Lapiths

Λαπίθης) were a group of legendary people in Greek mythology, who lived in Thessaly in the valley of the Pineios[1] and on the mountain Pelion.

The Lapiths are best known for their involvement in the Centauromachy (Ancient Greek: Κενταυρομαχία, romanized: Kentauromachía), a mythical fight that broke out between them and the Centaurs during Pirithous and Hippodamia's wedding.

[a] 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 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.

Mythic references explained the presence into historic times of primitive Lapiths in Malea and in the brigand stronghold of Pholoe in Elis as remnants of groups driven there by the centaurs.

A sonnet vividly evoking the battle by the French poet José María de Heredia (1842–1905) was included in his volume Les Trophées.

A frieze with a Centauromachy was also painted by Luca Signorelli in his Virgin Enthroned with Saints (1491), inspired by a Roman sarcophagus found at Cortona, in Tuscany, during the early 15th century.