Corinth. Herodotus presents the poet’s rescue by a dolphin as a historical
event, which he ties into his larger chronological framework by labeling it the greatest
miracle (thôma megiston) to take place in Periander’s lifetime. At the same time, a
number of elements in the tale point to Arion’s heroic and even divine connections.
The mixture of historical, mythic, and cultic information in the text raises the follow-
ing question: to what extent does this mixture of historical and non-historical ele-
ments constitute a conscious strategy on Herodotus’ part?
In what follows, I interrogate the relationship between historical, literary, and
mythic elements in Herodotus’ story, and I argue that – as elsewhere in this author – a
wealth of mythic patterns can be found lurking under the surface of this ostensibly
historical account.1 Using linguistic and literary evidence to elucidate the Dionysiac
elements in the account, I highlight what I take to be the most important of Arion’s
divine connections.2 This identification, which has been observed by others before
me, may perhaps be reinforced by a pun hidden in Herodotus’ text, to which I will
later return.
While laying out my case for a Dionysiac reading of the Arion episode, I also
address the question of how much Herodotus knew about the traditions surrounding
Arion, and to what extent his hints at cultic elements were intentional. As Deborah
Boedeker has observed of another episode, “Herodotus’ account may preserve traces
of meaning of which the histor himself is not aware but which may have been
important to his sources and to the context in which the logos was originally gener-
ated.”3 I argue that the Arion episode contains similar “traces of meaning.”

1 See Griffiths 1989 for an analysis of folkloric elements in Herodotus’ account of Kleomenes. Stadter
2004 offers a more comprehensive analysis of Herodotus’ use of mythic patterns to shape history as
well as his propensity for “drawing mythic events into history” through the use of contemporary
references. Both these methods can be seen in the Arion episode. Boedeker 1988 suggests a less
conscious use of mythic elements (discussed below).
2 Burkert 1983, 199 takes the Dionysiac connection for granted, calling Arion a “Dionysiac poet.” He
does not present much evidence beyond the identification of Arion as the inventor of the dithyramb,
which he takes as unproblematic. His discussion of Arion is embedded in a wide-ranging treatment of
dolphin myths (196–204).
3 Boedeker 1988, 33 and 2002.

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426 Deborah Lyons

Other recent accounts have emphasized Herodotus’ conscious employment of

mythic and other traditional elements. Alan Griffiths, for example, says:4

Herodotus knows very well what he is about … he would have no problem with our differentiation
of material between the categories of mythical and historical … he is aware how much suggestive
depth can be added to a narrative by the selective inclusion of stories with an aura of the
irrational. His only problems were how to choose the right stuff from the wealth of popular
tradition which was available to him, and how to manipulate and arrange it to best effect.

Charles Chiasson says something similar:5

I will argue that Herodotus incorporates such features of traditional story-telling and custom into
his narrative with complete authorial awareness and control. He alerts his audience at the outset
to the legendary nature of the story to follow and deploys its mythical and ritual elements to serve
both the specific functions of the narrative within the Lydian logos and the broader purpose of
Herodotean historie – to perpetuate the communal memory of remarkable human deeds.

Boedeker, Griffiths, and Chiasson are speaking about different episodes, but the
issues are relevant to the entirety of Herodotus’ work. I therefore return at the end of
this piece to a consideration of these two different approaches in light of the Arion
episode.
The tale, in summary, is this: Arion, the greatest kithara player and singer of his
time, and a sometime courtier of the tyrant Periander of Corinth, sails to Italy to
enhance his fortune. Returning to Corinth, he is forced to jump ship by greedy sailors
who plan to steal the money he has made abroad. He performs one last time on deck
before leaping into the sea in all his finery, only to be rescued by a dolphin (an animal
considered in antiquity to be both philomousos and philanthropos).6 Upon his return
to Corinth, Arion surprises the sailors, whose astonishment at seeing him alive betrays
their guilt. Herodotus tells us that a small statue of a man on the back of a dolphin at
Taenarum commemorates this miraculous event.7
Were it not for Herodotus, we would know little of Arion, whose own poetry does
not survive.8 The ancient testimonia to Arion’s life and achievements are scant and
contradictory, but some of them credit him – as does Herodotus – with the invention
of the dithyramb, a genre closely associated with the god Dionysos.9 The scholiast to
Aristophanes’ Birds 1403, after establishing that circular choruses and dithyramb are
one and the same, lists him among other possible inventors of the circular chorus,

4 Griffiths 1999, 182.

5 Chiasson 2005, 42.
6 Aelian, NA 12.45 also calls them philoidoi and philauloi – “lovers of song” and “lovers of the aulos.”
7 Burkert 1983, 199 assumes that this must have been at the temple of Poseidon.
8 The fragmentary thanksgiving hymn to Poseidon preserved under his name in Aelian (NA 12.45 =
PMG 939) is accepted by no one as genuine. Page lists it with the fragmenta adespota.
9 The testimonia are conveniently collected in Campbell 1991, 16–25.

