Often they were portrayed as being governed by their bestial half. They were invited to attend the wedding of their half-brother Pirithous, King of Lapith and became severely drunk during the festivities.
They attempted to carry off the bride and the other female guests. The hero Theseus happened to be present at the wedding and aided Pirithous; a battle broke out, and most of the centaurs were killed. Centaurs were creatures that represented chaos and barbarism, their likeness and proclivity for trouble were frequently described in Greek sculpture, myths, stories and pottery.
While boasting a bestial and lustful reputation, some centaurs only acted in such a way under the effects of wine and alcohol; which may have served as a cautionary tale to the ancient Greeks. The most well know and considered the most civilised centaur was Chiron, who was incredibly wise and a tutor and advisor to heroes like Hercules, Achilles and Jason.
Unfortunately, he was only a minor character in Greek mythology, so though mentioned often very little is know about him. He was the son of Philyra and the Titan god, Cronus and he married the nymph Chariklo. Chiron resided in the forests of Mt. Chiron was responsible for Achilles adolescent education, and Achilles was gifted a formidable Pelian ash spear from his tutor which he used during the Trojan war. Chiron was known for not indulging in drinking, having superior knowledge to his brethren and having a different lineage than the other centaurs.
Centaurs permeate Greek myths and can be found throughout epic sagas and Greek stories. In one instance a tribe dwelling in the western Peloponnese came into conflict with the hero Hercules; where the centaur Pholos hosted Hercules while he was hunting for the giant boar, one of his required labours.
The first one was Cheiron , a centaur — scholar who aimed at finding harmony in nature, so he learned many things about medicine, arts, philosophy and liberal arts. He also learned about disciplines and sciences that were usually irrelevant with the centaurs.
Cheiron was mostly known as the tutor of God Apollo, and as an advisor to many people and deities such as Peleus — whom he advised to marry Goddess Thetis. Although the Goddess was resisting the wedding at first, she decided to marry Peleus and gave birth to the hero Achilles. The second known good centaur was Pholos , who was a friend of Heracles.
Pholos allowed Heracles to stay with him and gave him a feast. Heracles asked for wine and Pholos opened the jar with the best wine to give to him, but the other centaurs smelled it and attacked the cave where the two men were celebrating.
The battle was ferocious and many centaurs and men were injured. One of them was Cheiron who was so badly wounded that he wished to die, although immortal. Prometheus heard the cries of Cheiron and offered him to die and give him his immortality. We can find centaurs with human legs, Gorgon centaurs, sphinxes with equestrian legs, and depictions of Typhon as a centaur during this period.
Although centaurs are a par excellence Greek inspiration, this does not mean that their iconography cannot be traced back to other mythologies and cultures.
The Greeks were not isolated from the rest of the world. Around Greece, there were mighty kingdoms with rich histories and mythologies. Egypt and the Kingdoms of the near and middle East influenced the Greeks in every aspect, from architecture and art to religion.
It is no coincidence that Archaic Art includes an orientalizing period. By the time Homer had written his epics, the Aegean had already seen war, trade, and immigration to the point that the images and the stories of the east were accessible to the Greeks. The Greeks, of course, were not passive receivers but active ones. Composite beasts like the sphinx or the chimera were lent from Eastern civilizations, sometimes with some small changes and other times with no changes at all.
Furthermore, Eastern beasts like the human-lion and the human-bull present many visual similarities with centaurs. In an Assyrian cylinder seal of the 13 th century BCE, we can clearly see a man with wings, the body of a horse, and the tail of a scorpion. This idiosyncratic winged horseman holds a bow. Another early depiction of a centaur in eastern art comes from another Assyrian cylinder seal also of the 13 th century BCE.
The figure was also holding a bow, an image that became a canon during the next centuries and was crystallized in the image of the Sagittarius. Except for these Assyrian seals, the roots of the centaur can be traced back to the Mesopotamian Urmahlullu, an idiosyncratic type of lion-centaur. Of course, there are also other beings that have human and animal bodies but nothing like the centaur as it appeared in Greek Art and Mythology. Another very interesting comparison can be made with the Indian male spirits called Gandharva, which often take the form of creatures that have the head of a horse and the body of a man.
Could these beings be related to centaurs as part of a common Indo-European heritage? The most probable answer is no. It is very unlikely that there is a true connection with the Gandharva, even though the idea is very appealing. A good case for supporting a Mycenean descendance of the centaur are two clay Mycenaean figurines found in Ugarit , although we cannot be certain that they truly were centaurs. Since Ugarit was a major trade hub in the area of Syria, it not weird that Mycenean objects were found there.
Actually, the Myceneans were in constant communication through trade, war, and travel with the peoples around them. Notable cases of centaur-like objects include ceramic votive figurines from sanctuaries in Crete and Cyprus from the 12 th and 11 th centuries BCE.
However, these objects looked more like sphinxes and less like centaurs since they had no hands. However, this did not stop artists from imagining how it could have looked like. One such experiment is the image above from the British Museum. Chiron was not just another Centaur. Aside from being blessed with the gift of immortality, he was an astronomer, doctor, prophet, and one of the wisest figures in Greek Mythology.
His knowledge was incomparable and he was not afraid to share it as he was also a famous teacher of great heroes. Interestingly he learned what he knew about medicine from Chiron. Chiron represented an ambivalent tendency in Greek Mythology. On the one hand, the Greeks portrayed the centaurs as savage brutes closer to animals than humans. On the other hand, they imagined one of the centaurs, Chiron, as the exact opposite; a divine being of wisdom beyond measure.
It has been suggested that Chiron in Greek art was depicted as having human front legs in stark contrast to his fellow centaurs. However, it is equally plausible that the image of the centaurs was not standardized in archaic Greek art as different mythological traditions depicted them differently. This possibility is further strengthened by the fact that in early Greek art, we also encounter centaurs with wings, as well as Medusa heads.
Besides, more than one centaurs are presented with human front legs, indicating that Chiron was not the only one to appear in this form. Hercules was the most popular Greek hero and famous for his 12 labors. He had a few encounters with centaurs. Pholus invited Hercules to his cave and, as a hospitable host, decided to open a cask of wine. The odor of the drink was so strong that a group of centaurs smelled it. If you read the third fact of this list, you will know that centaurs could not handle wine.
In this story, they could not even handle its smell. The centaurs attacked the cave in a mad frenzy. Hercules defended himself and shot arrows killing many of the attackers.
During the battle, Hercules killed his friend and, according to some traditions, a teacher with one of his arrows by mistake. As Chiron died, Zeus took pity on him and transformed him into the constellation of Centaurus, thus making him immortal.
Pholus also got injured and died. This was not the only encounter Hercules had with centaurs and certainly not his last.
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