De sollertia animalium

Furthermore, many of the Greeks have temples and altars to Artemis Dictynna[*](As though Artemis of the Net; see Callimachus, Hymn iii. 198.) and Apollo Delphinios; and that place which the god had chosen for himself the poet[*](Homer, Hymn to Apollo, iii. 393 ff. (as restored by van Herwerden). For Delphinian Apollo see lines 495 f.) says was settled by Cretans under the guidance of a dolphin. It was not, however, the god who changed his shape and swam in front of the expedition, as tellers of tales relate; instead, he sent a dolphin to guide the men and bring them to Cirrha.[*](The port of Delphi.) They also relate that Soteles and Dionysius, the men sent by Ptolemy Soter[*](Cf. Mor. 361 f; Tacitus, Histories, iv. 83-84.) to Sinope to bring back Serapis, were driven against their will by a violent wind out of their course beyond Malea, with the Peloponnesus on their right. When they were lost and discouraged, a dolphin appeared by the

prow and, as it were, invited them to follow and led them into such parts as had safe roadsteads with but a gentle swell until, by conducting and escorting the vessel in this manner, it brought them to Cirrha. Whence it carne about that when they had offered thanksgiving for their safe landing, they carne to see that of the two statues they should take away the one of Pluto, but should merely take an impress of that of Persephone and leave it behind.[*](That is, in Sinope.)

Well might the god be fond of the music-loving character of the dolphin,[*](Cf. Mor. 162 f; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xi. 137.) to which Pindar[*](Page 597, ed. Sandys (L.C.L.); frag. 125, line 69-71 ed. Bowra (O.C.T.); frag. 222. 14-17, ed. Turyn. The quotation is found also in Mor. 704 f - 705 a. The lines were partially recovered in Oxyrhynchus Papyri, iii. 408 b (1903); for the critical difficulties see Turyn’s edition.) likens himself, saying that he is roused

1. Like a dolphin of the sea
2. Who on the waveless deep of ocean
3. Is moved by the lovely sound of flutes.

Yet it is even more likely that its affection for men[*](Pliny, Nat. Hist. x. 24. For Dionysus and the pirate-dolphins see the seventh Homeric Hymn and Frazer on Apollodorus, iii. 5. 3 (L.C.L., vol. i, p. 332).) renders it dear to the gods; for it is the only creature who loves man for his own sake.[*](The hunting of dolphins is immoral: Oppian, Hal. v. 416 (see the whole passage).) Of the land animals, some avoid man altogether, others, the tamest kind, pay court for utilitarian reasons only to those who feed them, as do dogs and horses and elephants to their familiars. Martins take to houses to get what they need, darkness and a minimum of security, but avoid and fear man as a dangerous wild beast.[*](Cf. Mor. 728 a; but see Aelian, De Natura Animal. i. 52; Arrian, Anabasis, i. 25. 8.) To the dolphin alone, beyond all others, nature has granted what the best philosophers seek: friendship for no advantage. Though it has no need at all of any man, yet it is a genial friend to all and has helped many. The story of Arion[*](Herodotus, i. 24; Mair on Oppian, Hal. v. 448. In Mor. 161 a ff. the story is told by an eye-witness at the banquet of the Seven Wise Men.) is familiar to everyone and widely known; and you, my friend, opportunely put us in mind of the tale of Hesiod,[*](Cf. 969 e supra.)

But you failed to reach the end of the tale.[*](Homer, Iliad, ix. 56.)

When you told of the dog, you should not have left out the dolphins, for the information of the dog that barked and rushed with a snarl on the murderers would have been meaningless if the dolphins had not taken up the corpse as it was floating on the sea near the Nemeon[*](The shrine of Zeus at Oeneon in Locris.) and zealously passed it from group to group until they put it ashore at Rhium and so made it clear that the man had been stabbed.

