Becoming the Lyre: Arion and Roman Elegy

Abstract

In this essay, I investigate the figure of the Greek poet Arion in Roman elegy, in a case study that reconsiders how musical imagery relates to the representation of genre in Latin poetry. Arion, the legendary Greek singer who was miraculously rescued by a dolphin thanks to the beauty of his music and song, was a well-known figure at Rome. He is mentioned by Cicero and Virgil; Marcus Cornelius Fronto, writing in the second century c.e., even devoted a short monograph to his life.1 Yet as I argue, it is in Augustan elegy that the story of Arion finds its most detailed and complex exposition. In Propertius 2.26A, a poem in which the speaker imagines his beloved suffering a shipwreck, she is miraculously saved by the same Dolphin that rescued Arion’s lyre. At the beginning of Fasti 2, Ovid narrates the tale of Arion to explain the constellation of the Dolphin, who is elevated to the heavens for rescuing the poet (2.79–118). What makes Arion such a potent figure in Roman elegy? Arion played a mythical and historical role in the early development of Greek