Centaurs Revisited

A Ramble, Centaurs and Andromeda · Centaurs Revisited

I take it that Hercules and Iason lived before the Trojan War, which occurred around 1180 BC. This is not fool proof, since one of the more common distortions of a tradition are reworking the chronology. I think Mahabharata is pre-Flood and Ramayana early post-Flood, but to Hindoos, Ramayana takes places 1000 or 10 000 years before the Mahabharata, I forget which. The German legend of "Rabenschlacht" involves a battle of Ravenna where Theoderic faces Ermaneric, while the real Ermaneric lived c. 100 years before Theoderic. This same Theoderic the Great also introdes into the times when Attila mangled Gondicarius in the Nibelungen-Lied, since Gondicarius died in 434 but Theoderic was born in 454, after Attila died, even. But Hercules and Iason could have lived before the Trojan war, as the chronology of Greek heroic legend (sometimes called "mythology" along with Hesiod's Theogony) would have it.

Could Cheiron have been simply a rider?

If so, a somewhat exotic one, according to this article:

The Secondary Products Revolution, Horse-Riding, and Mounted Warfare
David W. Anthony & Dorcas R. Brown
Journal of World Prehistory volume 24, Article number: 131 (2011)
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-011-9051-9

I will cite the free preview, I don't have access to the article:

Current evidence indicates that horses were domesticated in the steppes of Kazakhstan and Russia, certainly by 3500 BC and possibly by 4500 BC. Tribal raiding on horseback could be almost that old, but organized cavalry appeared only after 1000 BC.

So, whatever Hercules and Iason saw of Cheiron, their contemporaries would likely have been ignorant it was possible to mount a horse rather than to put it before a wagon, with other horses.

Riding might initially have been more important for increasing the productivity and efficiency of sheep and cattle pastoralism in the western Eurasian steppes.

Not in Greece, though.

The earliest (so far) direct evidence for riding consists of pathologies on the teeth and jaw associated with bitting, found at Botai and Kozhai 1. Recent developments and debates in the study of bit-related pathologies are reviewed and the reliability of bit wear as a diagnostic indicator of riding and driving is defended.

Ah, riding and driving ... this doesn't mean the bit wear shows which of the two it was.

If you cite me Bellerophon riding Pegasus, that could have been a fairytale. In Homer, Pegasus is not mentioned, only the slaying of Chimaera (and the letter, "semata lugra").

Amazons are of course involved in Hercules and in Trojan War ... but earliest vase depiction of an Amazon riding would so far be 550 BC. Iliad VI.186 and III.189 do not mention them as riding. Sources about Hercules are later than Homer. However, riding on horseback is mentioned in Hesiod's Shield of Hercules - for which the Hesiodean authorship is disputed.

The whole town was filled with mirth and dance and festivity. [285] Others again were mounted on horseback and galloping before the town. And there were ploughmen breaking up the good soil, clothed in tunics girt up.

πᾶσαν δὲ πόλιν θαλίαι τε χοροί τε
ἀγλαΐαι τ᾽ εἶχον. τοὶ δ᾽ αὖ προπάροιθε πόληος
νῶθ᾽ ἵππων ἐπιβάντες ἐθύνεον. οἱ δ᾽ ἀροτῆρες
ἤρεικον χθόνα δῖαν, ἐπιστολάδην δὲ χιτῶνας
ἐστάλατ᾽.

Does this refer to riding, or to the kind of acrobatics also done on bulls in Cretan depictions?

Choirs / dance ? (θαλίαι τε χοροί τε) and mirth (ἀγλαΐαι τ᾽) were having (εἶχον) the whole town (πᾶσαν δὲ πόλιν). Others again (τοὶ δ᾽ αὖ) in front of the town (προπάροιθε πόληος) "were mounted on horseback and galloping" ("νῶθ᾽ ἵππων ἐπιβάντες ἐθύνεον"). But the ploughmen (οἱ δ᾽ ἀροτῆρες) "were breaking up the good soil," ("ἤρεικον χθόνα δῖαν,"), ??? (ἐπιστολάδην δὲ) tunics (χιτῶνας) ??? (ἐστάλατ᾽).

It remains to be verified with a better Grecist (I left off Greek studies in 1993, OK, my Greek is rusty!) whether it is the first ??? that's "clothed" and the second that's "girt up" or some other configuration. It seems ἐθύνεον means "were darting" while ἐπιβάντες means in NT Bible "boarding" (a ship) so here would mean "mounting" (a horse), etymologically it means "going on" (sth - whether the back of a horse or the boards of a ship).

It would seem, this very early description of riding on horseback could well be describing acrobatic riding. The kind of thing Hayley Ganzel does, when putting one foot on each back of each horse, not the thing riders normally do.

At the line I was expecting an Amazon's shield dance from references, I find no Amazons, no shield dance, and no horseback riding, I do find chariots more than once around there.

So, if Cheiron was a rider, two generations before the Trojan War, no one in Greece may have known what that was. Hence the mistake of considering him and his horse one creature (a mistake Hercules and Iason would not have made). But if Cheiron was not a rider, it is possible he, like the Centaur seen by St. Anthony the Great, was a spiritual manifestation.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
XVIIth Sunday after Pentecost
19.IX.2021

Did riding exist in the time of King David? According to above, it shouldn't have. So, I looked for the Latin case forms of "equus" in the psalms:

These, first of all, have no relation unambiguously to riding:

Nolite fieri sicut equus et mulus, quibus non est intellectus. In camo et freno maxillas eorum constringe, qui non approximant ad te.
[Psalms 31:9]

Fallax equus ad salutem; in abundantia autem virtutis suae non salvabitur.
[Psalms 32:17]

Non in fortitudine equi voluntatem habebit, nec in tibiis viri beneplacitum erit ei.
[Psalms 146:10]

Hi in curribus, et hi in equis; nos autem in nomine Domini Dei nostri invocabimus.
[Psalms 19:8]

This one, of course, does:

Ab increpatione tua, Deus Jacob, dormitaverunt qui ascenderunt equos.
[Psalms 75:7]

But : In finem, in laudibus. Psalmus Asaph, canticum ad Assyrios. It's not a psalm of David, but one of Asaph.

But didn't Absalom ride when his hair got stuck in a tree?

And it happened that Absalom met the servants of David, riding on a mule: and as the mule went under a thick and large oak, his head stuck in the oak: and while he hung between the heaven and the earth, the mule on which he rode passed on.
[II Kings 18:9]

He rode a mule, not a horse. Mule riding and donkey riding is older and it is not used in battle./HGL