"Chiron Educating Achilles" by Gottlieb Schick

"The practice of magic was omnipresent in classical antiquity. The contemporaries of Plato and Socrates placed voodoo dolls on graves and thresholds . . . Cicero smiled upon a colleague who said he had lost his memory under the influence of a spell, and the Elder Pliny declared that everybody was afraid to fall victim to binding spells. The citizens of classical Teos cursed with spells whoever attacked the city; the twelve tables legislated against magical transfers of crops from one field to another; and the Imperial lawbooks contain[ed] extensive sanctions against all sorts of magical procedures -- with the sole exceptions of love spells and weather magic. . . . Magical rites gave access to a higher spirituality. These rites could open the way to the supreme god." ¹

    Since most members of the society followed the same basic set of beliefs concerning the gamut of magical possibilities, as well as the gods and their abilities, with some small regional variations, the mythological system possessed a solidity and structure within which the addition of new characters, or the assignment of abilities, could be anticipated with as much accuracy as was utilized by Mendeleev in his predictions of elements still to be discovered on the basis of blank spots in his periodic table. The reflection of these beliefs in classical myth was thus not an exercise of fantasy in the same way that similar subject matter would be today. While the perceptions and presentations of the historical/mythological figures in myth and the plotting of their actions both required a certain creativity and literary license on the part of the individual storyteller, the structure of the magical world was part of an established framework.

     Within that framework, the role of the centaurs occupies an interesting position, both practically and symbolically. In story and art, the centaurs possess the torso and upper body of a man, with the lower body of a horse, melded seamlessly. Their natures, however, were not quite as balanced; the centaurs were seen as a very primitive species, owing more to their bestial nature than to their human heritage. Centaurs were associated with the land of Thessaly; their presence in that region was attributed to their having been fathered by the king of one of the native peoples, the Lapiths. ² Ironically, in Greek works of art, the centaurs are most typically depicted attacking the Lapiths, engaging in acts of rape and pillage, as at the wedding feast of Perithoos. ³ Their presence was generally symbolic of the unrestrained, unpredictable qualities of the natural world.

     Likewise, their literary presence in myth is frequently symbolic of the cultural need to establish -- or, reestablish -- dominance over what the Greeks perceived as being their rightful spheres. Greek heroes were required to establish the presence of their cultures in the greater world. Most typically, this was accomplished by taming or defeating some monster or supernatural creature. However, where purely inhuman monsters such as Scylla, Charybdis, the chimera, or the sphinx represented the battle between civilization and the larger world, hybrid, half-human creatures such as the centaurs more often represented the incursions of the negative aspects of that larger world into the Greeks' own jurisdiction. ⁴

     The presence of Chiron, ⁵ as opposed to the rest of his species, possessed a wholly different meaning. In a very real way, Chiron could be considered the exception that proved the rule regarding the symbolism of the centaur in the Greek world. Where they represented the bestiality and danger of the natural world, he represents the bounty and grace which it could offer, as can be seen in the fact that he taught various chosen human heroes the potential beneficial qualities of the natural world -- the arts of astrology, botany, healing, hunting, martial arts, and the uses of their own innate, natural talents, gifted by the gods through either lineage or patronage. It is interesting to note that, as those supranatural gifts had to be bestowed by the gods, so too was it necessary to obtain a formal introduction in order to be granted the benefit of his wisdom. His pupils were always brought to him, either by the gods or by previously favored mortals who had already made his acquaintance through their own patrons.

     The earliest allusion to him in literature can be found among the last lines of Hesiod's Theogony. Chiron's name comes up in relation to a child born of the hero Jason and the witch Medea, "a son, Medeios, whom Chiron the son of Philyra brought up in the mountains in fulfillment of great Zeus's purpose." ⁶ The precise nature of these lines is interesting, in light of the eventual fate of that offspring -- a child fated to be slain in his youth, rather than to perform any great deeds of his own for which he might need to be groomed. It can be inferred that the purpose which is being fulfilled, per Zeus's orders, concerns not Medeios, but Chiron. The purpose in question is the role which Chiron fulfills in the realm of Greek myth: to teach the future generations.

