Transformation Caeneus was originally a woman named Caenis who was transformed into a man by the sea-god
Poseidon. Although possibly as old as the
Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (c. first half of the sixth century BC), the oldest secure mention of this transformation comes from the mythographer
Acusilaus (sixth to fifth century BC). According to Acusilaus, after having sex with Poseidon, Elatus's daughter—here instead called Caene—did not want to have a child by Poseidon or anyone else, due to an unspecified vow or prohibition against it; to prevent this, Poseidon transformed Caene into an invulnerable man, stronger than any other. However, according to the usual version of events, after having sex with Caenis, Poseidon promised he would do whatever Caenis wanted, so Caenis asked to be transformed into an invulnerable man, which Poseidon did.
Kingship Besides the
Centauromachy, little is said about Caeneus's activities after his transformation. According to Acusilaus, Caeneus was the strongest warrior of his day, and became king of the
Lapiths. While king, Caeneus angered the gods by an act of impiety, although accounts differ; according to an
Iliad scholiast, Caeneus set up his spear in the
agora and ordered his subjects to worship it, while according to a scholiast on
Apollonius of Rhodes'
Argonautica, Caeneus himself worshipped his spear rather than the gods. In either case, Caeneus's actions so offended the gods that, as Acusilaus goes on to say, Zeus sent the Centaurs against him. The
Oxyrhynchus Papyrus that supplies Acusilaus's account says that Caeneus was used by
Theophrastos as an example of ruling by the "spear" rather than the "scepter"—that is, by force rather than authority. Caeneus was also listed as among those who took part in the
Calydonian boar hunt by the sixth-century BC Greek
lyric poet Stesichorus, as well as by the Roman poet
Ovid and the Roman mythographer Hyginus, although no details of his participation are given.
Centauromachy ,
François Vase, by
Kleitias,
Florence,
National Archaeological Museum 4209 (). Caeneus's participation in the Centauromachy—the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs at the wedding feast of
Pirithous—seems to be the earliest story told about Caeneus. His transformation and other stories are likely later elaborations. Caeneus fought in the Centauromachy, where most accounts say he met his demise. Because of his invulnerability, none of the Centaurs' weapons could hurt him, so in order to defeat the Lapith king, they hammered him into the ground with tree trunks and boulders, which succeeded in restraining him alive. Caeneus's earliest mention occurs in
Homer's
Iliad, where
Nestor names Caeneus among those "mightiest" of warriors who fought and defeated the Centaurs: The
Hesiodic Shield of Heracles (c. first half of the sixth century BC) describes "the spear-bearing Lapiths around Caeneus their king" battling the Centaurs who fought with fir trees. There is no mention in Homer, or the
Shield, of the story of Caeneus's invulnerability, nor the unique manner of his death at the hands of the Centaurs which invulnerability entailed. However, the Centauromachy was a popular theme in Greek art, and depictions of Caeneus show that this story was well known by at least as early as the seventh century BC. Depictions of Centaurs pounding Caeneus into the ground are shown on a mid-seventh-century BC bronze relief from Olympia, and on the
François Vase (c. 570–560 BC); the former shows Caeneus being pounded by two Centaurs, both using tree trunks, and the latter shows Caeneus, halfway in the ground, being pounded by three Centaurs, two using boulders and one a tree trunk. The first preserved literary mention of Caeneus's death is found in Acusilaus, which says that Caeneus died after the Centaurs beat him "upright" () into the ground and sealed him in with a rock. The fifth-century BC Greek poet
Pindar apparently also referred to Caeneus being driven vertically () into the ground. The third-century BC
Argonautica of
Apollonius of Rhodes, gives a fuller account, saying that Caeneus: Concerning Caeneus's fate, Ovid has Nestor say that some thought Caeneus was pushed down directly into
Tartarus, but that the seer
Mopsus said that Caeneus had been transformed into a bird. According to the
Orphic Argonautica, Caeneus endured his beating by the Centaurs without bending a knee, and "went down among the dead under the earth while still alive." Hyginus listed Caeneus among those who killed themselves. According to
Virgil's
Aeneid,
Aeneas sees the
shade of Caeneus while visiting a place in the Underworld called the (
Mourning Fields), where those who died for love reside. Virgil locates these fields as part of, or near to, the region containing suicides. There Aeneas sees Caeneus, of whom Virgil says, although once a man, is now a woman again, "turned back by Fate into her form of old". ==Iconography==