Arion

Arion (also spelled Areion) was a divine horse, the swift steed of Adrastus, king of Argos. In the account Pausanias heard in Arcadia he was the son of Poseidon and Demeter, born after Poseidon, in the form of a stallion, caught Demeter, who had turned herself into a mare. Homer calls him Adrastus’ swift horse of divine stock, and Apollodorus says he alone saved Adrastus when the army of the Seven Against Thebes was destroyed.

Parentage and Birth

Homer says only that Arion was the swift horse of Adrastus “that was of heavenly stock”, whom no pursuer could catch (Iliad 23.346–347). Later writers explain this divine birth in two ways.

In the story told in Thelpusa in Arcadia, Demeter, wandering in search of her daughter, was followed by Poseidon, who desired her. She turned herself into a mare and grazed among the mares of Oncius. Poseidon saw that he had been outwitted, changed himself into a stallion, and had her. Demeter was angry at first, which gave her the surname Fury (Erinys), and later laid aside her anger and bathed in the river Ladon, which gave her the name Bather (Lusia). According to the Arcadians, she bore a daughter, whose name was kept secret from the uninitiated, and the horse Areion (Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.25.5–7). Apollodorus gives the same parentage: Poseidon begot the horse on Demeter when she consorted with him in the likeness of a Fury (Library 3.6.8).

In another version, the poet Antimachus said that Arion was sent up by the Earth herself, “a marvel for mortals to see”, near the grove of Oncean Apollo in Thelpusa. Pausanias adds that the horse might be of divine descent even if the Earth was his mother (Description of Greece 8.25.8–9).

Heracles, Oncus and Adrastus

Pausanias reports the legend that Heracles, when making war on Elis, asked Oncus for the horse, and rode Arion into battle when he took Elis. Afterwards Heracles gave the horse to Adrastus. Antimachus therefore called Adrastus “the third lord who tamed him” (Description of Greece 8.25.8–10). Pausanias does not say that Heracles took the horse by force; he says that he asked for it.

Arion and the Seven Against Thebes

When the expedition of Adrastus against Thebes ended in disaster, Apollodorus says that Adrastus alone was saved, by his horse Arion (Library 3.6.8). The lost epic Thebaid was quoted by Pausanias for the line in which Adrastus flees from Thebes “wearing wretched clothes, and with him dark-maned Areion” (Pausanias 8.25.8). The brothers Eteocles and Polynices killed each other in single combat (Library 3.6.8). Statius, in the Roman Thebaid, has Adrastus flee from the camp, driving Arion, when he sees that his prayers have failed and that the brothers are about to fight (Thebaid 11.439–443). Statius also leads Arion out first among the horses in the chariot race at the funeral games for Archemorus, with his fiery red mane, and says that Neptune (Poseidon) was his father, “if the report of the ancients is true” (Thebaid 6.301–303).

Arion the Poet

The horse should not be confused with Arion of Methymna, the harper whom Herodotus describes as rescued by a dolphin (Histories 1.23–24). He is a separate figure.

Arion Sources

Homer, Iliad 23.346–347; Pausanias, Description of Greece 8.25.5–10; Apollodorus, Library 3.6.8; Statius, Thebaid 6.301–303 and 11.439–443; Herodotus, Histories 1.23–24.

See Also: Demeter, Poseidon, Gaea, Adrastus, Heracles, Seven Against Thebes, Eteocles, Polynices