Cheiron the Centaur

The first teacher attested in the Greek literary tradition is Cheiron the centaur, who from his cave on Mount Pelion in Thessaly dispensed an elite, one-on-one education to some of mythology’s greatest heroes. Because the centaur has left few traces in epic and tragedy, it is necessary to assemble his pedagogic persona from disparate sources. After defining Cheiron as an anti-centaur who differs from his fellows in lineage as well as character, this chapter discusses the centaur’s position vis-à-vis the human community; the Precepts of Cheiron, a collection of injunctions attributed to Hesiod; and Cheiron’s relationship with his pupils Achilles, Jason, Asclepius, and Actaeon, as well as with his daughter Hippo. In his failures as well as his successes, the centaur sets the pattern for subsequent teachers in the ancient Greek literary tradition.