On Unbelievable Stories (1)

What they say about the Centaurs is that they were beasts that had the shape of a horse, except that their head was human. Some might well believe that such a beast once existed – but it is impossible. Human and equine natures are entirely incompatible: they don’t live on the same sort of food, and the food of a horse would not be able to pass through the mouth and throat of a human. If a creature of this shape did once exist, it would still exist now.

The truth is as follows. When Ixion was king of Thessaly, a herd of bulls on Mt Pelion became feral and blocked access to the other mountains. These bulls would come down to the inhabited areas, where they would destroy the trees and crops and kill livestock. And so Ixion announced that he would give a great amount of money to anyone who killed the bulls. Some young men from the foothills, from a town called Cloud, contrived to train their horses to carry riders. (Before this they did not know how to ride horses, only how to use them hitched to chariots.) So they mounted their horses, rode to where the bulls were and attacked the herd with their javelins. Whenever they were charged by the bulls, the young men would escape since their horses were quicker; and when the bulls came to a stop, they would turn and hurl their javelins. Using these tactics they killed them, thus earning the name ‘Centaurs’ since they pierced [kent-] the bulls [tauroi]. (The name certainly did not come from their having the shape of bulls, for Centaurs have the shape not of a bull, but of a horse and a human: the name must have come from the exploit.)

After the Centaurs got Ixion’s money, the pride they had in their achievement and wealth swelled into arrogance: they committed many brutal acts, even against Ixion himself. Ixion resided in the city that is now called Larissa (its residents were then called ‘Lapiths’). The Lapiths invited the Centaurs to a feast. The Centaurs got drunk and carried off the Lapiths’ wives: they bundled the women onto their horses and galloped homeward. From there they made war on the Lapiths: they would come down onto the plain at night and hide, then burn and pillage by day before returning to the mountains. When they rode away in this manner, those watching from a distance saw them only from behind: they looked like horses but without a horse’s head; the rest was like a human, but without the legs. People who saw the strange sight would say, The Centaurs from Cloud are attacking us! And from such accounts, and from their appearance, the unbelievable myth was fabricated: that a ‘horse-man’ had been created from a cloud on the mountain.