History of Monsters. 30

be perhaps not unlike those found in the New World, about which Peter Martyr wrote more extensively when he recorded that there is a region named Camara where, within living memory, a tremendous force of winds and whirlwinds arose that uprooted every tree in its path. With the same violence, two birds were carried into that region which were very similar to the celebrated Harpies, having the faces of young women and being of such great size that no tree branch could support them when they landed. These creatures would snatch up travelers with their talons and carry them off to the high peaks of mountains to be devoured. Thus, from these accounts, we should understand that Sirens are birds in their lower parts, while their upper parts are endowed with human form. Many authors and poets agree on this, assigning them a maiden's body as far as the navel, and thereafter the feet of a hen. Furthermore, the contest of the Sirens with the Muses, which Pausanias explained in his *Description of Boeotia*, seems to indicate some avian nature in the Sirens, as he declared that the Muses wove garlands for themselves from the Sirens' plucked feathers as an eternal monument. Since this is how matters stand, it is a mistake on the part of painters to depict Sirens as aquatic creatures. However, the history of Sirens—much like that of Gryffins and Harpies—has been corrupted by a thousand fables.

Finally, at the end of this distinction between wild and semi-bestial men, some include Centaurs, who have a human front and a horse's hindquarters. Various authors give different accounts of their origin. Servius, in his commentaries on the sixth book of the *Aeneid*, writes that the Centaur was the son of Ixion and a cloud. For when Ixion pursued Juno with shameful intent, Jupiter, sensing his mind, offered the lover a cloud in her likeness, from which the Centaur is said to have been born. Pindar, however, though he concedes the Centaur was fathered by Ixion upon a cloud, indicates that this Centaur was a man so named because he had mated with Magnesian mares at the foot of Mount Pelion, and the resulting offspring were similar to both parents. Pliny seems to favor this opinion in the seventh book of his *Natural History*, where he writes: *Claudius Caesar records that a Hippocentaur was born in Thessaly and died on the same day; and we ourselves, during his principate, saw one brought to him from Egypt preserved in honey.* This opinion is further strengthened because, after the dispersion of peoples following the Flood, when lust ran wild through every sort of wickedness, the unbridled nature of desire produced certain monsters. For this reason, Plutarch seems to have believed that Centaurs, Minotaurs, and similar monsters could be produced from the promiscuous unions of humans and beasts.

Furthermore, in the *Wonders* of Phlegon of Tralles, a Hippocentaur is mentioned which ate meat and died after being captured due to the change in air. Among other authors, one also reads of Onocentaurs, representing a human front and a donkey’s hindquarters. Indeed, the Seventy Interpreters [the Septuagint] in the book of Isaiah report that Onocentaurs would inhabit the deserted Babylon, although the common translator renders this as "owls." To support this opinion, we add that a Centaur came to meet Saint Anthony while he was searching the desert for Paul the First Hermit, as Saint Jerome recorded in his *Life of Saint Paul the First Hermit*. Moreover, Lycosthenes made it known that in the regions once belonging to the great Tamerlane, Centaurs were found of such a form that the upper part resembled a human with two arms like a toad, and the rest a horse. This same author provides another image, which we give here, so that the reader may diligently consider whether such an animal could truly exist in nature.

Hitherto we have brought the affirmative side into the field; now the negative side must be examined. First, the very same poets who in many places approved of Centaurs eventually attested that they were mere trifles. For Ovid, in the fourth book of his *Tristia*, sings thus:

What I pray for is clearly true: I would sooner believe the face of Medusa

The Gorgon was girded with snaky locks.

And a little later:

And four-footed men with breasts joined to breasts,

And the triple-formed man, and the triple-formed dog.

Likewise, Lucretius proclaims Centaurs to be fictitious monsters in these verses:

But neither did Centaurs exist, nor at any time

Can they be, being of a double nature and a twofold body.

The same seems to have pleased Virgil, since he placed the Centaurs at the gates of the underworld, as if things created against nature quickly perish. To these must be added the doctrine of Aristotle, which does not admit such things. For he writes that just as it is not found