Caeneus

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Caeneus

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Caeneus (Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
?a??e?? or Kaineus) was a Lapith

Lapith

In Greek mythology, the Lapiths were a legendary people, whose home was in Thessaly, in the valley of the Peneus and on the mountain Pelion. Like the Myrmidons and other Thessalian tribes, the Lapiths were pre-Hellenic in their origins....
hero and originally a Thessalonian

Thessaly

Thessaly is one of the 13 Peripheries of Greece of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 Prefectures of Greece. The capital of the periphery and traditional Regions of Greece is Larissa....
woman, Caenis.

Myth
Caenis, the daughter of Elatus

Elatus

There were six figures named Elatus or ?latos in Greek mythology.* Elatus, a Lapiths chieftain, was the father, by Hippeia, of:**Ischys who was beloved by Coronis....
(a Lapith chieftain) and Hippea

Hippeia

Hippeia or Hippea is the name of two characters in Greek mythology.Athena Hippeia Athena Hippeia is Athena as a goddess of horses....
, was raped by Poseidon

Poseidon

In Greek mythology, Poseidon was the god of the sea and, as "Earth-Shaker," of earthquakes. The name of the god Nethuns in Etruscan mythology was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon....
, who then fulfilled her request to be changed into a man so that she could never be raped again; he also made Caenis invulnerable to weaponry.

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In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Ancient Greek

Lapith

Thessaly

Myth

Caenis, the daughter of Elatus

Elatus

Hippeia

Hippeia or Hippea is the name of two characters in Greek mythology.Athena Hippeia Athena Hippeia is Athena as a goddess of horses....
, was raped by Poseidon

Poseidon

Calydonian Boar

Centaur

In Greek mythology, the centaurs are a race of creatures composed of part human and part horse. In early Attica Pottery of ancient Greece, they are depicted with the torso of a human joined at the waist to the horse's withers, where the horse's neck would be....
s (see Pirithous
Pirithous

In Greek mythology, Pirithous - ?e??????? was the King of the Lapiths in Thessaly and husband of Hippodamia , at whose wedding the famous Centauromachy occurred....
). In one description of the tale, a particular centaur, Latreus, mocks Caeneus and denies his skill as a fighter when he realizes Caeneus' female origin. Caeneus strikes Latreus a blow in the side, and is unharmed by the centaur's last attempts at wounding him. In revenge for this, the centaurs piled pine-tree trunks (some say fir trees) and stones upon him since he was immune to weapons.

There are several descriptions of Caeneus' fate after he had been crushed down by the trunks. One vase, for instance, depicts him as sinking down into the earth, upright, and buried at the waist; this legend is described in the Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses (poem)

The Metamorphoses by the Ancient Rome poet Ovid is a Narrative poetry in fifteen books that describes the Creation myth and history of the world....
as well, and implies that Caeneus is falling directly into Tartarus

Tartarus

In classic Roman mythology, below Heaven, Earth, and Pontus is Tartarus, or Tartaros . It is a deep, gloomy place, a pit, or an abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides beneath the Hades....
. In that same poem another story is presented, which states that Caeneus flew away from the pile of tree trunks as a tawny-winged bird. This version of the ending has two witnesses, Mopsus

Mopsus

In Greek mythology, Mopsus or Mopsos was the name of two famous seers....
and the "son of Ampycus

Ampyx

Ampyx has several meanings; in hair care, an ampyx is a headband, often made of metal. In Greek mythology, there were a number of figures with the name Ampyx, Amycus or Ampycus ....
", as well as Nestor

Nestor

Nestor may refer to:*Nestor , the son of Neleus, the King of Pylos and Chloris in Greek mythology*Nestor *Nestor , a genus of parrots in ornithology...
, who tells the story. Alternatively, he changed back into a woman after death and was buried as a female.

Caenis/Caeneus' legend is found in the Metamorphoses
Metamorphoses (poem)

The Metamorphoses by the Ancient Rome poet Ovid is a Narrative poetry in fifteen books that describes the Creation myth and history of the world....
, where he is mentioned briefly as a participant in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar

Calydonian Boar

The Calydonian Boar is one of the monsters of Greek mythology that had to be overcome by heroes of the Olympian age. Sent by Artemis to ravage the region of Calydon in Aetolia because its king failed to honor her in his rites to the gods, it was killed in the Calydonian Hunt, in which many male heroes took part, but also a powerful wom...
. A while after this appearance, Nestor tells the story of Caeneus to Achilles in fuller detail, describing his transformation from female to male, the story of the battle of the centaurs, and Caeneus' eventual mysterious death.

Similarly, in the Iliad
ILiad

The iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display....
(without referring to these transformations) Nestor numbers Caeneus among an earlier generation of heroes of his youth, "the strongest men that Earth has bred, the strongest men against the strongest enemies, a savage mountain-dwelling tribe whom they utterly destroyed." No trace of such an oral tradition, which Homer's listeners would have recognized in Nestor's allusion, survived in literary epic.

Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works?the Bucolics , the Georgics and the Aeneid?although several Appendix Vergiliana are also attributed to him....
also says that Aeneus sees her/him in the Fields of Mourning as he visits the underworld in Book Six of the Aeneid

Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin Epic poetry written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Rome....
. Caeneus has by now been turned back by Fate into her original female form. He was also mentioned in the Catalogue of Women

Catalogue of Women

The Catalogue of Women is an Ancient Greek literature poem. Ancient writers sometimes attributed it to Hesiod, although the poem contains a few references to events and things after Hesiod's time that could suggest that they were later added or that the epic is of a completely different author....
. Caeneus had one son, Coronus

Coronus

Coronus may mean different things:...
.

Caeneus

Myth

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