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50-449: The word dragon derives from the Greek δράκων (drakōn) and its Latin cognate draco . Ancient Greeks applied the term to large, constricting snakes. The Greek drakōn was far more associated with poisonous spit or breath than the modern Western dragon, though fiery breath is still attested in a few myths. There is also the drakaina , the specifically female form or "she-dragon." The drakaina

100-837: A Bronze Age origin for these creatures of myth. A painted terracotta centaur was found in the "Hero's tomb" at Lefkandi , and by the Geometric period , centaurs figure among the first representational figures painted on Greek pottery. An often-published Geometric period bronze of a warrior face-to-face with a centaur is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art . In Greek art of the Archaic period , centaurs are depicted in three different forms. There are also paintings and motifs on amphorae and Dipylon cups which depict winged centaurs. Centaurs were also frequently depicted in Roman art. One example

150-630: A bow is referred to as a sagittarius . Jerome's version of the Life of St Anthony the Great , written by Athanasius 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 in The Meeting of St Anthony Abbot and St Paul

200-574: A fierce and valiant race always faithful to the High King Aslan the Lion. In J.K. Rowling 's Harry Potter series, centaurs live in the Forbidden Forest close to Hogwarts , preferring to avoid contact with humans. They live in societies called herds and are skilled at archery, healing, and astrology, but like in the original myths, they are known to have some wild and barbarous tendencies. With

250-456: A fire-breathing dragon on his shoulders, arriving to punish a sinner who has just cursed God. In his Purgatorio , an unseen spirit on the sixth terrace cites the centaurs ("the drunken double-breasted ones who fought Theseus") as examples of the sin of gluttony . C.S. Lewis ' The Chronicles of Narnia series depicts centaurs as the wisest and noblest of creatures. Narnian Centaurs are gifted at stargazing, prophecy, healing, and warfare;

300-524: A human woman. Lamia , Campe , Echidna , and many representations of Ceto , Scylla , and Delphyne had the head and torso of a woman. Medusa is also mentioned as a drakaina while also emphasizing her human aspects; rather than a drakaina alone, it has been argued that she is a woman who has been fused with a dragon. The drakaina was a sacred female spirit dragon generally slain only by gods or demigods . Zeus slew Delphyne and Campe, Apollo slew Python, and Argus Panoptes slew Echidna. Echidna

350-483: A proud, elitist group of beings that consider themselves superior to all other creatures. The fourth book also has a variation on the species called an Alcetaur, which is part man, part moose. The myth of the centaur appears in John Updike 's novel The Centaur . 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

400-540: A relief by Michelangelo . 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 suggests that such riders would appear as half-man, half-animal. Bernal Díaz del Castillo reported that the Aztecs also had this misapprehension about Spanish cavalrymen. The Lapith tribe of Thessaly, who were

450-494: 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, and Nessus guides them to a ford. In Canto XXIV, in the eighth circle, in Bolgia 7, a ditch where thieves are confined, they meet but do not converse with Cacus (who is a giant in the ancient sources), wreathed in serpents and with

500-665: A study human skeleton with the skeleton of a Shetland 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. Depictions of centaurs in a mythical land located south beyond the world's known continents appear on a map by Urbano Monti from 1587, sometimes called Monti's Planisphere. Centaurs are common in European heraldry, although more frequent in continental than in British arms. A centaur holding

550-482: A transfer the Greeks' own myth-world was a tabula rasa ", which he calls absurd; only Typhon's Near Eastern origins are, in his view, plausible. Typhon was a fearsome monster of Greek mythology , the last son of Gaia. He is usually envisioned as humanoid from the waist up, serpentine below, almost the size of a mountain. With his mate Echidna , he would father many monsters. Later, he would attempt to overthrow Zeus for

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600-484: Is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse that was said to live in the mountains of Thessaly . In one version of the myth, the centaurs were named after Centaurus , and, through his brother Lapithes , were kin to the legendary tribe of the Lapiths . Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as being as wild as untamed horses, and were said to have inhabited

650-464: Is a female serpent or dragon , sometimes with humanlike features. Examples of the drakaina included Campe , Delphyne , Echidna and Sybaris . Python, slain by Apollo , and the earliest representations of Delphyne are shown as simply gigantic serpents, similar to other Greek dragons . However, although the word "drakaina" is literally the feminine form of drakon ( Ancient Greek for dragon or serpent ), most drakainas had some features of