Myrsilus[*](Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iv, p. 459; Jacoby, Frag. d. griech. Hist. ii, frag. 12; cf. Mor. 163 b-d; Athenaeus, 466 c gives as his authority Anticleides.) of Lesbos tells the tale of Enalus the Aeolian who was in love with that daughter of Smintheus who, in accordance with the oracle of Amphitrite, was cast into the sea by the Penthilidae, whereupon Enalus himself leaped into the sea and was brought out safe on Lesbos by a dolphin.

And the goodwill and friendship of the dolphin for

the lad of Iasus[*](Aelian, De Natura Animal. vi. 15 (cf. viii. 11), tells the story in great detail and with several differences; Cf. also the younger Pliny’s famous letter (ix. 33) on the dolphin of Hippo and the vaguer accounts in Aelian, De Natura Animal. ii. 6; Antigonus, 55; Philo, 67 (p. 132). Gulick on Athenaeus, 606 c-d collects the authorities; see also the dolphin stories in Pliny, Nat. Hist. ix. 25 ff. and Mair on Oppian, Hal. v. 458; Thompson, Glossary, pp. 54 f. Iasus is a city in Ionian Caris on the gulf of the same name.) was thought by reason of its greatness to be true love. For it used to swim and play with him during the day, allowing itself to be touched; and when the boy mounted upon its back, it was not reluctant, but used to carry him with pleasure wherever he directed it to go, while all the inhabitants of Iasus flocked to the shore each time this happened. Once a violent storm of rain and hail occurred and the boy slipped off and was drowned. The dolphin took the body and threw both it and itself together on the land and would not leave until it too had died, thinking it right to share a death for which it imagined that it shared the responsibility. And in memory of this calamity the inhabitants of Iasus have minted their coins with the figure of a boy riding a dolphin.[*](The story has a happier ending in one version found in Pliny, Nat. Hist. ix. 27: the dolphin dies, but Alexander the Great makes the boy head of the priesthood of Poseidon in Babylon.)

From this the wild tales about Coeranus[*](Aelian, De Natura Animal. viii. 3; Athenaeus, 606 e-f cites from Phylarchus, Book XII (Jacoby, Frag. d. griech. Hist. i, p. 340). There are many other examples of dolphins rescuing people, such as the fragment of Euphorion in Page, Greek Literary Papyri, i, p. 497 (L.C.L.).) gained credence. He was a Parian by birth who, at Byzantium, bought a draught of dolphins which had been caught in a net and were in danger of slaughter, and set them all free. A little later he was on a sea voyage in a penteconter, so they say, with fifty pirates aboard; in the strait between Naxos and Paros the ship capsized and all the others were lost, while Coeranus, they relate, because a dolphin sped beneath him and buoyed him up, was put ashore at

Sicinus,[*](An island south of Paros.) near a cave which is pointed out to this day and bears the name of Coeraneum.[*](Cf. Edmonds, Elegy and Iambus, ii, p. 321 (L.C.L.).) It is on this man that Archilochus is said to have written the line

Out of fifty, kindly Poseidon left only Coeranus.[*](Edmonds, op. cit. ii, p. 164; Diehl, Anth. Lyrica, i, p. 243. frag. 117.)

When later he died, his relatives were burning the body near the sea when a large shoal of dolphins appeared off shore as though they were making it plain that they had come for the funeral, and they waited until it was completed.[*](On the grief of dolphins see Pliny, Nat. Hist. ix. 25, 33.)

That the shield of Odysseus had a dolphin emblazoned on it, Stesichorus[*](Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, ii, p. 66, frag. 71.) also has related; and the Zacynthians perpetuate the reason for it, as Critheus[*](Nothing whatever is known about this author, whose name may be given incorrectly in our mss.) testifies. For when Telemachus was a small boy, so they say, he fell into the deep inshore water and was saved by dolphins who came to his aid and swam with him to the beach; and that was the reason why his father had a dolphin engraved on his ring and emblazoned on his shield, making this requital to the animal.

Yet since I began by saying that I would not tell you any tall tales and since, without observing what I was up to, I have now, besides the dolphins, run aground on both Odysseus and Coeranus to a point beyond belief, I lay this penalty upon myself: to conclude here and now.