Among the Centaurs, Chiron, who was famous alike for his wisdom and his knowledge of medicine, deserves mention as the preceptor of many of the heroes of antiquity. So far superior was he to his savage kindred, both in education and manners, that he was commonly reported to have had a different origin, and was therefore described as a son of Cronus and Philyra, or Phyllira, one of the Oceanids. Homer, who knew nothing of the equine shape of the Centaurs, represents him as the most upright of the Centaurs, and makes him the friend of Peleus and the preceptor of the youthful Achilles, whom he instructed in the art of healing and gymnastic exercises. He was, moreover, related to both these heroes, his daughter Endeïs having been the mother of Peleus. Subsequently, other mythical heroes were added to the number of his pupils, such as Castor and Polydeuces, Theseus, Nestor, Meleager, and Diomedes. Music, too, was now represented as a subject of his instruction, though this is perhaps due to a misinterpretation of the name of his mother. He inhabited a cave on Mount Pelion; later mythology, however, transferred his residence, after the Centaurs had been driven from Pelion by the Lapithæ, to the promontory of Malea. Here, by an unlucky accident, he was wounded with a poisoned arrow by his friend Heracles, and, the wound being incurable, he voluntarily chose to die in the place of Prometheus.
Fig. 50.—Centaur teaching a Boy to play upon the Pipe. Relief by Kundmann.
The idea of the connection of the Centaurs with the arts and sciences originated in the story of Chiron and Achilles, and has since furnished modern art with the subjects for some of its most valuable works. Fig. 50 represents a Centaur teaching a boy to play on the flute, and is after an alto-relievo of the Viennese sculptor Kundmann.
2. Theban Legend.—1. Cadmus.—Among Theban legends, none is more celebrated than the founding of Thebes by Cadmus. Cadmus was a son of the Phœnician king Agenor. After Zeus carried off his sister Europa to Crete (vide the Cretan Legends), he was despatched by his father in search of her. Accompanied by his mother Telephassa, he came to Thrace and thence to Delphi, where he was commanded by the oracle to relinquish his quest. It further ordered him to follow a young heifer with the mark of a crescent on either side, and to build a town on the place where the heifer should lie down. Cadmus obeyed, and, finding the heifer in Phocis, he followed her. She led him into Bœotia, and at length lay down on a rising ground. On this spot Cadmus founded a town, which he called Cadmea, after himself, though he had first to experience a perilous adventure. Before sacrificing the heifer, he sent some of his companions to fetch water from a neighbouring spring, where they were slain by a dragon belonging to Ares which guarded the spring. Cadmus then went himself, and slew the dragon, the teeth of which he sowed in the ground by the advice of Pallas. Hereupon armed men sprang from the ground; they immediately turned their arms against each other, and were all slain except five. Cadmus built his new town with the assistance of these men, who thus became the ancestors of the noble families of Thebes. In expiation of the dragon’s death, Cadmus was obliged to do service to Ares for eight years. At the end of this period Ares pardoned Cadmus and gave him Harmonia—his daughter by Aphrodite—to wife. Harmonia became the mother of four daughters—Autonoë, Ino, Semele, and Agave. After reigning for a long time at Thebes, Cadmus was compelled in his old age to retire to the Enchelians in Illyria; but whether he was driven out by Amphion and Zethus (who appear in Homer as the founders of Thebes) or withdrew from some other cause is not manifest. He and his wife were afterwards changed into serpents, and transferred, by the command of Zeus, to the Elysian fields.
In this story we see another form of the combat of the hero with the monster, and can probably give it the same explanation. The dragon guards the waters, and the hero, by killing it, frees them. Do we not see in this the combat of the sun with the cloud; and in the armed men who turn their weapons against one another, the clouds that seem to fight with one another in the thunderstorm? Yet even admitting this interpretation, it may be that we have in the name of Cadmus an allusion to the civilisation and the arts received by the Greeks from the East. So, too, with the alphabet, the invention of which Hellenic tradition ascribed to him.
Fig. 51.—Actæon Group. British Museum.
2. Actæon.—We have already incidentally mentioned the fortunes of three of the daughters of Cadmus—Ino, Semele, and Agave. The eldest, Autonoë, married Aristæus, the son of Apollo, and became by him the mother of Actæon. Actæon was handed over to Chiron to be reared as a stout hunter and warrior; but he had scarcely reached the prime of youth when he was overtaken by a lamentable fate. Whilst hunting one day on Mount Cithæron, he was changed by Artemis into a stag, and was torn in pieces by his own dogs. The cause of her anger was either that Actæon had boasted that he was a more skilful hunter than Artemis, or that he had surprised the virgin goddess bathing. The latter tradition ultimately prevailed, and, in later times, even the rock whence he beheld Artemis was pointed out on the road between Megara and Platæa. He received heroic honours in Bœotia, and his protection was invoked against the deadly power of the sun in the dog-days. The story of Actæon is probably nothing but a representation of the decay of verdant nature beneath an oppressive summer heat.
The story of Actæon’s transformation and death was a favourite subject for sculpture. A small marble group, representing Actæon beating off two dogs which are attacking him, was found in 1774, and is now preserved in the British Museum (Fig. 51).