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===Centauromachy=== [[File:Centaur lifting a rock, Attic red-figured kylix, by the Bonn Painter, 510-500 BC, inv. 16514 - Museo Gregoriano Etrusco - Vatican Museums - DSC01053.jpg|thumb|Centaur carrying a boulder, [[Attica|Attic]] red-figured [[kylix]], c. 510–500 BC]] [[File:Ac marbles.jpg|thumb|Centaur in battle with a [[Lapith]], on South Metope 31 of the [[Parthenon]], c. 447–438 BC<ref>[[British Museum]], [https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1816-0610-15 1816,0610.15].</ref>]] The Centaurs are best known for their fight with the [[Lapith]]s who, according to one origin myth, would have been cousins to the centaurs. The battle, called the Centauromachy, was caused by the centaurs' attempt to carry off [[Hippodamia (wife of Pirithous)|Hippodamia]] and the rest of the Lapith women on the day of Hippodamia's marriage to [[Pirithous]], who was the king of the Lapithae and a son of Ixion. [[Theseus]], a hero and founder of cities, who happened to be present, threw the balance in favour of the Lapiths by assisting Pirithous in the battle. The Centaurs were driven off or destroyed.<ref>[[Plutarch]], ''Theseus'' 30</ref><ref>Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' 12.210</ref><ref>[[Diodorus Siculus]]iv. pp. 69-70.</ref> Another Lapith hero, [[Caeneus]], who was invulnerable to weapons, was beaten into the earth by Centaurs wielding rocks and the branches of trees. In her article "The Centaur: Its History and Meaning in Human Culture", Elizabeth Lawrence claims that the contests between the centaurs and the Lapiths typify the struggle between civilization and barbarism.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lawrence |first=Elizabeth Atwood |date=1994 |title=The Centaur: Its History and Meaning in Human Culture |journal=Journal of Popular Culture |volume=27 |issue=4 |page=58 |doi=10.1111/j.0022-3840.1994.2704_57.x}}</ref> The Centauromachy is most famously portrayed in the [[metopes of the Parthenon]] by [[Phidias]] and in the ''[[Battle of the Centaurs (Michelangelo)|Battle of the Centaurs]]'', a relief by [[Michelangelo]].
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