Note 129 St. Anthony likewise met one of these monsters, whose existence was seriously asserted by the emperor Claudius. The public laughed; but his praefect of Egypt had the address to send an artful preparation, the embalmed corpse of an Hippocentaur, which was preserved almost a century afterwards in the Imperial palace. See Pliny (Hist. Natur. vii. 3), and the judicious observations of Freret (Memoires de l Acad. tom. vii. p. 321, etc.).

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The History Of The Decline and Fall Of The Roman Empire— Chapter 25