Lapith

The Lapiths (; , Lapithai, sing. Λαπίθης) were a group of legendary people in Greek mythology, who lived in Thessaly in the valley of the Peneus and on the mountain Pelion. They were believed to have descended from the mythical Lapithes, brother of Centaurus, with the two heroes giving their names to the races of the Lapiths and the Centaurs respectively. The Lapiths are best known for their involvement in the Centauromachy, a mythical fight that broke out between them and the Centaurs during Pirithous and Hippodamia's wedding. Mythology Origin The Lapiths were an Aeolian tribe who, like the Myrmidons, were natives of Thessaly. The genealogies make them a kindred people with the centaurs: In one version, Lapithes (Λαπίθης) and Centaurus (Κένταυρος) were said to be twin sons of the god Apollo and the nymph Stilbe, daughter of the river god Peneus. Lapithes was a valiant warrior, but Centaurus was a deformed being who later mated with mares from whom the race of half-man, half-horse centaurs came. Lapithes was the eponymous ancestor of the Lapith people, and his descendants include Lapith warriors and kings, such as Ixion, Pirithous, Caeneus, and Coronus, and the seers Ampycus and his son Mopsus. In the Iliad the Lapiths send forty crewed ships to join the Greek fleet in the Trojan War, commanded by Polypoetes (son of Pirithous) and Leonteus (son of Coronus, son of Caeneus). The mother of Pirithous, the Lapith king in the generation before the Trojan War, was Dia, daughter of Eioneus or Deioneus; Ixion was the father of Pirithous, but like many heroic figures, Pirithous had an immortal as well as a mortal father. Zeus was his immortal father, but the god had to assume a stallion's form to cover Dia for, like their half-horse cousins, the Lapiths were horsemen in the grasslands of Thessaly, famous for its horses. The Lapiths were credited with inventing the bridle's bit. The Lapith King Pirithous was marrying the horsewoman Hippodameia, whose name means "tamer of horses", at the wedding feast that made a war, the Centauromachy, famous.