arion

In the supplied evidence, arion is not a mysterious ancient root so much as a grammatical costume: Esperanto takes Italian aria, turns it into ario, and adds -n when the noun receives the action of a verb. Italian aria means an “air,” the sort of memorable solo that lets one singer stand beneath the stage lights while the orchestra waits. The word’s musical family includes arioso, meaning “in an airy or aria-like manner,” and arietta, a little aria. There is also an entirely separate Arion in Greek legend, a sixth-century BCE musician associated with Corinthian ruler Periander and a dolphin rescue after pirates threw him overboard. So the Esperanto arion belongs to the opera house, while mythological Arion belongs to the sea; they happen to share a spelling, but the evidence here does not establish a common ancestry. Remember the split image: one Arion sings under chandeliers, the other rides home on a dolphin.