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Lapiths

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Lapiths

In Greek mythology, a people of the mountains of Thessaly, northern Greece, often represented in Greek art fighting with their neighbours, the centaurs (creatures half man, half horse), at the wedding of their king, Pirithous.

After the creatures tried to abduct the bride, Hippodamia, and other female guests, the Lapiths, led by the hero Theseus, ousted them from their home on Mount Pelion and drove them to Pindus on the borders of Epirus.

In the Parthenon, Athens, the battle was portrayed on some of the metopes (slabs forming part of a Doric frieze).



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Here, a battle between the families of bride and groom (gypsy travellers versus Kurds) presents a modern take on the ancient ethnic clash in Piero di Cosimo's The Fight Between the Lapiths and the Centaurs.
Another king, Ixion of the Lapiths, met an even more gruesome fate for bragging of his supposed liaison with Hera (the offspring of whom were the centaurs, half human and half horse): He was bound to a fiery wheel, which turned about forever.
Above the columns are epistyles nine and a half feet long and four feet high, on which you see superbly carved sculptures of the Thessalian battle of the Centaurs and Lapiths, while on the
 
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