Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/616

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612 CYOLOSTOMES head, of whom there are various traditions. Those of the Odyssey are a race of cannibal shepherds in Sicily, whose chief is Polyphemus. The Cyclops of Hesiod are sons of Ccelus (Ura- nus) and Terra (Ge), called Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, who were hurled into Tartarus by their father, released and reimprisoned by Sat- urn, and finally freed by Jupiter, whose thun- derbolts they made, as well as Pluto's helmet and Neptune's trident. They were killed by Apollo, in revenge for the death of his son ^Esculapius, who was destroyed by Jupiter with the thunderbolts they had furnished him. A later tradition makes them the assistants of Vulcan, forging metallic armor and ornaments for gods and heroes in the volcanoes of Lemnos and Lipari, and under Mt. Etna. According to K. O. Muller, the Cyclops of Hesiod denote the transient disturbances of the order of nature by storms ; Grote finds this opinion unsupported by the " Theogony " of the poet. The name of Cy- clopean walls has been given to those huge un- cemented walls of unhewn stones, of which remains abound in several regions of Greece, chiefly in Argolis, and in Etruria, and which were probably mostly erected by Pelasgians. In English the word Cyclops is both singular and plural. CYCLOSTOMES, an order of myzont fishes. See LAMPREY. CYDNUS, the ancient name of a river of Cili- cia, rising in the Taurus, and flowing through Tarsus into the Mediterranean sea a little be- low that town, from which it has received its modern name (Tersus). It was celebrated for the clearness and coolness of its waters, which in the opinion of the ancient physicians pos- sessed medicinal virtues. The mouth of the Cydnus is now choked with sand and other alluvial deposits. CYDONIi, an ancient city of Crete, rival and enemy of Cnossus and Gortyna, but afterward allied with the former. It stood on the N. W. coast of the island, on the site of the modern Canea, and derived its name from the Cydo- nes, an aboriginal race who founded it. After- ward a colony of Zacynthians settled there. Next came the Samians in the 6th century B. C., and ultimately the ^Eginetans, who seized the city. It was famous for quinces, which received from it their botanical name. CYGNUS (Lat., a swan), a northern constella- tion, made memorable by containing the first star whose distance from the sun was approxi- mately determined. In 1717 the astronomer Halley, from a comparison of the positions of certain fixed stars with their positions as re- corded by Ptolemy from observations made by Hipparchus in 130 B. C., concluded that these stars had a proper motion of their own in space. Observations made by astronomers since that time have established this fact in re- gard to several stars, among which is the star 61 Cygni. This is a double star of the sixth magnitude, and comparatively inconspicuous ; but it is so situated relatively to the other stars CYNOCEPHALI of the constellation that a new and refined method of observation and calculation could be brought to bear upon it. In 1837-'8 Bessel of the Konigsberg observatory succeeded in as- certaining the parallax of this star, which he declared to be equal to 0'348", a result since confirmed by other astronomers. The distance of this star from the earth is calculated to be equal to 56,239; 807, 881, 401 miles. It would require a period of between nine and ten years for light to traverse this interval. CYMBALS (Gr. Kv/iQalov, from /cfy/Jof, hol- low), brass musical instruments of percussion, consisting of two circular hollowed plates, from 6 to 12 inches in diameter, which are at- tached to the hands by leather bands, and played by being struck together. The instru- ment is of great antiquity, having been used in the worship of Cybele, Bacchus, Juno, and all the earlier deities of the Grecian and Ro- man mythology, and probably by the Jews and most of the eastern nations. It was usually made in the form of two half glpbes. CYBMEG1RUS, an Athenian warrior, who great- ly distinguished himself at the battle of Mar- athon, 490 B. C. He was the son of Eupho- rion, and brother of ^Eschylus. According to Herodotus, when the vanquished Persians were endeavoring to escape from the fatal field to their ships, he seized one of their triremes, and held on to it till his right hand was cut off. Later accounts exaggerate his exploits. CYNICS, a school of Greek philosophers, found- ed by Antisthenes, a pupil of Socrates, in Athens, in the gymnasium Cynosarges, about 380 B. C. The most renowned among them were Dioge- nes, Crates of Thebes, his wife Hipparchia, and Menippus. They taught that speculative phi- losophy led to no real knowledge of truth, but only to sophistry and the destruction of virtue and human society, and that the only task of philosophy was to show how men might best live morally and peaceably. In this they har- monized with the Stoics, but they differed from them in defining virtue to be the highest pos- sible simplicity in living, and independence of external or sensual goods, and in carrying this so far that they despised decency, cleanliness, civilization, and labor. Hence their name be- came a byword, and was sneeringly derived from KVUV (dog) ; they were called a doggish set, and the name Cynic is still applied to men who disregard the proprieties of life under the pre- tence of independence of character. CYNOCEPHALl, or Cnnocephali (Gr. riuv, dog, and Ke<j>aty, head), a kind of dog-faced baboons, venerated by the ancient Egyptians, and sup- posed to be endowed with wonderful powers. Their reputation for superior and mysterious intelligence was probably the reason why they were selected as the symbol of intellect and used to represent deities of a peculiarly intellec- tual character. Thoth, the god of letters and of science, though frequently represented with the head of an ibis, was often delineated with a dog's head or the head of a cynocephalus. The