Centaurs

The Centaurs (KENTAUROI) were a tribe of half man, half horse savages which inhabited the mountains and forests of Magnesia. They were a primitive race who made their homes in mountain caves, hunted wild animals for food and armed themselves with rocks and tree branches. The Kentauroi were spawned by the cloud nymph Nephele who was raped by the impious Lapith King Ixion. Her double-formed brood were deposited on Mount Pelion where the daughters of the centaur-god Kheiron nursed and fostered them to adulthood. They were invited to attend the wedding of their half-brother Peirithoos, the Lapith king, but became drunk and attempted to carry off the bride and the female guests. In the battle which ensued the Kentauroi were all but wiped out.

Another tribe of Kentauroi resided in the western Peloponnese where they came into conflict with the hero Herakles. They may originally been a seperate breed, although numerous writers combine their stories. One ancient writer also mentions a tribe of bull-horned Kentauroi native to the island of Kypros. Female Kentaurides were also known, although these only appear in later art and literature.
The Kentauros was depicted with the upper body of a man, from head to loins, set upon the body of a horse. Sometimes it had the facial feature of a man, at other times it was portrayed with the snub nose and pointed ears of a rustic Satyros.

The Centaurs are particularly celebrated in ancient story for their fight with the Lapithae, which arose at the marriage-feast of Peirithous, and the subject of which was extensively used by ancient poets and artists. This fight is sometimes put in connexion with a combat of Heracles with the centaurs. The scene of the contest is placed by some in Thessaly, and by others in Arcadia. It ended by the centaurs being expelled from their country, and taking refuge on mount Pindus, on the frontiers of Epeirus. Cheiron is the most celebrated among the centaurs.

 The centaurs were frequently represented in ancient works of art, and it is here that the idea of then is most fully developed. There are two forms in which the centaurs were represented in works of art. In the first they appear as men down to their legs and feet, but the hind part consists of the body, tail, and hind legs of a horse; the second form, which was probably not used before the time of Phidias and Alcamenes, represents the centaurs as men from the head to the loins, and the remainder is the body of a horse with its four feet and tail. It is probably owing to the resemblance between the nature of the centaurs and that of the satyrs, that the former were in later times drawn into the sphere of Dionysiac beings; but here they appear no longer as savage monsters, but as tamed by the power of the god. They either draw the chariot of the god, and play the horn or lyre, or they appear in the train of Dionysus, among the Satyrs, Fauns, Nymphs, Erotes, and Bacchantes. It is remarkable that there were also female centaurs, who are said to have been of great beauty.