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In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes ( ; , Kýklōpes, "Circle-eyes" or "Round-eyes";Hard, p. 66: "KYKLOPES (Round-eyes)"; West 1988, p. 64: "The name Cyclopes means Circle-eyes"; LSJ, s.v. Κύκλωψ: "Round-eyed". singular Cyclops ; Κύκλωψ, Kýklōps) are giant one-eyed creatures.For a detailed discussion of the Cyclopes see Fowler 2013, pp. 53–56; for general summaries see: Hansen, pp. 143–144; Grimal, s.v. Cyclopes, pp. 118–119; Tripp, s.v. Cyclopes, p. 181; Rose, s.v. Cyclopes, p. 304 ( Oxford Classical Dictionary 2nd edition). Three kinds of Cyclopes can be distinguished. In Hesiod's Theogony, the Cyclopes are three brothers—Brontes, Steropes, and Arges—who create Zeus's thunderbolt, Poseidon's trident, and Hades' Helm of Darkness. The Cyclopes of Homer's Odyssey are a group of uncivilized, cave-dwelling , including Polyphemus, whom Odysseus encounters. A third group of Cyclopes reputedly constructed the Cyclopean walls of Mycenae and Tiryns.
In Cyclops, the fifth-century BC play by Euripides, a satyr play 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.
According to the accounts of Hesiod and the mythographer Apollodorus, the Cyclopes had been imprisoned by their father Uranus.Hesiod, Theogony 154–158, says that Uranus "put them all away out of sight in a hiding place in Earth and did not let them come up into the light", while according to Apollodorus, 1.1.2, Uranus "bound and cast them into Tartarus", the two places perhaps being the same (see West 1966, p. 338 on line 618, and Caldwell, p. 37 on lines 154–160). Zeus later freed the Cyclopes, and they repaid him by giving him the thunderbolt.Hesiod, Theogony 501–506. 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.Fowler 2013, p. 54: the Cyclopes "would supply the obvious answer any theogony-writer would pose: who made the weapons in the early wars, before even Hephaistos was born?"; see also West 1966, p. 207 on line 139, who, after mentioning that "for Hesiod the are simply one-eyed craftsmen who made Zeus' thunder", notes parenthetically by way of explanation, "Hephaestus had not yet been born". According to Apollodorus, the Cyclopes also provided Poseidon with his trident and Hades with his cap of invisibility,Hard, p. 69; Apollodorus, 1.2.1. The hat given to Hades in Apollodorus is presumably the same "cap of Hades" mentioned in the Iliad 5.844–845, that Athena wore so that "mighty Ares should not see her", see Gantz, p. 71. 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.Hard, pp. 66, 151 Gantz, pp. 13, 92; Hesiod fr. 57 Most =, fr. 58 Most =, fr. 59 Most =. For further discussion of the story around Apollo's killing the Cyclopes, see Fowler 2013, pp. 74–79; Hard, pp. 151–152. 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.Euripides, Alcestis 5–7; Apollodorus, 3.10.4; Diodorus Siculus, 4.71.3; Hyginus, Fabulae 49, which adds that Apollo, because he could not attack his father directly, chose to exact his revenge on the Cyclopes "instead". 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.Fowler 2013, p. 54; Hard, p. 151; Bremmer, p. 139; Gantz, p. 13; Pherecydes fr. 35 Fowler =; Frazer's note 2 to Apollodorus 3.10.4. Fowler, notes that Pherecydes having Apollo kill—not the Cyclopes themselves—but their mortal offspring, solves the "difficulty" in killing the immortal Cyclopes of the Theogony, as well as ensuring the continued supply of Zeus' thunderbolts. No other source mentions any offspring of the Cyclopes.Gantz, p. 13. A Pindar fragment suggests that Zeus himself killed the Cyclopes to prevent them from making thunderbolts for anyone else.Fowler 2013, p. 54; Hard, p. 66; Gantz, p. 13.