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 Arion the Methymnian and Dionysos Methymnaios 427

citing Hellanikos and Dikaiarchos as authorities. Proclus cites Aristotle to the effect
that “it was Arion who originated the song [i.e., dithyramb] and that he was the first to
introduce the circular chorus.”10
Others go so far as to call him the originator of tragedy. The Suda (s.v. Arion) says
that he was “said to have been the inventor of the tragic style (tragikou tropou
heuretês), and to have been the first (prôtos) to organize a chorus, sing a dithyramb
and give title to what the chorus sang.” John Deacon says that Arion introduced the
first tragic performance, citing Solon’s Elegies.11 Admittedly, these sources are not the
most reliable, and not only because of their distance from the events in question.12
Nonetheless, the insistent use of prôtos, “first,” in these texts indicates that Arion was
widely thought of as an inventor (prôtos heuretês) in antiquity, even if not everyone
agrees on what exactly it was that he was first to do. The prôtos heuretês is often a
figure of heroic status, whether that status was conferred in virtue of the invention or,
on the other hand, because the importance of the invention required the prestige of a
heroic inventor.13 What is more, the inventions all point to an association with
Dionysiac genres of poetry.
In addition to the Dionysiac overtones, the story of Arion as told by Herodotus
draws him into the orbit of two other divinities. As a poet, he is under the patronage of
Apollo, and the last song he sings before his leap is the orthios nomos, a musical
composition associated with this god.14 The dolphin and other marine elements of his
story, meanwhile, suggest a close connection to Poseidon.15 Poseidon, however, has
no monopoly on dolphins: both Dionysos and Apollo bear the title Delphinios.
Griffiths comments that “Herodotus has of course rationalized the intervention of
Apollo Delphinios, the Dolphin-god, out of his version of the Arion story.”16 Cor-
inthian drinking vessels about the time of Arion show dancers with a dolphin, and
there may well have been Dionysiac dancers dressed as dolphins.17 A charming Attic
red-figure psykter attributed to Oltos, of a short time later (ca. 520–510 BCE), shows

10 Arion 5 (ed. Campbell) = Proclus, Chrest. in Photius, Bibl. p. 320a (ed. Bekker).
11 Arion 6 (ed. Campbell) = John the Deacon, Commentary on Hermogenes = Solon 30a (ed. West).
12 Campbell 1991, 23 labels the passage “of doubtful value,” citing Else 1965, 17.
13 Brelich 1958, 166–177; Lyons 1997, 30–34.
14 Clay 2004 observes that Archilochos is also closely associated with both Apollo and Dionysos.
Thompson 1996, in a book whose title (Arion’s Leap) might imply greater interest in Arion, has only one
page (167) on his leap, in which she interestingly suggests that by choosing to leap into the sea in full
regalia, “even though the weight of his bardic gear will certainly make him sink like a stone … Arion
has saved himself by reaffirming his culture and creative character in a moment of crisis.” In religious
terms, he has entrusted himself to Apollo, god of poets.
15 Arion’s link with Poseidon is especially emphasized by Bowra 1963. For Poseidon and dolphins, see
Burkert 1983, 204.
16 Griffiths 1999, 181.
17 Parke 1977, 185. Burkert 1983, 199–200 cites Dionysiac dancers with a dolphin on Corinthian
pottery of this period, and dolphin riders on Attic vases.

