CENTAUR

In Greek mythology, the 'Centaurs' (Greek: Κένταυροι) are a race of creatures composed of part human and part horse. In early Attic vase-paintings, they are depicted as the torso of a human joined at the (human's) waist to the horse's withers, where the horse's neck would be.
This half-human and half-animal composition has led many writers to treat them as liminal beings, caught between the two natures, embodied in contrasted myths, and as the embodiment of untamed nature, as in their battle with the Lapiths, or conversely as teachers, like Chiron.
The centaurs descended from Centaurus, who mated with the Magnesian mares. Centaurus was the son of either Ixion and Nephele (the cloud made in the image of Hera) or of Apollo and Stilbe, daughter of the river god Peneus. In the latter version of the story his twin brother was Lapithus, ancestor of the Lapiths, thus making the two warring peoples cousins.
Centaurs supposedly inhabited the mountains of Erymanthus in Thessaly, or Clyon's countryside.

Contents

Centauromachy

Theories of origin

Persistence in the medieval world

Centaurs in modern fiction

Centaurs in games

Other modern uses

See also

References

External links

Centauromachy

The Centaurs are best known for their fight with the Lapithae, caused by their attempt to carry off Hippodamia, and the rest of the Lapith women, on the day of her marriage to Pirithous, king of the Lapithae, himself the son of Ixion. The strife among these cousins is a metaphor for the conflict between the lower appetites and civilized behavior in humankind. Theseus, a hero and founder of cities, who happened to be present, threw the balance in favor of the right order of things, and assisted Pirithous. The Centaurs were driven off or destroyed.^[1][2][3]. Another Lapith hero, Caeneus, who was invulnerable to weapons, was beaten into the earth by Centaurs wielding rocks and the branches of trees.
Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as wild as untamed horses.
Like the Titanomachy, the defeat of the Titans by the Olympian gods, the contests with the Centaurs typify the struggle between civilization and barbarism.
The Centauromachy was portrayed in sculpture by Michelangelo.

Theories of origin

The most common theory holds that the idea of centaurs came from the first reaction of a non-riding culture, as in the Minoan Aegean world, to nomads who were mounted on horses. The theory goes that such riders would appear as half-man, half-animal. (Bernal Díaz del Castillo reported that the Aztecs had this misapprehension about Spanish cavalrymen.)^[4] Horse taming and horseback culture arose first in the southern steppe grasslands of Central Asia, perhaps approximately in modern Kazakhstan.
The Lapith tribe of Thessaly, who were the kinsmen of the Centaurs in myth, were described as the inventors of horse-back riding by Greek writers. The Thessalians tribes also claimed their horse breeds were descended from the centaurs.
Of the various Classical Greek authors who mentioned centaurs, Pindar was the first who describes undoubtedly a combined monster. Previous authors (Homer etc) only use words such as Pheres (Beasts) that could also mean ordinary savage men riding ordinary horses. However, contemporaneous representations of hybrid centaurs can be found in archaic Greek art.
Writer Robert Graves has speculated that the Centaurs of Greek myth were a dimly-remembered, pre-Hellenic fraternal earth cult who had the horse as a totem. A similar theory was incorporated into Mary Renault's ''The Bull from the Sea.''
The Greek word ''kentauros'' could be etymologized as ''ken - tauros'' = "piercing bull". Another possible etymology can be
"bulls slayer". Some say that the Greeks took the constellation of Centaurus, and also its name "piercing bull", from Mesopotamia, where it symbolized the god Baal who represents rain and fertility, fighting with and ''piercing'' with his horns the demon Mot who represents the summer drought. (In Greece, Mot became the constellation of Lupus.) Later in Greece, the constellation of Centaurus was reinterpreted as a man riding a horse, and linked to legends of Greece being invaded by tribes of horsemen from the north. The idea of a combined monster may have arisen as an attempt to fit the pictorial figure to the stars better.
Alexander Hislop in his book The Two Babylons theorized that the word is derived from the Semitic Kohen and Tor via phonetic shift the less prominent consonants being lost over time ,with it developing into 'K'h'en' 'Tor' or ''Ken-Tor'', and being transliterated phonetically into Ionian as ''Kentaur''.

Persistence in the medieval world

Centaurs preserved a Dionysian connection in the twelfth-century Romanesque carved capitals of the abbey of Mozac in the Auvergne, where other capitals depict harvesters, boys riding goats (a further Dionysiac theme) and griffons guarding the chalice that held the wine.

