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Cyclopes

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Frazer, p. 344

Other "cyclops" ??

Main article: Polyphemus § Possible origins

Folktales similar to that of Homer's Polyphemus are a widespread phenomenon throughout the ancient world. One example, in a story from Georgia, in the Caucasus, describes two brothers held prisoner by a giant one-eyed shepherd called "One-eye", who take a spit, heat it up, stab it into the giant's eye, and escape.

References

• Ratcliffe, Jonathan, Arimaspians and Cyclopes: The Mythos of the One-Eyed Man in Greek and Inner Asian Thought, editor: Mair, Victor, Sino-Platonic Papers, no. 249, University of Pennsylvania Publications, 2014.

Sources

Ancient

Alpheus of Mytilene (c. 1st century BC - 1st century AD)

[for the poet see: Dialect, Diction, and Style in Greek Literary and Inscribed Epigram, p. 175]

Greek Anthology 9.101

Few are the birth-places of the heroes that are still to be seen, and those yet left are not much higher than the soil. So, as I passed thee by, did I recognise thee, unhappy Mycenae, more waste than any goat-fold. The herds still point thee out, and it was an old man who said to me, “Here stood once the city, rich in gold, that the Cyclopes built.”

Antiphilus of Byzantium (fl. 1st century AD: see [1])

Greek Anthology 6.379

A. “Tell me, Dicaearchia,² why thou hast built thee so vast a mole in the sea, reaching out to the middle of the deep? They were Cyclopes’ hands that planted such walls in the sea. How long, O Land, shalt thou do violence to us?” B. “I can receive the navies of the world. Look at Rome hard by; is not my harbour as great as she?”

² Puteoli. The sea is supposed to be addressing the town.

Apollodorus

1.1.1

Sky was the first who ruled over the whole world. And having wedded Earth, he begat first the Hundred-handed, as they are named: Briareus, Gyes, Cottus, who were unsurpassed in size and might, each of them having a hundred hands and fifty heads.

1.1.2

After these, Earth bore him the Cyclopes, to wit, Arges, Steropes, Brontes, of whom each had one eye on his forehead. But them Sky bound and cast into Tartarus, a gloomy place in Hades as far distant from earth as earth is distant from the sky.

1.1.3

And again he begat children by Earth, to wit, the Titans as they are named: Ocean, Coeus, Hyperion, Crius, Iapetus, and, youngest of all, Cronus; also daughters, the Titanides as they are called: Tethys, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Dione, Thia.

1.1.4

But Earth, grieved at the destruction of her children, who had been cast into Tartarus, persuaded the Titans to attack their father and gave Cronus an adamantine sickle. And they, all but Ocean, attacked him, and Cronus cut off his father's genitals and threw them into the sea; and from the drops of the flowing blood were born Furies, to wit, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera.¹ And, having dethroned their father, they brought up their brethren who had been hurled down to Tartarus, and committed the sovereignty to Cronus.

1.1.5

But he [Cronus] again bound and shut them [the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes] up in Tartarus, and wedded his sister Rhea; and since both Earth and Sky foretold him that he would be dethroned by his own son, he used to swallow his offspring at birth. His firstborn Hestia he swallowed, then Demeter and Hera, and after them Pluto and Poseidon.

1.2.1

But when Zeus was full-grown, he took Metis, daughter of Ocean, to help him, and she gave Cronus a drug to swallow, which forced him to disgorge first the stone and then the children whom he had swallowed,¹ and with their aid Zeus waged the war against Cronus and the Titans.² They fought for ten years, and Earth prophesied victory³ to Zeus if he should have as allies those who had been hurled down to Tartarus. So he slew their jailoress Campe, and loosed their bonds. And the Cyclopes then gave Zeus thunder and lightning and a thunderbolt,⁴ and on Pluto they bestowed a helmet and on Poseidon a trident. Armed with these weapons the gods overcame the Titans, shut them up in Tartarus, and appointed the Hundred-handers their guards;⁵

2.2.1

His [Proetus] in-law restored him to his own land with an army of Lycians, and he occupied Tiryns, which the Cyclopes had fortified for him.⁵

⁵ Compare Bacch. 10.77ff., ed. Jebb; Paus. 2.25.8; Strab. 8.6.8.

3.10.4

But Zeus, fearing that men might acquire the healing art from him and so come to the rescue of each other, smote him with a thunderbolt.¹ Angry on that account, Apollo slew the Cyclopes who had fashioned the thunderbolt for Zeus.² But Zeus would have hurled him to Tartarus; however, at the intercession of Latona he ordered him to serve as a thrall to a man for a year. So he went to Admetus, son of Pheres, at Pherae, and served him as a herdsman, and caused all the cows to drop twins.³

² According to Pherecydes, quoted by the Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1, it was not the Cyclopes but their sons whom Apollo slew. The passage of Pherecydes, as quoted by the Scholiast, runs as follows: “To him” （that is, to Admetus） “came Apollo, to serve him as a thrall for a year, at the command of Zeus, because Apollo had slain the sons of Brontes, of Steropes, and of Arges. He slew them out of spite at Zeus, because Zeus slew his son Aesculapius with a thunderbolt at Pytho; for by his remedies Aesculapius raised the dead.”

3.15.8

When the war lingered on and [Minos] could not take Athens, he prayed to Zeus that he might be avenged on the Athenians. And the city being visited with a famine and a pestilence, the Athenians at first, in obedience to an ancient oracle, slaughtered the daughters of Hyacinth, to wit, Antheis, Aegleis, Lytaea, and Orthaea, on the grave of Geraestus, the Cyclops;

E7.3–9

And he landed in the country of the Lotus-eaters,1 and sent some to learn who inhabited it, but they tasted of the lotus and remained there; for there grew in the country a sweet fruit called lotus, which caused him who tasted it to forget everything. When Ulysses was informed of this, he restrained the rest of his men, and dragged those who had tasted the lotus by force to the ships. And having sailed to the land of the Cyclopes, he stood in for the shore. ...

Apollonius of Rhodes

Argonautica

1.510–512

the earthborn Cyclopes had not yet armed him with the thunderbolt, thunder, and lightning, for these give Zeus his glory.

1.730–734

On it were the Cyclopes, seated at their endless work, toiling over a thunderbolt for Zeus the king. By now it was almost finished in all its brightness, but it still lacked a single ray, which they were beating out with their iron hammers as it spurted a jet of raging fire.

4.760–769

But then go to the shores where the bronze anvils of Hephaestus are struck with heavy hammers, and tell him to put to rest his fiery blasts until the Argo has passed them by. And go to Aeolus as well, Aeolus who rules the winds arising in the upper air, and tell him this wish of mine, that he calm all the winds under the sky, so that no breeze ruffles the sea, and yet let a favoring Zephyr blow until they reach the Phaeacian island of Alcinous.”

