Mythical Creatures
Centaur
Hybrids
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Centaurs are a Greek people rather than a symbol, and Greek sources treat them as a tribe of Thessaly. Their defining episode is the battle with the Lapiths, begun when centaurs invited to a wedding got drunk and seized the women, a scene carved on the Parthenon and at Olympia where it plainly stands for civilisation against disorder. Chiron is the standing exception and has a separate parentage, being fathered by Kronos rather than descended from Ixion: he is learned, just, and tutor to Achilles, Jason and Asclepius, and his wounding and voluntary death are their own story. The reading of centaurs as the human struggle with instinct is a modern gloss, not a Greek statement.
Facts
Attestation
HistoricityLegendary: known from narrative tradition, not the historical record 1 Legendary Meaning in the Attesting SourceA people rather than a species, neighbours of the Lapiths 1Tradition: Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca Meaning in the Attesting SourceChiron, teacher of heroes, is explicitly not of their stock 1Tradition: Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca Meaning in the Attesting SourceTheir story is a wedding that ends in a brawl 1Tradition: Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca Cult
Attributes and IconographyThe earliest Greek images of centaurs, from the seventh century BCE, show a complete horse's body with a full human upper body simply attached at the shoulders where the horse's neck would be, rather than the later and more familiar convention in which a human torso replaces the horse's head and neck entirely. 2Tradition: The Oxford Classical Dictionary Text
Source TextApollodorus's Library recounts several centaur episodes including the battle at the wedding of Pirithous, the centauromachy, a conflict later a favorite subject of Greek temple sculpture such as the Parthenon metopes. 1 Function
Domain / FunctionCentaurs are wild, half horse half human beings in Greek myth, generally depicted as unruly and given to drunkenness and violence, in contrast to the singular wise centaur Chiron, tutor to heroes including Achilles and Jason. 1 Origins
Origin of the NameAncient sources connect the name to Kentauros, a legendary rider said to be the son of Ixion and a cloud shaped like Hera, who is said to have first mated horses with Magnesian mares, giving the centaurs their form; the etymology itself remains uncertain. 1Tradition: Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca Learn More
A Wild Tribe, and One Wise Exception
Centaurs are treated in Greek sources as a people, a half-horse tribe of the Thessalian mountains, rather than as a symbol. Their defining episode is the Centauromachy: invited to the wedding of the Lapith king Pirithous, they grow drunk and seize the women, and the ensuing battle of order against animal appetite was carved on the Parthenon metopes and the temple of Zeus at Olympia as an emblem of civilisation over savagery.
Against this collective wildness stands one deliberate exception: Chiron, wise, just and immortal, tutor of Achilles, Jason and Asclepius, who is accidentally wounded by one of Heracles's poisoned arrows and, unable to die of it, surrenders his immortality and is set in the sky as Sagittarius (or, in some accounts, Centaurus). The contrast between the drunken many and the learned one is the whole point of the type: the centaur figures the human problem of reason yoked to animal nature, resolved in Chiron and lost in the rest.
Two Kinds of Centaur, and One Persistent Theory
The tradition holds two incompatible centaurs at once. The Thessalian tribe is a byword for what happens when appetite has no restraint: invited to a wedding, they get drunk and attempt to carry off the bride, and the resulting battle is the centauromachy. Against them stands Chiron, who is temperate, learned in medicine and music, and tutor to Achilles, Jason and Asclepius. The sources explain the difference by giving Chiron a separate parentage, which is an admission that the type does not otherwise permit him.
The centauromachy was carved on the south metopes of the Parthenon and on the temple of Zeus at Olympia, and in both places it does political work. Greeks against centaurs reads as order against disorder, and after the Persian wars it reads as Greek against barbarian. That is a use of myth for argument rather than for storytelling, and it is one of the clearest surviving cases of it.
A theory that will not go away holds that centaurs record the first sight of mounted riders by people who did not ride. It is attractive, it is unfalsifiable on present evidence, and the Greeks who told the stories were themselves horsemen. It belongs in the entry as a proposal that has been made repeatedly rather than as an explanation the sources support.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Chiron, the standing exception among the centaurs, is tutor to Achilles. His parentage is separate, fathered by Kronos rather than descended from Ixion.
Jason, Figures Chiron is named tutor to Jason as well as to Achilles and Asclepius. The learned centaur is set apart from the tribe rather than typical of it.
Attested in Region
Greek sources treat the centaurs as a tribe of Thessaly, a people rather than a symbol. The reading of them as the human struggle with instinct is a modern gloss and not a Greek statement.
Belongs to Tradition
The battle with the Lapiths is the defining episode, carved on the Parthenon and at Olympia, where it plainly stands for civilisation against disorder.
Sources
1. The Library (Bibliotheca)
Pseudo-Apollodorus, (various editions)the Library, on Ixion and the birth of the centaursView the Source 1. The Library (Bibliotheca)
Pseudo-Apollodorus, (various editions)the Library, on ChironView the Source 2. The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th edition
Simon Hornblower, Antony Spawforth and Esther Eidinow (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2012Entry on Centaurs, archaic and classical iconographic typesView the Source Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005Entry on Greek religion: the centauromachy and the figure of ChironQuote, Entry on Greek religion: the centauromachy and the figure of Chiron
The battle of centaurs and Lapiths is a standard subject of Greek monumental sculpture and is read as the triumph of order over disorder; Chiron is set apart from the rest by a separate parentage.
Metamorphoses
Ovid, (various editions)Metamorphoses Book 12, the battle of Lapiths and centaursView the Source Greek Religion
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.