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| A Centaur Throttling a Lapiths Wedding-Goer at the British Museum |
Sometimes when you travel and visit lots of archaeology and art museums, things start to look familiar. Between our time in Turkey and London, we kept running across the image of men fighting centaurs (you know, those half-humans, half-horses from ancient Greek and Roman mythology, and who ran around in the Forbidden Forest outside of Hogwarts). Had we known we’d keep seeing this curious scene over and over, we would have collected more photos than just the one above from the British Museum. Trust us: a few ancient civilizations seem to have been enamored with a certain mythological battle with centaurs.
As the story goes, the Lapiths people of Greek Mythology held a big throw-down when their King, Pirithous, got married. Being good neighbors, they invited those half-breed centaurs from the other side of town. As the celebration got into full swing, the wine started flowing, and the centaurs–more Chai tea drinkers than drinkers of wine–got drunk. And when centaurs get drunk, they get rowdy. Really, really rowdy, like trying to have their way with the bride. Which, in Lapith culture, seems to have been a wedding guest faux-pas: the battle we kept seeing immortalized in stone erupted, and Theseus had to come rescue the Lapiths, singing “Here I come to save the day!”
So with all the merry-making going on this weekend and next (we’ll be merry-making, won’t you?) we thought we’d give you this timely reminder: never get a centaur drunk.
