CYPHONISMUS, in Grecian Antiquity, punishment by the cophon, a kind of pillory in which slaves or criminals were fastened by the neck. The word cophon (κύφων), from which cophonismus is derived, signifies strictly a crooked piece of wood, or the bent yoke of a plough. Some writers suppose that this is the punishment mentioned by Jerome in his life of Paul the Hermit (chap. ii.), in which the body was smeared with honey, and the person so bearded was exposed, with his hands bound, to the rays of the sun, in order to invite the attacks of flies and other vermin.