An early literary reference to the dolphin occurs in Aesop’s fable, “The Monkey and the Dolphin.” During a violent storm a ship was capsized, and among those thrown into the water was a monkey. Observing its distress a dolphin came to its rescue, and taking the monkey upon its back the dolphin headed for shore. Opposite Piraeus, the harbor of Athens, the dolphin inquired of the monkey whether he was an Athenian. “Oh, yes,” replied the monkey, “and from one of the best families.” “Then you know Piraeus,” said the dolphin. “Very well, indeed,” said the monkey, “he is one of my most intimate friends.” Whereupon, outraged by so gross a deceit, the dolphin took a deep dive and left the monkey to its fate. I take it that ever since that day monkeys have very sensibly refrained from speech. It is far better to remain silent even at the risk of being taken for a fool or a rogue, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt. Aesop flourished about 600 B.C. His story suggests a considerable knowledge of the ways of dolphins, and this indicates that knowledge of the dolphin was already old in his time. There are several variant Greek myths on the origin of the dolphin. All of them relate to Dionysos. In one version Dionysos is an adult, in another he is a child. The first group of legends represent the epiphany of Dionysos, symbolizing the battle between winter and summer. Winter is represented by the death of Dionysos who disappears into the water, from which he is brought back on the top of a dolphin as the returning springtime (Apollodorus, III, 5, 3). Another version has Dionysos, whether as child or adult varies, being conveyed by ship to Naxos by Tyrrhenian mariners. The latter conceive the idea of kidnaping him. Dionysos senses their treachery, and bidding his companions strike up on their musical instruments, he produces a Bacchic wild dance in the mariners who throw themselves overboard and are changed into dolphins. The popular belief in antiquity in the human intelligence of dolphins and their kindly feeling toward man was explained by the ancient writers in the light of the transformation of the Tyrrhenian pirates into dolphins. (See Lucian, _Marine Dialogues_, 8; Oppian, _Halieutica_, I, 649-654, 1098, V, 422, 519f; Porphyry, _De Abstinentia_, III, 16.) As Oppian (I, 1089) in his _Halieutica_ has it, in William Diaper’s charming translation: