Centaurs occupy a large place in ancient Greek mythology. A centaur is a creature with the body of a horse and the torso and head of a man. These mythological creatures have a human mind and a violent disposition. Half-humans-half-horses live in mountainous and forest areas, feed on human food.
The origin of the centaurs. The mythical version
According to ancient Greek mythology, the first centaurs were children of the goddess Nephela and the king of the Thessalian tribe of the Lapiths. Nephela gave birth to her 4-legged children in the bowels of the Pelephronia cave. It is not known how half-people-half-horses could have been born, since both Nefela's lover - the king of the Lapiths, and the lawful spouse - the king of Thessaly Atamant, had a completely human appearance and origin.
Be that as it may, the newborn centaurs were sent to the Thessalian Mount Pelion and assigned nymphs to them as educators. Having matured, the guys decided to continue their family and, without hesitation, entered into a relationship with local mares. They gave birth to new centaurs, and the lineage of mythological creatures continued.
Scientific version
Scientists were not satisfied with the mythological version of the emergence of the centaurs, so they began to look for their own source of the legend. And, as usual, they found it. The Mediterranean peoples almost never rode horseback, preferring chariots. They traveled in chariots, fought and went to visit each other. Driving along not far from mountainous areas, the Greeks saw strange silhouettes of half-humans, half-horses: they were horsemen, representatives of nomadic tribes.
Almost 3 thousand years after the appearance of ancient Greek myths, similar impressions were experienced by the Indians who saw the Spaniards on horseback. They decided that unknown gods had visited them and began to worship the half-human-half-horses merged together. True, the Indians did not worship the conquistadors for long: until they realized that the unknown gods had arrived with the goal of destroying the Indians themselves, taking their gold and occupying their lands.
Centaurs in the studies of ancient scientists
Already in ancient times, scientists have questioned the existence of centaurs. In the writings of the famous scientist Plutarch, it is mentioned how a shepherd once brought an incomprehensible creature to a philosopher: a newborn foal with a human head and hands. According to the philosopher, the foal was born as a mare. I must say that Plutarch was very fond of making fun of his contemporaries and descendants, so the birth of an unknown creature could well be a prank of a philosopher.
The Roman scientist Titus Lucretius did not believe in centaurs and tried to justify his disbelief. He argued that the ages of people and horses do not match, so a half-man-half-horse cannot exist. At the time when the horse turns into a fully adult individual, the 3-year-old human cub is still in its infancy. It was the mismatch of biological ages that served Titus Lucretius as proof of the impossibility of the existence of a centaur.
