Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), Cynocephăli

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Cynocephăli

（Κυνοκέφαλοι). A nation of India, who were said to have the heads of dogs, whence their name (Ctesias, Ind. 23; Aul. Gell. ix. 4). Diodorus Siculus speaks of them as resembling human beings of deformed visage and as sending forth human mutterings. It has been generally supposed that the Cynocephali of antiquity were nothing more than a species of large ape or baboon. Heeren, however (Ideen, i. 2, p. 689), thinks that Ctesias refers, in fact, to the Pariahs, or lowest caste of Hindoos; and that the appellation of Cynocephali is a figurative allusion to their degraded state. The name is also applied to the baboons revered by the ancient Egyptians. Thoth, the god of science, is often represented as dogheaded, and so Anubis (q.v.).

Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.

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Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Cynocephăli