     In light of the Greek love of lineage, and the role it played in determining the positions of individuals within their spheres, it is interesting to consider Chiron's background. Unlike the other centaurs, Chiron did not descend from the Lapith bloodline. Rather, he was said to be descended from the Titan Cronus and the nymph Philyra. Thus, Chiron provides an interesting counterpoint not only to the other centaurs, but also to the other immortals. Like a number of the Olympians, Chiron is a child of Cronus. However, unlike the great Olympian deities -- the lines from Hesiod notwithstanding, as they represent the only such ideas to be found -- Chiron is not commonly thought of as possessing any preassigned, specific realm or set of duties. Rather, he is seen as simply being a part of the world in which he moves, rather than reigning majestically over it, as his putative half brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades do within their respective realms. The knowledge that he has concerning the natural world is seen as being inherent to him, symbolized externally through his possession of a partially bestial physiognomy. Chiron is described by Apollodorus as being "a Centaur of two-fold form," ⁷ a description which, at first glance, seems redundant. After all, every centaur possessed aspects of both the human and the equine. It was the distinguishing characteristic of the species, rather than being unique to Chiron. However, all other centaurs function in only one world, that of the wilderness. Chiron alone was seen to bridge the gap between nature and civilization, two-fold as it were, acting as a living conduit for those properties of the natural world which might benefit civilization by teaching others to utilize them. The knowledge that was instinctual to him was passed along, once removed, to his pupils, and through them, to the rest of the world.

     It appears as though the myths of Chiron had already evolved significantly by the time when such things first began to be written. We retain only tantalizing hints of his origins and original purpose, and even less information concerning the specific ways in which he might have fulfilled that purpose -- namely, the skills which he was thought to teach his pupils, and the ways in which those skills evolved. It has been hypothesized that "[a]s ideas of education altered, people's ideas of Chiron's wisdom and the way he trained [his pupils] also developed. At first, Chiron must have trained [them] to live wild, to outrun the animals, and to kill," ⁸ ideas supported by lines from Pindar which refer to Chiron feeding Achilles on the innards of lions and wild swine, and on the marrow of bears, foodstuffs probably obtained by the Centaur initially, and thereafter by Achilles himself. Pindar said that:

"Achilles stayed in Philyra's home ⁹/ a child whose play was mighty exploits./ Often his hands threw/ the short iron javelin to rival the winds;/ He dealt death in battle to ravening lions/ and boars were his prey. Their panting bodies/ He brought to the Centaur, Kronos' son,/ In his sixth year at first, then through all his days./ Artemis marveled at him, and bold Athena,/ That he killed deer without hounds or treacherous traps./ By his feet he defeated him (what I tell/ was spoken by men of old.)" ¹⁰

     The antiquity of the ideas concerning Chiron's curriculum is verified by Pindar's apparent need to clarify the fact that the arguments in favor of Achilles having been taught to hunt in this manner are not his own invention, nor the results of any immediate cultural developments, but that they are a known fact derived from what were to him ancient stories, ¹¹ and that now men have more developed ideas about the scope of Chiron's knowledge and teachings, which he goes on to describe in depth. He says:

"Deep-counseling Chiron/ Nursed Jason inside his stone dwelling,/ and Asklapios after him,/ And taught him the use of medicine with gentle hands./ In time he found a wedding for Nereus' bright-bosumed daughter;/ he cherished her noble son for her, and exalted/ his spirit in all things fitting,/ That, sent by the sea-winds' blast to Troy,/ he should stand up to the clash of spears and the battle-cr[ies.]" ¹²

     We know from the Iliad that at least one of those talents meeting the description of "all things fitting" was healing, as there are two references to Chiron's teachings within that work. The first of these occurred when Menelaus, the cuckolded king of Sparta, was wounded by a Trojan arrow. A physician from the Akhian ranks, Machaon, who happened to be the son of Asklepious was called forth, to "[suck] the poison from the wound and in skill [lay] healing medicines on it/ that Chiron in friendship long ago had given his father." ¹³ The second time concerned Achilles more directly; after a less than illustrious battle, Patrokles, the shield-mate of Achilles, was begged to help the wounded. Eurypylos, the wounded man, said "save me now at least/ ... cut the arrow out of my thigh, wash the dark blood running/ out of it with warm water, and put kind medicines on it,/ good ones, which they say you've been told of by Achilles,/ since Chiron, most righteous of the Centaurs told him about them." ¹⁴ In the next line, we learn that Machaon was unavailable, being wounded himself -- the next best available choice was still considered to be a student of Chiron, even at several removes, even when the student in question was not specifically trained to be a healer. Such was the faith in the wisdom of the Centaur.

     Through such scattered references, it becomes clear that the additions of healing, astronomy, woodcraft, and philosophy to the repertoire of skills thought to be taught by Chiron are reflections of the growing wealth of Greek knowledge. Likewise, depictions of Chiron in the art of ancient Greece show changing ideas about not only the substance, but also the form of education. Scholars have noted that

"Chiron is not seen alone in vase paintings. He is typically shown accepting Achilles into his tutelage. When he receives Achilles as an infant from the hands of Peleus, father of the boy, Chiron's implied role is a combination of foster father and master. That is the earlier tradition. When Chiron receives Achilles as a lad of school age, introduced by Peleus, or by Thetis, mother of the boy, or by both parents, the scene connotes the first day of school, the occasion on which the family commits its son to the schoolmaster for instruction. That is the newer iconography, an innovation which suggests something of the degree to which the idea of schooling had informed the Greek imagination by the end of the sixth century BC." ¹⁵