The Cyclopes' prowess as craftsmen is stressed by Hesiod who says "strength and force and contrivances were in their works."Hesiod, Theogony 146. 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.Hard, pp. 66, p. 166; Fowler 2013, p. 54; Bremmer, p. 139; Grimal, p. 119 s.v. Cyclopes. 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.Callimachus, Hymn III to Artemis 8-10. The first-century BC Latin poet Virgil, in his epic Aeneid, has the Cyclopes: "Brontes and Steropes and bare-limbed Pyracmon"Virgil, Aeneid 8.425. toil under the direction of Vulcan (Hephaestus), in caves underneath Mount Etna and the Aeolian islands.Virgil, Aeneid 8.416–422. Virgil describes the Cyclopes, in Vulcan's smithy forging iron, making a thunderbolt, a chariot for Mars, and Athena's Aegis, with Vulcan interrupting their work to command the Cyclopes to fashion arms for Aeneas.Virgil, Aeneid 8.424–443. 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.Ovid, Fasti 4.287–288, 4.473.
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".Hard, p. 66; Bremmer, p. 140; Eratosthenes, 39; Hyginus, De astronomica 2.39.
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.Pausanias, 2.2.1. There is no evidence for any other cult associated with the Cyclopes.Hard, p. 66; West 1966, p. 207 on line 139. 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.Gantz, p. 51; Yasumura, p. 89; scholia bT to Iliad 8.39.
Although described by Hesiod as "having very violent hearts" ( ὑπέρβιον ἦτορ ἔχοντας),Hesiod, Theogony 139. 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.Fowler 2103, p. 54.
Walter Burkert suggests that groups or societies of lesser gods, like the Hesiodic Cyclopes, "mirror real cult associations ( thiasoi) ... It may be surmised that Metalsmith guilds lie behind Cabeiri, Idaian Dactyloi, Telchines, and Cyclopes."Burkert 1991, p. 173.
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.Euripides, Cyclops 114–128. 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".Euripides, Cyclops 20–22. And while Homer is vague as to their location, Euripides locates the land of the Cyclopes on the island of Sicily near Mount Etna.Euripides, Cyclops 114.
Like Euripides, Virgil has the Cyclopes of Polyphemus live on Sicily near Etna. For Virgil apparently, these Homeric Cyclopes are members of the same race of Cyclopes as Hesiod's Brontes and Steropes, who live nearby.Tripp, s.v. Cyclopes, p. 181.
These master builders were famous in antiquity from at least the fifth century BC onwards.Bremmer, p. 140. The poet Pindar has Heracles driving the cattle of Geryon through the "Cyclopean portal" of the Tirynian king Eurystheus.Pindar, fr. 169a7; Fowler 2013, p. 53 n. 206; Bremmer, p. 140 n. 21. Apollodorus, 2.5.8 would seem to locate Eurystheus' "portal" in Mycenae, see Race, p. 403 n. 13. See also Strabo, 8.6.2, which says that "Next after Nauplia one comes to the caverns and the labyrinths built in them, which are called Cyclopeian". The mythographer Pherecydes says that Perseus brought the Cyclopes with him from Seriphos to Argos, presumably to build the walls of Mycenae.Fowler 2013, p. 36; Gantz, p. 310; Hard, p. 243; Pherecydes fr. 12 Fowler =. 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.Hard, p. 237; Strabo, 8.6.11. Compare with Apollodorus 2.2.1 which also connects these Cyclopes with Lycia, see Fowler 2013, p. 36 n. 121.
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.Storey, pp. 397, 401. 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.Storey, p. 401; Scholia to Aelius Aristides 52.10 Dindorf p. 408. 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.Strabo, 8.6.11; Roller, p. 472 note on Strabo 8.6.11. Tiryns. According to Bremmer, p. 140, "Cyclopes were disparagingly named 'Bellyhands, because "the Greek upper-classes looked down upon those who had to work for a living".
The first-century natural philosopher Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, reported a tradition, attributed to Aristotle, that the Cyclopes were the inventors of masonry towers.Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.195. In the same work Pliny also mentions the Cyclopes, as being among those credited with being the first to work with iron,Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.198. as well as bronze.Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.197. In addition to walls, other monuments were attributed to the Cyclopes. For example, Pausanias says that at Argos there was "a head of Medusa made of stone, which is said to be another of the works of the Cyclopes".Pausanias, 2.20.7.