Bacchylides [c. 518 – c. 451 BC]

11.77

And the mighty Cyclopes came, and toiled to build a most beautiful wall for the glorious city [Tiryns],

Callias

Cyclopes

Callimachus

Hymn III to Artemis

8-10

8-10 [Loeb]

And give me arrows and a bow—stay, Father, I ask thee not for quiver or for mighty bow: for me the Cyclopes will straightway fashion arrows and fashion for me a well-bent bow.

46–69

46–69 [Loeb]

And straightway she went to visit the Cyclopes. Them she found in the isle of Lipara—Lipara in later days, but at that time its name was Meligunis—at the anvils of Hephaestus, standing round a molten mass of iron. For a great work was being hastened on: they fashioned a horse-trough for Poseidon. And the nymphs were affrighted when they saw the terrible monsters like unto the crags of Ossa: all had single eyes beneath their brows, like a shield of fourfold hide for size, glaring terribly from under; and when they heard the din of the anvil echoing loudly, and the great blast of the bellows and the heavy groaning of the Cyclopes themselves. For Aetna cried aloud, and Trinacia cried, the seat of the Sicanians, cried too their neighbour Italy, and Cyrnos therewithal uttered a mighty noise, when they lifted their hammers above their shoulders and smote with rhythmic swing the bronze glowing from the furnace or iron, labouring greatly. Wherefore the daughters of Oceanus could not untroubled look upon them face to face nor endure the din in their ears. No shame to them! on those not even the daughters of the Blessed look without shuddering, though long past childhood’s years. But when any of the maidens doth disobedience to her mother, the mother calls the Cyclopes to her child—Arges or Steropes; and from within the house comes Hermes, [cont.]

70–85

70–85 [Loeb]

stained with burnt ashes. And straightway he plays bogey to the child and she runs into her mother’s lap, with her hands upon her eyes. But thou, Maiden, even earlier, while yet but three years old, when Leto came bearing thee in her arms at the bidding of Hephaestus that he might give thee handsel and Brontes set thee on his stout knees—thou didst pluck the shaggy hair of his great breast and tear it out by force. And even unto this day the mid part of his breast remains hairless, even as when mange settles on a man’s temples and eats away the hair.

Therefore right boldly didst thou address them then: “Cyclopes, for me too fashion ye a Cydonian bow and arrows and a hollow casket for my shafts; for I also am a child of Leto, even as Apollo. And if I with my bow shall slay some wild creature or monstrous beast, that shall the Cyclopes eat.”

Hymn IV to Delos

141–7

141–7 [Loeb]

And even as when the mount of Aetna smoulders with fire and all its secret depths are shaken as the giant under earth, even Briares, shifts to his other shoulder, and with the tongs of Hephaestus roar furnaces and handiwork withal; and firewrought basins and tripods ring terribly as they fall one upon the other:

Catalogue of Women

Hesiod fr. 57 Most [= fr. 52 MW]

These [i.e., the Cyclopes] were like the gods in other regards (Th 142)

In place of this line, Crates (i.e., of Mallus) puts a different one: “born from immortals, they were raised as speaking mortals.” For how can he say that the same characters are “like the gods” but in the catalogue of Leucippus’ daughters have them destroyed by Apollo?

Hesiod fr. 58 Most [= frr. 54a + 57 MW]

58 (54a + 57 MW; Meg 5, 6 H) P. Oxy. 2495 fr. 1a + fr. 16 col. I

58 Oxyrhynchus papyrus

of his [father’s

Brontes [

Zeus [

angry, him [

he was about to hurl [] from Olympus 5

into Tartarus, [beneath the earth and the barren sea.

He thundered] hard [and strong, and all around] the earth

Hesiod fr. 59 Most [= frr. 54c, b MW]

59

a (54c MW) Schol. in Eur. Alc. 1 (II p. 216.4–7 Schwartz)

b (54b MW) Philodemus De pietate B 5747–58 Obbink

a Scholia on Euripides’ Alcestis

This is the widespread and common story about Apollo’s service as a hired worker for Admetus, which Euripides is now using; Hesiod and Asclepiades in Tragic Plots speak in the same way.

b Philodemus, On Piety

Andron in his Genealogies says that Apollo served [Admetus] as a hired worker at [Zeus’] command. Moreover, Hesiod and Acusilaus say that he (i.e., Apollo) was just about to be thrown into Tartarus by Zeus, but that through [Leto’s] supplication he served as a hired worker to a man.

Diodorus Siculus

4.71.3

So Zeus, in indignation, [p. 45] slew Asclepius with his thunderbolt, but Apollo, indignant at the slaying of Asclepius, murdered the Cyclopes who had forged the thunderbolt for Zeus; but at the death of the Cyclopes Zeus was again indignant and laid a command upon Apollo that he should serve as a labourer for a human being and that this should be the punishment he should receive from him for his crimes.

Eustathius

On the Iliad p. 286.21

• Storey p. 401

Eustathius (On the Iliad p. 286.21) says that it [cheirogastores and encheirogastores] is used to describe the Cyclopes, who built the walls of cities in the Argolid in return for food.

Euripides

Alcestis

5–7

APOLLO: House of Admetus! In you I brought myself to taste the bread of menial servitude, god though I am. Zeus was the cause: he killed my son Asclepius, striking him in the chest with the lightning-bolt, and in anger at this I slew the Cyclopes who forged Zeus's fire. As my punishment for this Zeus compelled me to be a serf in the house of a mortal.

Cyclops

20–22

Aetna, where Poseidon’s one-eyed sons, the man-slaying Cyclopes, dwell in their remote caves.

114–128

[114] Silenus

This is Mount Aetna, highest in Sicily.

[115] Odysseus

But where are the walls and city battlements?

[116] Silenus

There are none. No men dwell in these headlands, stranger.

[117] Odysseus

Who then are the land’s inhabitants? Wild beasts?

[118] Silenus

Cyclopes, who live in caves, not houses.

[119] Odysseus

Who is their ruler? Or do the people govern?

[120] Silenus

They are solitaries: no one is anyone’s subject.

[121] Odysseus

Do they sow Demeter’s grain? Or how do they live?

[122] Silenus

On milk and cheese and the flesh of sheep.

[123] Odysseus

Do they possess Dionysus’ drink, that flows from the vine?

[124] Silenus

Not at all! Hence the land they dwell in knows no dancing.

[125] Odysseus

Are they god-fearing and hospitable toward strangers?

