The Greek Myths, Robert Graves. (1973)

Foreward
 Since revising /The Greek Myths/ in 1958, I have had second thoughts 
about the drunken god Dionysus, about the Centaurs with their 
contradictory reputation for wisdom and misdemeanour, and about the 
nature of divine ambrosia and nectar. These subjects are closely 
related, because the Centaurs worshipped Dionysus, whose wild autumnal 
feast was called 'The Ambrosia'. I no longer believe that when his 
Maenads ran raging around the countryside, tearing animals or children 
in pieces (see 27.f) and boasted afterwards of travelling to India and 
back (see 27.c), they had intoxicated themselves solely on wine or 
ivy-ale (see 27.3). The evidence, summarized in my /What Food the 
Centaurs Ate/ (/Steps/: Cassell & Co., 1958, pp. 319-353), suggests that 
Satyrs (goat-totem tribesmen), Centaurs (horse-totem tribesmen), and 
their Maenad womenfolk, used these brews to wash down mouthfuls of a far 
stronger drug: namely a raw mushroom, /amanita muscaria/, which induces 
hallucinations, senseless rioting, prophetic sight, erotic energy, and 
remarkable muscular strength. Some hours of this ecstasy are followed by 
complete inertia; a phenomenon that would account for the story of how 
Lycurgus, armed only with an ox-goad, routed Dionysus's drunken army of 
Maenads and Satyrs after its victorious return from India (see 27.e).
 On an Etruscan mirror the /amanita muscaria/ is engraved at Ixion's 
feet; he was a Thessalian hero who feasted on ambrosia among the gods 
(see 63.b). Several myths (see 102, 126, etc.) are consistent with my 
theory that his descendants, the Centaurs, ate this mushroom; and, 
according to some historians, it was later employed by the Norse 
'berserks' to give them reckless power in battle. I now believe that 
'ambrosia' and 'nectar' were intoxicant mushrooms: certainly the 
/amanita muscaria/; but pwerhaps others, too, especially a small, 
slender dung-mushroom named /panaeolus papilionaceus/, which induces 
harmless and most enjoyable hallucinations. A mushroom not unlike it 
appears on an Attic vase between the hooves of Nessus the Centaur. The 
'gods' for whom, in the myths, ambrosia and nectar were reserved, will 
have been sacred queens and kings of the pre-Classical era. King 
Tantalus's crime (see 108.c) was that he broke the taboo by inviting 
commoners to share his ambrosia.

1.d
 ... But the first man was Pelasgus, ancestor of the Pelasgians; he 
sprang from the soil of Arcadia, followed by certain others, whom he 
taught to make huts and feed upon acors, and sew pig-skin tunics such as 
poor folk wtill wear in Euboea and Phocis.
1.5
 Pausanias's statement that Pelasgus was the first of men records the 
continuance of a neolithic culture in Arcadia until Classical times.

151.g
 The /Argo/ then coasted past the island of Philyra, where Cronus once 
lay with Philyra, daughter of Oceanus, and was surprised by Rhea in the 
act; whereupon he had turned himself into a stallion, and galloped off, 
leaving Philyra to bear her child, half man, half horse - which proved 
to be Cheiron the learned Centaur. Loathing the monster she now had to 
suckle, Philyra prayed to become other than she was; and was 
metamorphosed into a linden-tree. But some say that this took place in 
Thessaly, or Thrace; not on the island of Philyra.
151.5
 Cheiron's fame as a doctor, scholar, and prophet won him the title Son 
of Philyra ('linden'); he is also called a descendant of Ixion (see 
63.d). Linden flowers were much used in Classical times as a 
restorative, and still are; moreover, the bast, or inner bark, of the 
linden provided handy writing tablets, and when torn into strips was 
used in divination (herodotus: iv.67; Aelian: /Varia Historia/ xiv.12). 
But Philyra island will have derived its name from a clump of 
linden-trees which grew there, rather than from any historical ties with 
Thessaly or Thrace. None of these coastal islands is more than a hundred 
yards long.

