Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as being as wild as untamed horses, and were said to have inhabited the region ofMagnesia and MountPelion in Thessaly, theFoloi oak forest inElis, and the Malean peninsula in southernLaconia. Centaurs are subsequently featured inRoman mythology, and were familiar figures in the medieval bestiary. They remain a staple of modern fantastic literature.
The Greek wordkentauros is generally regarded as being of obscure origin.[4] Theetymology fromken +tauros, 'piercing bull', was aeuhemerist suggestion inPalaephatus' rationalizing text on Greek mythology,On Incredible Tales (Περὶ ἀπίστων), which included mounted archers from a village calledNephele eliminating a herd of bulls that were the scourge of Ixion's kingdom.[5] Another possible related etymology can be "bull-slayer".[6]
The centaurs were usually said to have been born ofIxion andNephele.[8] As the story goes, Nephele was a cloud made into the likeness ofHera in a plot to trick Ixion into revealing his lust for Hera toZeus. Ixion seduced Nephele and from that relationship centaurs were created.[9] Another version, however, makes them children ofCentaurus, a man who mated with theMagnesian mares. Centaurus was either himself the son of Ixion and Nephele (inserting an additional generation) or ofApollo and the nymphStilbe. In the latter version of the story, Centaurus's twin brother wasLapithes, ancestor of theLapiths.
Another tribe of centaurs was said to have lived onCyprus. According toNonnus, theCyprian Centaurs were fathered byZeus, who, in frustration afterAphrodite had eluded him, spilled his seed on the ground of that land. Unlike those of mainland Greece, the Cyprian centaurs were ox-horned.[10][11]
There were also theLamian Pheres, twelve rusticdaimones (spirits) of theLamos river. They were set byZeus to guard the infantDionysos, protecting him from the machinations ofHera, but the enraged goddess transformed them into ox-horned Centaurs unrelated to the Cyprian Centaurs. The Lamian Pheres later accompanied Dionysos in his campaign against the Indians.[12]
The centaur's half-human, half-horse composition has led many writers to treat them asliminal beings, caught between the two natures they embody in contrasting myths; they are both the embodiment of untamed nature, as in their battle with the Lapiths (their kin), and conversely, teachers likeChiron.[13] They are often depicted as wild, untamed, virile, lascivious, and displaying great feats of strength such as carrying rocks or boulders.
The Centaurs are best known for their fight with theLapiths who, according to one origin myth, would have been cousins to the centaurs. The battle, called the Centauromachy, was caused by the centaurs' attempt to carry offHippodamia and the rest of the Lapith women on the day of Hippodamia's marriage toPirithous, who was the king of the Lapithae and a son of Ixion.Theseus, a hero and founder of cities, who happened to be present, threw the balance in favour of the Lapiths by assisting Pirithous in the battle. The Centaurs were driven off or destroyed.[14][15][16] Another Lapith hero,Caeneus, who was invulnerable to weapons, was beaten into the earth by Centaurs wielding rocks and the branches of trees. In her article "The Centaur: Its History and Meaning in Human Culture", Elizabeth Lawrence claims that the contests between the centaurs and the Lapiths typify the struggle between civilization and barbarism.[17]The Centauromachy is most famously portrayed in themetopes of the Parthenon byPhidias and in theBattle of the Centaurs, a relief byMichelangelo.
The most common theory holds that the idea of centaurs came from the first reaction of a non-riding culture, as in theMinoanAegean 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 theAztecs also had this misapprehension about Spanish cavalrymen.[18] The Lapith tribe of Thessaly, who were the kinsmen of the Centaurs in myth, were described as the inventors of horse-riding by Greek writers. The Thessalian tribes also claimed their horse breeds were descended from the centaurs.
Female centaurs flankingVenus (Mosaic from Roman Tunisia, 2nd century AD)
Though female centaurs, calledcentaurides or centauresses, are not mentioned in early Greek literature and art, they do appear occasionally in later antiquity. AMacedonian mosaic of the 4th century BC is one of the earliest examples of the centauress in art.[21]Ovid also mentions a centauress namedHylonome[i] who committed suicide when her husbandCyllarus was killed in the war with the Lapiths.[22]
In a popular legend associated withPazhaya Sreekanteswaram Temple inThiruvananthapuram, the curse of a saintlyBrahmin transformed a handsomeYadava prince into a creature having a horse's body and the prince's head, arms, and torso in place of the head and neck of the horse.
Kinnaras, another half-man, half-horse mythical creature fromIndian mythology, appeared in various ancient texts, arts, and sculptures from all aroundIndia. It is shown as a horse with the torso of a man where the horse's head would be, and is similar to a Greek centaur.[27][28]
A centaur-like half-human, half-equine creature calledPolkan appeared in Russian folk art andlubok prints of the 17th–19th centuries. Polkan is originally based onPulicane, a half-dog fromAndrea da Barberino's poemI Reali di Francia, which was once popular in the Slavonic world in prosaic translations.