[126] Silenus

Most delicious, they maintain, is the flesh of strangers.

[127] Odysseus

What? Do they enjoy feasting on men?

[128] Silenus

Everyone who has come here has been slaughtered.

599–600

Hephaestus, lord of Aetna, burn out the bright eye of this pest [the Cyclops], your neighbor, and be quit of him for good!

Electra

1159

the heaven-high walls the Cyclopes built

Heracles

15

Argos, the city built by the Cyclopes,

943–946

I am off to Mycenae! I must take crowbars and pickaxes to pry up with the twisted iron the Cyclopean foundations fitted snug with red plumbline and mason’s hammer!”

Iphigenia in Aulis

152

the temples the Cyclopes built!

1500–1501

You call upon the fortress of Perseus,

the work of Cyclopean hands.

Iphigenia in Tauris

845–846

O hearth built by the Cyclopes, O homeland,

dear Mycenae,

Trojan Women

1087–1088

to horse-pasturing Argos, where men dwell in walls

of stone, Cyclopean, heaven-high.

Eratosthenes

39

Hellanicus

fr. 88 Fowler [= FGrHist 4 fr. 88]

Fowler 2013, p. 35

Hellanikos (fr. 88) says that the Kyklopes were named after Kyklops, son of Ouranos. The quoting scholiast explains that there were three species of Kyklopes: those who fortified Mykenai; Polyphemos' lot; and 'the gods themselves', presumably a corrupt or careless expression referring to the decendants of Ouranos (below, n. 212).

Mondi, p. 18

³ The Hesiodic scholia at Theogony 139 attribute a three-fold distinction to Hellanicus: ... (fr. 88, FGrH); cf. also scholia to Aristides Rh. 52.10 (Dindorf 3.408). ...

Herodotus

3.116.1–2

But in the north of Europe there is by far the most gold. In this matter again I cannot say with assurance how the gold is produced, but it is said that one-eyed men called Arimaspians steal it from griffins.

[2] But I do not believe this, that there are one-eyed men who have a nature otherwise the same as other men.

4.21.1

Of these too, then, we have knowledge; but as for what is north of them, it is from the Issedones that the tale comes of the one-eyed men and the griffins that guard gold; this is told by the Scythians, who have heard it from them; and we have taken it as true from the Scythians, and call these people by the Scythian name, Arimaspians; for in the Scythian tongue “arima” is one, and “spou” is the eye.

Hesiod

Theogony

139–146

(139) Then she bore the Cyclopes, who have very violent hearts, Brontes (Thunder) and Steropes (Lightning) and strong-spirited Arges (Bright), those who gave thunder to Zeus and fashioned the thunderbolt. These were like the gods in other regards, but only one eye was set in the middle of their foreheads; and they were called Cyclopes (Circle-eyed) by name, since a single circle-shaped eye was set in their foreheads. Strength and force and contrivances were in their works.

154–158

(154) For all these, who came forth from Earth and Sky as the most terrible of their children,⁸ were hated by their own father from the beginning. And as soon as any of them was born, Sky put them all away out of sight in a hiding place in Earth and did not let them come up into the light, and he rejoiced in his evil deed.

⁸ The exact reference is unclear, but apparently only the last two sets of three children each, the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handers, are meant, and not additionally the first set of twelve Titans.

501–506

And he freed from their deadly bonds his father’s brothers, Sky’s sons, whom their father had bound in his folly.²⁶ And they repaid him in gratitude for his kind deed, giving him the thunder and the blazing thunderbolt and the lightning, which huge Earth had concealed before. Relying on these, he rules over mortals and immortals.

²⁶ The Cyclopes.

Homer

Iliad

5.844–845

but Athene [845] put on the cap of Hades, to the end that mighty Ares should not see her.

Odyssey

1.68–73

Nay, it is Poseidon, the earth-enfolder, who is ever filled with stubborn wrath because of the Cyclops, whom Odysseus blinded of his eye— [70] even the godlike Polyphemus, whose might is greatest among all the Cyclopes; and the nymph Thoosa bore him, daughter of Phorcys who rules over the unresting sea; for in the hollow caves she lay with Poseidon.

2.19–20

even the warrior Antiphus. But him the savage Cyclops had slain [20] in his hollow cave, and made of him his latest meal.

6.4–8

These [the Phaeacians] dwelt of old in spacious Hypereia [5] hard by the Cyclopes, men overweening in pride who plundered them continually and were mightier than they. From thence Nausithous, the godlike, had removed them, and led and settled them in Scheria far from men that live by toil.

7.? -?

for [the Phaeacians] are of near kin to [the gods], as are the Cyclopes and the wild tribes of the Giants.”

9.82–104

“Thence for nine days' space I was borne by direful winds over the teeming deep; but on the tenth we set foot on the land of the Lotus-eaters, who eat a flowery food. [85] ... lest perchance anyone should eat of the lotus and forget his homeward way. So they went on board straightway and sat down upon the benches, and sitting well in order smote the grey sea with their oars.

9.105–115

[105] “Thence we sailed on, grieved at heart, and we came to the land of the Cyclopes, an overweening and lawless folk, who, trusting in the immortal gods, plant nothing with their hands nor plough; but all these things spring up for them without sowing or ploughing, [110] wheat, and barley, and vines, which bear the rich clusters of wine, and the rain of Zeus gives them increase. Neither assemblies for council have they, nor appointed laws, but they dwell on the peaks of lofty mountains in hollow caves, and each one is lawgiver [115] to his children and his wives, and they reck nothing one of another.

9.116–139

“Now there is a level isle that stretches aslant outside the harbor, neither close to the shore of the land of the Cyclopes, nor yet far off, a wooded isle. Therein live wild goats innumerable, for the tread of men scares them not away, [120] nor are hunters wont to come thither, men who endure toils in the woodland as they course over the peaks of the mountains. Neither with flocks is it held, nor with ploughed lands, but unsown and untilled all the days it knows naught of men, but feeds the bleating goats. [125] For the Cyclopes have at hand no ships with vermilion cheeks,² nor are there ship-wrights in their land who might build them well-benched ships, which should perform all their wants, passing to the cities of other folk, as men often cross the sea in ships to visit one another— [130] craftsmen, who would have made of this isle also a fair settlement. For the isle is nowise poor, but would bear all things in season. In it are meadows by the shores of the grey sea, well-watered meadows and soft, where vines would never fail, and in it level ploughland, whence [135] they might reap from season to season harvests exceeding deep, so rich is the soil beneath; and in it, too, is a harbor giving safe anchorage, where there is no need of moorings, either to throw out anchor-stones or to make fast stern cables, but one may beach one's ship and wait until the sailors' minds bid them put out, and the breezes blow fair.

