CENTAURS (Gr. KEvravpoi), in Greek mythology, a race of beings part horse, part man, dwelling in the mountains of Thes saly and Arcadia. The centaurs are usually said to be the off spring of Ixion and Nephele. They are best known for their fight with the Lapithae, caused by their attempt to carry off Deidameia on the day of her marriage to Peirithous, king of the Lapithae, himself the son of Ixion. In later times they are often represented drawing the car of Dionysus, or bound and ridden by Eros, in allusion to their drunken and amorous habits. Their gen eral character is that of wild, lawless and inhospitable beings, the slaves of their animal passions, with the exception of Pholus and Cheiron.
They are variously explained by a fancied resemblance to the shapes of clouds, or as spirits of the rushing mountain torrents or winds, etc. Perhaps the likeliest suggestion is that they are a distorted recollection of some savage tribe, reputed by its neigh bours to be composed of monsters. Like the defeat of the Titans by Zeus, the contests with the Centaurs typified the struggle between civilization and barbarism. In early art they were repre sented as human beings in front, with the body and hind legs of a horse attached to the back; later, they were men only as far as the waist.
See Roscher's Lexikon, s.v. Kentauren.