700-587: Is occasionally treated differently from the more common masculine or gender-neutral drakōn , often surviving by mating with a hero or being the ancestress of an important lineage. Daniel Ogden speaks of three ways to explain the origins of Greek dragon myths: as vertical evolution from (reconstructed) Proto-Indo-European mythology , as horizontal adaptation from Ancient Near Eastern mythology, or as sitting within "the cloud of international folktale". Regarding theories of horizontal transmission, Ogden argues that they carry "an unspoken assumption that prior to such

750-717: 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. A centaur-like half-human, half-equine creature called Polkan appeared in Russian folk art and lubok prints of the 17th–19th centuries. Polkan is originally based on Pulicane , a half-dog from Andrea da Barberino 's poem I Reali di Francia , which was once popular in the Slavonic world in prosaic translations. The extensive Mycenaean pottery found at Ugarit included two fragmentary Mycenaean terracotta figures which have been tentatively identified as centaurs. This finding suggests

800-626: Is the pair of centaurs drawing the chariot of Constantine 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. Centaurs preserved a Dionysian connection in the 12th-century Romanesque carved capitals of Mozac Abbey in the Auvergne . Other similar capitals depict harvesters, boys riding goats (a further Dionysiac theme), and griffins guarding

850-561: The Gigantes . Philip Jose Farmer 's World of Tiers series (1965) includes centaurs, called Half-Horses or Hoi Kentauroi. His creations address several of the metabolic problems of such creatures—how could the human mouth and nose intake sufficient air to sustain both itself and the horse body and, similarly, how could the human ingest sufficient food to sustain both parts. Brandon Mull 's Fablehaven series features centaurs that live in an area called Grunhold. The centaurs are portrayed as

900-451: The Harpies and Scylla . ) Centaur A centaur ( / ˈ s ɛ n t ɔːr , ˈ s ɛ n t ɑːr / SEN -tor, SEN -tar ; Ancient Greek : κένταυρος , romanized :  kéntauros ; Latin : centaurus ), occasionally hippocentaur , also called Ixionidae ( Ancient Greek : Ἰξιονίδαι , romanized :  Ixionídai , lit.   'sons of Ixion '),

950-697: The Lamian Pheres , twelve rustic daimones (spirits) of the Lamos river . 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 unrelated to the Cyprian Centaurs. The Lamian Pheres later accompanied Dionysos in his campaign against the Indians. The centaur's half-human, half-horse composition has led many writers to treat them as liminal beings , caught between

1000-639: The Pythia , after the place-name Pytho, which was named after the rotting (πύθειν) of the serpent's corpse after it was slain. Known as the Dragon of Colchis or the Colchian Dragon ( Greek : Δρακων Κολχικος , Drakôn Kolkhikos ), this immense serpent, a child of Typhon and Echidna , guarded the Golden Fleece at Colchis . It was said to never sleep, rest, or lower its vigilance. According to Ovid's Metamorphoses ,

1050-548: The chalice that held the wine. Centaurs are also shown on a number of Pictish carved stones from north-east Scotland erected in the 8th–9th centuries AD (e.g., at Meigle , Perthshire). Though outside the limits of the Roman Empire , these depictions appear to be derived from Classical prototypes. The John C. Hodges library at The University of Tennessee hosts a permanent exhibit of a "Centaur from Volos " in its library. The exhibit, made by sculptor Bill Willers by combining

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1100-541: The 3rd millennium BC. In a popular legend associated with Pazhaya Sreekanteswaram Temple in Thiruvananthapuram , the curse of a saintly Brahmin transformed a handsome Yadava 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 from Indian mythology , appeared in various ancient texts, arts, and sculptures from all around India . It

1150-577: The Hermit by the painter Stefano di Giovanni , who was known as "Sassetta". Of the two episodic depictions of the hermit 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 poem On 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

1200-425: 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. Centaurs are among the creatures which 14th-century Italian poet Dante placed as guardians in his Inferno . In Canto XII, Dante and his guide Virgil meet a band led by Chiron and Pholus , guarding the bank of Phlegethon in the seventh circle of Hell,

1250-584: The country, and he came to the land called the Hylaea ( Greek : Ὑλαίην ), and there he found in a cave the creature, which was the queen of that country. She insisted the hero mate with her before she would return them. He did so and through her became the ancestor of an ancient line of Scythian kings. It may have identified with the Echidna . A dragon that was thrown at Athena during the Gigantomachy . She threw it into

