An anthropophage [1] or anthropophagus (from Greek: ανθρωποφάγος, romanized: anthrōpophagos, "human-eater", plural Greek: ανθρωποφάγοι, romanized: anthropophagi) was a member of a mythical race of cannibals described by the playwright William Shakespeare.
[2] The Anthropophagi might have been inspired by the Scythian tribe of the Androphagi described by the Ancient Greek author Herodotus of Halicarnassus.
"[3] The most famous usage of the Anthropophagi appears in William Shakespeare's Othello: And of the Cannibals that each other eat, The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders.Shakespeare makes yet another reference to the cannibalist anthropophagus in the Merry Wives of Windsor: Go knock and call; hell speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee: knock, I say.T.H.
In popular culture, the anthropophagus is sometimes depicted as a being without a head, but instead have their faces on the torso.
In reality, the line actually refers to a separate, different race of mythical beings known as the Blemmyes, who are indeed said to have no head, and have their facial features on the chest.