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428 Deborah Lyons

men riding dolphins and bears the inscription “ΕΠΙ ΔΕΛΦΙΝΙΟΣ,” which according to
Gregory Sifakis may be the beginning of a choral song.18
A Dionysiac reading of Arion’s story is strengthened by a feature of Herodotus’ text
that must have been quite deliberate on the author’s part. This is the clear intertex-
tuality of his account with the Homeric Hymn to Dionysos (7).19 While Herodotus’ tale
of rescue by a dolphin has many parallels in folktale and Greek myth, its closest
parallel is to this poem.20 Walter Burkert observes that the two texts tell the same
story.21 And indeed, the degree to which the same elements appear in the Homeric
Hymn, although in a different order, suggests that Herodotus consciously used the
Hymn as a model in shaping his tale of Arion.22 Both dramas are played out on
shipboard, and both are stories of thwarted piracy. To quote from the Hymn (7.1–12):

ἀμφὶ Διώνυσον Σεμέλης ἐρικυδέος υἱὸν

μνήσομαι, ὡς ἐφάνη παρὰ θῖν᾿ἁλὸς ἀτρυγέτοιο
ἀκτῇ ἐπὶ προβλῆτι νεηνίῃ ἀνδρὶ ἐοικὼς
πρωθήβῃ καλαὶ δὲ περισσείοντο ἔθειραι
κυάνεαι, φᾶρος δὲ περὶ στιβαροῖς ἔχεν μοις
πορφύρεον τάχα δ᾿ἄνδρες εὐσσέλμου ἀπὸ νηὸς
ληισταὶ προγένοντο θοῶς ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον
Τυρσηνοί τοὺς δ᾿ ἦγε κακὸς μόρος οἱ δὲ ἰδόντες
νεῦσαν ἐς ἀλλήλους, τάχα δ᾿ ἔκθορον, αἶψα δ᾿ ἑλόντες
εἶσαν ἐπὶ σφετέρης νηὸς κεχαρημένοι ἦτορ.
ὑἱὸν γάρ μιν ἔφαντο διοτρεφέων βασιλήων
εἶναι, καὶ δεσμοῖς ἔθελον δεῖν ἀργαλέοισι.

I shall recall to mind how Dionysos, son of glorious Semele,

appeared by the shore of the barren sea
on a jutting headland, looking like a young man
in the first bloom of manhood. His beautiful dark hair
danced about him, and on his stout shoulders he wore
a purple cloak. Soon on a well-benched ship
Pirates moved forward swiftly on the wine-dark sea;
they were Tyrsenians led by an evil doom. When they saw him
they signaled to each other and then leapt out and quickly seized him
and put him on board their ship, glad in their hearts.

18 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 1989.281.69: Sifakis 1967, pl. 6. See also Ridgway 1970a and
Slater 1976.
19 Noticed by Benardete 1969 and Burkert 1983, 199–200, among others.
20 See Forbes Irving 1990, 316–317 for a brief survey of dolphin myths (with an emphasis on
transformations) in Greek literature.
21 Burkert 1983, 200.
22 For another example of possible influence of the Homeric Hymns in shaping Herodotean narratives,
see Chiasson 2005, 46–47, where he compares the mother’s inadvertent heroization of her sons Kleobis
and Biton to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.

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 Arion the Methymnian and Dionysos Methymnaios 429

They thought he was the son of a Zeus-cherished king

and wanted to bind him with painful shackles. (trans. Athanassakis)

A parallel reading of the two texts reveals many thematic and lexical similarities.
Dionysos’ kidnappers are explicitly pirates (leistai … Tursenoi, 7–8), while Arion’s
tormentors are the very Corinthian sailors in whom he had placed his trust, but their
criminal intent is similar. The pirates plan to hold Dionysos, who appears as a well-
dressed young man in purple finery (pharos … porpupeon, 5–6), for ransom (presum-
ably the ktemata panta of l. 30) while the Corinthians are ready to kill Arion for his
money (chremata megala, cf. two other mentions of chremata in 1. 24.1–2) if he will not
do the deed himself. Herodotus mentions the finery (skeue pase) in which Arion was
accustomed to perform and which he put on for this final performance, no less than
four times (1.24.5–6). Miracles (thaumata erga, 34) begin early in the hymn, with the
bonds that cannot restrain divine hands (13–14). Shortly thereafter, wine begins to
flow and a sinister luxuriance overtakes the ship as vines entwine the mast. The god’s
transformation into a lion, and his production of a bear (43–45) lead, finally, to the
transformation of the sailors to dolphins. The god controls the power of metamorpho-
sis, and puts it to a variety of uses.
These thaumata erga (“marvelous deeds”) have their echo in the Herodotean thôma
megiston (“greatest marvel”) that introduces the tale of Arion. But since Herodotus’
protagonist is mortal, the miraculous effect is both delayed and displaced. Dionysos has
multiple epiphanies, appearing (ephane, 2) first as a royal-looking young man (5) before
ultimately making himself known at the end of the poem: “I am loud-crying Dionysos
whom Kadmos’ daughter Semele bore, having mingled in love with Zeus” (εἰμὶ δ᾿ ἐγὼ
Διόνυσος ἐρίβρομος, ὃν τέκε μήτηρ / Καδμηὶς Σεμέλη Διὸς ἐν φιλότητι μιγεῖσα).
The magical appearance of wine, vines, and garlands is in some ways the poem’s
most complete epiphany: the metonymy of wine for Dionysos is made concrete, as wine
flows through the ship, vines take possession of the mast, and an ambrosial scent fills
the air (36–37). This is similar to the epiphany of Demeter in the Homeric Hymn, where
she fills the doorframe with her divine stature and the air with her scent. Dionysos’
miracle produces astonishment (taphos) in the men (37), but only when he appears as a
lion do they experience fear (ephobethen, 48). When the lion attacks, the pirates are
ekplegentes, just as the Corinthian sailors are ekplagentas when Arion, presumed dead,
appears (epiphanenai) before them in what is clearly figured as a divine epiphany. The
pirates escape by leaping into the sea, where they are transformed into dolphins. As in
Herodotus, a sea leap brings forth a dolphin, but here the elements are arranged quite
differently.23 In Herodotus, the hero is the one who is forced to leap; since he is human

