The battle, called the Centauromachy, was caused by the centaurs' attempt to carry off Hippodamia and the rest of the Lapith women on the day of Hippodamia's marriage to Pirithous, who was the king of the Lapithae and a son of Ixion. The Centaurs are best known for their fight with the Lapiths who, according to one origin myth, would have been cousins to the centaurs. The centaur's half-human, half-horse composition has led many writers to treat them as liminal 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 like Chiron. The Lamian Pheres later accompanied Dionysos in his campaign against the Indians. They were set by Zeus to guard the infant Dionysos, protecting him from the machinations of Hera, but the enraged goddess transformed them into ox-horned Centaurs. There were also the Lamian Pheres, twelve rustic daimones (spirits) of the Lamos river. Unlike those of mainland Greece, the Cyprian centaurs were horned. According to Nonnus, they were fathered by Zeus, who, in frustration after Aphrodite had eluded him, spilled his seed on the ground of that land. In the latter version of the story, Centaurus's twin brother was Lapithes, ancestor of the Lapiths.Īnother tribe of centaurs was said to have lived on Cyprus. Centaurus was either himself the son of Ixion and Nephele (inserting an additional generation) or of Apollo and the nymph Stilbe. Another version, however, makes them children of Centaurus, a man who mated with the Magnesian mares. Ixion seduced Nephele and from that relationship centaurs were created. As the story goes, Nephele was a cloud made into the likeness of Hera in a plot to trick Ixion into revealing his lust for Hera to Zeus.
The centaurs were usually said to have been born of Ixion and Nephele. Centauromachy, tondo of an Attic red-figure kylix, c.