Prof. Ridgeway[981] has shown that in the mythology of the Centaurs we have a reflection of the attitude of mind of the conquerors to the conquered. This attitude is, all the world over, a double one. The conquerors are apt to regard the conquered with mixed feelings, mainly, it is true, with hatred and aversion, but in part with reluctant awe. ‘The conquerors respect the conquered as wizards, familiar with the spirits of the land, and employ them for sorcery, even sometimes when relations are peaceable employ them as foster-fathers for their sons, yet they impute to them every evil and bestial characteristic and believe them to take the form of wild beasts. The conquered for their part take refuge in mountain fastnesses and make reprisals in the characteristic fashion of Satyrs and Centaurs by carrying off the women of their conquerors.’ Nonnus is again right, it was jealousy that gave to the Satyrs their horns, their manes, tusks and tails, but not, as Nonnus supposed, the jealousy of Hera, but of primitive conquering man who gives to whatever is hurtful to himself the ugly form that utters and relieves his hate[982]. It should not be hard for us to realize this impulse; our own devil, with horns and tail and hoofs, died hard and recently. Most instructive of all as to the real nature of the Centaurs and their close analogy to the Satrai-Satyroi is the story of the opening of the wine cask. Pindar[983] tells how ‘Then when the wild men knew The scent of honeyed wine that tames men’s souls, Straight from the board they thrust the white milk-bowls With hurrying hands, and of their own will flew To the horns of silver wrought, And drank and were distraught.’ Storm-clouds and mountain torrents, nay even four-footed beasts do not get drunk, the perfume of wine is for the subduing of man alone. The wild things (φῆρες) are all human, ‘they thrust with their hands.’ [Illustration: FIG. 122.] The scene is a favourite one on vases. One of the earliest representations is given in fig. 122 from a skyphos in the Louvre[984]. It dates about the beginning of the sixth century B.C. The scene is the cave of the Centaur Pholos. The great pithos or wine jar is open. Pholos himself has a large wine-cup in his hand. Pholos is sober still, he is a sort of Cheiron, but not so the rest. They are mad with drink and are hustling and fighting in wild confusion. Herakles comes out and tries to restore order. Wine has come for the first time to a primitive population unused to so strong an intoxicant. The result is the same all over the world. A like notion comes out in the popular myth of the wedding feast of Peirithoös; the Centaurs taste wine and fall to fighting and in Satyr fashion seek to ravish the bride. These stories are of paramount importance because they point the analogy between two sets of primitive worshippers of Dionysos, the Centaurs and the Satrai-Satyroi.