² That is, with bows painted red. M.

9.166–167

And we looked across to the land of the Cyclopes, who dwelt close at hand, and marked the smoke, and the voice of men, and of the sheep, and of the goats.

9.187–192

There a monstrous man was wont to sleep, who shepherded his flocks alone and afar, and mingled not with others, but lived apart, with his heart set on lawlessness. [190] For he was fashioned a wondrous monster, and was not like a man that lives by bread, but like a wooded peak of lofty mountains, which stands out to view alone, apart from the rest.

9.215

[215] a savage man that knew naught of justice or of law.

9.273–278

‘A fool art thou, stranger, or art come from afar, seeing that thou biddest me either to fear or to shun the gods. [275] For the Cyclopes reck not of Zeus, who bears the aegis, nor of the blessed gods, since verily we are better far than they. Nor would I, to shun the wrath of Zeus, spare either thee or thy comrades, unless my own heart should bid me.

9.399–400

the Cyclopes, who [400] dwelt round about him in caves

9.412

our father, the lord Poseidon

9.519

For I am his son, and he declares himself my father; [520]

9.528–529

‘Hear me, Poseidon, earth-enfolder, thou dark-haired god, if indeed I am thy son and thou declarest thyself my father; [530]

Hyginus

Astronomica

2.39

Fabulae

49

Asclepius They say that Asclepius son of Apollo resurrected Glaucus son of Minos (some say that it was Hippolytus who was resurrected). Jupiter struck Asclepius down with a thunderbolt because of this. Apollo. because he could not harm Jupiter, instead killed the makers of his thunderbolts, that is, the Cyclopes. In return for ...

Nicophon

Hands-to-Mouth

Hands-To-Mouth

For the title, the tradition gives both cheirogastores and encheirogastores. The ancient lexicographers usually explain the word as meaning “those who feed themselves by manual labour,” while Eustathius (On the Iliad p. 286.21) says that it is used to describe the Cyclopes, who built the walls of cities in the Argolid in return for food. The scholiast to Aelius Aristeides (p. 408.25 Dindorf) distinguishes three sorts of Cyclopes, those in Sicily whom Odysseus encountered, these “hands-to-mouth,” and the “heavenly ones.” A crew of hungry Cyclopes, willing to work for food, could have made a good comic chorus.

Ovid

Fasti

4.287–288

Thence she passed to the Trinacrian^g Sea, where Brontes and Steropes and Acmonides^h are wont to dip the white-hot iron.

^g Sicilian.

^h Usually called Pyracmon. These are the three Cyclopes who forged Jupiter’s thunderbolts under Mount Etna.

4.473

the caves of the Cyclopes, burnt by the forges set up in them, ...^a

^a ... The other places named are also in Sicily. ...

Pausanias

2.2.1

Within the enclosure is on the left a temple of Palaemon, with images in it of Poseidon, Leucothea and Palaemon himself. There is also what is called his Holy of Holies, and an underground descent to it, where they say that Palaemon is concealed. Whosoever, whether Corinthian or stranger, swears falsely here, can by no means escape from his oath. There is also an ancient sanctuary called the altar of the Cyclopes, and they sacrifice to the Cyclopes upon it.

West 1966, p. 207 on line 139: "There was an altar to them on the Isthmus, in an area sacred to Poseidon (Paus. 2.2.1), but otherwise they have no cult."

2.16.5

There still remain [at Mycenae], however, parts of the city wall, including the gate, upon which stand lions. These, too, are said to be the work of the Cyclopes, who made for Proetus the wall at Tiryns.

2.20.7

Beside the sanctuary of Cephisus is a head of Medusa made of stone, which is said to be another of the works of the Cyclopes.

2.25.8

Going on from here and turning to the right, you come to the ruins of Tiryns. The Tirynthians also were removed by the Argives, who wished to make Argos more powerful by adding to the population. The hero Tiryns, from whom the city derived its name, is said to have been a son of Argus, a son of Zeus. The wall, which is the only part of the ruins still remaining, is a work of the Cyclopes made of unwrought stones, each stone being so big that a pair of mules could not move the smallest from its place to the slightest degree. Long ago small stones were so inserted that each of them binds the large blocks firmly together.

7.25.5–6

Though the Argives could not take the wall of Mycenae by storm, built as it was like the wall of Tiryns by the Cyclopes, as they are called,

Pherecydes

fr. 12 Fowler [= FGrHist 3 fr. 12]

Fowler 2103, p. 53

²⁰⁶ For Mykenai, see e.g. ... Pher. fr. 12;

Fowler 2103, p. 36

An interesting detail survives from Pherekydes (fr. 12), that when Perseus returned to Argos from Seriphos with his mother and Andromeda, he also brought with him the Kyklopes, doubtless to build the walls of Mykenai; however, our source is silent on their ultimate origin.¹²¹

¹²¹ Strabo 8.6.11 and Apollod. Bibl. 2.25 have them come from Lykia.

Gantz, p. 310 [check cite for Pherekydes]

[Perseus] himself ... and leaves for Argos with Dane, Andromeda, and the Kyklopes (here inexplicably mentioned for the first time, at least in the scholiast's summary). Subsequently, these Kyclopes will have some role to play in the continuation of the story as builders of the walls of Tiryns and Mykenai (Bak 11.77-81; Paus 2.16.5), but what they would be doing on Seriphos remains a mystery. Apollodorus, who agrees with Pherekydes in other points of the narrative, does not mention them at all.

fr. 35 Fowler [= FGrHist 3 fr. 35]

Frazer, note 2 to Apollodorus, 3.10.4

According to Pherecydes, quoted by the Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1, it was not the Cyclopes but their sons whom Apollo slew. The passage of Pherecydes, as quoted by the Scholiast, runs as follows: “To him” （that is, to Admetus） “came Apollo, to serve him as a thrall for a year, at the command of Zeus, because Apollo had slain the sons of Brontes, of Steropes, and of Arges. He slew them out of spite at Zeus, because Zeus slew his son Aesculapius with a thunderbolt at Pytho; for by his remedies Aesculapius raised the dead.”

Fowler 2103

p. 36

In fr. 35 we are told that Apollo did not do servitude with Admentos for killing the Kyklopes, according to Pherekydes, but rather their sons.

p. 54

Pherekedes (fr. 35) modifies this: Apollo kills not Brontes, ... but their sons; ... if they are the builders of fr. 12;

Gantz, p. 13

Pherekydes confirms this story and motive but makes Apollo's victims the sons of the Kyclopes (3F35a: we hear nothing elsewhere about their having offspring).

