Centaur in action from the Parthenon, south metopes

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Centaur in action (from the Parthenon, south
metopes)
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The Greek Temple Architectural terms
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Plan of the Parthenon
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Inside the Parthenon

• On Athenas shield
• outside Amazonomachy
• inside Gigantomachy
• On Athenas sandals
• Centauromachy

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Ixion, one of the Great Sinners, is the
grandfather of the Centaurs
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Ixion commits 2 fundamental crimes

• He undermines his own marriage by killing his
  kinsman, his future father-in-law, simply out of
  greediness, in order not to have to give a gift
  in exchange for the bride
• He sins against marriage itself by trying to
  seduce the goddess of marriage, Hera

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Ixions seduction misfires

• Ixion is made to mate with Nephele (cloud)
  i.e., he is made to unite with an illusion,
  something not really there, not real.

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A genealogy founded on illusion and deceit

• Ixion - Nephele
• Centaurus (not a horse) - Mares
• Centaurs

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Anatomy of a split marriage

• Nephele - Ixion - Dia - Zeus
• Centaurus Pirithoos
• (king of the Lapiths)

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A battle between two sets of distant cousins,
Centaurs and Lapiths (pictured here on the west
pediment of the temple of Zeus at Olympia)
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Nessos the paradigmatic bad Centaur
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Chiron educator, healer, the good Centaur
(here pictured receiving young Achilles from
Peleus)
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The Education of Achilles (Eugène Delacroix,
1862)Chiron teaches his most famous pupil the
art of archery
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• Chiron and Achilles (John Singer Sargent, 1922-25)

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• Achilles and the Centaur Chiron. (Pompeo Girolamo
  Batoni, 1746)

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The Parthenons Centaurs
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Satyrs are in a continuous state of sexual
excitement
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South Metopes. Parthenon.