Pholus (mythology)

To further account for the unusually civil behavior of Pholus, the mythographer Apollodorus wrote that his parents were Silenus and one of the Meliae,[2] thus differentiating him genealogically from the other centaurs, as Chiron was known to be.

When Heracles drank from a jar of wine in the possession of Pholus, the neighboring centaurs smelled its fragrant odor and, driven characteristically mad, charged into the cave.

While this pursuit and second combat was occurring, Pholus, back in his cave, accidentally wounded himself with one of the venomous arrows[3] while he was either marveling at how such a small thing could kill a centaur (Apollodorus)[4] or preparing the corpses for burial (Diodoros).

Hyginus (in his De Astronomia) reports versions of the story where it is not Pholus's foot on which the poison arrow accidentally falls, but Chiron's instead.

[6] In the Divine Comedy poem Inferno, Pholus is found with the other centaurs patrolling the banks of the river Phlegethon in the seventh circle of Hell.