The Origins of ‘Centaurs’

T HE possible origins of the ancient Greek horse-human hybrid 'centaur' have taxed the learning and ingenuity of many scholars who have approached the problem of this monster's genesis from various angles. Paul Kretschmer, 'Mythische Namen', Glotta, 10 (1920), pp. 50-8, 211-12, offered an etymological explanation of Ktvrcvpa; according to which the word means 'Wasserpeitscher' (water-whipper). According to this explanation 'centaurs' were originally water spirits.' 'In that case, one might believe that they were originally spirits of the precipitous mountain torrents. At all events, their character is rough and violent. They resemble the spirits of wood and wilderness2 which appear in the folklore of northern Europe. They represent the fierce and rough aspects of nature.'3 Martin P. Nilsson, the author of the foregoing quotation, was later to view Kretschmer's etymological explanations with greater scepticism when he stated in his Geschichte der griechischen Religion (Munich 1955), p. 231, 'Die Etymologie und die Deutung der Ursprungs sind unsicher und mogen auf sich beruhen.' Two further authorities regard the etymology of Ktvzvopa; as uncertain.4 The Greeks themselves were not without ideas about the origins of centaurs. Palaiphatos, who was perhaps a contemporary of Aristotle, approached the problem with euhemeristic pragmatism5 and rationalized the myth of Ixion and Nephele whose illusory union led to the birth of Centaurus :6 'When Ixion was king of Thessaly, the country was much plagued by herds of wild cattle. On his offering a reward for their destruction, certain enterprising archers from a village called Nephele went out on horseback and shot them down. Hence arose the tale that Ixion was the father by Nephele (the Cloud) of a race of beings called Kentauroi (prickers of bulls) who were a mixture of man and horse.'7 However, the meaning 'bullprickers' seems to have been as firmly rejected by modern scholars as Kretschmer's 'water-whippers'. Another explanation is given by Plutarch in his Bruta Animalia Ratione Uti (Beasts Are Rational), 990F: 'For men have, in fact, attempted to consort with goats and sows and mares ... From such unions your Minotaurs and Aegipans, and, I suppose, your Sphinxes and Centaurs have arisen.' That centaurs might have been the product of interspecific breeding is a belief that was held not only in classical antiquity, but in seventeenth-century Europe. For example, A. Pare, in chapter 19 of his Des Monstres et Prodiges (1573)8 quotes several 'cases' of half-human, half-animal monsters which are alleged to be the fruit of bestial intercourse. Etymological, allegorical, and physiological approaches to the problem under discussion have so far, it seems, yielded no evidence which wins confidence and compels belief, and many explanations do not reach the level

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