23 Lucian, Dial. Mar. 8.1 brings the two stories together explicitly, and has the dolphins complain that
it was not nice of Dionysos to change them. I thank Ewan Bowie for bringing this passage to my
attention.

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430 Deborah Lyons

and cannot save himself, a dolphin is required. This leap, however, connects Arion to a
whole network of associations both divine and heroic.
In Herodotus’ account we find many of the traditional elements of a Dionysiac
persecution myth, but with a human protagonist in the place of the god. Other texts
reinforce the parallels. In Iliad 6.130–140, Dionysos, frightened by Lykourgos’ pursuit,
plunges into the sea (Διώνυσος δὲ φοβηθεὶς / δύσεθ᾿ ἁλὸς κατὰ κῦμα, 135–136). A sea
leap is also part of the myth of Dionysos’ aunt, Ino, and her son, Melikertes, who
pursued by her maddened husband, Learchos, jump into the Gulf of Corinth, an act
which is accompanied by a change from mortal to immortal. Marcel Detienne has
noted that the verb to leap (pedan or ekpedan) appears frequently in connection with
Dionysos, and that he is quintessentially the god who leaps.24 I have argued else-
where that the heroines associated with Dionysos enact in their own myths many of
the same vicissitudes experienced by the god.25 A similar process may be at work in
the case of Arion. A feature that may elsewhere have facilitated ritual identification
between worshipers and the god is, to quote Philip Stadter, introduced here by the
author as a way of developing “his understanding of recent history by setting his
historical referents … into existing story patterns.”26 But, in this case, clearly, the
choice of story pattern is of more than purely narratological interest.27
Both the leap and the dolphin have parallels in other mythic accounts. In addition
to the transformation of the impious sailors in the Homeric Hymn, two closer parallels
exist. In one version of their myth, Ino’s son, Melikertes-Palaimon, is rescued by a
dolphin, coming to shore at the Isthmus of Corinth (Pausanias 1.44.8). Burkert says of
the congruity of these stories, “the legends of Palaimon and Arion were likewise
shaped by the polarity of Dionysos and Poseidon.”28 Another story especially relevant
to the poet Arion is that of the murder of Hesiod. His body is thrown into the sea, only
to be brought back to land by a school of dolphins (Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi 230
[ed. Allen]).29
What attracts Arion into the sphere of Dionysos? As we have seen, he is often
called the inventor of the dithyramb, including by Herodotus. This genre is intimately
connected with Dionysos, as is clear from its first surviving appearance in Archilochos
(fr. 120 [ed. West]): “I know how to sing the fair song of Lord Dionysos, the dithyramb,
when my wits have been lightning-struck with wine” (ὡς Διονύσου ἄνακτος καλὸν
ἐξάρξαι μέλος / οἶδα διθύραμβον οἴνωι συγκεραυνωθεὶς φρένας). Herodotus’ dating of

24 Detienne 1989b, 53–56 and passim. See also Nagy 1973 on the meaning of leaping into the sea.
25 Brelich 1958, 166–177; Lyons 1997, 30.
26 Stadter 2004, 32.
27 See Mendelsohn 1991–92 for an interesting demonstration of how the phenomenon of being struck
by lightning, like Dionysos’ mother Semele, becomes part of the experience of the drinking/singing
worshiper of the god.
28 Burkert 1983, 203–204.
29 Burkert 1983, 203 cites this story as well, but does not relate it to the theme of divine polarities.