63.a
 Ixion, a son of Phlegyas, the Lapith king, agreed to marry Dia, 
daughter of Eioneus, promising rich bridal gifts and inviting Eioneus to 
a banquet; but had laid a pitfall in front of the palace, with a great 
charcoal fire underneath, into which the unsuspecting Eioneus fell and 
was burned.
63.b
 Though hte lesser gods thought htis a heinous deed, and refused to 
purify Ixion, Zeus, having behaved equally ill himself when in love, not 
only purified him but brought him to eat at his table.
63.c
 Ixion was ungrateful, and planned to seduce Hera who, he guessed, would 
be glad of a chance to revenge herself on Zeus for his frequent 
unfaithfulness. Zeus, however, reading Ixion's intentions, shaped a 
cloud into a false Hera with whom Ixion, being too far gone in drink to 
notice the deception, duly took his pleasure. He was surprised in the 
act by Zeus, who ordered Hermes to scourge him mercilessly until he 
repeated the words: 'Benefactors deserve honour', and then bind him to a 
fiery wheel which rolled without cease through the sky.
63.d
 The false Hera, afterwards called Nephele, bore Ixion the outcast child 
Centaurus who, when he grew to manhood, is said to have sired 
horse-centaurs on Magnesian mares, of whom the most celebreated was the 
learned Cheiron.
63.1
 Ixion's name, formed from /ischys/ ('strength') and /io/ ('moon') (see 
52.2), also suggests /ixias/ ('mistletoe'). As an oak-king with 
mistletoe genitals (see 50.2), representing the thunder-god, he ritually 
married the rain-making Moon-goddess; and was then scourged, so that his 
blood and sperm would fructify the earth (see 116.4), beheaded with an 
axe, emasculated, spread-eagled to a tree, and roasted; after which his 
kinsmen ate him sacramentally. /Eion/ is the Homeric epithet for a 
river; but Dia's father is called Deioneus, meaning 'ravager', as well 
as Eioneus.
63.2
 The Moon-goddess of the oak-cult was known as Dia ('of the sky'), a 
title of the Dodonan Oak-goddess (see 51.1) and therefore of Zeus's wife 
Hera. That old-fashioned kings called himselves Zeus (see 45.2; 68.1; 
and 156.4) and married Dia of the Rain Clouds, naturally displeased the 
Olympian priests, who misinterpreted the ritual picture of the 
spread-eagled Lapith king as recording his punishment for impiety, and 
invented the anecdote of the cloud. On an Etruscan mirror, Ixion is 
shown spread-eagled to a fire-wheel, with mushroom tinder at his feet; 
elsewhere, he is bound in the same 'fivefold bond' with which the Irish 
hero Curoi tied Cuchulain - bent backwards into a hoop (Philostratus: 
/Life of Apollonius of Tyana/ vii.12), with his ankles, wrists, and neck 
tied together, like Osiris in the /Book of the Dead/. This attitude 
recalls the burning wheels rolled downhill at European midsummer 
festivities, as a sign that the sun has reached its zenith and must now 
decline again until the winter solstice. Ixion's pitfall is 
unmetaphorical: surrogate victims were neaded for teh sacred king, such 
as prisoners taken in battle or, failing these, travellers caught in 
traps. The myth seems to record a treaty made by Zeus's Hellenes with the 
Lapiths, Phlegyans, and Centaurs, which was broken by the ritual murder 
of Hellenic travellers and the seizure of their womenfolk; the Hellenes 
demanded, and were given, an official apology.
63.3
 Horses were sacred to the moon, and hobby-horses dances, designed to 
make rain fall, have apparently given rise to the legend that the 
Centaurs were half horse, half man. The earliest Greek representation of 
Centaurs - two men joined at the waist to horses' bodies - is found on a 
Mycenaean gem from the Heraeum at Argos; they face each other and are 
dancing. A similar pair appear on a Cretan bead-seal; but, since there 
was no native horse cult in Crete, the motif has evidently been imported 
from the mainland. In archaic art, the satyrs were also pictured as 
hobby-horse men, but later goats. Centaurus will have been an oracular 
hero with a serpent's tail, and the story of Boreas's mating with mares 
is therefore attached to him (see 48.e).

7.7
 ... That the Hundred-handed Ones guarded the Titans in the Far West may 
mean that the Pelasgians, among whose remnants were the Centaurs of 
Magnesia - /centaur/ is perhaps cognate with the Latin /centuria/, 'a 
war-band of one hundred' - did not abandon their Titan cult, and 
continued to believe in a Far Western Paradise, and in Atlas's support 
of the firmament.

