CENCI, THE, a Roman family celebrated for their crimes and misfortunes as well as their wealth.  FRANCESCO CENCI was twice married, had had twelve children by his first wife, whom he treated cruelly; after his second marriage cruelly treated the children of his first wife, but conceived a criminal passion for the youngest of them, a beautiful girl named BEATRICE, whom he outraged, upon which, being unable to bring him to justice, she, along with her stepmother and a brother, hired two assassins to murder him; the crime was found out, and all three were beheaded (1599); this is the story on which Shelley founded his tragedy, but it is now discredited.

CENIS, MONT, one of the Cottian Alps, over which Napoleon constructed a pass 6884 ft. high in 1802-10, through which a tunnel 71/2 m. long passes from Modane to Bardonneche, connecting France with Italy; the construction of this tunnel cost L3,000,000, and Napoleon’s pass a tenth of the sum.

CENSORS, two magistrates of ancient Rome, who held office at first for five years and then eighteen months, whose duty it was to keep a register of the citizens, guard the public morals, collect the public revenue, and superintend the public property.

CEN`TAURS, a savage race living between Pelion and Ossa, in Thessaly, and conceived of at length by Pindar as half men and half horses, treated as embodying the relation between the spiritual and the animal in man and nature, in all of whom the animal prevails over the spiritual except in Chiron, who therefore figures as the trainer of the heroes of Greece; in the mythology they figure as the progeny of Centaurus, son of IXION (q. v.) and the cloud, their mothers being mares.

CENTRAL AMERICA (3,000), territory of fertile tableland sloping gradually to both oceans, occupied chiefly by a number of small republics, lying between Tehuantepec and Panama in N. America; it includes the republics of Guatemala, Honduras, St. Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, and a few adjoining fractions of territory.

CENTRAL INDIA (10,000), includes a group of feudatory States lying between Rajputana in the N. and Central Provinces in the S.

CENTRAL PROVINCES (12,944), States partly British and partly native, occupying the N. of the Deccan, and lying between the Nerbudda and the Godavary.

CEOS, one of the Cyclades, a small island 13 m. by 8 m., yields fruits; was the birthplace of Simonides and Bacchylides.

CEPHALONIA (80), the largest of the Ionian Islands, 30 m. long, the ancient Samos; yields grapes and olive oil.

CEPHALUS, king of Thessaly, who having involuntarily killed his wife Procris, in despair put himself to death with the same weapon.

CERAM` (195), the largest of S. Moluccas; yields sago, which is chiefly cultivated and largely exported.

CERBERUS, the three-headed or three-throated monster that guarded the entrance to the nether world of Pluto, could be soothed by music, and tempted by honey, only Hercules overcame him by sheer strength, dragging him by neck and crop to the upper world.