Centaurs

By Gregory Nagy

Can we think of Centaurs as a species?

2019.05.03 | By Gregory Nagy §0. Ιn three previous essays posted in Classical Inquiries, 2019.04.26, 2019.04.19 and 2019.03.22, I analyzed myths about Centaurs. Since they were pictured as half-man and half-horse, we could nowadays think of them as monsters. And, in terms of what we see in pre-classical and classical representations of Centaurs, such monsters were exclusively male, exhibiting the shaggy hormonal characteristics of exaggerated human maleness. Accordingly, Centaurs could… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

How to be a good Centaur

2019.04.26 | By Gregory Nagy §0. In today’s popular thinking, it is all too easy to assume that the Centaurs of Greek mythology are bad, one and all. And such an assumption seems justifiable when we consider the myths that I analyzed in two previous essays posted in Classical Inquiries, 2019.04.19 and 2019.03.22. Yes, Centaurs must be bad, since they are misfits who disrupt society. But the whimsical question posed in… Read more

By Gregory Nagy

About a defeat of the Centaurs, and how to imagine such an event in Olympia

2019.04.19 | By Gregory Nagy §0.This posting, written 2019.04.19, picks up from where I left off in Classical Inquiries 2019.03.22, rewritten 2019.04.17. In the last paragraph of that posting, I focused on a myth that told about a defeat of the Centaurs, beastly hominoids who were half horse, half man. Such a mythological event is pictured in the sculptures of the west pediment of the temple of Zeus in Olympia,… Read more