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|wketx=The [[Lapiths]] (/ˈlæpɪθs/; Ancient Greek: [[Λαπίθαι]]) are a group of [[legendary]] people in Greek [[mythology]], whose home was in [[Thessaly]], in the valley of the [[Peneus]] and on the [[mountain]] [[Pelion]].

The Lapiths were an Aeolian tribe who, like the [[Myrmidons]], were natives of [[Thessaly]]. The genealogies make them a kindred people with the centaurs: In one version, [[Lapithes]] ([[Λαπίθης]]) and [[Centaurus]] ([[Κένταυρος]]) were said to be twin sons of the god [[Apollo]] and the nymph [[Stilbe]], daughter of the river god [[Peneus]]. Lapithes was a [[valiant]] [[warrior]], but [[Centaurus]] was a deformed being who later mated with mares from whom the race of half-man, half-horse centaurs came. Lapithes was the eponymous ancestor of the Lapith people, and his descendants include Lapith warriors and kings, such as Ixion, Pirithous, Caeneus, and Coronus, and the seers Ampycus and his son Mopsus.

In the Iliad the Lapiths send forty crewed ships to join the Greek fleet in the Trojan War, commanded by [[Polypoetes]] (son of [[Pirithous]]) and [[Leonteus]] (son of [[Coronus]], son of [[Caeneus]]). The mother of [[Pirithous]], the [[Lapith]] [[king]] in the [[generation]] before the [[Trojan War]], was [[Dia]], daughter of [[Eioneus]] or [[Deioneus]]; [[Ixion]] was the father of [[Pirithous]], but like many [[heroic]] [[figure]]s, [[Pirithous]] had an immortal as well as a mortal father. Zeus was his immortal father, but the god had to assume a stallion's form to cover Dia for, like their half-horse cousins, the Lapiths were horsemen in the grasslands of [[Thessaly]], famous for its horses. The [[Lapiths]] were credited with inventing the bridle's bit. The [[Lapith]] King [[Pirithous]] was marrying the horsewoman [[Hippodameia]], whose name means "tamer of horses", at the wedding feast that made a war, the [[Centauromachia|Centauromachy]], famous.
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