/ Cyclopes/

A cyclops (meaning ‘circle-eyed’) is a one-eyed giant first appearing in the mythology of ancient Greece. The Greeks believed that there was an entire race of cyclopes who lived in a faraway land without law and order. Homer, in his Iliad, describes the Cyclopes as pastoral but savage, typical of the strange creatures the Greeks created to represent foreign societies not regarded as civilised as themselves. The Cyclopes are not without talents, though, and are credited with manufacturing the thunderbolts which Zeus used as a terrible throwing weapon and as the builders of gigantic fortification walls such as those still seen at Mycenaean sites today. The most famous cyclops is Polyphemus, who captured the Greek hero Odysseus and his men only for them to escape by blinding the poor giant. Cyclopes, and particularly the Odysseus story, were popular and enduring subjects in all forms of Greek and Roman art.  

Hesiod (c. 700 BCE), writing in his Theogony, tells us that the Cyclopes were the children of Earth (Gaia) and Sky (Ouranos/Uranus), making them the generation before the Olympian gods. The Cyclopes were thought to dwell in a faraway land of unknown location or name where there were no laws. There these giant creatures lived a simple pastoral existence herding sheep and goats and living in caves.

Hesiod names three cyclopes as Brontes (Thunder), Steropes (Lightning), and Arges (Bright). This group would go on to father more of their kind although the trio was later killed by Apollo in revenge for Zeus’ murder of his son Asclepius, the demigod and master of medicine. The ghosts of the three were said to haunt the Mount Etna volcano on Sicily. Indeed, many local Greek traditions associated cyclopes with volcanoes, perhaps because their craters were reminiscent of the cyclopes’ one eye, often described in ancient literature as ‘burning.’ Hesiod also makes the Cyclopes master craftsmen and assistants to the god Hephaistos, himself the ultimate blacksmith and ingenious inventor (and sometimes-resident within Mt. Etna). 

The Cyclopes seem to have been a guild of Early Helladic bronzesmiths. Cyclops means ‘ring-eyed’, and they are likely to have been tattooed with concentric rings on the forehead, in honour of the sun, the source of their furnace fires…The Cyclopes were one-eyed also in the sense that smiths often shade one eye with a patch against flying sparks.

Hesiod describes the Cyclopes as having ‘very violent hearts’ (139-140), making them typical of other fantastic creatures in Greek mythology such as the centaurs which represent lawlessness and who are subject to the chaotic forces that an absence of reason brings. Living in isolation, the Cyclopes live solitary and insular lives; they have no government, society or sense of community – deficiencies that civilised Greeks thought abominable.

Perhaps not surprisingly, due to their status as lawless monstrosities rather than gods, the Cyclopes did not play very much part in Greek religion. There was one place where the one-eyed giants were worshipped, though, that was the Isthmus of Corinth, perhaps because of a connection with Poseidon, often seen as the father of the cyclops Polyphemus (see below). The Isthmian Games were held here every two years in honour of Poseidon, and there was an altar which received sacrifices for the Cyclopes.

The Cyclopes helped the Olympian gods led by Zeus to defeat the Titans in their ten-year battle, known as the Titanomachy, for control of the universe. The Cyclopes, in gratitude for their release after Uranus had imprisoned them in Tartarus for unruly behaviour, made the thunderbolts that Zeus used as a weapon to strike down his enemies. Victims hit by Zeus’ well-aimed thunderbolts included Asclepius when Zeus considered that his medical skills had become so wonderful that he was a threat to the eternal division between humanity and the gods. The Cyclopes also made the helmet of Hades which made the wearer invisible, the trident of Poseidon, and the silver bow of Artemis.

The most famous encounter between humans and a cyclops was during the long voyage home from the Trojan War endured by the hero Odysseus. The story is recounted most famously in the Odyssey by Homer. Mid-journey at an unknown location, the hero stops at an island for supplies. Unfortunately, the island was also inhabited by the cyclops Polyphemus, the son of the nymph Thoosa and Poseidon, and the giant took a distinct fancy to the travelling Greeks. Trapping them in his cave by blocking the entrance with a huge boulder only a giant could move, he swiftly ate two as an appetizer and then later a couple more of the hapless travellers.