     Regardless of changes in the details of the education, the core of the relationship between Chiron and his pupils remained the same. Regardless of the age at which they were entrusted to him, and regardless of the level of knowledge which they attained -- whether it was to live in the wild as a creature of nature, to throw off the mantle of humanity and assume a place in the world and hunt successfully, as Achilles and Actaeon did, whether it was to use the bounty of the world, the herbs and minerals, for human purposes such as healing, as Asclepious did, whether it was to read the future in the stars, or to prophecy through other means, as Aristaeus did ¹⁶ -- regardless, it was seen as being magic, commensurate to the skill level of the people in the surrounding societies. The relationship was imbued with magic for one simple reason -- the societal Greek belief in predestined fate. Those who performed great deeds were fated to do so. Thus, they were born of divinities, who passed along magical abilities to them, which would enable them to fulfill their glorious destinies. Those abilities were strengthened by the training which they received, allowing them to take full advantage of their gifts, training which was, again, only possible because of their "connections," training which bestowed tacit "magical" abilities upon them through knowledge, allowing them to gain corporeal power. The training of Chiron was seen as being appropriate because it was exclusive -- bestowed only upon those who were proven to be deserving through their familial bonds. It was appropriate because it was effective, as Niccolo Machiavelli would observe some two thousand years later, when he said:

"There are two ways of fighting: by means of law, and by means of force. The first belongs properly to man, and the second to animals; but since the first is often insufficient, it is necessary to resort to the second. Therefore, a prince must know how to use both what is proper to man and what is proper to beasts. The writers of antiquity taught . . . this lesson allegorically when they told how Achilles and many other ancient princes were sent to be nurtured by Chiron the centaur, so that he would train them in his discipline. Their having a creature half-man and half-beast as tutor . . . means that [one] must know how to use both the one and the other nature, and that the one without the other cannot endure." ¹⁷

     And, finally, it was appropriate because of the enduring symbolism of Chiron -- the value of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, even if it could only be distributed to a chosen few within the constraints of the Greek society. That symbolism can be seen with particular clarity through the death of Chiron, the immortal. Chiron's death, ironically enough, was due to the collision of the two worlds which he had sought to bring together throughout the course of his existence, the natural and the civilized, the result of a clash between his kinsmen, the other centaurs, and his last pupil, Heracles. During the course of the battle, when the losing centaurs ran to him for protection from the wrath of Heracles, Chiron was struck by one of the arrows of Heracles, arrows which had been dipped in the blood of the Hydra, which would, with equal irony, also one day cause the death of Heracles himself. ¹⁸ Chiron was unable to cure himself of the agony of the hydra's poison, and unable too to die through natural means, being immortal. He asked the Olympian gods to relieve him of his immortality, but even his death was to serve a purpose in the service of knowledge.

     His death released another bringer of knowledge from his bonds -- Prometheus, the Titan who gave men fire. Prometheus was sentenced to unending imprisonment, and unending torture "until some God [should] show himself successor/ to take [the tortures of Prometheus] for himself and [be] willing to go down to lightless Hades and the shadows/ of Tartarus' depths."  ¹⁹ This sequence of events strengthens the symbolic triple bond of Heracles to Chiron, Chiron to Prometheus, and finally, Prometheus to Heracles. This bond can be interpreted symbolically as representing first, the wildness of natural man through Heracles -- Heracles, who was commonly represented in Greek art wearing a lion skin, shaggy-haired and ungroomed, characteristics normally attributed to wild things such as satyrs or typical centaurs, Heracles, who was famous throughout Greek myth for savagery above any characteristic. The next step in the link, Chiron, is seen to represent the bridge between man and the knowledge to be found in nature -- ironically enough, in Greek myth, it is this half-human creature who was always represented as being well-kempt and dignified, who throughout Greek myth was seen as being the epitome of gentility and knowledge. The last figure, Prometheus, the creator of man who tried to free him from the tyranny of the gods, first mitigating sacrificial requirements by tricking Zeus into accepting less than his due, and then by giving men fire and allowing them to gain the knowledge necessary for true civilization. Prometheus can be seen as the symbol of future knowledge, of the totality of human accomplishment. Chiron's death removed the need for an intermediary, directly linking the symbol of man's wildness, and the symbol of potential knowledge. From this point onward, it seems, man would be expected to learn about the world surrounding him using the tools which he had been given, not least among them his wits. Even in death, Chiron continued to be a symbol of knowledge -- and the sacrifices that it is worth.

