Odysseus and the Centaurs
Excerpt from “Why Knot?” Buy the book at Amazon
At the end of The Odyssey, in preparation for the bow contest for the hand of Penelope, Telemachus digs a narrow trench in the dirt floor of the banquet hall. Then he sets up axe heads, lining up the holes in a row. The challenge is to shoot an arrow so that it passes through all the holes. The holes are, at most, a couple feet off the ground. It’s near-impossible to lean over far enough to make such a shot. But Odysseus does so, successfully, while sitting on a stool, bending down, close to the ground.
Using a bow at such an angle is not normal, except on horseback. Visualizing that scene, I was reminded of the riding style and archery of medieval Cossacks. But in The Iliad and The Odyssey, warriors did not ride on the backs of horses. Rather, horses were used to pull chariots. There was no cavalry.
I suspect that the era portrayed in the Homeric epics was a time of transition. Immigrants from north of the Black Sea, in the area now known as Ukraine, that later became the home of the Cossacks, were moving into Greece and assimilating with the local population. These newcomers were renowned for their bareback horsemanship.
When the Conquistadors arrived in Mexico, the Aztecs, who did not have horses, thought that rider and horse were a single creature. I imagine that in ancient Greece the newcomers from the north paired with their horses seemed like single creatures as well. Hence the concept of centaurs.
Coexistence between the Greeks and the centaurs was problematic. The centaur Chiron served as teacher to both Heracles and Achilles. Another centaur, Nessus, caused the death of Heracles. And at the wedding of the human Pirithous, a bloody battle broke out between centaurs and humans when the centaur Eurytion tried to abduct the bride.
The bow used by Odysseus in the contest with the suitors had once been owned by Eurytus (different but similar name), who taught Heracles archery. By another account, Eurytus set up an archery contest with his daughter as the prize (similar to the bow contest in The Odyssey). When Heracles won that contest, Eurytus reneged on his promise and refused to give him his daughter. In revenge, Heracles stole a dozen horses from him.
I imagine that the style of archery used by Odysseus in the contest echoes the style of the northerners. The subtext is that Greeks, not just centaurs, can fight that way, so that, in the future, survival in battle will depend on that new style.