Bremmer, p. 139

according to an early tradition Apollo killed them or, according to a later and 'softer' version, their sons.¹⁹

¹⁹ Pherec. FGrH 3 fr. 35a; ...

FGrHist 3 fr. 46

Fowler 2103, p. 36

One of the Kyklopes has the unusual name Aortes in fr. 46 of the same author.

Pindar [c. 518 – 438 BC]

fr. 70a6

70a P. Oxy. 1604 (13, 1919)

70a Oxyrhynchus papyrus (late 2nd cent. a.d.). The myth in this very fragmentary piece evidently concerns Perseus, his escape from the sea (16) and his exploits with the Gorgons (17). Because Argos is mentioned in line 7, some editors have conjectured that the poem was composed for the Argives.

. . . . . .

of them saying

lord

poured out

father¹ of the Gorgons [5]

of the Cyclopes. The city

¹ Phorcus, father of the Gorgons (cf. 17) and grandfather of Polyphemus the Cyclops (cf. Od. 1.71–72).

Fowler 2013, p. 53

²⁰⁶ ... for Tiryns, see Pindar fr. 70a6 (u.v.; see van der Weiden ad loc.);

fr. 169a7

169a P. Oxy. 2450 (26, 1961), vv. 6–62. Plat. Gorg. 484B

169a An Oxyrhynchus papyrus (1st–early 2nd cent. a.d.) gives parts of vv. 6–62. Plato, Gorgias. “And it seems to me that Pindar demonstrates just what I am saying in the poem where he says (vv. 1–2), and then continues (vv. 3–6) . . . when he drove off the cattle without paying for them.”

the deeds of Heracles, [5]

for he drove Geryon’s cattle

to the Cyclopean portal of Eurystheus¹³

¹³ In Mycenae, according to Apollodorus 2.5.8.

Fowler 2013, p. 53

²⁰⁶ For Mykenai, see e.g. Pindar fragment 169a7;

Bremmer, p. 140 n. 21

fr. 266

Pliny the Elder

Natural History

7.195

walls were introduced by Thrason, towers by the Cyclopes according to Aristotle but according to Theophrastus by the Tirynthians;

7.197

Aristotle thinks that Lydus the Scythian showed how to melt and work copper, but Theophrastus holds that it was the Phrygian Delas; manufactures of bronze some ascribe to the Chalybes and others to the Cyclopes; the forging of iron Hesiod ascribes to the people called the Dactyli of Ida in Crete.

7.198

Working in iron was invented by the Cyclopes,

Scholia to Aelius Aristides

52.10 Dindorf p. 408

• Storey, p. 401

The scholiast to Aelius Aristeides (p. 408.25 Dindorf) distinguishes three sorts of Cyclopes, those in Sicily whom Odysseus encountered, these “hands-to-mouth,” and the “heavenly ones.

• Hard, p. 611 n. 9

⁹ Hellanic. 4F88, schol. Aristid. 52.10, p.408 Dindorf.

• Mondi, p. 18 n. 3

³ The Hesiodic scholia at Theogony 139 attribute a three-fold distinction to Hellanicus: ... (fr. 88, FGrH); cf. also scholia to Aristides Rh. 52.10 (Dindorf 3.408). ...

Scholia to the Iliad

bT Il. 8.39

Yasumura, p. 89

According to a scholion (bT ad Il. 8.39) of unknown data [sic date?] and origin, Metis is already pregnant with Athena by the Cyclops Brontes when Zeus swallows her.

Μῆτις ...

Zeus, wishing to keep her by himself, swallowed Metis, daughter of Oceanus, who changed into various shapes, and who was pregnant by the Cyclops Brontes

Strabo

8.6.2

Next after Nauplia one comes to the caverns and the labyrinths built in them, which are called Cyclopeian.³

³ Cp. 8. 6. 11.

8.6.11

Now it seems that Tiryns was used as a base of operations by Proetus, and was walled by him through the aid of the Cyclopes, who were seven in number, and were called "Bellyhands" [γαστερόχειρας] because they got their food from their handicraft, and they came by invitation from Lycia. And perhaps the caverns near Nauplia and the works therein are named after them.¹

¹ Cp. 8. 6. 2 (end).

Thucydides

3.88

The same winter the Athenians in Sicily and the Rhegians, with thirty ships, made an expedition against the islands of Aeolus; it being impossible to invade them in summer, owing to the want of water. [2] These islands are occupied by the Liparians, a Cnidian colony, who live in one of them of no great size called Lipara; and from this as their headquarters cultivate the rest, Didyme, Strongyle, and Hiera. [3] In Hiera 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.

6.2.1

It [Sicily] was settled originally as follows, and the peoples that occupied it are these. The earliest inhabitants spoken of in any part of the country are the Cyclopes and Laestrygones; but I cannot tell of what race they were, or whence they came or whither they went, and must leave my readers to what the poets have said of them and to what may be generally known concerning them.

Theocritus

2.133–134

Often Love kindles a blaze more fiery than does Hephaestus on Lipari.³⁷

³⁷ One of the Lipari islands northeast of Sicily was a volcano thought to be Hephaestus’ forge (Thuc. 3.88.2–3).

11.7–8

Our countryman the Cyclops,³ Polyphemus of old,

³ According to post-Homeric writers, the Cyclopes inhabited Sicily (Thuc. 6.2.1).

Tyrtaeus

Gerber pp. 56–59

12 Stob. 4.10.1 (vv. 1–14) + 6 (vv. 15–44)

12 Stobaeus, Anthology

From Tyrtaeus:

I would not mention or take account of a man for

his prowess in running or in wrestling, not even if

he had the size and strength of the Cyclopes and

Virgil

Aeneid

3.554–569

Then in the distance out of the waves appears Trinacrian Aetna, and from afar we hear the loud moaning of the main, the beating of the rocks, and recurrent crash of waves upon the shore; the shoals dash up and the sands mingle with the surge. Then father Anchises: ‘Surely here is that Charybdis; these are the crags, these the dread rocks Helenus foretold. To the rescue, comrades, and rise together over the oars!’ Even as bidden they do, and first Palinurus swung the groaning prow to the waves leftward; leftward all our force plied with oars and wind. We mount up to heaven on the arched billow and again, with the receding wave, sink down to the depths of hell. Thrice amid the rocky caverns the cliffs uttered a cry; thrice we saw the showered spray and the dripping stars. Meanwhile, at sundown the wind failed our weary band and, in ignorance of the way, we drift up to the Cyclopes’ coast.

