Arion last song to win time. Playing his kithara, Arion sang a praise to Apollo, the god of poetry, and his song attracted a number of dolphins around the ship. Some argue that the Dolphins were sent by Apollo to rescue Arion . At the end of the song, Arion threw himself into the sea rather than be killed, but one of the dolphins saved his life and carried him to safety at the sanctuary of Poseidon at Cape Tainaron. When he reached land, being eager for his journey, he failed to return the dolphin to the sea and it perished
Arion sound like "historia" rather than "fabulae", though he misremembered that Augustine had taken the Arion story to be historical. From what is told in ancient Greek scripts, Arion, although favored by Apollo, is the son of Poseidon and Ino. The episode may be seen as a doublet of the fate of Melicertes, where the leap into the sea was that of his mother, Ino. transformed into the "white goddess" Leucothea; Melicertes was carried more dead than alive to the shores where the Isthmian Games were celebrated in his honour, as he was transformed to the hero Palaimon, who was placated