Lapith Driving Back a Centaur

This Parthenon metope (447–438 BC) captures the moment a Centaur drives its foreleg into a collapsing Lapith, forcing him backward in a violent twist of bodies. The Lapiths, a This Parthenon metope (447–438 BC) shows a Lapith forcing a Centaur backward with a powerful grip on its equine torso. The Centaur rears and twists, its raised foreleg and strained muscles conveying violent resistance. In myth, the Lapiths of Thessaly fought the Centaurs after the latter assaulted guests at the wedding of Pirithous. The struggle became a metaphor for reason restraining raw impulse, a theme the sculptors used to affirm the ideals of order and self-control central to Classical Athens.