CENTESIMATION, a milder kind of military punish-
Centilo- quium
Centonari-
ment than decimation in cases of desertion, mutiny, and the like, when only every hundredth man is executed. CENTILOQUIUM denotes a collection of a hundred sentences, opinions, or sayings. The centiloquium of Hermes contains a hundred aphorisms, or astrological sentences, supposed to have been written by some Arab, falsely fathered on Hermes Trismegistus. It is only extant in Latin, in which it has been several times printed. The centiloquium of Ptolemy is a famous astrological piece, frequently confounded with the former, consisting likewise of a hundred sentences or doctrines, divided into short aphorisms, entitled also in Greek χαρτες, as being the fruit or result of the former writings of that celebrated astronomer, namely, his quadrupartitum and almagestum; or rather, because the use of astrological calculations is therein explained.