Seeing the gravity of the situation, Odysseus, known for his intelligence and quick wits, developed a cunning plan of escape. Tempting Polyphemus with wine until the cyclops was drunk, the hero ordered his men to turn Polyphemus’ olive-wood staff into a spike, this they then hardened in a fire and then used it to blind the cyclops while he slept. Unable to see and understandably livid at his treatment, Polyphemus tried to catch the still trapped travellers by feeling his sheep as they left the cave for their grazing. Odysseus then instructed his men to tie themselves to the bellies of the sheep whilst he chose a ram for the purpose, and thus they escaped to continue their voyage. However, the cyclops, after unsuccessfully hurling a boulder to try and smash the fastly-disappearing Greek ship, cursed Odysseus, predicting the loss of his men, a wearisome voyage home, and disaster when he finally arrived there. Calling on the help of his father Poseidon, Polyphemos ensured that it would be many a storm and ten long years before Odysseus reached Ithaca.

/Cyclopes/

In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes (/saɪˈkloʊpiːz/ sy-KLOH-peez; Greek: Κύκλωπες, Kýklōpes, "Circle-eyes" or "Round-eyes";[1] singular Cyclops /ˈsaɪklɒps/ SY-klops; Κύκλωψ, Kýklōps) are giant one-eyed creatures.[2] Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguished. In Hesiod's Theogony, the Cyclopes are the three brothers Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, who made for Zeus his weapon the thunderbolt. In Homer's Odyssey, they are an uncivilized group of shepherds, the brethren of Polyphemus encountered by Odysseus. Cyclopes were also famous as the builders of the Cyclopean walls of Mycenae and Tiryns.

In Cyclops, the fifth-century BC play by Euripides, a chorus of satyrs offers comic relief based on the encounter of Odysseus and Polyphemus. The third-century BC poet Callimachus makes the Hesiodic Cyclopes the assistants of smith-god Hephaestus; as does Virgil in the Latin epic Aeneid, where he seems to equate the Hesiodic and Homeric Cyclopes.

From at least the fifth century BC, Cyclopes have been associated with the island of Sicily and the volcanic Aeolian Islands.

Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguished: the Hesiodic, the Homeric and the wall-builders.[3] In Hesiod's Theogony, the Cyclopes are the three brothers: Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, sons of Uranus and Gaia, who made for Zeus his characteristic weapon, the thunderbolt. In Homer's Odyssey, the Cyclopes are an uncivilized group of shepherds, one of whom, Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon, is encountered by Odysseus. Cyclopes were also said to have been the builders of the Cyclopean walls of Mycenae and Tiryns.[4] A scholiast, quoting the fifth-century BC historian Hellanicus, tells us that, in addition to the Hesiodic Cyclopes (whom the scholiast describes as "the gods themselves"), and the Homeric Cyclopes, there was a third group of Cyclopes: the builders of the walls of Mycenae.[5]

Hesiod, in the Theogony (c. 700 BC), described three Cyclopes: Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, who were the sons of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), and the brothers of the Titans and Hundred-Handers, and who had a single eye set in the middle of their foreheads.[6] They made for Zeus his all-powerful thunderbolt, and in so doing, the Cyclopes played a key role in the Greek succession myth, which told how the Titan Cronus overthrew his father Uranus, and how in turn Zeus overthrew Cronus and his fellow Titans, and how Zeus was eventually established as the final and permanent ruler of the cosmos.[7] The names that Hesiod gives them: Arges (Bright), Brontes (Thunder), and Steropes (Lightning), reflect their fundamental role as thunderbolt makers.[8] As early as the late seventh-century BC, the Cyclopes could be used by the Spartan poet Tyrtaeus to epitomize extraordinary size and strength.[9]

According to the accounts of Hesiod and mythographer Apollodorus, the Cyclopes had been imprisoned by their father Uranus.[10] Zeus later freed the Cyclopes, and they repaid him by giving him the thunderbolt.[11] The Cyclopes provided for Hesiod, and other theogony-writers, a convenient source of heavenly weaponry, since the smith-god Hephaestus—who would eventually take over that role—had not yet been born.[12] According to Apollodorus, the Cyclopes also provided Poseidon with his trident and Hades with his cap of invisibility,[13] and the gods used these weapons to defeat the Titans.

