Histories

The men, pleased at the thought of hearing the best singer in the world, drew away toward the waist of the vessel from the stern. Arion, putting on all his regalia and taking his lyre, stood up on the half-deck and sang the “Stirring Song,”[*](The o)/rqios no/mos was a high-pitched (and apparently very well-known) song or hymn in honor of Apollo.) and when the song was finished he threw himself into the sea, as he was with all his regalia.

So the crew sailed away to Corinth [22.9083,37.9083] (Perseus) Corinth; but a dolphin (so the story goes) took Arion on his back and bore him to Taenarus. Landing there, he went to Corinth [22.9083,37.9083] (Perseus) Corinth in his regalia, and when he arrived, he related all that had happened.

Periander, skeptical, kept him in confinement, letting him go nowhere, and waited for the sailors. When they arrived, they were summoned and asked what news they brought of Arion. While they were saying that he was safe in Italy [12.833,42.833] (nation), Europe Italy and that they had left him flourishing at Taranto [17.216,40.466] (inhabited place), Taranto, Apulia, Italy, Europe Tarentum, Arion appeared before them, just as he was when he jumped from the ship; astonished, they could no longer deny what was proved against them.

This is what the Corinthians and Lesbians say, and there is a little bronze memorial of Arion on Taenarus, the figure of a man riding upon a dolphin.

Alyattes the Lydian, his war with the Milesians finished, died after a reign of fifty-seven years.

He was the second of his family to make an offering to Delphi [22.5167,38.4917] (Perseus) Delphi (after recovering from his illness) of a great silver bowl on a stand of welded iron. Among all the offerings at Delphi [22.5167,38.4917] (Perseus) Delphi, this is the most worth seeing, and is the work of Glaucus the Chian, the only one of all men who discovered how to weld iron.

After the death of Alyattes, his son Croesus, then thirty-five years of age, came to the throne[*](Croesus' reign began in 560 B.C., probably.). The first Greeks whom he attacked were the Ephesians.

These, besieged by him, dedicated their city to Artemis; they did this by attaching a rope to the city wall from the temple of the goddess, which stood seven stades away from the ancient city which was then besieged.

These were the first whom Croesus attacked; afterwards he made war on the Ionian and Aeolian cities in turn, upon different pretexts: he found graver charges where he could, but sometimes alleged very petty grounds of offense.