1300-521: The dragon was called Delphyne . Delphyne was often pictured as being half girl and half snake. There are various versions of Python's birth and death at the hands of Apollo. In the earliest, the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, little detail is given about Apollo's combat with the serpent or its parentage. The version related by Hyginus holds that when Zeus lay with the goddess Leto, and she was to deliver Artemis and Apollo, Hera sent Python to pursue her throughout

1350-611: 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. The Centauromachy is most famously portrayed in the metopes of the Parthenon by Phidias and in the Battle of the Centaurs ,

1400-525: The exception of Chiron , the centaurs in Rick Riordan 's Percy Jackson & the Olympians are seen as wild party-goers who use a lot of American slang. Chiron retains his mythological role as a trainer of heroes and is skilled in archery. In Riordan's subsequent series, Heroes of Olympus , another group of centaurs are depicted with more animalistic features (such as horns) and appear as villains, serving

1450-457: The heavens as the constellation Cancer . After slaying the serpent, Heracles buried the immortal head under a rock and dipped his arrows in the creature's blood to make them fatal to his enemies. In one version, the poisoned arrows would eventually prove to be the undoing of his centaur tutor Chiron , who was placed in the heavens as the constellation Centaurus . In another version, he would never be able to use these arrows because of his fear of

1500-434: The hero into a serpent . According to Apollodorus , the sun god Helios had a chariot, drawn by "winged dragons", which he gave to his granddaughter Medea . She was a woman from the waist up with a serpent's tail in place of legs. When Heracles was traveling through Scythia with the cattle of Geryon , she stole some of the herd when the hero was sleeping. When Heracles woke he searched for them, visiting every part of

1550-523: The horse as a totem . A similar theory was incorporated into Mary Renault 's The Bull from the Sea . Though female centaurs, called centaurides or centauresses, are not mentioned in early Greek literature and art, they do appear occasionally in later antiquity. A Macedonian mosaic of the 4th century BC is one of the earliest examples of the centauress in art. Ovid also mentions a centauress named Hylonome who committed suicide when her husband Cyllarus

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1600-455: The immortal head was made of gold. It lived in a swamp near Lerna and frequently terrorized the townsfolk until it was slain by Heracles , who cut the heads off, with the help of his nephew Iolaus , who then singed the oozing stump with a blazing firebrand to prevent any new heads from growing, as the second of his Twelve Labors . Hera sent a giant crab to distract Heracles , but he simply crushed it under his foot. Hera then placed it in

1650-477: 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. Robert Graves (relying on the work of Georges Dumézil , who argued for tracing the centaurs back to the Indian Gandharva ), speculated that the centaurs were a dimly remembered, pre-Hellenic fraternal earth cult who had

1700-431: The lands, so that she could not be delivered wherever the sun shone. Thus when the infant was grown he pursued the python, making his way straight for Mount Parnassus where the serpent dwelled, and chased it to the oracle of Gaia at Delphi, and dared to penetrate the sacred precinct and kill it with his arrows beside the rock cleft where the priestess sat on her tripod. The priestess of the oracle at Delphi became known as

1750-465: The monster had a crest and three tongues. When Jason went to retrieve the Fleece, the witch Medea put the dragon to sleep with her magic and drugs, or perhaps Orpheus lulled it to sleep with his lyre . Afterwards, Medea herself had dragons pull her chariot. The Ismenian Serpent, of the spring of Ismene at Thebes, Greece , was slain by the hero Cadmus. It was the offspring of Ares , who later turned

1800-450: 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. Other hybrid creatures appear in Greek mythology, always with some liminal connection that links Hellenic culture with archaic or non-Hellenic cultures: Also, Additionally, Bucentaur , the name of several historically important Venetian vessels,

1850-555: The nymph Stilbe . In the latter version of the story, Centaurus's twin brother was Lapithes , ancestor of the Lapiths . Another tribe of centaurs was said to have lived on Cyprus . According to Nonnus , the Cyprian Centaurs were fathered by Zeus , who, in frustration after Aphrodite had eluded him, spilled his seed on the ground of that land. Unlike those of mainland Greece, the Cyprian centaurs were ox-horned. There were also

