Myth Library · Transformation And Death

Poseidon and the Transformation of Caeneus

1 source witness · 1 source-scoped variant · reviewed 2026-08-30

Pseudo-Apollodorus says that after intercourse with Poseidon, Caeneus asks to become an invulnerable man. The centaurs later overcome that invulnerability by burying him beneath fir trees.

Canonical narrative

Pseudo-Apollodorus compresses an encounter, a transformation, a battle, and a death into a few sentences. The mythographer says that Caeneus was formerly a woman and that Poseidon had intercourse with her. The source does not report consent. Afterward, Caeneus asks to become an invulnerable man, and the request is fulfilled.

Invulnerability changes the terms of later violence but does not end it. In the battle with the centaurs, Caeneus disregards wounds and kills many opponents. The centaurs cannot pierce him. They gather around him with fir trees, strike downward, and bury him beneath the timber and earth.

This witness presents Caeneus as a man after the requested transformation and uses masculine language for the battle and death. Other ancient and later tellings require their own records. They cannot be imported to make the encounter consensual, reverse the source's gendering, or add a metamorphosis after death that this passage does not narrate.

Episodes in this myth

Episode 1

Caeneus requests transformation

After intercourse with Poseidon, Caeneus asks to become an invulnerable man.

Episode 2

The centaurs bury Caeneus

Unable to wound Caeneus with weapons, the centaurs batter and bury him beneath fir trees.

Participants and roles

Poseidon

god whose sexual encounter with Caeneus precedes the requested transformation

god whose sexual encounter with Caeneus precedes the requested transformation.

Caeneus

transformed and invulnerable man later overwhelmed by the centaurs

transformed and invulnerable man later overwhelmed by the centaurs.

Centaurs

opponents who bury Caeneus beneath fir trees when weapons cannot pierce him

opponents who bury Caeneus beneath fir trees when weapons cannot pierce him.

Source-scoped variants

Caeneus in Pseudo-Apollodorus

The mythographer joins intercourse with Poseidon, a requested transformation into an invulnerable man, and death beneath the centaurs’ fir trees.

What differs: This passage does not state consent, does not narrate a bird rising after death, and does not reverse Caeneus’s transformation after burial.

Greek Roman Imperial · Ancient Greece

Source witnesses

EXPLICIT PRIMARY · Reviewed

Library

Pseudo-Apollodorus; edited and translated by James G. Frazer · 1921

Entry Epitome · Book E · Chapter 1 · Section 22

Epitome 1.22 preserves the compressed sexual encounter, request, transformation, invulnerability, battle, and death.

Open reviewed source