A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Κεφρήν) is the name, according to Diodorus, of the Egyptian king whom Herodotus calls Chephren. He was the brother and successor of Cheops, whose example of tyranny he followed, and built the second pyramid, smaller than that of Cheops, by the compulsory labour of his subjects. His reign is said to have lasted 56 years. The pyramids, as Diodorus tells us, were meant for the tombs of the royal builders; but the people, groaning under their yoke, threatened to tear up the bodies, and therefore both the kings successively desired their friends to bury them elsewhere in an unmarked grave. In Herodotus it is said that the Egyptians so hated the memory of these brothers, that they called the pyramids, not by their names, but by that of Philition, a shepherd who at that time fed his flocks near the place. We are told by Diodorus that, according to some accounts, Chembes (the Cheops of Herodotus) was succeeded by his son Chabryis, which name is perhaps only another form of Cephren. In the letter in which Synesius, bishop of the African Ptolemais, announces to his brother bishops his sentence of excommunication against Andronicus, the president of Libya, Cephren is classed, as an instance of an atrocious tyrant, with Phalaris and Sennacherib. (Hdt. 2.127, 128; Diod. 1.64; Synes. Epist. 58.)

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