usage of the heroic ages, promised his father-in-law large nuptial gifts (edva); but he did not keep his engagement, and Deïoneus seized his horses and detained them as a pledge. Ixion then sent to say that the gifts were ready if he would come to fetch them. Deïoneus accordingly came, but his treacherous son-in-law had prepared in his house a pit filled with fire, and covered over with bits of wood and dust, into which the unsuspecting prince fell and perished. After this deed Ixiôn's mind became deranged, and its atrocity being such, neither gods nor men would absolve him, till at length Zeus himself took pity on him and purified him, and admitted him to his house and table on Olympos. But incapable of good, Ixiôn cast an eye of desire on the wife of his benefactor and dared to make love to her. Hera in concert with her lord formed a cloud in the likeness of herself, which Ixiôn embraced. He boasted of his fortune, and Zeus precipitated him to Erebos, where Hermes fixed him with brazen bands to an ever-revolving fiery wheela.

This mythe is probably of great antiquity, as the customs on which it is founded only prevailed in the heroic age. Its chief object seems to have been to inspire horror for the violation of the duties of hospitality on the part of those who, having committed homicide, were admitted to the house and table of the prince, who consented to perform the rites by which the guilt of the offender was supposed to be removed. The most extreme case is given by making Ixiôn, that is the Suppliant, and the first shedder of kindred blood as he is expressly called (the Cain of Greece), act with such base ingratitude toward the king of the gods himself, who, according to the simple earnestness of early mythology, is represented like an earthly prince receiving his suppliant to his house and board. The punishment inflicted was suitable to the offence, and calculated to strike with awe the minds of the hearers,

Sch. II. i. 268. Müller, Eumen. 144;

a Pind. Pyth. ii. 39. seq. Schol. on ver. 39. Hygin. 62. b From "kw to supplicate. See Welcker, Tril. 549. note. the father given him by Eschylus, Antiôn (ávriáw to entreat), and by Pherecydes, Peisiôn (ciow to persuade), fully answers to this character.

Pind. Pyth. ii. 57. Eschyl. Eumen. 714.

for we should always remember that these ancient mythes were articles of real and serious beliefa.

Κένταυροι καὶ Λαπίθαι. Centauri et Lapithæ.

The Centaurs and Lapiths are two mythic tribes which are always mentioned together. The former are spoken of twice in the Ilias under the name of Wild-men (Pipes), and once under their proper name. We also find the name Centaurs in the Odyssey. They seem to have been a rude mountaintribe, dwelling on and about Mount Pelion. There is no ground for supposing that Homer and Hesiod conceived them to be of a mingled form, as they were subsequently represented. In the fight of the Centaurs and Lapiths on the shield of Heracles, the latter appear in panoply fighting with spears, while the former wield pine-clubs. Pindar is the earliest poet extant who describes them as semi-ferine. According to hime the offspring of Ixiôn and the cloud was a son named Centauros, who when grown up wandered about the foot of Pelion, where he copulated with the Magnesian mares, who brought forth the Centaurs, a race partaking of the form of both parents, their lower parts resembling their dams, the upper their sire.

By his wife Dia, Ixiôn had a son named Peirithoös, who married Hippodameia daughter of Adrastos king of Argos. The chiefs of his own tribe, the Lapiths, were all invited to the wedding, as were also the Centaurs, who dwelt in the neighbourhood of Pelion; Theseus, Nestôr, and other strangers, were likewise present. At the feast, Eurytiôn, one of the Centaurs, becoming intoxicated with the wine, attempted to offer violence to the bride; the other Centaurs followed his example, and a dreadful conflict arose, in which several of them were slain. The Centaurs were finally driven from Pelion, and obliged to retire to other regionsf.

According to the earliest version of this legend, Eurytiôn

a Welcker, Tril. 547. seq. Müller, Eumen. 144. seq. b II. i. 268; ii. 742; xi. 832.

d Hes. Shield, 178. seq. See above, p. 109. note (b).

Od. xxi. 303.

e Pyth. ii. 78. seq.

Ovid, Met. xii. 210. seq. He seems to have followed the drama of Æschylus

named the Perrhæbian Women.' Diodor. iv. 70.

the Centaur, being invited to the house of Peirithoös, got drunk and behaved so ill, that the heroes rose and dragging him to the door cut off his ears and nose, which was the occasion of strife between the Centaurs and men'a. In the Catalogue it is said that Hippodameia bore Polypœtes to Peirithoös, the son of Zeus, on the day that he drove the 'shaggy Wild-men' from Pelion to the land of the Ethicans; and Nestor says se that he came from Pylos at the invitation of the Lapith chiefs to aid them against the Wild-men, whom they routed with great slaughter. From all this we may collect the tradition of a protracted conflict between the rude Centaurs and the more civilised Lapiths, which ended in the expulsion of the former. When Heracles was on his way to hunt the Erymanthian boar, he was entertained by the Centaur Pholos; and this gave rise to a conflict between him and the other Centaurs, which terminated in the total discomfiture of the latterd.