3.570–571

“There lies a harbour, safe from the winds’ approach and spacious in itself, but near at hand Aetna thunders ...

3.641–644

For in shape and size like Polyphemus, as he pens his fleecy flocks in the rocky cave and drains their udders, a hundred other monstrous Cyclopes dwell all along these curved shores and roam the high mountains.

3.672–681

[Polyphemus] raises a mighty roar, at which the sea and all its waves shuddered and the land of Italy was terrified far within, and Aetna bellowed in its winding caverns. But the race of the Cyclopes, roused from the woods and high mountains, rush to the harbour and throng the shores. We see them, standing impotent with glaring eye, the Aetnean brotherhood, their heads towering to the sky, a grim conclave: even as when on a mountaintop lofty oaks or cone-clad cypresses stand in mass, a high forest of Jove or grove of Diana.

6.630–631

the ramparts [in the underworld] reared by Cyclopean forges

8.416–423

Hard by the Sicanian coast and Aeolian Lipare rises an island,¹⁵ steep with smoking rocks. Beneath it thunders a cave, and the vaults of Aetna, scooped out by Cyclopean forges; strong strokes are heard echoing groans from the anvils, masses of Chalyb steel hiss in the caverns, and the ire pants in the furnace—it is the home of Vulcan and the land called Vulcania. To it the Lord of Fire then came down from high heaven.

¹⁵ Hiera, now Vulcano, one of the Aeolian isles.

8.424–432

In the vast cave the Cyclopes were forging iron—Brontes and Steropes and bare-limbed Pyracmon. They had a thunderbolt, which their hands had shaped, like the many that the Father hurls down from all over heaven upon earth, in part already polished, while part remained unfinished. Three shafts of twisted hail they had added to it, three of watery cloud, three of ruddy flame and the winged South Wind; now they were blending into the work terrifying flashes, noise, and fear, and wrath with pursuing flames.

8.433–438

Elsewhere they were hurrying on for Mars a chariot and flying wheels, with which he stirs upmen and cities; and eagerly with golden scales of serpents were burnishing the awful aegis, armour of wrathful Pallas, the interwoven snakes, and on the breast of the goddess the Gorgon herself, with neck severed and eyes revolving.

8.439–443

“Away with all!” he cries. “Remove the tasks you have begun, Cyclopes of Aetna, and turn your thoughts to this! Arms for a brave warrior [Aeneas] you must make. Now you have need of strength, now of swift hands, now of all your masterful skill. Throw off delay!”

8.443–453

No more he said; but they with speed all bent to the toil, allotting the labour equally. Bronze and golden ore flow in streams, and wounding steel is molten in the vast furnace. A giant shield they shape, to confront alone all the weapons of the Latins, and weld it sevenfold, circle on circle. Some with panting bellows make the blasts come and go, others dipthe hissing bronze in the lake, while the cavern groans under the anvils laid upon it. They with mighty force, now one, now another, raise their arms in measured cadence, and turn the metal with gripping tongs.

Georgics

1.471–473

How oft before our eyes did Etna deluge the fields of the Cyclopes with a torrent from her burst furnaces, hurling thereon balls of fire and molten rocks.

4.170–175

And as, when the Cyclopes in haste forge bolts from tough ore, some with oxhide bellows make the blasts come and go, others dip the hissing brass in the lake, while Aetna groans under the anvils laid upon her; they, with mighty force, now one, now another, raise their arms in measured cadence, and turn the iron with gripping tongs

Modern

Bakker

p. 69

The name Κύκλωψ (κύκλ-ωψ) is known to the Hesiodic tradition as referring to the single κυκλοτερὴς ὀφθαλμός, 'circular eye', lying in the Cyclopes' foreheads (Hes. Theog. 143-5). Modern comparative linguistics has proposed a different etymology: κύ-κλωψ, derived from *pk̑u-klōps (with otherwise unattested reflex of Indo-European pek̑u): "cattle-thief."²⁹ This, etymology, if right, might link the Cyclops tale with the myth-type in which animals are stolen and hidden in a cave by a monstrous thief, necessitating a quest in which the animals are retrieved by a hero of the shaman-type who owns the cattle (Heracles, who has to deal with a variety of "cattle thieves" of this type, is the first example that comes to mind)³⁰ It would also illustrate the ease with which Odysseus and the cyclops trade roles, not only in the Cyclops episode proper, but also across [cont.]

²⁹ Thieme 1951: 177-8.

³⁰ Burkert 1979: 83-98.

p. 70

the tale and its paradigmatic manifestation. The cattle thief [hero?] takes on the features of the "cattle thief," in particular, when Odysseus announces to Penelope, after their night of reunion, that he will resort to "raid and plunder" (ληΐσσομαι, Od. 23.357) in order to restore his stables after the Suitors' depredations.

Boffa and Leone

[in Hecatoncheires folder]

p. 385

Furthermore, a papyrus from Oxyrinchus tells us that "the first to use metal armour was Briareos, whilst previously men protected their bodies with animal skins." Before this passage, the papyrus refers to the invention of weapons, which is attributed, as some say, to the Cyclopes in a cave in Euboea called Teuchion.⁴⁶

46. P.Oxy. X 1241 col. IV.

Burkert 1982

Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (first published 1979)

p. 157

30. The name 'Kyklops' should be revealing, but it is open to different interpretations. The ancient etymology 'wheel-eye' (since Hes. Theog. 145) is not too attractive; R. Schmitt (Dichtung and Dichtersprache in indogermanischer Zeit [Wiesbaden 1967] 168, cf. E. Risch Gnomen 41 [1969] 323) suggested 'wheel-thief,' *kyklo-klops, H. Thieme ZVS 69 (1951) 177f., g^u̯-klops, "cattle-thief'; this would go well with the 'master of the animals' pattern; see IV 3. ...

Burkert 1991

Greek Religion

p. 173

...it may be surmised that smith guilds lie behind ... and Cyclopes.

Bremmer

[in folder]

p. 139

Given their early role [in Hesiod] as smiths, it is not surprising that mythographers (historians?) related that the Cyclopes were the first to make weapons in a Euboean cave, Techion (P. Oxy. 10.1241). This primacy is confirmed by the Hellanistic historian Istros, according to whom they were the inventors of weapons in bronze (FGrH 334 fr. 71). Orphic poets even stated that the Cyclopes instructed Hephaistus and Athena in the art of casting statues (Orph. frs. 178-80 Kern). The Cyclopes were out of place in the 'new order' instituted by Zeus: they belonged to the divine generation before Zeus and they practised the dangerous activity of making weapons. That is probably why according to an early tradition Apollo killed them or, according to a later and 'softer' version, their sons.¹⁹ However later poets did not want the Cyclopes to disappear from the mythological scene altogether and made them into helpers of Hepaistos. They settled them in Sicily or adjacent islands, and as assistants of the divine smith they became popular in Roman art; as such they were occasionally alluded to in later inscriptions with literary pretensions.²⁰

¹⁹ Pherec. FGrH 3 fr. 35a; Eratosth. [Cat.] 29; Apollod. 3.10.4; Hyg. Fab. 49 (sons).

