The Kentauroi (Centaurs)
To Thessaly belongs Ixion, a hero whose parentage is variously
given, and whose adventures are curious. Marrying Dia, daughter of
Eioneus the son of Magnes (i.e., Coast-man, the son of the eponym of
Magnesia; his daughter is apparently the eponym of the city Dion), he
promised a large bride-price, but his father-in-law when he came to
fetch it fell into a pit of burning coals prepared for him by Ixion.
As this was very near to murdering a blood-relation, if indeed they
were not actual blood-kin, and as no one had ever done such a thing
before, no one would purify Ixion until at last he took refuge with
Zeus, who consented to purify him. With most base ingratitude, Ixion
tried to seduce Hera; she complained to Zeus, who formed a double of
her, Nephele, out of a cloud (as the name imports); and by Nephele
Ixion became the father of the first Centaur, or of the race of
Centaurs (properly Kentauroi; the meaning of the name is unknown).
Ixion was bound to a burning wheel, which revolves forever, in the
air or (later) in the underworld.
But his progeny continued, and were as rough and impious as their
father. In shape they were part man, part bull or horse, either a
complete man with the barrel and hind legs of a bull or horse (the
bovine form is the earliest in artistic depiction) springing from the
small of his back, or a horse with the body of a man from the waist up
where the horse’s head and neck should be; the former is the earlier
shape, and in it the Kentauroi of course had a double endownment of
genitalia, one human and the other animal. Given that fact, it is easy
to understand their traditionally ungovernable sexual appetites. Their
several encounters with Herakles are described in the file about the
hero
Herakles;
but their great opponents were the Lapithai, whose
chief was also connected with Ixion (his half-brother in fact),
Pe(i)rithoös (‘the very swift’), son of Zeus and Dia.
The other outstanding Lapith was Kaineus, originally a girl, Kainis.
But, being raped by Poseidon and told she might have what she
liked as a recompense,
Kainis asked to be turned into a man,
that no such thing might again befall her, and in addition,
to be made invulnerable. Being thus transformed, Kaineus was
noted, in some stories, for his impiety, for he would worship
nothing but his own spear. He also had some quarrel with Apollo.
One day the Lapiths were holding high festival, on account of
the marriage of Perithoös with Hippodameia (not the daughter of
Oinomaos; the name, literally ‘female tamer of horses’,
means no more than ‘high-born lady’), or of the birth of a child,
Polypoites, to the pair. They invited the Centaurs, who tried to
carry off their women, especially Hippodameia. A furious fight
ensued, ending in the rout of the Centaurs. Kaineus met his end in
that battle; being invulnerable, he was driven into the earth by
the Centaurs’ blows.
*
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