Mythical: Centaur
Origin
The centaurs were usually said to have been born of Ixion
and Nephele (the cloud made in the image of Hera). Another version, however,
makes them children of a certain Centaurus, who mated with the Magnesian mares.
This Centaurus was either himself the son of Ixion and Nephele (inserting an
additional generation) or of Apollo and Stilbe, daughter of the river god
Peneus. In the later version of the story his twin brother was Lapithes,
ancestor of the Lapiths, thus making the two warring peoples cousins.
Centaurs were said to have inhabited the region of Magnesia
and Mount Pelion in Thessaly, the Foloi oak forest in Elis, and the Malean
peninsula in southern Laconia.
Another tribe of centaurs was said to have lived on Cyprus.
According to Nonnus, they were fathered by Zeus, who, in frustration after
Aphrodite had eluded him, spilled his seed on the ground of that land. Unlike
those of mainland Greece, the Cyprian centaurs were horned.
There were also the Lamian Pheres, twelve rustic daimones of
the Lamos river. They were set by Zeus to guard the infant Dionysos, protecting
him from the machinations of Hera, but the enraged goddess transformed them
into ox-horned Centaurs. The Lamian Pheres later accompanied Dionysos in his
campaign against the Indians.
Centaurs subsequently featured in Roman mythology, and were
familiar figures in the medieval bestiary. They remain a staple of modern
fantastic literature. The centaur's half-human, half-horse composition has led
many writers to treat them as liminal beings, caught between the two natures,
embodied in contrasted myths, both as the embodiment of untamed nature, as in
their battle with the Lapiths (their kin), or conversely as teachers, like
Chiron.
Centauromachy
The Centaurs are best known for their fight with the
Lapiths, which was caused by their attempt to carry off Hippodamia and the rest
of the Lapith women on the day of Hippodamia's marriage to Pirithous, king of
the Lapithae, himself the son of Ixion. The strife among these cousins is a
metaphor for the conflict between the lower appetites and civilized behavior in
humankind. Theseus, a hero and founder of cities, who happened to be present,
threw the balance in favour of the right order of things, and assisted
Pirithous. The Centaurs were driven off or destroyed. Another Lapith hero,
Caeneus, who was invulnerable to weapons, was beaten into the earth by Centaurs
wielding rocks and the branches of trees. Centaurs are thought of in many Greek
myths as being as wild as untamed horses. Like the Titanomachy, the defeat of
the Titans by the Olympian gods, the contests with the Centaurs typify the
struggle between civilization and barbarism.
The Centauromachy is most famously portrayed in the
Parthenon metopes by Phidiasand in a Renaissance-era sculpture by Michelangelo.
Theories of Origin
The most common theory holds that the idea of centaurs came
from the first reaction of a non-riding culture, as in the Minoan Aegean world,
to nomads who were mounted on horses. The theory suggests that such riders
would appear as half-man, half-animal (Bernal Díaz del Castillo reported that
the Aztecs had this misapprehension about Spanish cavalrymen). Horse taming and
horseback culture arose first in the southern steppegrasslands of Central Asia,
perhaps approximately in modern Kazakhstan.
The Lapith tribe of Thessaly, who were the kinsmen of the
Centaurs in myth, were described as the inventors of horse-back riding by Greek
writers. The Thessalian tribes also claimed their horse breeds were descended
from the centaurs.
Of the various Classical Greek authors who mentioned
centaurs, Pindar was the first who describes undoubtedly a combined monster.
Previous authors (Homer) tend to use words such as pheres (cf. theres,
"beasts") that could also mean ordinary savage men riding ordinary
horses, though Homer does specifically refer to a centaur
("kentauros") in the Odyssey Contemporaneous representations of
hybrid centaurs can be found in archaic Greek art.
Lucretius in his first-century BC philosophical poem On the
Nature of Things denied the existence of centaurs based on their differing rate
of growth. He states that at the age of three years horses are in the prime of
their life while, at three humans are still little more than babies, making
hybrid animals impossible.
Robert Graves (relying on the work of Georges Dumézil, who
argued for tracing the centaurs back to the Indian gandharva), speculated that
the centaurs were a dimly remembered, pre-Hellenic fraternal earth cult who had
the horse as a totem. A similar theory was incorporated into Mary Renault's The
Bull from the Sea. Kinnaras, another half-man half-horse mythical creature from
the Indian mythology, appeared in various ancient texts, arts as well as
sculptures from all around India. It is shown as a horse with the torso of a
man in place of where the horse's head has to be, that is similar to a Greek
centaur.
The Greek word kentauros is generally regarded as of obscure
origin. The etymology from ken + tauros, "piercing bull-stickers" was
a euhemerist suggestion in Palaephatus' rationalizing text on Greek mythology,
On Incredible Tales: mounted archers from a village called Nepheleeliminating a
herd of bulls that were the scourge of Ixion's kingdom. Another possible
related etymology can be "bull-slayer".
Very interesting creatures, centaurs. There’s a lot of
history there that no one knows about because they’re “from so long ago.”
Ancient history and mythology is rich with lessons for life and symbology. You
never know how much you could learn for the future by reading the past.
See you tomorrow.
Buh-bye.
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