43.a
 Hellen, son of Deucalion, married Orseis, and settled in Thessaly, 
where his eldest son, Aeolus, succeeded him.
43.c
 Aeolus seduced Cheiron's daughter, the prophetess Thea, by some called 
Thetis, who was Artemis's companion of the chase. Thea feared that 
Cheiron would punish her severely when he knew of her condition, but 
dared not appeal to Artemis for assistance; however, Poseidon, wishing 
to do his friend Aeolus a favour, temporarily disguised her as a mare 
called Euippe. When she had dropped her foal, Melanippe, which he 
afterwards transformed into an infant girl, Poseidon set Thea's image 
among the stars; this is now called the constellation of the Horse. 
Aeolus took up Melanippe, renamed her Arne, and entrusted her to one 
Desmontes who, being childless, was glad to adopt her. Cheiron knew 
nothing of all this.
43.d
 Poseidon seduced Arne, on whom he had been keeping an eye, so soon as 
she was of age; and Desmontes, discovering that she was with child, 
blinded her, shut her in an empty tomb, and supplied her with the very 
least amount of bread and water that would serve to sustain life. There 
she bore twin sons, whom Desmontes ordered his servants to expose on 
Mount Pelion, for the wild beasts to devour. But an Icarian herdsman 
found and rescued the twins, one of whom so closely resembled his 
maternal grandfather that he was named Aeolus; the other had to be 
content with the name Boeotus.
43.e
 Meanwhile, Metapontus, King of Icaria, had threatened to divorce his 
barren wife Theano unless she bore him an heir within the year. While he 
was away on a visit to an oracle she appealed to the hersman for help, 
and he brought her the foundlings whom, on Metapontus's return, she 
passed off as her own. Later, proving not to be barren after all, she 
bore him twin sons; but the foundlings, being of divine parentage, were 
far more beautiful than they. Since Metapontus had no reason to suspect 
that Aeolus and Boeotus were not his own children, they remained his 
favourites. Growing jealous, Theano waited until Metapontus left home 
again, this time for a sacrifice at the shrine of Artemis Metapontia. 
She then ordered his own sons to go hunting with their elder brothers, 
and murder them as if by accident. Theano's plot failed, however, 
because in the ensuing fight Poseidon came to the assistance of his 
sons. Aeolus and Boeotus were soon carrying their assailants' dead 
bodies back to the palace, and when Theano saw them approach she stabbed 
herself to death with a hunting knife.
43.f
 At this, Aeolus and Boeotus fled to their foster-father, the herdsman, 
where Poseidon in person revealed the secret of their parentage. He 
ordered them to rescue their mother, who was still languishing in the 
tomb, and to kill Desmontes. They obeyed without hesitation; Poseidon 
then returned Arne's sight, and all three went back to Icaria. When 
Metapontus learned that Theano had deceived him he married Arne and 
formally adopted her sons as his heirs.
43.g
 All went well for some years, until Metapontus decided to discard Arne 
and marry again. Aeolus and Boeotus took their mother's side in the 
ensuing wrangle, and killed Autolyte, the new queen, but were obliged to 
forfeit their inheritance and flee. Boeotus, with Arne, took refuge in 
the palace of his grandfather Aeolus, who bequeathed him the southern 
part of his kingdom, and renamed it Arne; the inhabitants are still 
called Boeotians. Two Thessalian cities, one of which later became 
Chaeronaea, also adopted Arne's name.
43.2
 Poseidon's seduction of Melanippe, his seduction of the Mare-headed 
Demeter (see 16.f), and Aeolus's seduction of Euippe, all refer perhaps 
to the same event: the seizure of Aeolians of the pre-Hellenic 
horse-cult centres. The myth of Arne's being blinded and imprisoned in a 
tomb, where she bore the twins Aeolus and Boeotus, and of their 
subsequent exposure on the mountain among wild beasts, is apparently 
deduced from the familiar icon that yielded the myths of Danae (see 
73.4), Antiope (see 76.a), and the rest. A priestess of Mother Earth's 
is shown crouched in a /tholus/ tomb, presenting the New Year twins to 
the shepherds, for revelation at her Mysteries; /tholus/ tombs have 
their entrances always facing east, as if in promise of rebirth. These 
shepherds are instructed to report that they found the infants abandoned 
on the mountainside, being suckled by some sacred animal - cow, sow, 
she-goat, bitch, or she-wolf. The wild beasts from whom the wins are 
supposed to have been saved represent teh season transformations of the 
newly-born sacred king (see 30.1)

