Though it is very probable that his affection to men is more pleasing to the Deity, he being the only creature that bears an affection to man as man. For as for the land animals, some kinds there are that fly him altogether, and the tamest and most gentle follow him and are familiar with him, only for the benefit and nourishment which they receive from him; as the dog, the horse, and elephant. The swallows, by necessity constrained, build in houses, seeking shade and security, but are no less afraid of men than of the wild beasts. Only to the dolphin has Nature bequeathed that excellent quality, so much sought for by the best of philosophers, to love for no advantage; for that having no need at all of man, he is a kind friend to all men, and has lent his assistance to many. There is no man that is ignorant of the famous story of Arion. And you, my dear friend, have seasonably put us in mind of Hesiod; but Thou didst not by a legal course Rightly conclude thy long discourse.[93] For when you had spoken so much in praise of the dog, you should not have passed by the dolphin. For it would have been a blind story of the dog that barked and flew with violence upon the murderers, had it not been for the dolphins, that took the carcass of Hesiod, floating in the sea near Nemeum, and readily receiving it from one another, landed it at Rhium, whereby the murder came to be known. Myrtilus the Lesbian writes, that Enalus the Aeolian, being in love with the daughter of Phineus, who, by the command of the oracle of Amphitrite was cast into the sea by the Penthilidae, when he understood it, threw himself also into the sea, but was saved by a dolphin, and carried to Lesbos. But the gentleness and kindness of the dolphin towards the lad of Jasus was so extraordinary that it might be said to amount even to amorous love. For he played and swam with him in the daytime, and suffered himself to be handled and bestrid by him; nor did he swim away with him, but joyfully carried him which way soever the lad by the motion of his body turned him, while the Iasians flocked from all parts to the shore to behold the sight. At length the lad, being thrown from the dolphin’s back by a terrible shower of rain and hail, was drowned. Which the dolphin perceiving took up the dead youth, and threw himself upon the land together with the body, from which he never stirred till he died out of his own element; deeming it but just to partake of that end of which he seemed to have been the occasion to his friend and playfellow. Nor can the Iasians forget the accident, but keep it still in remembrance by the stamp upon their coin, which is a lad upon a dolphin’s back.