Following the Cyclopes, Gaia next gave birth to three more monstrous brothers, the Hecatoncheires, or Hundred-Handed Giants. Uranus hated his monstrous children,Hesiod, Theogony 154–155. Hesiod's text is not entirely clear about whether Uranus hated only his monstrous offspring, or all of them, including the comely Titans. Hard, p. 67, West 1988, p. 7, and Caldwell, p. 37 on lines 154–160, make it all eighteen, while Gantz, p. 10, says "likely all eighteen", and Most 2018a, p. 15 n. 8, says "apparently only the ... Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers are meant", and not the twelve Titans. See also West 1966, p. 206 on lines 139–53, p. 213 line 154 γὰρ. Why Uranus hated his children is also not clear. Gantz, p. 10 says: "The reason for Uranus' hatred may be his horrible appearance, though Hesiod does not quite say this"; while Hard, p. 67 says: "Although Hesiod is vague about the cause of his hatred, it would seem that he took a dislike to them because they were terrible to behold". However, West 1966, p. 213 on line 155, says that Uranus hated his children because of their "fearsome nature". and as soon as each was born, he imprisoned them underground, somewhere deep inside Gaia.Hesiod, Theogony 156–158. Aside from their being hated by Uranus, Hesiod does not say why the Cyclopes were imprisoned by Uranus, but the reason may have been the same as the reason Hesiod gives for the Hundred-Handers' imprisonment, Uranus being afraid of their power, see Fowler 2013, p. 53. The hiding place inside Gaia is presumably her womb, see West 1966, p. 214 on line 158; Caldwell, p. 37 on lines 154–160; Gantz, p. 10. This place seems also to be the same place as Tartarus, see West 1966, p. 338 on line 618, and Caldwell, p. 37 on lines 154–160. Eventually Uranus' son, the Titan Cronus, castrated Uranus, becoming the new ruler of the cosmos, but he did not release his brothers, the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires, from their imprisonment in Tartarus.Hesiod, Theogony 173–182. Although the castration of Uranus results in the release of the Titans, it did not, apparently, also result in the release of the Cyclopes or the Hundred-Handers, see Fowler 2013, p. 26; Hard, pp. 67, 68; West 1966, p. 206 on lines on lines 139–53.
For this failing, Gaia foretold that Cronus would eventually be overthrown by one of his children, as he had overthrown his own father. To prevent this, as each of his children were born, Cronus swallowed them whole; as gods they were not killed, but imprisoned within his belly. His wife, Rhea, sought her mother's advice to avoid losing all of her children in this way, and Gaia advised her to give Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. In this way, Zeus was spared the fate of his elder siblings, and was hidden away by his mother. When he was grown, Zeus forced his father to vomit up his siblings, who rebelled against the Titans. Zeus released the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires, who became his allies. While the Hundred-Handed Giants fought alongside Zeus and his siblings, the Cyclopes gave Zeus his great weapon, the thunderbolt, with the aid of which he was eventually able to overthrow the Titans, establishing himself as the ruler of the cosmos.Gantz, p. 44; Hesiod, Theogony 501–506.
According to Homer, the Cyclopes have no ships, nor ship-wrights, nor other craftsman, and know nothing of agriculture.Homer, Odyssey 9.125–135. They have no regard for Zeus or the other gods, for the Cyclopes hold themselves to be "better far than they".Homer, Odyssey 9.275–278.
Homer says that "godlike" Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon and the nymph Thoosa, the daughter of Phorcys, is the "greatest among all the Cyclopes".Homer, Odyssey, 1.68–73. Heubeck, Hainsworth and West, p. 69 on line 71-3, notes that "Thoosa seems to be an ad hoc invention". Homer describes Polyphemus as a shepherd who:
Although Homer does not say explicitly that Polyphemus is one-eyed, for the account of his blinding to make sense he must be.West 1966 on line 139, "the story of Polyphemus' blinding presupposes that he is one-eyed like Hesiod's Cyclopes, though this is not explicitly stated"; Heubeck and Hoekstra, p. 20 on lines 106-15: "the account of the blinding presupposes a one-eyed Cyclopes, even though the poet, surely intentionally ... omits any direct reference to this detail." If Homer meant for the other Cyclopes to be assumed (as they usually are) to be like Polyphemus, then they too will be one-eyed sons of Poseidon; however Homer says nothing explicit about either the parentage or appearance of the other Cyclopes.Gantz, pp. 12–13 says that the Homeric Cyclopes are: "sons of Poseidon (actually Homer says only that Polyphemos is a son of Poseidon), who ... share with their Hesiodic namesakes just the feature of the single eye (if in fact they are so equipped and not just Polyphemos: the general description at Od 9.106-15 says nothing on the subject)." See also Hard, p. 66, p. 611 n. 10; Heubeck, Hainsworth, and West, p. 84 on line 69. However for example, Hansen, p. 144; Grimal, p. 119; Tripp, p. 181; and Rose, p. 304; all simply describe the Homeric Cyclopes as one-eyed, without further qualification.