50.c
 ... It was a boy, whom Apollo named Asclepius, and carried off to the 
cave of Cheiron the Centaur, where he learned the arts of medicine and 
the chase. ...
50.e
 Asclepius, say the Epidaurians, learned the art of healing both from 
Apollo and from Cheiron. ...
50.g
 However, Zeus later restored Asclepius to life; and so fulfilled an 
indiscreet prophecy made by Cheiron's daughter Euippe, who had declared 
that Asclepius would become a god, die, and resume god-head - thus twice 
renewing his destiny.
50.5
 ... then Cheiron and [Apollo] taught him the art of healing. In other 
words: Apollo's Hellenic priests were helped by their Magnesian allies 
the Centaurs, who were hereditary enemies of the Lapiths, to take over a 
Thessalian crow-oracle, hero and all, expelling the college of 
Moon-priestesses and suppressing the worship of the goddess. ...

81.i
 After a festive supper, in the course of which he outdid all others as 
a trencherman, Peleus fell fast asleep. Acastus then robbed him of his 
magic sword, hid it under a pile of cow-dung, and stole away with his 
followers. Peleus awoke to find himself deserted, disarmed, and 
surrounded by wild Centaurs, who were on the point of murdering him; 
however, their king Cheiron not only intervened to save his life, but 
divined where the sword lay hidden and restored it to him.
81.j
 ...Hera, however, gratefully decided to match [the Nereid Thetis] with 
the noblest of mortals, and summoned all Olympians to the wedding when 
the moon should next be full, at the same time sending her mesenger Iris 
to King Cheiron's cave with an order for Peleus to make ready.
81.k
 Now, Cheiron foresaw that Thetis, being immortal, would at first resent 
the marriage; and, acting on his instructions, Peleus concealed himself 
behind a bush of parti-coloured myrtle-berries on the shores of a 
Thessalian islet, where Thetis often came, riding naked on a harnessed 
dolphin, to enjoy her midday sleep in the save which this bush half 
screened. No sooner had she entered the cave and fallen asleep than 
Peleus seized hold of her. The struggle was silent and fierce. Thetis 
turned successively into fire, water, a lion, and a serpent; but Peleus 
had been warned what to expect, and clung to her resolutely, even when 
she became an enormous slippery cuttle-fish and squired ink at him - a 
change which accounts for the name of Cape Sepias, the near-by 
promontory, now sacred to the Nereids. Though burned, drenched, mauled, 
stung, and covered with sticky sepia ink, Peleus would not let her go 
and, in the end, she yielded and they lay locked in a passionate 
embrace.
81.l
 Their wedding was celebrated outside Cheiron's cave on Mount Pelion. 
... Crowds of Centaurs attended the ceremony, wearing chaplets of grass, 
brandishing darts fo fir, and prophesying good fortune.
81.m
 Cheiron gave Peleus a spear; Athene had polished its shaft, which was 
cut from an ash on the summit of Pelion; and Hephaestus had forged its 
blade. ...
81.o
 Some describe Peleus's wife Thetis as Cheiron's daughter, and a mere 
mortal; and saythat Cheiron, wishing to honour Peleus, spread the rumour 
that he had married the goddess, her mistress.
81.p
 Meanwhile Peleus, whose fortunes the kindly Cheiron had restored...

