Mythology
In Greek myth, Ixion was a king of the Lapiths who murdered his father-in-law. Everyone shunned him, but Zeus took pity on him (at the urging of Ixion's wife Dia, whom Zeus had previously seduced), pardoned him and invited him to a banquet on Mount Olympus. Ixion fell in love with Zeus’ wife Hera and tried to seduce her. To avert this Zeus took a cloud and sculpted it into the likeness of Hera, a nymph named Nephelê. Ixion raped the cloud nymph and then boasted to others he had sex with Hera. The enraged Zeus cast him into Tartarus where he was forever crucified on an ophanim.Nephelê gave birth to a satyr-like beast named Centaurus ("bull-killer"), also known by the patronymic Ixionides, who was hated by gods and men and became the father of the centaurs. Another account relates that the cloud nymph birthed multiple centaurs or ixionidae. The misbegotten Centaurus or centaurs were raised by the nymphs of Pelion (who were the daughters of Chiron, an unrelated centaur), and begot the hippocentaurs ("horse-centaurs") by the Magnesian mares.
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| "Satyr," Conrad Gesner's Historiae Animalium |
From Ixion descend several generations and tribes of centaurs. However, he is not the only progenitor of centaurs. There are several tribes of centaurs mentioned in myth who were unrelated to him. Thus, "centaur" appears to be more of a physical or platonic description than a racial one.
It should be noted that in several accounts the centaurs are called kin to the Lapiths (the people for who Ixion was the king), who they warred with in the Centauromachy (which was thus, ironically, a battle of brothers). Specifically, King Pirithous is outright stated to be a half-brother to the Magnesian centaurs; his own own divine parentage would make him an honorary centaur.
The hero Pirithous was the son of either Ixion or Zeus, or both by telegony; Zeus was in the form of a stallion when he seduced Ixion's wife Dia. (The Ancient Greeks and other cultures believed that a child could have two fathers if they slept with the mother at the same time. Hence, a number of demigods also had mortal fathers.) A folk etymology derives Pirithous' name from the manner in which Zeus seduced Dia. According to Who's Who in Classical Mythology by Adrian Room (p251):
Pirithoüs (or Peirithoüs) was a king of the Lapiths and a close friend of Theseus. He was a son of Zeus by Ixion's wife Dia. The story went that when Zeus was attempting to rape Dia, he ran round her in the guise of a horse. His offspring was thus named for this incident, from peritheio, 'to run round' (peri, 'round' and theo or theio, 'to run'), as if his name was really 'Peritheüs'.
Other accounts of the centaur's parentage claim Ixion himself begat the centaurs on his mares or that Zeus assumed the form of a stallion and begot them on Ixion’s wife Dia. However, I suspect the former is a confusion with the myth of Centaurus siring the hippocentaurs and the latter a confusion with the conception of Pirithous. (Note that "ixionides" may refer to either Centaurus or Pirithous, which might lead to confusion.) Alternately, the latter may be a confusion with the Cyprian centaurs who were the sons of Zeus and Gaia.
The centaurs may have been loosely based on a real tribe from Thessaly that was displaced by the Lapiths. Their name, meaning "bull killers", may have referred to either bull-fighting or herding.
Etymology notes
As we can see, the word "centaur" has multiple meanings in different contexts. It refers alternately to the misbegotten son or sons of Ixion, a generic savage race from Thessaly, and hybrids of a humanoid upper torso and animal lower torso. For the sake of clarity I will refer to the first generation of satyr-like beasts as the ixionidae (singular ixionides, adjectival ixionius).The spelling of "centaur" and its inflections varies by language; sometimes I get confused and use words from multiple languages in the same text. By language these are, in order of masculine singular and plural then feminine singular and plural:
- Greek: kentauros, kentauroi; kentauris, kentaurides
- Latin: centaurus, centauri; centauris, centaurides
- English: centaur, centaurs; centauress, centauresses
Ixionidae in my setting
The ixionidae of Thessaly are a rowdy tribe of beastmen or satyrs descended from the wicked king Ixion and the cloud nymph Nephelê, and later begot the horse-centaurs on the Magnesian mares. The foremost among them is Centaurus, who is the father and/or eldest brother to the others. They have long warred with their Lapith kinsmen.The ixionidae are known for their ability to interbreed with numerous species including humans, horses, seahorses, cattle, etc. Their descendants include various races of centaurs, including horse-centaurs, fish-centaurs, donkey-centaurs, bull-centaurs, etc. They are considered a nuisance by farmers, since they enjoy stealing cattle. However, some of them have been civilized and taught in the ways of Chiron; these stargazers may be of assistance to adventurers.
Research links
- http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix3/centaurs.htm
- http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Kentaurides.html
- http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/KentauroiThessalioi.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurus_(Greek_mythology)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirithous#Early_years
- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/centaur
- https://latinlexicon.org/definition.php?p1=2030988
- https://madmanwrites.wordpress.com/2014/12/05/an-inglorious-life-of-a-demigod-centaur/
- https://pantheon.org/articles/c/centaur.html
- https://pantheon.org/articles/i/ixion.html
- https://pantheon.org/articles/i/ixionides.html
- https://www.ancient.eu/Ixion/
- https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ixion-Greek-mythology
- https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/courses/greekpast/4868.html
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