page_title: Centaur
section_title: Origin of the myth
hierarchical_section_title: Centaur / Origin of the myth
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Archäologisches Nationalmuseum, Neapel. Der Zentaur Chiron lehrt Achilles auf dem Fresko das Lyra-Spiel.English: The centaur Chiron teaching Achilles how to play the lyre, Roman fresco from Herculaneum, National Archaeological Museum of Naples.
context_page_description: A centaur, or occasionally hippocentaur, is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse. Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as being as wild as untamed horses, and were said to have inhabited 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.
context_section_description: 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 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 the horse as a totem. A similar theory was incorporated into Mary Renault's The Bull from the Sea.
caption: Chiron teaching Achilles how to play the lyre, a Roman fresco from Herculaneum, 1st century AD.
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