Pliny pooh-poohs the mythical origin of the Centaurs, and says they were Thessalians, who dwelt along Mount Pelion, and were the first to fight on horseback. Aldrovandus writes that, according to Licosthenes, there were formerly found, in the regions of the Great Tamberlane, Centaurs of such a form as its upper part was that of a man, with two arms resembling those of a toad,
and he gives a drawing from that author, so that the reader might diligently meditate whether such an animal was possible in a natural state of things; but the artist seems to have forgotten the fore-legs.
“The Onocentaur is a monstrous beast;
Supposed halfe a man, and halfe an Asse,
That never shuts his eyes in quiet rest,
Till he his foes deare life hath round encompast.
Such were the Centaures in their tyrannie,
That liv’d by Humane flesh and villanie.”