In Greek mythology, the Lapiths were a semi-legendary, semi-historical race, whose home was in Thessaly in the valley of the Peneus. Like the Myrmidons and other Thessalian tribes, the Lapiths were pre-Hellenic in their origins. The genealogies make them a kindred race with the Centaurs. In one version, Lapithus and Centaurus were said to be twin sons of the god Apollo and the nymph Stilbe, daughter of the River God Peneus. Lapithes was a valiant warrior, but Centaurus was a deformed being who later mated with mares, from whom the half-man, half-horse Centaurs sprang. Lapithus was the ancestor of the Lapith race, and his descendents include Lapith warriors and kings, such as Ixion, Pirithous, Caeneus, and Coronus, and the seers Idmon and Mopsus. // Greek mythology consists in part of a large collection of narratives that explain the origins of the world and detail the lives and adventures of a wide variety of gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines. ... Map showing Thessaly periphery in Greece Thessaly (Θεσσαλια; modern Greek Thessalía; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is one of the 13 peripheries of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 prefectures. ... In Greek mythology, Peneus (Πηνειός) was a river god, one of the three-thousand Rivers, a child of Oceanus and Tethys. ... The Myrmidons (or Μυρμιδόνες, the name literally means ant-people) were an ancient nation of Greek mythology. ... See also centaur (planetoid), Centaur (rocket stage) Guido Reni, Abduction of Deianira, 1620-21 In Greek mythology, the centaurs (Greek: Κένταυροι) are a race part human and part horse, with a horses body and a human head and torso (illustration, right). ... In Greek mythology, Centaurus was the founder of the Centaur race - a breed of half-men, half-horse warriors that inhabited northern Greece. ... Lycian Apollo, early Imperial Roman copy of a fourth century Greek original (Louvre Museum) In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo (Ancient Greek , Apóllōn; or Ἀπέλλων, Apellōn), the ideal of the kouros, was the archer-god of medicine and healing and also a bringer of death-dealing plague; as... See also centaur (planetoid), Centaur (rocket stage) Guido Reni, Abduction of Deianira, 1620-21 In Greek mythology, the centaurs (Greek: Κένταυροι) are a race part human and part horse, with a horses body and a human head and torso (illustration, right). ... This article is about the Greek myth. ... In Greek mythology, Pirithous (also transliterated as Perithoos or Peirithoos) was the King of the Lapiths and husband of Hippodamia. ... In Greek mythology, Caeneus was originally a Thessalonian woman, Caenis, the daughter of Elatus. ... In Greek mythology, Coronus was the son of Caeneus. ... In Greek mythology, Idmon was a seer who knew he would die if he joined the Argonauts. ... In Greek mythology, Mopsus was the name of two famous seers: Mopsus, son of Manto and Rhacius or Apollo Mopsus, a celebrated prophet, son of Manto and Rhacius or Apollo. ...

Battle of Centaurs and Lapiths, by Piero di Cosimo

Perithous' mother was Dia, daughter of Eioneus, but like many heroic figures, Pirithous had an immortal as well as a mortal father. Zeus was his immortal father, but the god had to assume a stallion's form to cover Dia (Diodorus Siculus, iv.70) for, like their half-horse cousins, the Lapiths were horsemen in the grasslands of Thessaly, famous for its horses. The Lapiths were credited with inventing the bridle's bit. In fact, their king Pirithous was marrying the horsewoman Hippodameia, "tamer of horses", at the wedding feast a battle made famous. In the Iliad the Lapiths sent forty manned ships, commanded by Polypoetes (son of Pirithous) and Leonteus (son of Coronus, son of Caeneus). Dia (bright sky) in Greek mythology was the mother of the Lapith Pirithous, whose marriage to Hippodameia was the occasion of the Lapiths battle with the Centaurs. ... Diodorus Siculus (c. ... In Greek mythology, Hippodamia was the bride of King Pirithous of the Lapiths. ... The Iliad (Ancient Greek , Ilias) is, together with the Odyssey, one of two ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer, a supposedly blind Ionian poet. ... In Greek mythology, Polypoites or Polypoetes (Greek: Πολυποίτης) was the name of several individuals: Polypoites was a son of Hippodamia and Pirithous. ...

Centauromachy

The best-known legend with which the Lapiths are connected is their battle with the Centaurs at the wedding feast of Pirithous, the Centauromachy. The Centaurs had been invited, but, unused to wine, their wild nature came to the fore. When the bride was presented to greet the guests, the centaur Eurytion leapt up and attempted to rape her. All the other centaurs were up in a moment, straddling women and boys. In the battle that ensued, Theseus came to the Lapiths' aid. They cut off Eurytion's ears and nose and threw him out. In the battle the Lapith Cæneus was killed, and the defeated Centaurs were expelled from Thessaly to the northwest. In Greek mythology, Eurytion referred to three different people. ...

Caeneus was a well-known Lapith, originally a girl named Cænis or Caenis and the favourite of Poseidon, who changed her into a man at her request and made her an invulnerable warrior. Such warrior women, indistinguishable from men, were familiar among the Scythian horsemen too (see the entry "Amazons") and survive among Albanian traditions. In the Centaur battle, Caeneus proved invulnerable, until the Centaurs simply crushed him with rocks and trunks of trees, he disappeared into the depths of the earth unharmed and was released as a sandy-headed bird. In Greek mythology, Caeneus was originally a Thessalonian woman, Caenis, the daughter of Elatus. ... Neptune reigns in the city centre, Bristol, formerly the largest port in England outside London. ... Scythia was an area in Eurasia inhabited in ancient times by an Indo-Aryans known as the Scythians. ... In Greek mythology, the Amazons () were either an ancient legendary nation of female warriors or a land dominated by women at the outer edges of their known world. ... Albanian myths can be divided into two major groups: legends of metamorphosis and historical legends. ... In mythology chthonic (from Greek χθονιος-pertaining to the earth; earthy) designates, or pertains to, gods or spirits of the underworld, especially in Greek mythology. ...