One of the most celebrated of the Lapiths was Cæneus, who was said to have been originally a maiden named Cænis. Poseidon having violated her, she prayed him as a compensation to turn her into a man, and grant that she should be invulnerable. The god assented, and in the fight between the Centaurs and Lapiths, the former finding it impossible to wound Cæneus kept striking him with 'green pines,' and the earth finally opened and swallowed him. It is also said that Cæneus, filled with confidence in his strength and invulnerability, set up his spear in the market and ordered the people to worship it as a god; for which act of impiety Zeus punished him by the hands of the Centaursg.

The most celebrated of the Centaurs was Cheirôn, the son

a Od. xxi. 295. seq.

d See below, chap. iv. Heracles.

* Ovid. Met. xii. 189. seq. Virg. Æn. vi. 448. (Serv. in loc.) Eudocia, 249.

f

Ὁ δὲ χλωρῇς ἐλάτῃσι τυπεὶς

Ωχετο Καινεύς, σχίσας ὀρθῷ ποδὶ γᾶν.

Pind. Fr. Incert, 148.

Apoll. Rh. i. 59. seq. Orph. Argonaut. 168. seq. It was probably from this circumstance that the father of Cæneus is named Elatos; his own name (from Kaivòs new) refers to his metamorphose.

Sch. Il. i. 264. Eudocia, 249.

of Kronos by the nymph Philyraa. He is called by Homerb 'the most upright of the Centaurs.' He reared lasôn and his son Medeios, Heracles, Asclepios, and Achilleus, and was famous for his skill in surgery, which he taught the two last heroes. But having been accidentally wounded by one of Heracles' poisoned arrows, he suffered extreme pain, till, on his prayer to Zeus for relief, he was raised to the sky and made the constellation of the Bowmand.

It is the opinion of Buttmanne that the Centaurs and the Lapiths are two purely poetic names, used to designate two opposite races of men;-the former, the rude horse-riding tribes which tradition records to have been spread over the north of Greece; the latter, the more civilised race, which founded towns, and gradually drove their wild neighbours back into the mountains. He therefore thinks the exposition of Centaurs as Air-piercers (from KEVтεîv Tηv avpav) not an improbable one, for that very idea is suggested by the figure of a Cossack leaning forward with his protruded lance as he gallops along. But he regards the idea of KéνTaupos having been in its origin simply κévтwpf as much more probable. Lapiths may, he thinks, have signified Stone-persuaders (from λâas πeilei), a poetic appellation for the builders of towns. He supposes Hippodameia, as her name seems to intimate, to have been a Centauress, married to the prince of the Lapiths, and thus accounts for the Centaurs having been at the wedding.

Mülleri regards the Lapiths as being the same people with the Phlegyans, shortly to be described.

a Above, p. 69.

b II. xi. 832.

Χειρουργία: the name Χείρων plainly comes from χείρ.

d Ovid, Fasti. v. 379. seq. Hygin. P. A. ii. 38.

• Mythologus, ii. 22.

* Like διάκτορος, αλάστορος. He holds the word λάσταυρος, which he regards as a correption of λάστωρ (from λᾶν to desire), to be perfectly parallel to κένταυpos. Weicker (Kret. Kol. 34. note) approves of this etymon.

The Dioscuri were for an opposite reason called Aaréρoa (Frag. Soph. apud Stob.).

See Sch. Od. xxi. 303.

i Orchom. 195.

Κήϋξ καὶ ̔Αλκυόνη. Ceyr et Halcyone.

Ceyx was the son of Morning-star ('Ewopópos), and king of Trachis. He married Halcyone a daughter of Æolos the son of Deucalion. Pride, it is said, caused the ruin of both. He called his wife Hera, and was by her styled Zeus in return. Zeus indignant at their impiety turned them both into birds, making him a sea-gull (kýü§), and her a king-fisher (ἁλκυών) 2.

Another version of this legend says, that Ceÿx going to Claros to consult the oracle of Apollo perished by shipwreck, and that his wife on finding his lifeless body on the strand cast herself into the sea. The gods out of compassion changed them both into the birds called Halcyons. During seven days of winter the Halcyon sits on her eggs, more she feeds her young on the surface of the sea, which then is calm and free from storm, and these are called the Halcyon-days c.

and during seven

In this last legend and in all (except the preceding one) relating to him, Ceyx bears a gentle and amiable character.

Ceyx is introduced into the mythe of Heracles, whose friend he is said to have been. The Marriage of Ceyx (Tápos Kýükos) was a celebrated event in that hero's history, and the subject of a poem ascribed to Hesiod. The splendid robe also, which when poisoned by Deïaneira caused the death of the hero, was the gift of Ceÿx.

The fable of Ceÿx and Halcyone is apparently one of those legends, of which we have seen so many examples, devised to account for the names, habits, and properties of animals. Yet as Ceyx seems to belong to a very ancient mythic cycle, it is not unlikely that it was the resemblance of his name to that of the bird that caused his wife to be called Halcyone, and the legend above to be invented.

a

C

Apollod. i. 7. 4. Sch. Aristoph. Birds, 250.

Ovid, Met. xi. 410. seq. Hygin. 65.

Sch. Aristoph. ut sup. Sch. Theocr. vii. 57. Eudocia and Suidas, v. áλкvóv. pep. Plut. de Sol. Anim. 35. Plin. H. N. ii. 47.

See Müller, Dor. i. 542.