in Mythology, a kind of fabulous monsters, half men and half horses. The poets pretended that the Centaurs were the sons of Ixion and a cloud, the reason of which fancy is, that they retired to a castle called Κένταρος, which signifies a cloud. This fable is variously interpreted. Some suppose the Centaurs to have been a body of shepherds and herdsmen, rich in cattle, who inhabited the mountains of Arcadia, and to whom is attributed the invention of bucolic poetry. Palephatus, in his book of wonders, relates, that under the reign of Ixion, king of Thessaly, a herd of bulls on Mount Thessaly ran mad and ravaged the whole country, rendering the mountains inaccessible; and that some young men who had found out the art of taming and mounting horses, undertook to clear the mountains of these animals, which they pursued on horseback, and thence obtained the appellation of Centaurs. This success rendering them insolent, they insulted the Lapithae, a people of Thessaly; and because when attacked they fled with great rapidity, it was supposed they were half horses and half men.