Although the primordial Cyclopes of the Theogony were presumably immortal (as were their brothers the Titans), the sixth-century BC Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, has them being killed by Apollo.[14] Later sources tell us why: Apollo's son Asclepius had been killed by Zeus' thunderbolt, and Apollo killed the Cyclopes, the makers of the thunderbolt, in revenge.[15] According to a scholiast on Euripides' Alcestis, the fifth-century BC mythographer Pherecydes supplied the same motive, but said that Apollo, rather than killing the Cyclopes, killed their sons (one of whom he named Aortes) instead.[16] No other source mentions any offspring of the Cyclopes.[17] A Pindar fragment suggests that Zeus himself killed the Cyclopes to prevent them from making thunderbolts for anyone else.[18]

The Cyclopes' prowess as craftsmen is stressed by Hesiod who says "strength and force and contrivances were in their works."[19] Being such skilled craftsmen of great size and strength, later poets, beginning with the third-century BC poet Callimachus, imagine these Cyclopes, the primordial makers of Zeus' thunderbolt, becoming the assistants of the smith-god Hephaestus, at his forge in Sicily, underneath Mount Etna, or perhaps the nearby Aeolian Islands.[20] In his Hymn to Artemis, Callimachus has the Cyclopes on the Aeolian island of Lipari, working "at the anvils of Hephaestus", make the bows and arrows used by Apollo and Artemis.[21] The first-century BC Latin poet Virgil, in his epic Aeneid, has the Cyclopes: "Brontes and Steropes and bare-limbed Pyracmon"[22] toil under the direction of Vulcan (Hephaestus), in caves underneath Mount Etna and the Aeolian islands.[23] Virgil describes the Cyclopes, in Vulcan's smithy forging iron, making a thunderbolt, a chariot for Mars, and Pallas's Aegis, with Vulcan interrupting their work to command the Cyclopes to fashion arms for Aeneas.[24] The later Latin poet Ovid also has the Hesiodic Cyclopes Brontes and Steropes (along with a third Cyclops named Acmonides), work at forges in Sicilian caves.[25]

According to a Hellenistic astral myth, the Cyclopes were the builders of the first altar. The myth was a catasterism, which explained how the constellation the Altar (Ara) came to be in the heavens. According to the myth, the Cyclopes built an altar upon which Zeus and the other gods swore alliance before their war with the Titans. After their victory, "the gods placed the altar in the sky in commemoration", and thus began the practice, according to the myth, of men swearing oaths upon altars "as a guarantee of their good faith".[26]

According to the second-century geographer Pausanias, there was a sanctuary called the "altar of the Cyclopes" on the Isthmus of Corinth at a place sacred to Poseidon, where sacrifices were offered to the Cyclopes.[27] There is no evidence for any other cult associated with the Cyclopes.[28] According to a version of the story in the Iliad scholia (found nowhere else), when Zeus swallowed Metis, she was pregnant with Athena by the Cyclops Brontes.[29]

Although described by Hesiod as "having very violent hearts" (ὑπέρβιον ἦτορ ἔχοντας),[30] and while their extraordinary size and strength would have made them capable of great violence, there is no indication of the Hesiodic Cyclopes having behaved in any other way than as dutiful servants of the gods.[31]

In an episode of Homer's Odyssey (c. 700 BC), the hero Odysseus encounters the Cyclops Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon, a one-eyed man-eating giant who lives with his fellow Cyclopes in a distant land.[33] The relationship between these Cyclopes and Hesiod's Cyclopes is unclear.[34] Homer described a very different group of Cyclopes, than the skilled and subservient craftsman of Hesiod.[35] Homer's Cyclopes live in the "world of men" rather than among the gods, as they presumably do in the Theogony.[36] The Homeric Cyclopes are presented as uncivilized shepherds, who live in caves, savages with no regard for Zeus. They have no knowledge of agriculture, ships or craft. They live apart and lack any laws.[37]

The fifth-century BC playwright Euripides also told the story of Odysseus' encounter with Polyphemus in his satyr play Cyclops. Euripides' Cyclopes, like Homer's, are uncultured cave-dwelling shepherds. They have no agriculture, no wine, and live on milk, cheese and the meat of sheep. They live solitary lives, and have no government. They are inhospitable to strangers, slaughtering and eating all who come to their land.[38] While Homer does not say if the other Cyclopes are like Polyphemus in their appearance and parentage, Euripides makes it explicit, calling the Cyclopes "Poseidon's one-eyed sons".[39] And while Homer is vague as to their location, Euripides locates the land of the Cyclopes on the island of Sicily near Mount Etna.[40]

Cyclopes were also said to have been the builders of the so-called 'Cyclopean' walls of Mycenae, Tiryns, and Argos.[42] Although they can be seen as being distinct, the Cyclopean wall-builders share several features with the Hesiodic Cyclopes: both groups are craftsmen of supernatural skill, possessing enormous strength, who lived in primordial times.[43] These builder Cyclopes were apparently used to explain the construction of the stupendous walls at Mycenae and Tiryns, composed of massive stones that seemed too large and heavy to have been moved by ordinary men.[44]

