Cyclopes

Not to be confused with Euripides’ satyr play Cyclops.

The Cyclopes (singular: Cyclops) were gigantic, one-eyed beings with enormous strength. In Hesiod there were three of them, Arges, Steropes and Brontes, skilled smiths and sons of Uranus and Gaea, brothers of the Hecatoncheires and the Titans. Uranus bound them, and Zeus released them; in gratitude they gave him the thunderbolt. The Odyssey shows a different kind of Cyclopes, lawless one-eyed shepherds, the most famous of whom was Polyphemus.

Cyclopes Name

The name means “round-eyed.” Hesiod explains it himself: they were called Cyclopes because a single round eye sat in the middle of the forehead (Hesiod, Theogony 139–146). In all other respects, he says, they were like the gods, and strength, force and skill in craft marked their works.

Two Types of Cyclopes

The ancient poets describe two quite different kinds of Cyclopes who share the single eye. Hesiod’s Cyclopes are three divine craftsmen, sons of Uranus and Gaea, who make the weapons of Zeus. Homer’s are a race of huge, lawless herdsmen who live among mortals, and one of them, Polyphemus, is a son of Poseidon (Odyssey 1.68–73, 9.106–115).

Hesiod’s Cyclopes

Hesiod names three Cyclopes: Brontes, Steropes and Arges (Theogony 139–141). Apollodorus lists the same three and says each had one eye on his forehead (Library 1.1.2). Brontes and Steropes are the Greek words for thunder and lightning. They were born to Gaea and Uranus after the Titans and before the Hecatoncheires, so they are brothers of both groups (Theogony 132–153).

Portrayal

Hesiod describes them as gods in everything but the single eye, with strength and cunning devoted to works (Theogony 142–146). Later poets set their forge under Mount Etna or on the volcanic island of Lipara, where they work for Hephaestus (Virgil, Aeneid 8.416–425; Callimachus, Hymn 3 to Artemis, 46–61). Virgil names the three smiths there as Brontes, Steropes and Pyracmon.

Cronus and the Cyclopes

In Hesiod it is Uranus who bound the Cyclopes (Theogony 501–502; compare 154–160, where he hides his hated children in Gaea). In Apollodorus, Uranus binds them and casts them into Tartarus; the Titans, led by Cronus, overthrow Uranus and set the Cyclopes free, but Cronus then binds them again and shuts them up in Tartarus, and swallows his own children as they are born (Library 1.1.2, 1.1.4–5).

Zeus, the Cyclopes, and the Titanomachy

Zeus released the Cyclopes. Hesiod says he freed his father’s brothers from their painful bonds and that they repaid the favour with thunder and the blazing thunderbolt, which Gaea had hidden until then; with these Zeus rules over gods and men (Theogony 501–506). In Apollodorus, Gaea prophesied victory to Zeus if he took as allies those who had been hurled into Tartarus. Zeus killed their jailer, the monster Campe, and loosed their bonds. The Cyclopes gave Zeus thunder, lightning and the thunderbolt, Pluto (Hades) a helmet and Poseidon a trident, and with these weapons the gods defeated the Titans (Library 1.2.1).

The Works of the Cyclopes

In Virgil’s picture of the forge, the Cyclopes hammer out a thunderbolt for Zeus, a chariot for Ares (Mars) and the aegis of Athena (Pallas), under the direction of Hephaestus (Vulcan) (Aeneid 8.424–438). Ancient writers also credited them with the massive walls of Tiryns, which in Apollodorus they built for King Proetus (Library 2.2.1). Pausanias says the wall of Tiryns is a work of the Cyclopes made of unwrought stones, each so large that a pair of mules could not move the smallest, and that the same builders were said to have made the wall of Mycenae with its gate on which lions stand (Pausanias 2.25.8, 2.16.5).

The Death of the Cyclopes

Zeus killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt for bringing the dead back to life. In his anger, Apollo killed the Cyclopes who had made that thunderbolt, and Zeus would have thrown him into Tartarus had Leto not interceded; instead Apollo served Admetus for a year (Apollodorus, Library 3.10.4). Apollodorus adds that, in the account of Pherecydes, Apollo killed not the three Cyclopes themselves but the sons of Brontes, Steropes and Arges.

Homer’s Cyclopes

In the Odyssey the Cyclopes are a people of huge, lawless shepherds. The most famous, Polyphemus, is the son of the sea-god Poseidon and the nymph Thoosa, daughter of Phorcys (Odyssey 1.68–73). Homer does not name the island where they live, but later writers place them in Sicily: Thucydides calls the Cyclopes and Laestrygonians the earliest inhabitants of Sicily that tradition names (History 6.2.1), and Euripides sets his satyr play on the slopes of Etna.

Portrayal

Homer’s Cyclopes are not smiths, and they do not obey the gods. Odysseus calls them overbearing and lawless; they trust in the immortal gods and neither plant nor plough, because crops grow for them untended. They have no assemblies for counsel and no laws; they live in hollow caves on the tops of high mountains, each ruling his own children and wives, and none cares about the others (Odyssey 9.106–115).

Polyphemus and Galatea

Homer says nothing of love. The comic picture of the lovesick Cyclops comes from later poets: in Theocritus (Idyll 11) Polyphemus sings of his love for the sea-nymph Galatea and tries to soothe it with song. In Ovid, Galatea tells how she loved the young Acis, son of Faunus and the nymph Symaethis, while Polyphemus pursued her; the enraged Cyclops hurled a piece of rock from the mountain and crushed Acis, and Galatea turned his blood into a river that kept his name (Metamorphoses 13.750–897). In the same passage the seer Telemus warns Polyphemus that Odysseus will take his one eye (Metamorphoses 13.770–778), so in Ovid the love story comes before the blinding, but the Odyssey itself has no Galatea.

Polyphemus and Odysseus

In the Odyssey, Odysseus and twelve companions enter the cave of Polyphemus and are shut in by a huge stone. Polyphemus eats two of the men at each of three meals, six in all (Odyssey 9.288–344). Odysseus gives him strong wine, and when the Cyclops is asleep Odysseus and his men drive a heated stake of olive wood into his eye (Odyssey 9.382–394). At dawn the men escape clinging to the undersides of the rams (Odyssey 9.425–463). Polyphemus prays to his father Poseidon that Odysseus may never reach home, or, if he must, that he come late, in a stranger’s ship, with all his companions lost, and find trouble in his house (Odyssey 9.528–535). Poseidon answers by keeping Odysseus from Ithaca for years (Odyssey 1.68–75). The same story is told, with the satyrs of Dionysus added, in Euripides’ Cyclops, the only satyr play to survive complete.

Cyclopes Sources

Hesiod, Theogony 132–160, 501–506; Apollodorus, Library 1.1.2, 1.1.4–5, 1.2.1, 2.2.1, 3.10.4; Homer, Odyssey 1.68–75, 9.106–115, 9.288–344, 9.382–394, 9.425–463, 9.528–535; Virgil, Aeneid 8.416–438; Callimachus, Hymn 3 to Artemis; Pausanias 2.16.5, 2.25.8; Thucydides 6.2.1; Euripides, Cyclops; Theocritus, Idyll 11; Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.750–897.

See Also: Polyphemus, Odysseus, Titanomachy, Hecatoncheires, Uranus, Gaea, Hephaestus, Zeus