The extensive Mycenaean pottery found atUgarit included two fragmentary Mycenaean terracotta figures which have been tentatively identified as centaurs. This finding suggests aBronze Age origin for these creatures of myth.[29] A painted terracotta centaur was found in the "Hero's tomb" atLefkandi, and by theGeometric period, centaurs figure among the first representational figures painted on Greek pottery. An often-published Geometricperiod bronze of a warrior face-to-face with a centaur is at theMetropolitan Museum of Art.[30]
Some centaurs are depicted with a human torso attached to the body of a horse at thewithers, where the horse's neck would be; this form, designated "Class A" by Professor Paul Baur, later became standard.
"Class B" centaurs are depicted with a human body and legs joined at the waist to the hindquarters of a horse; in some cases centaurs of both Class A and Class B appear together.
A third type, designated "Class C", depicts centaurs with human forelegs terminating in hooves. Baur describes this as an apparent development ofAeolic art, which never became particularly widespread.[31]
There are also paintings and motifs onamphorae[32] and Dipylon cups[33] which depict winged centaurs.
Centaurs were also frequently depicted in Roman art. One example is the pair of centaurs drawing the chariot ofConstantine the Great and his family in the Great Cameo of Constantine (circa AD 314–16), which embodies wholly pagan imagery, and contrasts sharply with the popular image of Constantine as the patron of early Christianity.[34][35]
Centaurs harvest grapes on a 12th-century capital from theMozac Abbey in theAuvergne
Centaurs preserved aDionysian connection in the 12th-centuryRomanesque carvedcapitals ofMozac Abbey in theAuvergne. Other similar capitals depict harvesters, boys riding goats (a further Dionysiac theme), andgriffins guarding thechalice that held the wine. Centaurs are also shown on a number ofPictish carved stones from north-eastScotland erected in the 8th–9th centuries AD (e.g., atMeigle, Perthshire). Though outside the limits of theRoman Empire, these depictions appear to be derived from Classical prototypes.
TheJohn C. Hodges library at The University of Tennessee hosts a permanent exhibit of a "Centaur fromVolos" in its library. The exhibit, made by sculptor Bill Willers by combining a study human skeleton with the skeleton of aShetland pony, is entitled "Do you believe in Centaurs?". According to the exhibitors, it was meant to mislead students in order to make them more critically aware.[36]
Depictions of centaurs in a mythical land located south beyond the world's known continents appear on a map byUrbano Monti from 1587, sometimes called Monti's Planisphere.[37]
Centaurs are common in European heraldry, although more frequent in continental than in British arms. A centaur holding a bow is referred to as asagittary orsagittarius.[38]
"The Zodiac Man", a 15th-c. diagram of a human body and astrological symbols with instructions inWelsh explaining the importance of astrology from a medical perspective; a centaur is depicted around the thighs as Sagittarius below Scorpio [genitalia] and above Capricorn [knees].
Jerome's version of theLife of StAnthony the Great, written byAthanasius of Alexandria about the hermit monk of Egypt, was widely disseminated in the Middle Ages; it relates Anthony's encounter with a centaur who challenged the saint, but was forced to admit that the old gods had been overthrown. The episode was often depicted inThe Meeting of St Anthony Abbot and St Paul the Hermit by the painterStefano di Giovanni, who was known as "Sassetta".[39] Of the two episodic depictions of thehermit Anthony's travel to greet the hermit Paul, one is his encounter with the demonic figure of a centaur along the pathway in a wood.
Lucretius, in his first-century BC philosophical poemOn the Nature of Things, denied the existence of centaurs, based on the differing rates of growth of human and equine anatomies. Specifically, he states that at the age of three years, horses are in the prime of their life while humans at the same age are still little more than babies, making hybrid animals impossible.[40]
Centaurs are among the creatures which 14th-century Italian poetDante placed as guardians in hisInferno. In Canto XII, Dante and his guideVirgil meet a band led byChiron andPholus, guarding the bank ofPhlegethon in the seventh circle of Hell, a river of boiling blood in which the violent against their neighbours are immersed, shooting arrows into any who move to a shallower spot than their allotted station. The two poets are treated with courtesy, andNessus guides them to a ford.[41] In Canto XXIV, in the eighth circle, in Bolgia 7, a ditch where thieves are confined, they meet but do not converse withCacus (who is a giant in the ancient sources), wreathed in serpents and with a fire-breathing dragon on his shoulders, arriving to punish a sinner who has just cursed God.[42] In hisPurgatorio, an unseen spirit on the sixth terrace cites the centaurs ("the drunken double-breasted ones who fought Theseus") as examples of the sin ofgluttony.[43]
C.S. Lewis'sThe Chronicles of Narnia seriesportrays centaurs as wise and courageous creatures, who are gifted in fields such as astronomy and medicine.[44]John Updike's 1963 novelThe Centaur contains numerous references to mythological centaurs.[45] The author depicts a rural Pennsylvanian town as seen through the optics of the myth of the centaur. An unknown and marginalized local school teacher, just like the mythological Chiron did for Prometheus, gave up his life for the future of his son who had chosen to be an independent artist in New York.
