Cynaethus or Cinaethus (Κιναιθος or Κυναιθος), of Chios, a rhapsodist, who was gene­rally supposed by the ancients to have been the author of the Homeric hymn to Apollo.

He is said to have lived about the 69th Olympiad (504 BC), and to have been the first rhapsodist of the Homeric poems at Syracuse. (Schol. ad Pind. Nem. ii. 1.) This date, however, is much too low, as the Sicilians were acquainted with the Homeric poems long before. Welcker (Epischer Cyclus, p. 243) therefore proposes to read Κατα την εκτην η την εννατην Ολ instead of Κατα την εχηκοστην εννατην Ολ, and places him about 750 BC.

Cynaethus is charged by Eustathius (ad Il. i. p. 16, ed. Polit.) with having interpolated the Homeric poems. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec, i. p. 508.).

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1867).