At the wedding of Peirithous and Hippodameia, wine maddened the centaur Eurytion and the brawl became a war — Caeneus the invulnerable Lapith buried under pines, Theseus fighting with an axe, and the shaggy centaurs driven at last from Mount Pelium.1
The feast and the wine
Peirithous, king of the Lapiths, took Hippodameia to wife and invited the centaurs of Thessaly to the banquet — among them the wise Chiron's wild kindred, born of Ixion's cloud. Homer says it was wine that made foolish even the centaur glorious Eurytion: when his heart was maddened with drink he wrought evil in the house of Peirithous, and grief seized the heroes. Ovid spreads the hall with mixing-bowls and the scent of roasts; the centaurs, unused to feasts of men, reach for the cup until shame turns to violence.2
The bride seized
Eurytion tried to carry off the bride. Pausanias saw the scene on Athens' pediment: Peirithous in the centre, Eurytion seizing the wife of Peirithous, Caeneus bringing help, and on the other side Theseus defending himself against the centaurs with an axe — one centaur clutching a maid, another a youth in his prime. The Athenian hero was among the mightiest Nestor ever named beside Peirithous, Dryas, Caeneus, Exadius, and Polyphemus.3
Caeneus and the pines
Apollodorus tells how Caeneus, once a woman granted invulnerability by Poseidon, killed many centaurs in the fight and scorned their wounds — until the survivors rallied with fir trees and buried him in the earth. Ovid names five centaurs he slew — Styphelus, Bromus, Antimachus, Elymus, and Pyracmos — before Latreus mocked the Lapith and the whole brood drove their living pillar down under the weight of pine.4
Driven from Pelium
The Lapiths won the day. Homer remembers the aftermath in the Catalogue: on the day Peirithous got vengeance on the shaggy centaurs and thrust them from Pelium, glorious Hippodameia conceived Polypoetes to him — son whom Zeus begat, staunch in fight when Troy was besieged. The mountain that had housed Chiron and the wild brood would never again be wholly theirs; the centaur war entered art, epic, and the genealogies of Thessaly.5
· EXEUNT ·
How the centuries saw it
West Pediment of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia (Centauromachy)
Workshop of Olympia (trad. Alcamenes), c. 470–456 BC
Olympia's west pediment — Apollo calm above the Lapith wedding brawl, Eurytion's outrage carved as order versus chaos.
The Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs
Jacob Jordaens, c. 1630–1650
Jordaens' Baroque tumult — Centaurs seize brides, Lapiths strike back, Hippodameia's feast wrecked at the centre.
Combat of the Centaurs and the Lapiths
William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1852
Bouguereau's Salon machine — bodies mid-struggle from Ovid's Metamorphoses XII, the Centauromachy as academic proof.
Perithoos and Hippodameia
Painter of London F272, c. 340–320 BC
Attic volute-krater — Peirithous leads Hippodameia as bride while Lapiths and Centaurs explode into the wedding fight.
The Abduction of Hippodamia
Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (possibly with Auguste Rodin), model 1877–1879
Bronze group — a Centaur rears with Hippodameia locked against his chest, the seizure that ignites the Lapith war.