Nessus was a centaur with a past. This creature with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse was the survivor of a bloody battle between Heracles and the centaurs of Foloi in southwestern Greece. It seems that Heracles drank wine to celebrate the capture of the Erymanthian boar, but the smell drove the centaurs mad; they charged him and perished at his hands. Nessus escaped to Aetolia, where he served as the ferryman at the river Evinos. As fate would have it, Heracles came to the river with his wife; as Nessus was carrying Deianeira across the river, he attempted to force himself upon her, at which point Heracles killed him with a poisoned arrow. But before he died, he told Deianeira to keep his blood to ensure that Heracles would always be faithful. The blood was poisoned, though, so when the poor woman administered it to her husband, Heracles perished in great pain.