The centaur of Chiron, the son of Saturn and the nymph Filiras, is an important form of Greek mythology, both about his relationship with the healing and other undergoing natural sciences of the ancient world, as well as about his relationship with the teaching of heroes. Hybrid form, like all the centaurs and other chimeras of the mythical world, is distinguished by the rest of its kind for its eternal wisdom. It is presented in many myths, most notably the one he claims to be the teacher of Achilles. The presence of Chiron, in contrast to its kind, possessed a completely different meaning. In a very real way, Chiron could be considered the exception that confirms the rule as to the symbolism of centaur in the Greek world. Where others represented brutality and the danger of the physical world, Chiron represents his abundance and blessing, as shown by the fact that he taught various heroes the potentially benevolent forces of the natural world – the arts of astrology, botany , healing, hunting, martial art, and the exercise of their own interiors, natural gifts, gifts of the gods through hereditary succession or protection. It is important to note here that, as the supernatural gifts had to be granted by the gods, it also required a formal introduction to apprenticeship in order to offer the benefits of his wisdom. The disciples of Chiron brought them either by their gods or former disciples, who knew his teaching and had arrived there by divine intervention. The earliest reference to Chiron may be the one found on the last lines of Kosmogony’s cosmology. The name of the centaur is associated with a child born of the hero Jason and the witch Medea: [… And she in power by entering Jason of the king, gave birth to Mirodeus, her son, who raised him to the mountains Chiron, her son Filiras – and the great Zeus the plan was done …]. The exact nature of these lines is quite interesting if we take into account the upcoming destiny of the particular descendant – a child presumed to be killed in his youth, rather than performing his own accomplishments. Here we would dare to say that Hesiod with the saying “and the great Zeus the plan was done” does not refer to the Empire but to Chiron. The purpose of Zeus is the role that Chiron fulfills in the sphere of Greek myth: to teach his magic to future generations. Considering the love and attachment of our ancestors on their lineage of origin (maternal or patrolline) and the role it played in defining the social position, it is interesting to see the origin of Chiron. Unlike the other centaurs, Chiron does not originate from the Lapiths. It is from Saturn and the nymph Filira. Like other Olympians, Chiron is Saturn’s child. However, he does not possess any particular kingdom like the other gods. It does not act within a pre-determined conceptual framework. It most closely seems to be just a part – a substantial part – of the world, which can unite some faults in the logical sequences of the image we have to create. This seems to be the most interesting of the contemporary views on the functioning of magic, as developed by the Italian anthropologist de Martinino, which largely interprets the need of the ancient peoples to shape and interpret the logical inconsistencies of the environment in a way magical. Chiron possesses an inherent knowledge of the natural world, symbolized externally by the bestial nature of the horse. Apolodoros describes Apolodoros as a formidable Chiron, a reference which at first sight seems superfluous. Besides, each centaur possessed a dual human and animal form. However, all other centaurs operate only in a world of savagery and instincts. Chiron himself bridges the divide between nature and culture, acting as a conduit for the transmission of those properties of the natural world that are likely to benefit culture with his teachings. His inherent knowledge of the magic of the natural world was transferred to his famous hero-healing students, and through them, to the rest of the world.
It seems that the myths about Chiron’s magic have increased significantly over time. We only have some hints about its origin and even less information about the specific ways in which it fulfilled its purpose – namely the magic-healing skills taught to its students, and the ways in which the skills evolved. It has been assumed in the past, and to a certain extent it is accepted that as the ideas of education changed, the ideas of Chiron’s wisdom were developing as well as the views on the way in which he educated his pupils, ideas that Pindar supported: “But the blond Achilles, staying at Philares’ house as a child, did a great project, often banging a javelin with a short blade (short-sighted), rumbling like the wind, dying to the wild lions in the battle, their wild ones and their staggering curves to Centaurus, son of Cronus, at first as if he were six years old, and then all the year he was there, a child playing the game was laborious. He was admired by Artemis and the Athena, for the deer killed them without dogs and fraudulent traps. Why did he stand on his feet. All that I am telling the epic of the ancestors is. ” The antiquity of the ideas concerning Chiron is evidenced by the obvious need of Pindar to make clear that it is not his own invention that Achilles was taught to chase in this way, nor any cultural developments. It is a known fact that he learned from older stories. In his time people developed other ideas for the knowledge and teachings of Chiron, which he tries to describe in detail: “Chiron, with his deep knowledge of Jason, taught in his stone residence and Asclepius after him and taught the art of hands-healing politely. In the course of time, she arranged for the naked daughter of Nereus, taught her son the noble, nourishing his spirit with the precious. And when the winds pushed him to Troy, he stood between the spears and the cries of battle. ” We know from the Iliad that at least one of these “goodies” was the cure, as there are at least two references to Chiron’s teachings in this epic. The former is associated with Menelaus, who was plagued by a Trojan arrow. A physician from the classes of Achaeans the Maachan, who happened to be the son of Asclepius, was called to “suck the poison from the wound and skillfully put on drugs that Chiron gave to his father some time ago.” The second report is indirectly related to Achilles. Evrypylos asked his partner in the Battle of Patroclus to help him. “Save me at least now […] cut off the arrow from my thigh, wash the black blood with warm water, and put it well on it, from what Achilles said to you, since Chiron, the fairer, that’s all”. Being Mahoah himself wounded, the next best choice was a student of Chiron, even though this disciple was not trained as a therapist. Such was the belief in the wisdom of Centaur. From such scattered references, it seems clear that the addition of healing, astronomy, magic and philosophy to the repertoire of skills taught by Chiron is directly linked to the growing wealth of knowledge of ancient Greeks. The important thing in this case is the fact that magic is the foundation of this knowledge. A rich seed from which this knowledge emits with a rapid process of development of human intellect. Similarly, Chiron’s depictions of art point to the same change of ideas not only in the form but also in the essence of education:
