This painting, by Milan Thomka Mitrovský (c. 1875–1943), depicts the ancient Greek goddess, Athena, battling a herd of centaurs. Athena (known as Minerva to the Romans) embodied a curious mix of godly themes. On the one hand, she was a ferocious, powerful and cunning war goddess. The poet Hesiod (flourished c. 8th century BCE), referencing Athena’s epithets of Tritogeneia and Atrytone, wrote of “pale-eyed Tritogenia, the fearsome rouser of the fray, leader of armies, the lady Atrytone, whose pleasure is in war and the clamour of battle” (Theogony, between lines 907-936). On the other hand, Athena was also a goddess of industry, invention, craftsmanship, and art. Her dual nature was vividly illustrated by the poet, Homer (c. 8th-7th centuries BCE), who described Athena as putting her soft, feminine robe (hand-woven by her) to the side in order to don her suit of formidable and fearsome battle gear. Homer wrote:
“On her father’s threshold Athene, daughter of Zeus who drives the storm-cloud, took off the soft embroidered robe she had made and worked with her own hands, replaced it with a tunic and over that put on the armour of Zeus who marshals the clouds, in preparation for war’s work with all its tears. Then she threw round her shoulders the terrifying fringed aegis. It was encircled with Fear, Strife, Force, chilling Pursuit and the Gorgon’s head, a ghastly monster, the awe-inspiring, potent emblem of Zeus. On her head she put her double-ridged golden helmet with its four plates, adorned with fighting men of a hundred towns. Then she stepped into the fiery chariot and took up the long, thick, heavy spear with which she breaks the ranks of warriors when she, the almighty Father’s child, is roused to anger” (Homer, The Iliad, book 5, approximately between lines 730-750).
This, then, is the mighty warrior goddess that is featured in the painting. She wields her spear and wears her helmet and her fringed aegis, along with the other pieces of divine armor. As for the centaurs, there are no prominent myths from ancient Greece or Rome that reference Athena battling this race of horse-men hybrids. The scene, therefore, is not a canonical re-creation of a myth.
With no famous myth to point to, the painting likely plays on symbolism and rivalries concerning Athena. One possible explanation is that the painting alludes to Athena’s connection to horses. As an industrious and inventive goddess, Athena was attributed with several horse innovations, including bridles and chariots. Due to this, she could be called by the title, Hippia or Hippeia. This was summarized by the 10th-century Suda Lexicon, which stated, ”Hippeia Athene (Athena-of-Horses)…she was the first to use a chariot and was called ‘of-Horses’ because of this” (Suidas s.v. Hippeia Athene via Theoi, trans. Suda On Line). Similarly, the horse nature of centaurs could allude to some of Athena’s rivals among the gods. An unlikely, but possible, allusion could be to the god, Poseidon, who created the first horse while he competed (and lost) in a contest against Athena over which of the two would hold influence over Attica, Greece.
More plausibly, Mitrovský could have been inspired by the mythology of the centaurs, themselves, or their ancestry. Centaurs, according to Greek myth, traced their existence back to the war god, Ares (a proponent of rash and chaotic bloodshed), who was often attacked and ridiculed by Athena (an embodiment of rational and strategic force). Contrastingly, focusing specifically on the centaurs, it could be that the artist gravitated to their inclusion because of their own reputation in Greek mythology for lusty behavior and debauchery. Athena, a virgin goddess who rejected sexual advances, could be interpreted as fighting off those passions and desires in the painting, or she could be similarly battling the wild and chaotic nature that the centaurs inherited from their ancestor, Ares. Whatever the case, since there is no direct mythological tale to cite, the meaning (or lack thereof) concerning Athena and her battle with the centaurs is left up to the imagination of each individual viewer.
Sources:
- The Iliad by Homer, translated by E. V. Rieu and edited/introduced by Peter Jones. New York: Penguin Classics, 2014.
- The Odyssey by Homer, translated by E. V. Rieu and edited by D. C. H. Rieu. New York: Penguin Classics, 2009.
- The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion, edited by Simon Price and Emily Kearns. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
- https://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Athena.html
- https://www.theoi.com/Cult/AthenaTitles.html
- https://www.webumenia.sk/en/dielo/SVK:SNG.O_156