These master builders were famous in antiquity from at least the fifth century BC onwards.[45] The poet Pindar has Heracles driving the cattle of Geryon through the "Cyclopean portal" of the Tirynian king Eurystheus.[46] The mythographer Pherecydes says that Perseus brought the Cyclopes with him from Seriphos to Argos, presumably to build the walls of Mycenae.[47] Proetus, the mythical king of ancient Argos, was said to have brought a group of seven Cyclopes from Lycia to build the walls of Tiryns.[48]

The late fifth and early fourth-century BC comic poet Nicophon wrote a play called either Cheirogastores or Encheirogastores (Hands-to-Mouth), which is thought to have been about these Cyclopean wall-builders.[49] Ancient lexicographers explained the title as meaning "those who feed themselves by manual labour", and, according to Eustathius of Thessalonica, the word was used to describe the Cyclopean wall-builders, while "hands-to-mouth" was one of the three kinds of Cyclopes distinguished by scholia to Aelius Aristides.[50] Similarly, possibly deriving from Nicophon's comedy, the first-century Greek geographer Strabo says these Cyclopes were called "Bellyhands" (gasterocheiras) because they earned their food by working with their hands.[51]

/Cyclopes/

The Cyclopes (singular: Cyclops) were gigantic, one-eyed beings with enormous strength. Originally, there were three of them: Arges, Steropes, and Brontes; capable blacksmiths, these were the sons of Uranus and Gaea and the brothers of the Hecatoncheires and the Titans. They were imprisoned by Cronus but released by his son Zeus, for whom they forged his famous thunderbolt as a sign of gratitude. However, at a later time, poets spoke of a different type of Cyclopes, a race of dim-witted and violent one-eyed shepherds dwelling in the caves of the island of Sicily. The most famous among them was Polyphemus, the Cyclops who fell in love with Galatea and was eventually blinded by Odysseus.

The word “cyclops” can be literally translated as “round-eyed,” but many authors feel that it is derived from a much older word which originally meant “sheep thief.” Both etymologies describe the Cyclopes suspiciously well, and, in fact, it’s entirely possible that the very name of the Cyclopes may have influenced and, slowly but surely, distorted their original portrayal.

Even though they appear to have shared their most distinctive features between them, there seems to have been two very different types of Cyclopes in Ancient Greek mythology. Hesiod’s Cyclopes are three gigantic and divine blacksmiths, sons of Uranus and Gaea, residents of Olympus; Homer’s are a race of enormous and violent shepherds related to Poseidon and dwelling in the world of humans.

Hesiod mentions only three Cyclopes: Arges (Thunderer), Steropes (Lightner), and Brontes (Vivid). The sons of Uranus and Gaea, they are some of the earliest gods to ever spring into existence, born shortly after the Titans, and just before the Hecatoncheires – both of them their brothers.

Based on most descriptions, the divine Cyclopes were gigantic and immensely strong beings with a single eye in the middle of their foreheads. They had a knack for metalwork and handicraft and eventually ended up being the workmen of Hephaestus, whose workshop was supposed to be in the heart of the volcanic mountain Etna.

Incited by his mother Gaea, the youngest of the Titans, Cronus, castrated and overthrew his father Uranus, establishing himself as the supreme ruler of all gods. Fearing the might of his brothers, he imprisoned both the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires in Tartarus, setting the dragoness Campe to guard them for all eternity. Terrified of his children as well, Cronus tried devouring each of them as soon as they were born.

In time, however, the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires were released from Tartarus by the only one of Cronus’ children not to be eaten by him at birth: Zeus. Zeus did this at the advice of Gaea, who had informed him that he wouldn’t be able to depose Cronus without their help. True to Gaea’s words, the Cyclopes played a crucial part during the Titanomachy.

Upon landing on the island of the Cyclopes, Odysseus and his sailors found themselves entrapped in the cave of Polyphemus. The Cyclops ate six of Odysseus’ men, and Odysseus had no option but to devise a quick escape plan. So, one night, he intoxicated Polyphemus and pierced his eye with a wooden stake; the next morning, he told his men to hide under the bellies of Polyphemus’ sheep, and thus he managed to smuggle them out of the cave. It was because of this act that Poseidon, Polyphemus’ father, held a decade-long grudge against Odysseus, keeping him away from Ithaca and his beloved wife, Penelope.