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 ; , 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 shepherds, 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 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 Italian island of Sicily and the volcanic Aeolian Islands.
Kinds Three groups of Cyclopes were distinguished by ancient mythographers: the Hesiodic, the Homeric and the wall-builders.Hard, p. 66. Apparently, such a three-fold distinction was already made as early as the fifth-century BC, by the historian Hellanicus, see Fowler 2013, pp. 35–36, p. 55; Hellanicus, fr. 88 Fowler [= FGrHist 4 fr. 88]; a scholiast to Aelius Aristides 52.10 Dindorf p. 408 describes a similar three-fold distinction, see Storey, p. 401. In Hesiod's Theogony, the Cyclopes are Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, sons of Uranus and Gaia and creators of Zeus's 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.Fowler 2013, p. 53; Bremmer, p. 140. 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.Fowler 2013, pp. 35–36, p. 55; Hellanicus, fr. 88 Fowler [= FGrHist 4 fr. 88]. According to Hellanicus, the Cyclopes were named after Cyclops the son of Uranus.
Hesiodic Cyclopes
Hesiod, in the Theogony (c. 700 BC), described three Cyclopes: Brontes, Steropes, and Arges. They were the sons of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), and the brothers of the Titans and Hundred-Handers, and had a single eye set in the middle of their foreheads.Hard, p. 32; Gantz, p. 10; Hesiod, Theogony, 139–146; cf. Apollodorus, 1.1.2. These Hesiodic Cyclopes are sometimes called the "Uranian" (or "Ouranian") Cyclopes after their father Uranus (Ouranos), see Caldwell, p. 36 on lines 139–146; Grimal s.v. Cyclopes p. 119. 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.Hard, pp. 65–69; Hansen, pp. 66–67, 293–294; West 1966, pp. 18–19; Dowden, pp. 35–36. The names that Hesiod gives them, Arges (Bright), Brontes (Thunder), and Steropes (Lightning), reflect their fundamental role as thunderbolt makers.Most 2018a, p. 15; Hard, p. 66. According to West 1966, p. 207 on line 140, the three names represent different aspects of the same thing: a lightning bolt, i.e. that which is heard: Brontes, from βροντή ("thunder", see LSJ s.v. βροντ-ή), that which is seen: Steropes, from στεροπή ("flash of lightning", see LSJ s.v. στεροπ-ή) and that which strikes: Arges, a "formulaic epithet of κεραυνός" ("thunderbolt", see LSJ s.v. κεραυνός). As early as the late seventh century BC, the Cyclopes could be used by the Spartan poet Tyrtaeus to epitomize extraordinary size and strength.West 1966, p. 207 on line 139; Bremmer, p. 140; Tyrtaeus, 12.2–3: "... not even if / he had the size and strength of the Cyclopes".
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 Cyclopes] 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. 52 MW], fr. 58 Most [= frr. 54a + 57 MW], fr. 59 Most [= frr. 54c, b MW]. 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 [= FGrHist 3 fr. 35]; 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 Pallas'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, 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 smith guilds lie behind Cabeiri, Idaian Dactyloi, Telchines, and Cyclopes."Burkert 1991, p. 173.
Homeric Cyclopes