or CYNAETHUS (Κίναιθος or Κίναιθος), 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 (B. C. 504), and to have been the first rhapsodist of the Homeric poems at Syracuse. (Schol. ad Pind. Nem. 2.1.) 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 κατὰ τὴν ἕκτην ἤ τὴν ἐννάτην Ὀλ. instead of κατὰ τὴν ἑξηκοστὴν ἐννάτην Ὀλ., and places him about B. C. 750. Cinaethus is charged by Eustathius (ad Il. i. p. 16, ed. Polit.) with having interpolated the Homeric poems. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. i. p. 508.)
CI'NCIA GENS, plebeian, of small importance. None of its members ever obtained the consulship: the first Cincius who gained any of the higher offices of the state was L. Cincius Alimentus, praetor in B. C. 209. The only cognomen of this gens is ALIMENTUS: those who occur without a surname are given under CINCIUS.