The mythological characteristic of cynocephaly, or cynocephalus is to have the head of a dog. Reports of dog-headed races can also be traced back to Greek antiquity. In the fifth century BC, the Greek physician Ctesias wrote a detailed report on the existence of cynocephali in India, known as Indica. The cynocephali offered an evocative image of the magic and brutality deemed characteristic of bizarre people of distant places that they kept returning in medieval literature.