Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Centaurus

Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, and Greek Lexicon (Rich, 1849)

CENTAU'RUS (κένταυρος). A centaur; a savage race of men who dwelt between the mountains Pelion and Ossa in Thessaly, and were destroyed in a war with their neighbours, the Lapithae. But the poets and artists converted them into a fabulous race of monsters, half man and half horse, whence termed bimembres (Virg. Aen. viii. 293. Ovid, Met. xv. 283.); in which form they are represented waging war with the Lapithae in the metopes of the Parthenon, on the temples of Theseus at Athens, and of Apollo Epicurius near Phigaleia in Arcadia. In the works of Greek art they are represented of both sexes, frequently playing upon some musical instrument, and the figure is always remarkable for the consummate grace and skill with which the artists of that nation contrived to unite the otherwise incongruous parts of two such dissimilar forms. The figure (Centaurus/1.1) of a female centaur, as being less common, is selected for the illustration, from a very beautiful relief in bronze, of Greek workmanship, discovered at Pompeii.

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  Centaurus/1.1