82.a
 ... Apollo once watched [Cyrene] wrestling with a powerful lion; he 
summoned King Cheiron the Centaur to witness the combat (from which 
Cyrene, as usual, emerged triumphant), asking her name, and whether she 
would make him a suitable bride. Cheiron laughed. He was aware that 
Apollo not only knew her name, but had already made up his mind to carry 
her off, either when he saw her guarding Hypseus's flocks by the river 
Peneius, or when she received two hunting dogs from his hands as a prize 
for winning the foot race at Pelias's funeral games.
82.b
 Cheiron further prophesied that Apollo would convey Cyrene overseas to 
the richest garden of Zeus, and make her the queen of a great city, 
having first gathered an island people about a hill rising from a plain. 
Welcomed by Libya to a golden palace, she would win a queendom equally 
beneficent to hunters and farmers, and there bear him a son. Hermes 
would act as man-midwife and carry the child, called Aristeus, or 
Aristaeus, to the enthroned Hours and Mother Earth, bidding them feed 
him on nectar and ambrosia. When Aristaeus grew to manhood, he would win 
the titles of 'Immortal Zeus', 'Pure Apollo', and 'Guardian of the 
Flocks'.
82.1
 ... [Cyrene's] association with the Centaurs shows that she was a 
goddess of a Magnesian horse cult imported to Thera; for Cheiron's name 
also appears in early Theran rock inscriptions. ...

100.2
 ... The names Melanippe and Hippolytus associate the Amazons with the 
pre-Hellenic horse cult (see 43.2). ...

102.a
 Some say that Peirithous the Lapith was the son of Ixion and Dia, 
daughter of Eioneus; others, that he was the son of Zeus who, disguised 
as a stallion, coursed around Dia before seducing her.
102.b
 Almost incredible reports of Theseus's strength and valour had reached 
Peirithous, who ruled over the Magnetes, at the mouth of the river 
Peneus; and one day he resolved to test them by raiding Attica and 
driving away a herd of cattle that were grazing at Marathon. When 
Theseus at once went in pursuit, Peirithous boldly turned about to face 
him; but each was filled with such admiration for the other's nobility 
of appearance that the cattle were forgotten, and they swore an oath of 
everlasting friendship.
102.c
 Peirithous married Hippodameia, or Deidameia, daughter of Butes - or, 
some say, of Adrastus - and invited all the Olympians to his weding, 
except Ares and Eris; he remembered the mischief which Eris had caused 
at the marriage of Peleus and Thetis. Since more feasters came to 
Peirithous's palace than it could contain, his cousins the Centaurs, 
together with Nestor, Caeneus, and other Thessalian princes, were seated 
at tables in a vast, tree-shaded cave near by.
102.d
 The Centaurs, however, were unused to wine and, when they smelled its 
fragrance, pushed away the sour milk which was set before them, and ran 
to fill their silver horns from the wine-skins. In their ignorance they 
swilled the strong liquor unmixed with water, becoming so drunk that 
when the bride was escorted into the cavern to greet them, Eurytus, or 
Eurytion, leaped from his stool, overturned the table, and dragged her 
away by the hair. At once the other Centaurs followed his disgraceful 
example, lecherously straddling the nearest women and boys.
102.e
 Peirithous and his paranymph Theseus sprang to Hippodameia's rescue, 
cut off Eurytion's ears and nose and, with the help of the Lapiths, 
threw him out of the cavern. The ensuring fight, in the course of which 
Caeneus the Lapith was killed, lasted until nightfall; and thus began 
the long feud between the Centaurs and their Lapith neighbours, 
engineered by Ares and Eris in revenge for the slight offered them.
102.f
 On this occasion the Centaurs suffered a serious reverse, and Theseus 
drove them from their ancient hunting grounds on Mount Pelion to the 
land of the Aethices near Mount Pindus. But it was not an easy task to 
subdue the Centaurs, who had already disputed Ixion's kingdom with 
Peirithous, and who now, rallying their forces, invaded Lapith 
territory. They surprised and slaughtered the main Lapith army, and when 
the survivors fled to Pholoe in Elis, the vengeful Centaurs expelled 
them and converted Pholoe into a bandit stronghold of their own. Finally 
the Lapiths settled in Malea.
102.g
 It was during Theseus's campaign against the Centaurs that he met 
Heracles again for the first time since childhood; and presently 
initiated him into the Mysteries of Demeter at Eleusis.
102.1
 Both Lapiths and Centaurs claimed descent from Ixion, an oak-hero, and 
had a horse cult in common (see 63.a and d). They were primitive 
mountain tribes in Northern Greece, of whose ancient rivalry the 
Hellenes took advantage by allying themselves first with one, and then 
with the other (see 35.2; 78.1; and 81.3). /Centaur/ and /Lapith/ may be 
Italic words: /centuria/, 'war-band of one hundred', and /lapicidea/, 
'flint-chippers'. (The usual Classical etymology is, respectively, from 
/centtauroi/, 'those who spear bulls', and /lapizein/, 'to swagger'.) 
These mountaineers seem to have had erotic orgies, and thus won a 
reputation for promiscuity among the monogamous Hellenes; members of 
this neolithic race survived in the Arcadian mountains, and on Mount 
Pindus, until Classical times, and vestiges of their pre-Hellenic 
language are to be found in modern Albania.
102.2
 It is, however, unlikely that hte battle between Lapiths and Centaurs - 
depicted on the gable of Zeus's temply at Olympia (Pausanias: v.10.2); 
at Athens in the sanctuary of Theseus (Pausanias: i.17.2); and on 
Athene's aegis (Pausanias: i.28.2) - recorded a mere struggle between 
frontier tribes. Being connected with a royal wedding feast, divinely 
patronized, at which Theseus in his lion-skin assisted, it will have 
depicted a ritual event of intimate concern to all Hellenes. 
Lion-skilled Heracles also fought the Centaurs on a similarly festive 
occasion (see 126.2). Homer calls them 'shaggy wild beasts', and since 
they are not differentiated from satyrs in early Greek vase-paintings, 
the icon probably shows a newly-installed king - it does not matter who 
- battling with dancers disguised as animals: an event in which A. C. 
Hocart in his /Kingship/ proves to have been an integral part of the 
ancient coronation ceremony. Eurytion is playing the classical part of 
interloper (see 142.5).