“Chiron does not appear alone in the paintings. In the oldest depictions he seems to accept Achilles as his student or to take Achilles as a child from the hands of Peleus, his father. The role of Chiron is a combination of a father-father and a teacher. This is the oldest tradition. Pileas, Thetis or both together give the child the protection of the instructor for guidance, an innovation that prompted artistic imagination in specific depictions at the end of the 6th century. PKE “. Chiron lived in a cave, known as Chiron’s Cave. Although elsewhere he seems to have been abandoned by his mother Filyra at the time of his birth, reports that his mother lived with him in the cave are frequent. A modern researcher, Sotiris Sofias, claims to have discovered the cave of Centaur Chiron, near the beach of Milina, in Pelion. It is a one-storied cave with an area of ​​at least 2500 sq.m. and 30-40m high. According to the researcher, the cave was completely unaware of the Greek Speleological Society and the GISBE (Ministry of Culture’s department responsible for the caves of Central and Northern Greece) [1]. Regardless of changes in the details of education, the core of the relationship between Chiron and his students remained the same. Irrespective of the age at which they trusted him, and regardless of the level of knowledge they had – or they were going to live in the wilderness – to expel the human mantle and take up a place in the world as hunters like Achilles or Aktaion, or to use the abundant gifts of the natural world as healers, or to read the future in the stars or by other means like Aristotle – regardless of all of this, it looked like magic, paralleling the level of skills of the people who formed the social environment in the. Chiron was now a kind of archetype that unified and justified this magical knowledge. A knowledge that came from the gods since he was the son of Saturn and was used by Hercules to complete his feats or Prometheus to expand human knowledge. The relationship was also impregnated with magic for yet another simple reason – the social beliefs of Greeks in their predetermined and fate. Those who performed great labors were pre-determined to do so. They were born of deities, who were passing their magic skills. These skills were strengthened by the education they received, and allowed them to take full advantage of their gifts. This training was possible because of their “magical” connection with the deity, education that restored the silent “magic” possibilities on them through knowledge, allowing them to acquire natural forces inexplicable and admired. This is also the essence of magic in its conceptual framework. The deeper knowledge, deeply promoted in the future, until accepted by the whole human intellect. Chiron’s training was appropriate because it was exclusive-and only available to those who proved to be worthy of it because of their ancestors. It was also appropriate because it was effective. This was noticed by Nicholas Machiavelli about two thousand years later when he said:
“There are two ways you can fight, through law and through power. The first way suits the man and the second one in the beasts. However, since the first way is inadequate, it is often necessary to resort to the second. That is why the prince needs to know how to use both ways both human and beast. The authors of antiquity taught this lesson allegorically when they narrated how Achilles and many other ancient princes were sent to teach Chiron the centaur. Having as a teacher a creature half a human and a half beast means that one learns how to use one and the other nature, and that one without the other can not last “. And, ultimately, it was appropriate because of Chiron’s durable symbolism – the value of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, even if it could only be transmitted to the few people imposed by the aristocratic character of ancient Greek society. This symbolism clearly appears in the death of Chiron. The death of the immortal Chiron originated from the conflict between these two natural and civilized worlds, the result of a conflict between his kind, other Centaurs, and his last pupil, Hercules. During the battle, when the other centaurs fought to protect Hercules’ wrath, Chiron was hit by a pupil’s arrow, a dart infused into the blood of Lernaia, Hydra. By the same token, the same blood will cause the death of Hercules himself until the blood circle is completed in the face of Prometheus. Chiron could not be cured himself by the anguish of the poison of the water, and at the same time he was unable to die naturally, being immortal. He asked Zeus to absolve him of his immortality, but even his death served a purpose in the service of knowledge. With his death, he freed another symbol of knowledge from his bonds – Prometheus, Titan who gave the people the fire. Prometheus was sentenced to eternal imprisonment and eternal torture “until a god becomes his successor, assume the sufferings of Prometheus and descend to the dark Hades and the shadows of Tartarus.” This sequence of events strengthened the symbolic triple bond of Heracles to Chiron, Chiron to Prometheus and finally Prometheus to Hercules and the closing of the circle. This link first depicts the ferocity of the man of nature, then the bridge between man and the knowledge of nature and finally the liberation of man through the symbol of future knowledge. The death of Chiron removed the need for external mediation between physical and spiritual existence. From this point onwards, the human soul plays the role. Even at his death the wise centaur left behind a huge inheritance for mankind. The heritage of self-knowledge and the sacrifices required by its achievement.