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 Arion the Methymnian and Dionysos Methymnaios 431

Arion to the thirty-eighth Olympiad places him around 629–625 BCE, later than
Archilochos, who flourished in the mid-seventh century. If this is correct, Arion is too
late to be the inventor of the dithyramb.
Scholars both modern and ancient have attempted to deal with this difficulty by
assigning him a role in the later evolution of the dithyramb. As noted above, Arion is
sometimes credited with the invention of the kuklios choros, the circular chorus, a
“fact” reflected in a dubious genealogical note in the Suda making him the son of one
otherwise unknown Kukleus. Others, however, assign the innovation of the circular
chorus to Lasos of Hermione. Although the passage from the scholiast to Aristophanes’
Birds treats “circular chorus” and “dithyramb” as synonymous, others consider the
circular form of the chorus a later development. In any case, the persistent linking of
Arion with this genre gives him the kind of founder status usually associated with
heroes. Certainly, as I have shown above, the tradition treats him as a prôtos heuretês.30
If we consider Arion a “hero of the dithyramb,” then the association with Diony-
sos is well motivated. Archilochos’ description of singing the dithyramb to the god
when wine has struck his wits shows that the connection with Dionysos goes back to
the earliest mention of this genre. As Diskin Clay shows in his study of the hero cult of
Archilochos, this poet was also strongly connected with the cult of Dionysos on Paros.
It was not uncommon for the native cities of poets to establish cults in their honor.31
Although there is no evidence for a cult of Arion on Lesbos, the city of Methymna did
commemorate him on a coin.32
Another aspect of Herodotus’ account may strengthen Arion’s Dionysiac associa-
tions. Arion is called ὁ Μηθυμναῖος, a citizen of Methymna, a city on Lesbos famous
for its wine and also for a cult of Dionysos Phallen, instituted when fishermen brought
up from the sea a strange olive-wood mask of the god (Pausanias 9.19.3). While this is
the obvious way for Herodotus to name this figure, comparable to his mentions of
Archilochos the Parian (1.12.2) or Thales the Milesian (1.72.2), it may also lead us back
to Dionysos, who is sometimes given the epithet Μεθυμναῖος (properly spelled with
epsilon instead of eta). The two spellings are sometimes confused, with the result
that Hesychius defines Μηθυμναῖος as ὁ Διόνυσος. This title has been connected,
although without evidence, to the Methymnaian cult. Plutarch (Quaest. Conv. 3.2.1
[648e]) derives the name from μέθυ (wine) and the linguist Pierre Chantraine concurs,
noting that the form with eta instead of the expected epsilon suggests a pun, whereby
the association of methu with the place-name Μήθυμνα leads to this rather odd
coinage with its anomalous -μν- infix.33

30 D’Angour 1997, 349.

31 Clay 2004 gives a number of examples, including (in addition to Orpheus, Homer, and Hesiod),
Stesichoros at Himera, Pindar at Delphi, Sappho on Lesbos, and Korinna at Tanagra.
32 Clay 2004, 96–97.
33 Chantraine 1999, s.v. μέθυ.

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432 Deborah Lyons

Behind the figure of the Herodotean and presumably historical Arion the Methym-
nian, one seems to glimpse a heroic figure closely linked to Dionysos. The epithet calls
to mind other instances in which the epithet of a god links him to a hero (e.g., Apollo
Hyakinthos). While the echoes of the Homeric Hymn are almost certainly the result of
a conscious strategy on the part of Herodotus, we are left to wonder to what extent the
other mythic associations conjured up by this tale had become attached to the
accounts Herodotus collected from his informants and to what extent the associations
are the contribution of Herodotus himself. In this case, I would suggest that the use of
this mythic pattern goes beyond the literary shaping of the historical account.
Once again, I turn to Boedeker’s analysis of Herodotus’ treatment of the hero
Protesilaos for a parallel:34

[…] if we can determine some of Protesilaos’ characteristics in local myth and cult we may be able
better to understand elements in the story Herodotus reports, elements which seem unimportant
to the course of the Histories, and of which Herodotus himself may have been unaware, but which
influenced the formation, preservation, and resonance of the story Herodotus heard. On a small
scale, then, we will be considering the relationships among mythical and religious ideas, oral
histories which are informed by those ideas, and the writing of a history based on local oral tales.

