50 Fun Facts About Centaurs

What two creatures combine to make a centaur?

They were said to live in the mountains of northern Greece.

Which Greek region was the centaurs' traditional home?

They roamed Magnesia and Mount Pelion, plus the Foloi oak forest in Elis.

Who were the usual mythical parents of the centaurs?

Nephele was a cloud shaped like Hera, made to expose Ixion's lust.

What was Nephele?

Zeus used her to trick Ixion into revealing his desire for Hera.

What was Ixion's eternal punishment for lusting after Hera?

Zeus ordered Hermes to bind him to the winged wheel in Tartarus.

What does the collective name Ixionidae mean?

An older etymology for kentauros was piercing bull.

In another version, Centaurus fathered the race by mating with what?

His twin brother Lapithes was ancestor of the rival tribe.

What was unusual about the centaurs of Cyprus, according to Nonnus?

Zeus fathered them by spilling his seed after Aphrodite eluded him.

Which tribe fought the centaurs in the Centauromachy?

According to one origin myth the two peoples were cousins.

At whose wedding did the centaurs try to carry off the bride and start the battle?

The bride was Hippodamia; Theseus helped drive the centaurs off.

How did the centaurs kill the invulnerable Lapith hero Caeneus?

No weapon could pierce him, so they hammered him into the ground.

Which Renaissance artist carved the relief Battle of the Centaurs?

The Parthenon metopes by Phidias are the other famous depiction.

On which side of the Parthenon are the Centauromachy metopes?

They are the best preserved; fifteen are in the British Museum.

What is the most common theory for the origin of the centaur myth?

Bernal Díaz reported the Aztecs made the same misapprehension about Spanish cavalry.

Who was Chiron's father?

Cronus took the form of a horse to impregnate the nymph Philyra.

Which god found the abandoned infant Chiron and taught him medicine and archery?

His mother Philyra had abandoned him out of shame.

Which of these heroes was among Chiron's pupils?

Asclepius, Jason, Actaeon and Aristaeus also studied under him.

Whom did Zeus free from punishment when Chiron gave up his immortality?

Chiron had been incurably wounded and chose to die.

What ironic limitation did Chiron, master of healing, face?

Zeus took pity and placed him among the stars.

What smell drove the centaurs mad and into Pholus's cave when Heracles visited?

Heracles slew most of them and the rest fled to Cape Maleas.

How did the peaceful Pholus die?

He dropped it on his foot while marvelling that so small a thing could kill a centaur.

Which centaur tried to violate Heracles' wife Deianeira and was shot by the hero?

His blood, laced with Hydra venom, later killed Heracles.

What poison in the shirt that killed Heracles was actually at work?

Deianeira gave him the shirt, stained with a centaur's blood, fearing he had a new lover.

What did Heracles do to escape the pain of the poisoned shirt?

The Hydra venom cooked him alive.

Which centauress in Ovid killed herself when her husband Cyllarus died in the wedding war?

Female centaurs are absent from early Greek art but appear in later antiquity.

What is a centaur holding a bow called?

The zodiac constellation Sagittarius is Latin for archer.

What is an onocentaur part-human and part what?

Bestiaries often gave it only two legs.

Which two sea personifications are depicted as ichthyocentaurs?

Their names mean sea foam and sea depth.

What was the bucentaur?

Each Ascension Day it carried the doge out to wed Venice to the sea.

Which Florentine painted Pallas and the Centaur around 1482?

The goddess clutches the centaur's hair as he reaches for his bow; it hangs in the Uffizi.

In Dante's Inferno, which centaurs guard the river of boiling blood in the seventh circle?

Another centaur guides Dante and Virgil to a ford.

What did the Hays office demand of the female centaurs in Disney's Fantasia?

The male centaurs were also toned down to seem less intimidating.

Where do the centaurs of the Harry Potter books live?

They are talented archers and healers, proficient in astrology.

How are centaurs who associate with humans regarded by their kind in Harry Potter?

Firenze paid the price for teaching at Hogwarts.

How does Rick Riordan portray most centaurs in Percy Jackson?

Chiron is the exception, running activities at the demigod camp.

In which author's Narnia books are centaurs wise, courageous and gifted in astronomy?

They are also skilled in medicine.

Which globular cluster in Centaurus is the brightest visible from Earth?

It may be the remnant of a dwarf galaxy.

How many stars make up the Alpha Centauri system?

Rigil Kentaurus, Toliman and Proxima Centauri.

How far away is Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun?

Alpha Centauri A and B are the nearest stars visible to the naked eye.

Which constellation do Alpha and Beta Centauri point to as the southern pointer stars?

Alpha Centauri will pass within half a degree of Beta in about 4,000 years.

Between which planets does an astronomical centaur orbit?

They show traits of both asteroids and comets.

Who discovered 2060 Chiron, first of the astronomical centaurs, in 1977?

In 1989 it was found to behave like a comet, and it has rings.

What was the Centaur rocket stage the first to burn?

It has flown since 1962 and still tops the Atlas V and Vulcan.

What lies in the westernmost part of the archer constellation Sagittarius?

Its brighter stars form the Teapot asterism; the constellation is in the southern sky.

Which Roman poet denied centaurs could exist because horses and humans mature at different rates?

In On the Nature of Things he noted a three-year-old horse is in its prime while a human of that age is a child.

Which American novelist's 1963 book The Centaur views a rural Pennsylvania town through the myth?

Its marginalised schoolteacher hero mirrors the wounded, self-sacrificing Chiron.

Which English king's attributed arms showed three lion-centaur sagittaries?

The depiction earned him the nickname 'The Sagittary of London Park'.

In Dante's Purgatorio, the centaurs who fought Theseus are cited as examples of which sin?

An unseen spirit on the sixth terrace calls them 'the drunken double-breasted ones'.

On which mountain did Chiron mainly live with his wife, the nymph Chariclo?

They had three daughters, including Hippe, and a son.

Who was Chiron's mother, making him unrelated to the other centaurs?

His father was the Titan Cronus, which explained his civilised nature.