²⁰ Helpers: Eur. Cyc. 20; Thuc. 6.2; Callim. Hymn 3.46ff; Nisbet and Hubbard on Hor. Carm. 1.4.7; add PMich. 760. Roman art: Touchefeu-Meynier 1992;nos. 32-41. Inscriptions: SEG 30.1254, 34.1308.

p. 140

Given that forging iron requires physical strength, it is understandable that the Cyclopes were also considered to have been giants, as immediately after Hesiod and Homer the Spartan poet Tyrtaeus mentioned their size and strength' (12.3) and a later tradition ascribed to them the building of the first altar. In view of their negative characterisation overall, it is not surprising that this feat is recorded only once. On the other hand, early traditions ascribed imposing buildings to the Cyclopes, such as the walls of Mycene and Tiryns, and as builders they remained famous all through antiquity.²¹

However impressive these activities may seem to us, the Greek upper-classes looked down upon those who had to work for a living. That is why Sophocles referred to the artisan Daedalus as 'living by his hands' (fr. 164a Radt) and why the Cyclopes were disparagingly named 'Bellyhands,' a description already existing in the fifth century and lending further support to the antiquity of the 'building' tradition.²²

In Homer we encounter a different kind of Cyclops. When Odysseus lands in the land Cyclopes, it initially looks as if he has disembarked in a land of [cont.]

²¹ Pind. fr. 169a.7 Maehler; Bacchyl. 11.77; Pherec. FGrH 3 fr. 12; Soph. fr. 227 Radt; Eur. HF 15, IA 1499; Hellanicus FGrH 4 fr. 88; Eratosh. [Cat.] 39 (altar); Verg. Aen. 6.631; Strabo 8.6.8; Apolod. 2.2.1; Paus. 2.25.8; Anth. Pal. 7.748; schol. on Eur. Or. 965; Et. Magnum 213.29; Eust. Il. p. 286.21.

²² R. Kassel and C. Austin on Nikophron F 6-12; Lloyd-Jones on Eur. Or. 965; ...

Caldwell

p. 9

When Zeus grows up he releases his uncles, the Kyklopes and Hundred-Handed, from their prison within the earth, and joins his brothers and sisters, whom Kronos has been forced to disgorge, to begin the great war between the gods and the Titans.

p. 36

on lines 139–146

The names of the Kyklopes-Brontes, Steropes, Arges-mean Thunderer, Lightner, and Flashing. These Kyklopes, who make the lighting-bolts which are Zeus' chief weapon, are sometimes called "ouranian" Kyklopes for their father Ouranos; later Hephaistos will replace them as armorer of the gods, with the Kyklopes as his assistants. Already in the Odyssey there is a second group of Kyklopes, a primitive race of giants met by Odysseus either in Sicily or on the coast of Italy. Thre Greeks also believed that a race of Kyklopes built fortifications walls whose ruins they observed on Mycenean sites (In 19); these Cyclopes were supposed to have helped Proitos fortify Tiryns and Perseus fortify Argos. The single great eye and huge size may reflect the strongest impression received by an infant's immature vision of an adult face a few inches away."

p. 37

on lines 154–160

All the children of Ouranos share Kronos' attribute of "most terrible," and the reason for this, as well as the reason Kronos hated his father, is now made clear; their father hates them and refuses to allow them to come out of the body of their mother, and he fears that his children will want to follow his example and replace him (In 16). The "dark hole" of Gaia in which the children are confined is presumably her womb, and this innermost place of the earth may also be Tartaros. The means by which Ouranos suppresses his children must be continuous sexual intercourse with Gaia; this would explain why their imprisonment will be ended immediately by castration.

p. 56

on lines 501–506

The "uncles" (501) must be the Kyklopes, who were imprisoned in Tartaros by Ouranos and who will give Zeus the lightning (504-505); the freeing of their brothers the Hundred-Handed, will be reported in 617-626.

Fowler 2013

p. 35

Kyklopes: Hellanikos (fr. 88) says that the Kyklopes were named after Kyklops, son of Ouranos. The quoting scholiast explains that there were three species of Kyklopes: [cont.]

p. 36

those who fortified Mykenai; Polyphemos' lot; and 'the gods themselves', presumably a corrupt or careless expression referring to the decendants of Ouranos (below, n. 212). An interesting detail survives from Pherekydes (fr. 12), that when Perseus returned to Argos from Seriphos with his mother and Andromeda, he also brought with him the Kyklopes, doubtless to build the walls of Mykenai; however, our source is silent on their ultimate origin.¹²¹ In fr. 35 we are told that Apollo did not do servitude with Admentos for killing the Kyklopes, according to Pherekydes, but rather their sons. One of the Kyklopes has the unusual name Aortes in fr. 46 of the same author.

¹²¹ Strabo 8.6.11 and Apollod. Bibl. 2.25 have them come from Lykia.

p. 53

§1.7.6 KYKLOPES (Andr. fr. 16A; Hek. fr. 367; Hellan. fr. 88; Pher. fr. 46)²⁰⁵

... they are famous as craftsmen; there is a notable lack of canonicity in their myths. ... they come from the early strata of mythical times, before the settled order of things. In Hesiod's ... imprisoned by Ouranos for an unstated reason (502; presumably fear of their power, as at 617-20 of the Hundred-Handers ... 149), (Apollodorus 1.7 adds—from the Titanomachy?—that on the same occasion they provided Hades with his helmet and Poseidon with his trident.) In Odyssey 9 they inhabit a world outside of space and time; the adventure comes in the geographically indeterminate part of the poem, and its inhabitants have been on their island presumably for ever. Outside Homer, they are chiefly famous as builders of the stupendous, 'Cyclopean' walls of Mykenai and Tiryns.²⁰⁶ Strength, craftsmanship, and living in primordial time—whether that of cosmic or civic creation—are the common ground between these masons and Hesiod's Kyklopes. Thucydides (6.2.1) tells us that part of Sicily was said to have been inhabited 'in most ancient times' by Kyklopes and Laestrygones: mere poets' tales, he adds scornfully—hitting, one suspects, at his probable source, Antiochos of Syracuse.²⁰⁸

²⁰⁶ In Andr. fr. 16A both the ascription and the subject (the Kyklopes) are very doubtful, dependent on rewriting the apographs.