Herodotus, as Philip Stadter has observed, frequently guarantees the truth of his
narrative with objects that are still visible in his time;35 the Arion account, which ends
with mention of the statue of a dolphin rider, follows this pattern. Maurice Bowra
suggests that the statue at Taenarum was actually of Poseidon and only later assigned
the identity of Arion.36 In this context, Bowra sees Arion as a hypostasis or heroic
shadow of Poseidon. While drawing on the same evidence of Arion’s heroic status as
I, he nonetheless is led by the statue to associate Arion with Poseidon rather than with
Dionysos. Since the attribution of a small statue could easily be reassigned over time,
this seems a small peg on which to hang his conclusion.37 In any case, the strong
Dionysiac connection does not rule out an association with other divine figures, as
suggested above.
While far from unanimous about Arion’s achievements, the testimonia are consis-
tent in connecting him with the dithyramb and sometimes with tragedy – in other
words, with Dionysiac genres. Taking this association together with his story, which is
modeled on an exploit with the god as protagonist, I argue that, pace Bowra, Arion
appears in Herodotus’ account as a heroic hypostasis not of Poseidon but of Dionysos.
Exactly how the connection between the poet Arion and the ecstatic god of wine
came about, and how it found its way into Herodotus’ text is harder to answer. Did

34 Boedeker 1988, 43.

35 Stadter 2004, 34–35.
36 Bowra 1963.
37 Osborne 2002, 512 notes that in this case as in his other uses of supposedly authenticating objects,
Herodotus is content to cite the object as proof, even if it does not, in fact, prove anything.

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 Arion the Methymnian and Dionysos Methymnaios 433

Herodotus know of a local tradition of heroic cult for Arion? Certainly the archaeologi-
cal record provides no evidence, aside from the Methymnian coin showing a dolphin
rider. Nor do we find any in Herodotus’ text, beyond Arion’s status as inventor, or
prôtos heuretês, and perhaps the punning name of Dionysos Methymnaios. Herodotus
is not averse to telling miraculous tales of heroes, but he clearly viewed Arion as a
historical figure. In some sense, it can be said that in his telling of this fabulous tale,
he manages to have it both ways.
In concluding my analysis in this open-ended way, am I, too, trying to have it
both ways? Mythos or logos – to use the terms of a recent article by Glenn Most –
which will it be?38 Of course, I may conclude, like Herodotus, that some of each is the
right mix. But before proceeding to that step, let us consider the possibilities. Either
Herodotus was aware of local traditions about Arion as a cultic figure associated with
Dionysos, or not. If not, then we must assume that he chose to use the Dionysiac
master narrative because of Arion’s association with the Dionysiac genre of the
dithyramb – no doubt also inspired by the dolphin motif. If he was aware of these
traditions, he used them to shape his narrative in the ways I have delineated, but
chose only to hint at them, perhaps burying the pun on Methymnaios as a sphragis in
his text. If he was not aware of them, did they enter the text smuggled in through the
local traditions told to him by native informants? Or is the answer perhaps a little bit
of all these things? Griffiths and Chiasson have postulated a Herodotus who know-
ingly makes use of mythic elements in his histories, and my analysis in no way
overturns their assumptions about the author’s methods of composition. Their ana-
lyses, however, do not consider the cultic elements, which, I hope to have shown, are
detectable in Herodotus’ narrative.
Each of the three different elements – narratological, mythic, and cultic – might
well require a different answer. That Herodotus was aware of using a Dionysiac master
narrative in telling the story of Arion is not to be doubted. That he meant by this to
portray Arion as a heroic hypostasis of Dionysos is harder to know. Finally, that he
was aware of local traditions tying the two figures together in local cult is impossible
to prove. Herodotus, even if he was aware of these cultic traditions, might have
deliberately chosen to downplay local particularities that would make his histories
less universal in their scope and appeal. Herodotus was clearly a literary artist capable
of blending myth and history with a high degree of self-awareness. That said, I find
myself in agreement with Boedeker that his text may contain traces of local myth and
cult of which he was only partially aware. Herodotus may have told less than he knew,
while at the same time knowing less than he told.

38 Most 1999.

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Brought to you by | De Gruyter / TCS
Authenticated | 10.248.254.158
Download Date | 8/25/14 6:26 PM