138.1
 ...The murder of Eurytion may be deduced from the same wedding-icon 
that showed the killing of Pholus. ...

143.3
 Aegimius's name - if it means 'acting the part of the goat' - suggests 
that he performed a May Eve goat-marriage with the tribal queen, and 
that in his war against the Lapiths of Northern Thessaly his Dorians 
fought beside the Centaurs, the Lapiths' hereditary enemies who, like 
the Satyrs, are depicted in early works of art as goat-men (see 142.5).

148.b
 Now, Aeson had married Polymele, also known as Amphinome, Perimede, 
Alcimede, Polymede, Polypheme, Scarphe, or Arne, who bore him one son, 
by name Diomedes. Pelias would have destroyed the child without mercy, 
had not Polymele summoned her kindswomen to weep over him, as though he 
were still-born, and then smuggled him out of the city to Mount Pelion; 
where Cheiron the Centaur reared him, as he did before, or afterwards, 
with Asclepius, Achilles, Aeneas, and other famous heroes.
148.e
 When, therefore, Pelias asked the stranger roughly: 'Who are you, and 
what is your father's name?', he replied that Cheiron, his 
foster-father, called him Jason, though he had formerly been known as 
Diomedes, son of Aeson. ...
148.2
 According to Hesiod, Jason, son of Aeson, after accomplishing many 
grievous tasks imposed by Pelias, married Aeetes's daughter who came 
with him to Iolcus, where 'she was subject to him' and bore his son 
Medeius, whom Cheiron educated. But Hesiod seems to have been 
misinformed...

156.e
 ...[Medea's] eldest son, Medeius, or Polyxenus, who was being educated 
by Cheiron on Mount Pelion, afterwards ruled the country of Media...

160.i
 When Thetis deserted Peleus, he took the child [Achilles] to Cheiron the 
Centaur, who reared him on Mount Pelion, feeding him on the umbles of 
lions and wild boars, and the marrow of bears, to give him courage; or, 
according to another account, on honey-comb, and fawns' marrow to make 
him run swiftly. Cheiron instructed him in the arts of riding, hunting, 
pipe-playing, and healing; the Muse Calliope, also, taught him how to 
sing at banquets. When only six years of age he killed his first boar, 
and thenceforth was constantly dragging the panting bodies of boars and 
lions back to Cheiron's cave. Athene and Artemis gazed in wonder at this 
golden-haired child, who was so swift of foot that he could overtake and 
kill stags without help of hounds.
160.l
 Some authorities disdain this as a fanciful tale ... However, [Phoenix] 
fled to Phthia, where Peleus not only persuaded Cheiron to restore his 
sight, but appointed him king of the neighbouring Dolopians. ...

