MYTHS OF LOCAL HEROES AND HEROINES^603
had no honor amongst human beings nor in the homes of the gods. This she
nursed and named it Centaurus. And it mated with the mares in Magnesia, in
the foothills of Pelion, and from them sprung a wondrous host, like both par-
ents, below like their mother, above like their father.
We have already encountered Ixion as a sinner being punished in the Un-
derworld (p. 345). Originally his punishment was in the sky. He was the first to
shed kindred blood. He invited his father-in-law Eioneus to come and collect
the price that Ixion was to pay for his bride, Dia. Eioneus came, but fell into a
pit of burning coals that Ixion had dug and camouflaged. Since this was a new
crime, no mortal was able to purify Ixion, and Zeus himself purified him, re-
ceiving him as a guest at his own hearth. Yet Ixion repaid him with a second
crime, the attempt on Hera. Pindar describes the deception practiced by Zeus
and the punishment of Ixion, bound to the wheel.
CENTAURS AND LAPITHSThe cloud (Nephele) that Ixion had impregnated gave birth to the monster Cen-
taurus, which mated with the mares that grazed the slopes of Mt. Pelion and
became the father of the Centaurs, creatures with a human head and torso and
the legs and body of a horse. The most famous centaur was Chiron, who differs
from the others in that he was wise and gentle, skilled in medicine and music.^1
Pindar calls him the son of Cronus and the nymph Philyra. The other centaurs
are generally portrayed as violent beings, and their best-known legend is that
of their fight with the Thessalian tribe of the Lapiths.
The Lapith chieftain Pirithous was the son of Ixion, and the centaurs were
invited to his wedding. At the feast they got drunk and attempted to carry off
the bride, Hippodamia, and the other Lapith women. The violent scene was fre-
quently represented in Greek art, for example, in the west pediment of the tem-
ple of Zeus at Olympia and in the metopes of the Parthenon at Athens. The bat-
tle is described at length in the twelfth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Another Lapith was Caeneus. Born a girl, Caenis, she was seduced by Po-
seidon, who then granted her anything she wanted. She asked to be turned into
a man and to become invulnerable. As a man, Caeneus set up his spear and or-
dered people to worship it. This impiety led Zeus to bring about his death. Dur-
ing the battle at the wedding of Pirithous and Hippodamia he was attacked by
the centaurs, who buried him under the enormous pile of tree trunks that they
hurled at him. Either his body was driven down into the Underworld by their
weight or else a yellow-winged bird emerged from the pile, which the seer Mop-
sus announced to be Caeneus transformed.
PELEUS
On the southern border of Thessaly lies Phthia, and its prince was Peleus, the
father of Achilles. He was the son of Aeacus, king of Aegina, and brother of
Telamon. For killing his half-brother Phocus, he had to leave Aegina and came