1900-601: The offspring of " Ceto , joined in love with Phorcys " ( Hesiod , Theogony 333) or of Typhon , who was himself serpent-like from the waist down, and Echidna ( Bibliotheke 2.113; Hyginus , Preface to Fabulae ) or of Gaia herself, or in her Olympian manifestation, Hera : "The Dragon which guarded the golden apples was the brother of the Nemean lion ," asserted Ptolemy Hephaestion (recorded in his New History V, lost but epitomized in Photius , Myriobiblion 190). The Lernaean Hydra

1950-472: The poison spreading through the land and poisoning the water and crops. In Greek mythology Python was the earth-dragon of Delphi, always represented in the vase-paintings and by sculptors as a serpent . Various myths represented Python as being either male or female (a drakaina ). Python was the chthonic enemy of Apollo, who slew it and remade its former home his own oracle, the most famous in Greece. In some myths

2000-676: The region of Magnesia and Mount Pelion in Thessaly, the Foloi oak forest in Elis , and the Malean peninsula in southern Laconia . Centaurs are subsequently featured in Roman mythology , and were familiar figures in the medieval bestiary. They remain a staple of modern fantastic literature. The Greek word kentauros is generally regarded as being of obscure origin. The etymology from ken + tauros , 'piercing bull',

2050-510: 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. 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. Another Lapith hero, Caeneus , who was invulnerable to weapons, was beaten into

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2100-460: The sky where it became the constellation Draco . Two huge sea-serpents from Tenedos sent by various gods to kill Laocoön and his sons in order to stop him from telling his people that the Wooden Horse was a trap. Drakaina (mythology) In Greek mythology , a drakaina ( Ancient Greek : δράκαινα , Latinized [dracaena] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |labels= ( help ) )

2150-510: The title of ruler of the cosmos. Zeus would hurl an enormous rock on him to beat him. Typhon is a reptilian dragon with legs and wings, and he breathes fire from his mouth and eyes. Ladon was the serpent-like drakon (dragon, a word more commonly used) that twined round the tree in the Garden of the Hesperides and guarded the golden apples . Ladon was also said to have as many as one hundred heads. He

2200-488: 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 Centaurs are best known for their fight with the Lapiths 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 off Hippodamia and

2250-474: Was a euhemerist suggestion in Palaephatus ' rationalizing text on Greek mythology, On Incredible Tales (Περὶ ἀπίστων), which included mounted archers from a village called Nephele eliminating a herd of bulls that were the scourge of Ixion's kingdom. Another possible related etymology can be "bull-slayer". The centaurs were usually said to have been born of Ixion and Nephele . As the story goes, Nephele

2300-457: Was a cloud made into the likeness of Hera in a plot to trick Ixion into revealing his lust for Hera to Zeus . Ixion seduced Nephele and from that relationship centaurs were created. Another version, however, makes them children of Centaurus , a man who mated with the Magnesian mares. Centaurus was either himself the son of Ixion and Nephele (inserting an additional generation) or of Apollo and

2350-413: Was a dragon-like water serpent with fatally venomous breath, blood and fangs, a daughter of Typhon and Echidna . The creature was said to have anywhere between five and 100 heads, although most sources put the number somewhere between seven and nine. For each head cut off, one or two more grew back in its place. It had an immortal head which would remain alive after it was cut off. Some accounts claim that

2400-489: Was killed in the war with the Lapiths. The Kalibangan cylinder seal , dated to be around 2600–1900 BC, found at the site of Indus-Valley civilization shows a battle between men in the presence of centaur-like creatures. Other sources claim the creatures represented are actually half human and half tigers, later evolving into the Hindu Goddess of War . These seals are also evidence of Indus-Mesopotamia relations in

2450-569: Was overcome and possibly slain by Heracles. After a few years, the Argonauts passed by the same spot, on their chthonic return journey from Colchis at the opposite end of the world, and heard the lament of "shining" Aigle, one of the Hesperides, and viewed the still-twitching Ladon ( Argonautica , book iv). The creature is associated with the constellation Draco . Ladon was given several parentages, each of which placed him at an archaic level in Greek myth:

2500-713: Was the mate of Typhon and the mother of a huge brood of monsters, including other dragon-like creatures. According to Hesiod , Echidna gave birth to Cerberus , Orthrus , the Chimera , the Nemean lion , the Sphinx , and the Hydra . Other ancient authors, such as Hyginus , attribute even more monsters as children of Echidna such as the Caucasian eagle , the Crommyonian Sow , the Colchian dragon ,

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