Euripides' satyr play Cyclops tells the story of Odysseus' encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus, famously told in Homer's Odyssey. It takes place on the island of Sicily near the volcano Mount Etna where, according to the play, "Poseidon’s one-eyed sons, the man-slaying Cyclopes, dwell in their remote caves." Euripides describes the land where Polyphemus' brothers live, as having no "walls and city battlements", and a place where "no men dwell".Euripides, Cyclops 114–116. The Cyclopes have no rulers and no government, "they are solitaries: no one is anyone’s subject."Euripides, Cyclops 119–120. They grow no crops, living only "on milk and cheese and the flesh of sheep."Euripides, Cyclops 121–122. They have no wine, "hence the land they dwell in knows no dancing".Euripides, Cyclops 123–124. They show no respect for the important Greek value of Xenia ("guest friendship). When Odysseus asks if they are pious and hospitable toward strangers ( φιλόξενοι δὲ χὤσιοι περὶ ξένους), he is told: "most delicious, they maintain, is the flesh of strangers ... everyone who has come here has been slaughtered."Euripides, Cyclops 125–128.
Several of Euripides' plays also make reference to the Cyclopean wall-builders. Euripides calls their walls "heaven-high" ( οὐράνια),Euripides, Electra 1159, Trojan Women 1087–1088. describes "the Cyclopean foundations" of Mycenae as "fitted snug with red plumbline and mason’s hammer",Euripides, Heracles 943–946. and calls Mycenae "O hearth built by the Cyclopes".Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris 845–846. He calls Argos "the city built by the Cyclopes",Euripides, Heracles 15. refers to "the temples the Cyclopes built"Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis 152. and describes the "fortress of Perseus" as "the work of Cyclopean hands".Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis 1500–1501.
And Artemis asks:
Later, in Book 8 of the same poem, Virgil has the Hesiodic Cyclopes Brontes and Steropes, along with a third Cyclopes which he names Pyracmon, work in an extensive network of caverns stretching from Mount Etna to the Aeolian Islands.Virgil, Aeneid 8.416–423. As the assistants of the smith-god Vulcan, they forge various items for the gods: thunderbolts for Jupiter, a chariot for Mars, and armor for Minerva:
Uranus bound the Hundred-Handers and the Cyclopes, and cast them all into Tartarus, "a gloomy place in Hades as far distant from earth as earth is distant from the sky." But the Titans are, apparently, allowed to remain free (unlike in Hesiod).Hard, p. 68; Apollodorus, 1.1.2. When the Titans overthrew Uranus, they freed the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes (unlike in Hesiod, where they apparently remained imprisoned), and made Cronus their sovereign.Apollodorus, 1.1.4. But Cronus once again bound the six brothers, and reimprisoned them in Tartarus.Apollodorus, 1.1.5. The release and reimprisonment of the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes, was perhaps a way to solve the problem in Hesiod's account of why the castration of Uranus, which released the Titans, did not also apparently release the six brothers, see Fowler 2013, p. 26; West 1966, p. 206 on lines on lines 139–53.
