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Updated: May 13, 2025
This battle was one of the favorite subjects of the ancient sculptors, and is commemorated in several works of art that are still extant. The friendship between Theseus and Pirithous was of a most intimate nature, yet it originated in the midst of arms. Pirithous had made an irruption into the plain of Marathon, and carried off the herds of the king of Athens. Theseus went to repel the plunderers.
There were presently men in arms sent to pursue, but they followed no further than to Tegea; and Theseus and Pirithous, being now out of danger, having passed through Peloponnesus, made an agreement between themselves, that he to whom the lot should fall should have Helen to his wife, but should be obliged to assist in procuring another for his friend.
But the most probable account, and that which has witnesses on its side, is this: Theseus and Pirithous went both together to Sparta, and, having seized the young lady as she was dancing in the temple of Diana Orthia, fled away with her.
It was at the wedding of Pirithous, and not Theseus, that the Centaurs and Lapithae quarrelled.
The celebrated friendship between Theseus and Pirithous is said to have been begun as follows: The fame of the strength and valor of Theseus being spread through Greece, Pirithous was desirous to make a trial and proof of it himself, and to this end seized a herd of oxen which belonged to Theseus, and was driving them away from Marathon, and, when news was brought that Theseus pursued him in arms, he did not fly, but turned back and went to meet him.
They were constantly together, and never tired of each other's society; and at last, when their tutor, observing and thoroughly approving of the friendship, put them both in the same room, the school began in fun to call them Achilles and Patroclus, Damon and Pythias, Orestes and Pylades, David and Jonathan, Theseus and Pirithous, and as many other names of paria amicorum as they could remember.
The dessert service of Dresden porcelain, elaborately enameled with views of the chief towns of Germany, had once been the marriage portion of a princess, and was justly held to be one of the rarest treasures of Crompton; but it was no more respected now than if it had furnished forth the table of Pirithous.
Then Pirithous remained in undisturbed possession of his bride, and on the following morning Theseus departed, bidding farewell to his friend. The common fight had quickly welded the fresh tie of their brotherhood into an indestructible bond. Niobe, Queen of Thebes, was proud of many things.
"Hail to thee, Pirithous, Ixion's son," cried the Wanderer again. "Hast thou yet won the dread Persephone to be thy love? And why doth Hades give his rival holiday to wander in the sunlight, for of old I sought thee, and found thee not in the House of Hades."
And on the gables is a representation of the fight between the Lapithæ and the Centaurs at the marriage of Pirithous. Pirithous is in the center, and on one side of him is Eurytion trying to carry off Pirithous's wife, and Cæneus coming to the rescue, and on the other side Theseus laying about among the Centaurs with his battle-ax; and one Centaur is carrying off a maiden, another a blooming boy.
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