InJ.K. Rowling'sHarry Potter series, centaurs inhabit theForbidden Forest nearHogwarts, and are talented archers and healers; they are also known to their proficiency in astrology.[44] The centaurs inRick Riordan'sPercy Jackson & the Olympians are portrayed as wild party-goers, with the exception of Chiron, who serves as the main director of activities at the series' demigod training facility.[44]
Other hybrid creatures appear in Greek mythology, always with some liminal connection that links Hellenic culture with archaic or non-Hellenic cultures:
Additionally,Bucentaur, the name of several historically importantVenetian vessels, was linked to a posited ox-centaur orβουκένταυρος(boukentauros) by fanciful and likely spurious folk-etymology.
^Scobie, Alex (1978). "The Origins of 'Centaurs'".Folklore.89 (2):142–147.doi:10.1080/0015587X.1978.9716101. Scobie quotesNilsson, Martin P. (1955).Geschichte der griechischen Religion.Die Etymologie und die Deutung der Ursprungs sind unsicher und mögen auf sich beruhen
^Alexander Hislop, in his polemicThe Two Babylons: Papal Worship Revealed to be the Worship of Nimrod and His Wife (1853, revised 1858), theorized that the word is derived from theSemiticKohen and "tor" (to go round) viaphonetic shift the less prominentconsonants being lost over time, with it developing intoKhenTor orKen-Tor, and being transliterated phonetically intoIonian asKentaur, but this is not accepted by any modern philologist.
^Lawrence, Elizabeth Atwood (1994). "The Centaur: Its History and Meaning in Human Culture".Journal of Popular Culture.27 (4): 58.doi:10.1111/j.0022-3840.1994.2704_57.x.
^Chase, Stuart."Chapter IV: The Six Hundred".Mexico: A Study of Two Americas. Archived fromthe original on March 3, 2016. RetrievedApril 24, 2006 – via University of Virginia Hypertexts.
^Dumézil,Le Problème des Centaures (Paris 1929) andMitra-Varuna: An essay on two Indo-European representations of sovereignty (1948. tr. 1988).
^Devdutt Pattanaik, "Indian mythology : tales, symbols, and rituals from the heart of the Subcontinent" (Rochester, USA 2003) P.74:ISBN0-89281-870-0.
^K. Krishna Murthy,Mythical Animals in Indian Art (New Delhi, India 1985).
^Ione Mylonas Shear, "Mycenaean Centaurs at Ugarit"The Journal of Hellenic Studies (2002:147–153); but see the interpretation relating them to "abbreviated group" figures at theBronze-Age sanctuary of Aphaia and elsewhere, presented by Korinna Pilafidis-Williams, "No Mycenaean Centaurs Yet",The Journal of Hellenic Studies124 (2004), p. 165, which concludes "we had perhaps do best not to raise hopes of a continuity of images across the divide between the Bronze Age and the historical period."
^"Bronze man and centaur".The MET. Metropolitan Museum of Art.Archived from the original on November 14, 2020. RetrievedJuly 16, 2019.
^Paul V. C. Baur,Centaurs in Ancient Art: The Archaic Period, Karl Curtius, Berlin (1912), pp. 5–7.
^Maria Cristina Biella and Enrico Giovanelli,Il bestiario fantastico di età orientalizzante nella penisola italiana (Belfast, ME: Tangram, 2012), 172-78.ISBN9788864580692; and J. Michael Padgett and William A. P. Childs,The Centaur's Smile: The Human Animal in Early Greek Art (Princeton University Press, 2003).ISBN9780300101638
^The Great Cameo of Constantine, formerly in the collection ofPeter Paul Rubens and now in the Geld en Bankmuseum, Utrecht, is illustrated, for instance, in Paul Stephenson,Constantine, Roman Emperor, Christian Victor, 2010:fig. 53.
^Iain Ferris,The Arch of Constantine: Inspired by the Divine, Amberley Publishing (2009).
Gaius Valerius Flaccus,Argonautica translated by Mozley, J H. Loeb Classical Library Volume 286. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1928.Online version at theio.com.
Kaleta, Marcin Konrad, "Centaurs", inThe Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters, pp. 75–77, edited by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, Farnham and Burlington, Ashgate, 1988.ISBN9781409425625.doi:10.4324/9781315612690.
Leuker, Tobias, "Centaurs", inBrill's New Pauly – Supplements. Volume 4: The Reception of Myth and Mythology, edited by Maria Moog-Grünewald, Brill, 2010.ISBN978-90-04-18330-8.
Bey, Facundo, "Cyrus Among the Centaurs, or Why Not to Neglect the Ethico-Political Consequences of Technological Transformation," in D. Johnson, R. Illarraga & G. Danzig (eds.),Debating Cyrus. Leadership in Xenophon’s ›Cyropaedia‹. Series: Xenophon Studies, vol. 2. Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter, 2026, 133-146.ISBN978-3-11-914605-0.doi:10.1515/9783112214398-012.
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