Centaurs in modern fiction

Centaurs have appeared in many places in modern fiction: ''Artemis Fowl'', '', ''Fantasia'', the ''Narnia'' books (as well as in the Disney film adaptation of ''), '', ''The Golden Voyage of Sinbad'', '', ''Harry Potter'', the trilogy ''Titan'', ''Wizard'', ''Demon'' and they also featured prominently in the ''Xanth'' series. Additionally, the Centaur Inn was the hotel in Shakespeare's ''The Comedy of Errors''. Centaurs were also a theme for a popular skit on Saturday Night Live featuring Christopher Walken conducting a job interview with a Centaur, and asking him odd questions about his day to day life as a centaur. The character Den in the ''Battle Angel Alita'' manga by Yukito Kishiro has a massive, remote-controlled centaur body that he uses in combat.

Centaurs in games

★ In the MMORPG Guild Wars, the Centaur play a dual role, both as an enemy (the Maguuma, Losaru, and Shiverpeak Centaur Clans in Tyria) and as an ally (the Veldrunner Centaur Clan in Elona).

★ In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game centaurs are a race.

★ In the Mortal Kombat series of fighting games, Motaro, one of the most infamous sub bosses of the first three games is a centaur.

★ Centaur is Monster in My Pocket #76.

★ In Age of Mythology the centaur is a classical age myth unit.

★ Although not as a flesh-and-blood Centaur, the Robot Master Centaur Man from Mega Man 6 is modeled to look like a Centaur.

★ In the Shining Force series, Centaurs are often portrayed as the knights of most kingdoms.

★ In fantasy novels the view of centaurs has sometimes been changed from barbarism to an honorable race that practices breeding and other actions relative to that of animals. This has also been done in some of the cards that represent centaurs. In the real-time strategy PC game, ''Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos'' and the MMORPG, ''World of Warcraft'', the Centaur are portrayed as a barbaric warrior race who nearly drove the Tauren to extinction.

★ The University of Tennessee's Hodges Library hosts a permanent exhibit of a "Centaur from Volos", in its library. The exhibit, made by combining a study human skeleton with the skeleton of a Shetland pony is entitled "Do you believe in Centaurs?" and was meant to mislead students in order to make them more critically aware, according to the exhibitors.^[5]

★ Though the Greek word ''kentauros'' is said to be composed of a single morpheme— perhaps not a Greek one in its origin—, a suffix ''-taur'' has been invented by writers and game designers in the late 20th century for fantasy animal-human hybrids. For more information, see ''Centaur-like creatures''.

★ In the game Bully, you can hear Fatty saying "I wish I was a centaur."

★ In the game , centaurs are Elven guardians and warriors.

★ In the first Tomb Raider game, adventurer Lara Croft encounters a number of centaurs. However, these centaurs are grotesque, skinless mutants. Because of their 'fleshy' appearance, the development team at Core Design (who made the game) nicknamed them "Streaky-Bacon-Centaur-Men". Also, in the modern rendition of this first Tomb Raider game (Tomb Raider Anniversary), the centaurs' heads are those of horses, further mutating the original concept of the creature.

★ In the game Monster Rancher 2, centaurs are a breed of monster you could obtain after meeting certain prerequisites.

★ In the Mortal Kombat Series,some characters resemble centaurs, such as Motaro.

★ In the game God of War, you encounter mythological centaurs which you fight.

Other modern uses

A centaur is one of the symbols associated with the Delta Lambda Phi National Social Fraternity. Whereas centaurs in Greek mythology were generally symbolic of chaos and unbridled passions, DLP's centaur is modeled after Chiron and represents honor, moderation and tempered masculinity.

See also

Other hybrid creatures appear in Greek mythology, always with some liminal connection that links Hellenic culture with archaic or non-Hellenic cultures:

★ Harpy

★ Minotaur

★ Mermaids

★ Satyrs

★ Sphinx

★ Typhon

References

1. Plutarch, ''Theseus,'' 30
2. Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' xii. 210
3. Diodorus Siculusiv. 69, 70
4. Stuart Chase, ''Mexico: A Study of Two Americas'', Chapter IV (University of Virginia Hypertext), accessed 24 April 2006.
5. Library hails centaur’s 10th anniversary, , Maggie, Anderson, , 2004

M. Grant and J. Hazel, Who's Who in Greek Mythology, David McKay & Co Inc, 1979
Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth, , Carol, Rose, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., ,

External links

★ Theoi Project on Centaurs in literature

★ "MythWeb" article on centaurs

★ Harry Potter Lexicon article on centaurs