126.b
 Heracles, passing through Pholoe on his way to Erymanthus - where he 
killed on Saurus, a cruel bandit - was entertained by the Centaur 
Pholus, whom one of the ash-nymphs bore to Silenus. Pholus set roast 
meat before Heracles, but himself preferred the raw, and dared not open 
the Centaurs' communal wine jar until Heracles reminded him that it was 
the very jar which, four generations earlier, Dionysus had left in the 
cave against this very occasion. The Centaurs grew angry when they smelt 
the strong wine. Armed with great rocks, up-rooted fir-trees, 
firebrands, and butchers' axes, they made a rush at Pholus's cave. While 
Pholus hid in terror, Heracles boldly repelled Ancius and Agrius, his 
first two assailants, with a volley of firebrands. Nephele, the 
Centaurs' cloudy grandmother, then poured down a smart shower of rain, 
which loosened Heracles's bow-string and made the ground slippery. 
However, he showed himself worthy of his former achievements, and killed 
several Centaurs, among them Oreus and Hylaeus. The rest fled as far as 
Malea, where they took refuge with Cheiron, their king, who had been 
driven from Mount Pelion by the Lapiths.
126.c
 A parting arrow from Heracles's bow passed through Elatus's arm, and 
stuck quivering in Cheiron's knee. Distressed at the accident to his old 
friend, Heracles drew out the arrow and though Cheiron himself supplied 
the vulneraries for dressing the wound, they were of no avail and he 
retired howling in agony to his cave; yet could not die, because he was 
immortal. Prometheus later offered to accept immortality in his stead, 
and Zeus approved this arrangement; but some say that Cheiron chose 
death not so much because of the pain he suffered as because he had 
grown weary of his long life.
126.d
 The Centaurs now fled in various directions: some with Eurytion to 
Pholoe; some with Nessus to the river Evenus; some to Mount Malea; 
others to Sicily, where the Sirens destroyed them. Poseidon received the 
remainder at Eleusis, and hid them in a mountain. Among those whom 
Heracles later killed was Homadus the Arcadian, who had tried to rape 
Eurystheus's sister Alcyone; by thus nobly avenging an insult offered to 
an enemy, Heracles won great fame.
126.e
 Pholus, in the meantime, while burying his dead kinsmen, drew out one 
of Heracles's arrows and examined it. 'How can so robust a creature have 
succumbed to a mere scratch?' he wondered. But the arrow slipped from 
his fingers and, piercing his foot, killed him there and then. Heracles 
broke off the pursuit and returned to Pholoe, where he buried Pholus 
with unusual honours at the foot of the mountain which had taken his 
name. It was on this occasion that the river Anigrus acquired the foul 
smell which now clings to it from its very source on Mount Lapithus: 
because a Centaur named Pylenor, whom Heracles had winged with an arrow, 
fled and washed his wound there. Some, however, hold that Melampus had 
caused the stench some years before, by throwing into the Anigrus the 
foul objects used for purifying the daughters of Proetus.
126.g
 According to some accounts, Cheiron was accidentally wounded by an 
arrow that pierced his left foot, while he and Pholus and the young 
Achilles were entertaining Heracles on Mount Pelion. After nine days, 
Zeus set Cheiron's image among the stars as the Centaur. But others hold 
that hte Centaur is Pholus, who was honoured by Zeus in this way because 
he excelled all men in the art of prophesying from entrails. The Bowman 
in the Zodiac is likewise a Centaur: one Crotus, who lived on Mount 
Helicon, greatly beloved by his foster-sisters, the Muses.
126.2
 It is probably that Heracles's battle with the Centaurs, like the 
similar battle at Peirithous's wedding (see 102.2), originally 
represented the ritual combat between a newly installed king and 
opponents in beast-disguise. His traditional weapons were arrows, one of 
which, to establish his sovereignty, he shot to each of the four 
quarters of the sky, and a fifth straight up into the air. Frontier wars 
between the Hellenes and the pre-Hellenic mountaineers of Northern 
Greece are also perhaps recorded in this myth.
126.3
 Poisoned arrows dropped upon, or shot into, a knee or foot, caused the 
death not only of Pholus and Cheiron, but also of Achilles, Cheiron's 
pupil (see 92.10 and 164.f): all of them Magnesian sacred kings, whose 
souls the Sirens naturally received. The presence of Centaurs at Malea 
derives from a local tradition that Pholus's father Silenus was born 
there (Pausanias: iii.25.2); Centaurs were often represented as half 
goat, rather than half horse. Their presence at Eleusis, where 
Poseidonhid them in a mountain, suggests that when the initiate into the 
Mysteries celebrated a sacred marriage with the goddess, hobby-horse 
dancers took part in the proceedings.