As in Hesiod's account, Rhea saved Zeus from being swallowed by Cronus, and Zeus was eventually able to free his siblings, and together they waged war against the Titans.Apollodorus, 1.1.5–1.2.1. According to Apollodorus, in the tenth year of that war, Zeus learned from Gaia, that he would be victorious if he had the Hundred-Handers and the Cyclopes as allies. So Zeus slew their warder Campe (a detail not found in Hesiod) and released them, and in addition to giving Zeus his thunderbolt (as in Hesiod), the Cyclopes also gave Poseidon his trident, and Hades a helmet (presumably the same cap of invisibility which Athena borrowed in the Iliad), and "with these weapons the gods overcame the Titans".Apollodorus, 1.2.1.
Apollodorus also mentions a tomb of Geraestus, "the Cyclops" at Athens upon which, in the time of king Aegeus, the Athenians sacrificed the daughters of Hyacinth.Apollodorus, 3.15.8.
Euripides locates Odysseus' Cyclopes on the island of Sicily, near the volcano Mount Etna, and in the same play addresses Hephaestus as "lord of Aetna".Euripides, Cyclops 599. The poet Callimachus locates the Cyclopes' forge on the island of Lipari, the largest of the Aeolians.Callimachus, Hymn III to Artemis 8-10. Compare with the third-century BC Sicilian poet Theocritus, 2.133–134, which locates Hephaestus' forge on Lipari, and 11.7–8, which calls the Cyclops Polyphemus his "countryman". Virgil associates both the Hesiodic and the Homeric Cyclopes with Sicily. He has the thunderbolt makers: "Brontes and Steropes and bare-limbed Pyracmon", work in vast caverns extending underground from Mount Etna to the island of Vulcano,Virgil, Aeneid 8.416–422. Compare with Ovid, Fasti 4.287–288, 4.473, which also has the Hesiodic thunderbolt makers work in Sicilian caves. while the Cyclops brethren of Polyphemus live on Sicily where "near at hand Aetna thunders".
As Thucydides notes, in the case of Hephaestus' forge on Vulcano,Thucydides, 3.88: "the people in those parts believe that Hephaestus has his forge, from the quantity of flame which they see it send out by night, and of smoke by day". locating the Cyclopes' forge underneath active volcanoes provided an explanation for the fire and smoke often seen rising from them.Hard, p. 166.
In 1587, Italian cartographer Urbano Monti depicted a "ciclops" on a portion of his world map identified as New Guinea.Urbano Monti, sheet 35. For the location of sheet 35 with respect to Monti's world map, see: composite of Monti's world map.
A possible origin for one-eyed Cyclopes was advanced by the palaeontologist Othenio Abel in 1914, 1925 and 1939. Abel proposed that fossil skulls of Pleistocene , specifically the Sicilian dwarf elephant Palaeoloxodon falconeri, inspired the cyclopes myth. Abel suggested that the large, central nasal cavity (for the trunk) in the skull might have been interpreted as a large single eye-socket. However, this claim has been criticised by Greek mythology scholars Mercedes Aguirre and Richard Buxton as lacking evidence and being unfalsifiable. Othenio Abel's hypothesis was widely popularized because he claimed that Greek philosopher Empedocles identified elephant bones as cyclopes remains. However, this claim has "no basis in any surviving records". Paleontologist Mark Witton and Richard Hing were similarly critical of the dwarf elephant hypothesis, stating that "without his literary evidence of, Abel's geomyth becomes baseless: elephant fossils and myths of one-eyed monsters exist all over the world, and there is no evidence from historic texts or artwork that makes their connection in Sicily particularly notable or important". Other similarly unverifiable and unfalsifiable explanations include that the eye originated from the appearance of volcanism related features, such as Volcanic crater, or bubbles in volcanic water and mud. Mercedes Aguirre and Richard Buxton write that while these scientific explanations for the Cyclopes might have "an air of plausibility" they lack a "robust chain of argument, a demonstrable sequence of circumstances, that might link the supposed origin with the myth" or a good reason to favour one explanation over another.
Cyclopia, a rare birth defect, can result in foetuses which have a single eye. Although the possibility has been raised of a link between this deformity and the myth of the one-eyed Cyclopes,Leroi, pp. 67-68. in such cases, the eye is below the noseNelson, pp. 160–161.—rather than above as in ancient Greek depictions.Leroi, pp. 68–69.
As noted above, Walter Burkert sees the possibility of the Hesiodic Cyclopes having ancient smith guilds as their basis.
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