     The original meaning of the word "sacrifice" possessed a connotation of religious or spiritual
motivation that is sometimes lost in today's world. ²⁰ Chiron's life, sacrificed both because of and for the growth of learning, and the expansion of magic -- knowledge, power -- in the world is an example of the validity of that notion, and the power it held in the ancient world. The symbol of his sacrifice encouraged countless students to make offerings of their own at the altar of knowledge, of lesser or greater degrees throughout the years, and continues to do so to this day.

Footnotes:

1. Fritz Graf, Magic in the Ancient World, Harvard University Press, 1999, pp. 1-2. continue reading

2. Apollodorus, The Library of Greek Mythology, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 142 and 244. That king, Ixion, was supposed to have been the first man in the world to have murdered a relation (his father-in-law, Deioneus, the motive being a reluctance to part with the bride-price which he had originally promised). As a punishment, he was stricken with frenzy, condemned to wander as a madman until he aroused the pity of Zeus, and was pardoned. However, his gratitude to Zeus did not go so far as to cause him to neglect his libido -- his next choice of action was an attempted molestation of Zeus's wife, the goddess Hera. Texts differ as to whether the divine response to his action was determined by Hera or Zeus -- regardless, the result of their anger was his impregnation of a cloud bearing Hera's shape, and the subsequent birth of Centauros, who went on to father the race of centaurs as a whole by mating with the mares who grazed near Mt. Pelion Thus, we have a race that is half man -- where even the human line of descent grows from an especially brutal example of the species. continue reading

3. Ibid. Perithoos was Ixion's other, human son and rightful heir. He inherited not only his father's kingdom but also all of the problems that accompanied it -- what the philosophers of a later age would come to call the sins of the fathers being visited on the sons. There is a wealth of literature devoted to the symbolic value of the fact that Perithoos is a close relation of the centaurs -- uncle, at varying degrees of remove to most of the species. The resultant dichotomy between the two natures of man, the natural and the civilized, is fascinating, but somewhat too complex to be discussed herein. continue reading

4. John Boardman, Greek Art, Thames and Hudson, 1996, pp.268-269. The specific nature of those incursions depended as much upon the viewpoint of the individual artist as they did upon the societal perception -- centaurs were commonly portrayed as "out of control in civilized company, breaking up a marriage feast, and so a paradigm for barbaric behavior, which might then be related to the Persians [or to whatever other immediate threat might present itself] . . . for most Greeks any given image of . . . a centaur probably held no specific message, whatever the direct or indirect inspiration or intention [of the artist] may have been." Thus, the shorthand symbolism of the centaur in Greek myth was simply sufficient to indicate a threat or invasion to the accepted way of life. continue reading

5. Due to linguistic developments within the Greek language, and the phonetic differences between Greek and the native languages of the authors who were responsible for the survival of the myths concerning this character, there are a variety of alternate spellings available. For the sake of consistency, I will be using this spelling throughout. continue reading

6. Hesiod, Theogony, trans. M.L. West, Oxford University Press, 1999, lines 1001-1002. continue reading

7. Apollodorus, p. 29. continue reading

8. Pausanias: Guide to Greece, Volume 2: Southern Greece, ed. Peter Levi, Penguin Classics, 1979, p. 255. continue reading

9. Philyra, the nymph who was Chiron's mother, was thought to have resided with her son, his wife, and their daughters. continue reading

10. Pindar, The Odes, ed. Sir Maurice Bowra, Penguin Books, 1969, Nemean III, lines 42-54. continue reading

11. Pindar was born in 518 B.C., died in 438 B.C. continue reading

12. Ibid. lines 52-61. continue reading

13. Homer, The Iliad, trans. Richard Lattimore, The University of Chicago Press, 1961, Book IV, lines 218-219. continue reading

14. Ibid. Book XI, lines 827-831. continue reading

15. Ayers Bagley, "Chiron the Educator," 2000, p. 2. continue reading

16. There is some crossing over regarding the skills learned by various students, but, by and large, the abilities listed are those which they are best known for having learned from Chiron. continue reading

17. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, quoted in Ayers Bagley, "Chiron the Educator," 2000, p. 3. continue reading

18. Heracles, like Chiron, is the son of an immortal, Zeus. However, also like Chiron, he is susceptible to the poison of the hydra. His death, fittingly enough, was caused by a similar series of events -- when he slew a mortal centaur, Nessos, with another of his arrows, that centaur gained his revenge by convincing his bride, Deianira, to save some of the blood that poured from his wound, telling her that it would make for a highly efficacious aphrodisiac if dabbed on the clothes of Heracles. The agony that Heracles suffers as a result drove him to immolate himself on a pyre. continue reading

19. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, trans. David Grene, The University of Chicago Press, 1991, lines 1026-1029. continue reading

20. Folklore; An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art, ed. Thomas A. Green, ABC-CLIO, Inc., 1997, pp. 751. continue reading