134.a
 ...Theseus suggested that a certain Pylius should adopt [Heracles]. This 
Pylius did, and when Heracles had been purified for his slaughter of the 
Centaurs, because no one with blood-stained hands could view the 
Mysteries...

92.10
 Poeas's shooting of Talos recalls Paris's shooting of Achilles, also in 
the heel, and the deaths of the Centaurs Pholus and Cheiron (see 126.3). 
These myths are closely related. Pholus and Cheiron died from Heracles's 
poisoned arrows. Poeas was the father of Philoctetes and, when Heracles 
had been poisoned by another Centaur, ordered him to kindle the pyre; as 
a result, Philoctetes obtained the same arrows (see 145.f), one of which 
poisoned him (see 161.l). Paris then borrowed Thessalian Apollo's deadly 
arrows to kill Achilles, Cheiron's foster-son (see 164.f); and finally, 
when Philoctetes avenged Achilles by shooting Paris, he used another 
from Heracles's quiver (see 166.e). The Thessalian sacren king was, it 
seems, killed by an arrow smeared with viper venom, which the tanist 
drove between his heel and ankle.

142.i
 Some say that Heracles wrestled  against Achelous before the murder of 
Iphitus, which was the cause of his removal to Trachis; others, that he 
went there when first exiled from Tiryns. At all events, he came with 
Deianeira to the river Evenus, then in full flood, where the Centaur 
Nessus, claiming that he was the gods' authorized ferryman and chosen 
because of his righteousness, offered, for a small fee, to carry 
Deianeira dry-shod across the water while Heracles swam. He agreed, paid 
Nessus the fare, threw his club and bow over the river, and plunged in. 
Nessus, however, instead of keeping to his bargain, galloped off in the 
opposite direction with Deianeira in his arms; then threw her to the 
ground and tried to violate her. She screamed for help, and Heracles, 
quickly recovering his ow, took careful aim and pierced Nessus through 
the breast from half a mile away.
142.j
 Wrenching out the arrow, Nessus told Deianeira: 'If you mix the seed 
which I have spilt on the ground with blood from my wound, add olive 
oil, and secretly anoint Heracles's shirt with the mixture, you will 
never again have cause to complain of his unfaithfulness.' Deianeira 
hurridly collected the ingredients in a jar, which she sealed and kept 
by her without saying a word to Heracles on the subject.
142.k
 Another version of the story is that Nessus offered Deianeira wool 
soaked in his own blood, and told her to weave it into a shirt for 
Heracles. A third version is that he gave her his own blood-stained 
shirt as a love-charm, and then fled to a neighbouring trive of 
Locrians, where he died of the wound; but his body rotted unburied, at 
the foot of Mount Taphiassus, tainting the country with its noisome 
smell - honce these Locrians are called Ozolian ('smelly'). The spring 
beside which he died still smells foetid and contains clots of blood.
142.5
 Nessus's attempted rape of Deianeira recalls the disorderly scenes at 
the wedding of Peirithous, when Theseus (the Ahtenian Heracles) 
intervened to save Hippodameia from assault by the Centaur Eurytion (see 
102.d). Since the Centaurs were originally depicted as goat-men, the 
icon on which the incident is based probably showed the Queen riding on 
the goat-king's back, as she did at the May Eve celebrations of Northern 
Europe, before her sacred marriage; Eurytion is the 'interloper', a 
stock-character made familiar by the comedies of Aristophanes, who still 
appears at Northern Greek marriage festivities. The earliest mythical 
example of the interloper is the same Enkidu: he interrupted Gilgamesh's 
sacred marriage with the Goddess of Erech, and challenged him to battle. 
Another interloper is Agenor, who tried to take Andromeda from Perseus 
at his wedding feast (see 73.l).