Καινευς
He was originally a girl named Caenis, daughter of the Lapith Elatus (Table 9), who was beloved by Poseidon. She asked the god to change her into a man who was invulnerable; Poseidon granted this request. In his new embodiment Caeneus took part in the struggle against the Centaurs, but when they could not kill him, they beat him with the trunks of fir trees and finally buried him alive. It is said that after his death Caeneus became a woman again, or, according to another version, a bird with shining wings, a flamingo.
A different tradition tells that after he had become a man Caeneus grew extremely proud: he set up his spear in the market place and ordered the populace to worship the weapon, as if it were a god. To punish him, Zeus roused the Centaurs against him and they finally killed him. His name appears in some of the lists of the Argonauts. His son Coronus was king of the Lapiths at the time of Heracles (see AEGIMUS).
{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}
Table of Sources
- Apollod. Epit. 1, 22
- Apoll. Rhod. Arg. 1, 57ff. with schol.
- schol. on Hom. Il. 1, 262
- Antoninus Liberalis, Met. 17
- Virgil, Aen. 6, 448ff. with Serv. ad loc.
- Ovid, Met. 12, 459ff.
- Hyg. Fab. 14; 242
- Palaeph. Incred. 11
- Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 13, 1611, 38ff.