In later contests the Centaurs were not so easily beaten. Mythic references explained the presence into historic times of primitive Lapiths in Malea and in the brigand stronghold of Pholoe in Elis as remnants of groups driven there by the Centaurs. Some historic Greek cities bore names connected with Lapiths, and the Kypselides of Corinth claimed descent from Cæneus, while the Phylaides of Attica claimed for progenitor Koronus the Lapith [1]. Cape Malea is a peninsula found in the southeast of the Peloponnese in Greece. ... Elis, or Eleia (Greek, Modern: Ήλιδα Ilida, Ancient/Katharevousa: Ήλις, also Ilis, Doric: Άλις) is an ancient district within the modern prefecture of Ilia. ...

As Greek myth became more mediated through philosophy, the battle between Lapiths and Centaurs took on aspects of the interior struggle between civilized and wild behavior, made concrete in the Lapiths' understanding of the right usage of god-given wine, which must be tempered with water and drunk not to excess. The Greek sculptors of the school of Pheidias conceived of the battle of the Lapithae and Centaurs as a struggle between mankind and mischievous monsters, and symbolical of the great conflict between the civilized Greeks and Persian "barbarians". Battles between Lapiths and Centaurs were depicted in the sculptured friezes on the Parthenon, recalling Athenian Theseus' treaty of mutual admiration with Pirithous the Lapith, leader of the Magnetes, and on Zeus' temple at Olympia (Pausanias, v.10.2). The Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs was a familiar symposium theme for the vase-painters [2]. Wine is an alcoholic beverage produced by the fermentation of the juice of fruits, usually grapes. ... Phidias, (or Pheidias), son of Charmides, (circa 490 BC - circa 430 BC) was an ancient Greek sculptor, universally regarded as the greatest of Greek sculptors. ... The Persian Empire was a series of historical empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau (Irān - Land of the Aryans) and beyond. ... // The word barbarian generally refers to an uncivilized, uncultured person, either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos perceived as having an inferior level of civilization, or in an individual reference to a brutal, cruel, insensitive person whose behavior is unacceptable in a civilized society. ... // The Parthenon seen from the hill of the Pnyx to the west. ... Theseus (Greek ) was a legendary king of Athens, son of Aethra, and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, with whom Aethra lay in one night. ... Ancient Greek tribe of the Thessalian Magnesia who took part in the Trojan War. ... Olympia (Greek: Ολυμπία Olympía or Ολύμπια Olýmpia, older transliterations, Olimpia, Olimbia), a city of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi. ... Pausanias was a Greek traveller and geographer of the 2nd century A.D., who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. ... Originally, the term symposium referred to a drinking party; the Greek verb sympotein means to drink together. The term has since come to refer to any academic conference, irrespective of drinking. ... Krater (mixing bowl), 6th century BC, National Archaeological Museum, Athens The pottery of ancient Greece is one of the most tangible and iconic elements of ancient Greek art. ...

A sonnet vividly evoking the battle by the French poet José María de Heredia (1842 – 1905) was included in his volume Les Trophées [3]. José María de Heredia (November 22, 1842 - October 3, 1905), French poet, the modern master of the French sonnet, was born at Fortuna Cafeyere, near Santiago de Cuba, being in blood part Spanish Creole and part French. ...

Ovid Metamorphoses XII passim; Odyssey XXI, 330 – 340. Engraved frontispiece of George Sandyss 1632 London edition of Publius Ovidius Naso (Sulmona, March 20, 43 BC â€“ Tomis, now Constanta AD 17) Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. ... Odysseus and Nausicaä - by Charles Gleyre The Odyssey (Greek: , Odusseia) is one of the two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to the poet Homer. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Lapiths

• Hellenic tribes
• Carlos Parada, "Lapiths": an annotated list of Lapith names, mainly in Metamorphoses, and some Lapith descendants
• The Battle painted on Greek vases

In the Renaissance, the battle became a favorite theme for artists : an excuse to display close-packed bodies in violent confrontation. The young Michelangelo executed a marble bas-relief of the subject in Florence about 1492 [4]. Piero di Cosimo's panel now at the National Gallery, London (NG4890) painted during the following decade, if it was originally part of a marriage chest, or cassone, was perhaps an uneasy subject for a festive wedding commemoration. Image File history File links Commons-logo. ... Wikimedia Commons logo by Reid Beels The Wikimedia Commons (also called Commons or Wikicommons) is a repository of free content images, sound and other multimedia files. ... Raphael was famous for depicting illustrious figures of the Classical past with the features of his Renaissance contemporaries. ... Chalk portrait of Michelangelo by Daniele da Volterra Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (March 6, 1475 – February 18, 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, Renaissance architect and poet. ... Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci (c. ... The National Gallery from Trafalgar Square The National Gallery is an art gallery in London, located on the north side of Trafalgar Square. ... The cassone (large chest) was one of the trophy furnishings of rich merchants and aristocrats in Italian culture, from the late Middle Ages onward. ...