Hercules, the greatest of the Greek heroes, is remembered for many legendary encounters with the centaurs—each more famous than the last. One of the most telling is his conflict with the centaur Eurytion (called Eurytos in some versions of the myth), fought over the hand of the beautiful princess Deianeira.
According to one account, Deianeira’s father, King Dexamenos, promised his daughter to the centaur out of fear of violence. Before the marriage could take place, however, the king appealed to Hercules for help. The hero slew Eurytion and was rewarded with Deianeira’s hand in marriage.
From there, the story flows seamlessly into another well-known centaur myth: Hercules’ later encounter with Nessos at the river Evenus.
Like many myths involving centaurs, this story exists in multiple versions, shaped by local storytellers and shifting cultural values. In some tellings, the princess is named Mnesimache or Hippolyte. In others, Deianeira was first promised to Hercules, and Eurytion attempted to abduct her during the wedding feast. Another variation claims Hercules seduced the princess during a visit, promised to return and marry her, and only later learned that Eurytion had petitioned the king for her hand in his absence. Hercules then returned, slew the centaur, and claimed the bride.
Across these versions, one pattern remains strikingly consistent: the centaur is almost always cast as the villain, even when the details fail to clearly implicate him in wrongdoing. When pitted against a hero as celebrated as Hercules, the centaur’s guilt appears to be assumed rather than proven.
The lone exception to this portrayal is Kheiron—the wise centaur who trained Greek heroes, including Hercules himself. Yet even Kheiron’s revered status does little to redeem the centaurs as a whole in popular myth.
In the midst of all this retelling, I began to wonder whose version of events we were hearing. After all, it was Hercules—not the centaurs—who was said to have slain his first wife and children in a drunken rage, the crime for which he was sentenced to complete his famous twelve labors. And yet it is the centaurs who are remembered as lustful, violent, and unfit to claim brides of their own.
These contradictions became the foundation of my series, Sons of Apollo. What if the centaurs had their own account of these events? Why were they so widely feared and despised? Was their culture truly as uncivilized as myth suggests—or were they condemned simply because they stood opposite the son of Zeus himself?
In Mate for a Centaur, the first book in the series, these myths are explored through the eyes of the accused, allowing readers to decide for themselves whether the centaurs were villains—or victims of circumstance, rumor, and power.
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Or download a coloring page featuring one of the centaur characters from the series