²⁰⁶ For Mykenai, see e.g. Pindar fragment 169a7; Pher. fr. 12; Soph fr. 227; Eur. HF 15, 944, El. 1158, Tro. 1088, IT 845, IA 1501; Hellan. fr. 88; Paus. 2.16.5; for Tiryns, see Pindar fr. 70a6 (u.v.; see van der Weiden ad loc.); Bacchyl, 11.77; TrGF adesp. 269; Strab. 8.6.11; Apollod. 2.25; Paus. 2.25.8. Cf. also Nikophon frr. 6-12 K.-A., Antimachos SH 77.

²⁰⁸ Euripides also reflects this tradition (Kykl. 95, al.). The fragments of Epicharmos' Kyklops do not reveal the setting, but one suspects it was his native Sicily (PCG 1.49).

p. 54

It is not difficult to see these two kinds of Kyklopes [the Hesiodic and the Cyclopean wall-builders], at least, as ultimately the same: builders of supernatural skill far exceeding that of ordinary man; giants and heaven-born, as opposed to the earthborn, dwarfish Daktyloi. Perhaps there was some ambivalence in folk belief about the Kyklopes—divine or merely extraordinarily endowed humans? ... As 'heavenly' they would supply the obvious answer any theogony-writer would pose: who made the weapons in the early wars, before even Hephaistos was born?²⁰⁹ Just as strong, however, is the tradition that they were mortal. A well-known story, beginning in Hesiod (fr. 54) and continuing through Akousilaos (fr. 19) and Andron (fr. 3), has Apollo kill the Kyklopes in revenge for their [should = the?] killing his son Asklepios (-->§1.9.2). Pherekedes (fr. 35) modifies this: Apollo kills not Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, but their sons; the fathers, who bear their Hesiodic names, must be for him gods as they were in Hesiod; feeling the difficulty, Pherekydes makes them sire mortal sons, one of whom is named Aortes (Pher. fr. 46; see n. 209). (His solution also has the advantage of leaving Zeus with working armoures to supply his thunderbolts.) These mortal sons nonetheless retain some of their fathers' enormity, if they are the builders of fr. 12; it is plain, at any rate that the builders are mortal, as no god would need to hitch a ride from Seriphos. In all likelihood too Hekataios, ... went on to speak of the building of the walls; one assumes that this rationalist would not have made these masons descend from heaven to take the contract. Pindar (fr. 266), has a different tale, but they are still mortal: he says that Zeus killed the Kyklopes for fear they would they would devise weapons against him.

Though the tradition stresses the Kyklopes enormous strength (cf. Tyrtaios fr. 12.3), this need not in itself indicate a propensity to violence or lawlessness. At their best the Kyklopes could be stalwart servants of the gods (in later traditions, they settle down as assistants of Hephaistos/Vulcan in his forge near or under Aetna);²¹⁰ ...The Odyssey ...

²⁰⁹ The Orphic theogony, Orphic, frr. 178-80, expands on this notion that the Kyklopes taught both Hephaistos and Athena their skills. For the Kyklopes as the discoverers of metalworking and inventors of weapons see also Istros FGrHist 334 F 7i, P.Oxy. 10.1241 iv 12, Pling NH 7.197. Pherekydes (fr. 46) probably fits here: 'Aotes' ('Swordsman') as a name of a Kyklops. ...

²¹⁰ e.g. Kallim. Hymn 3.46 ff.; Cic. ND 3.55; Verg. Georg. 4.173, Aen. 8.426ff.; Hor. Carm. 1.4.7; see commentaries.

p. 55

It has long been a puzzle what Polyphemus and his fellow Kyklopes have to do with the smiths of the Titanomachy, and as early as Hellanikos (fr. 88) scholars have declared that these are quite different groups; Hellanikos distinguished also the Mycenaean builders as a tribe unto themselves.²¹² But as we have seen the Mycenaean builders are not very different from the heavenly craftsman; the real puzzle is the Odyssean lot. We should probably recognize the free invention of the an epic poet. The one-eyed cannibalistic monster from whom the clever hero escapes is an extremely widespread folktale^213. which Homer or a predecessor has worked into the Odyssey. The link could have been the name. Perhaps 'Kyklopes' is a Greek calque on some foreign word—an all-too-easy hypothesis, of course—but if it is, the name, once invented, would instantly suggest the appearance (already in Hesiod, Th. 143). The appearance once established,²¹⁴ linking the Kyklopes with the one-eyed ogre of folktale would be easy.

²¹³ See Mondi, 'Cyclopes' and Bremmer, 'Odysseus versus the Cyclops' for bibliography, and Calame, The Craft of Poetic Speech 140-3. A one-eyed monster figures in Sumerian art, but we do not know what story might have been attached to it. See West, EFH 424; M. Knox, JHS 99 (1979) 164 f.

²¹⁴ The appearance would follow on the name rather than vice-versa, which might explain why early Greek art is uncertain about the appearance of these monsters; they do not always have but one eye. Homer himself is strangely silent about it; it becomes clear only when Odysseus hatches his plot.

p. 56

p. 74

§1.9.2 ASKLEPIOS ...

... Consequently, he is killed–by Zeus' fiery thunderbolt, ...

p. 75

Appollo then kills the Kyklopes who made the thunderbolts.

p. 78

(v) Pher. fr. 35 is a verbatum quotation; he tells the story briefly in a digression (see Part B for the place of this fr. in Pherekydes' book). The details are that Apollo killed not the Kyklopes but their sons (-->§1.7.6);

Frame

p. 68

Paul Thieme has proposed a third derivation.⁵⁸ He posits an original form *Pku-klōps, meaning "cattle-thief." In this case, the first element of the compound would descend from Indo-European *pku-, a zero-grade of *peku, "cattle."⁵⁹ Thieme argues the existence of the Indo-European zero-grade on the basis of Vedic and Avestan compunds, in which the meaning "cattle" had been forgotten, but for which Thieme's reconstruction is convincing.⁶⁰

58. P. Thieme, "Etymologische Vexierbilder," Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 69 (1951): 177-78 [= Kleine Schriften (wiesbaden, 1971), 1:62-63].

59. The meaning in Indo-European seems in fact to have been "movable property" rather than "cattle"; cf. n. 64 below.

60. In addition to the article cited above (n. 58), see also P. Thieme, Beiträge zur Vedaexegese, 2. śurúdh," Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 95 (1941): 338 ff. [= Kleine Schriften 1:42 ff.].

Frazer

Note 2 to Apollodorus, 3.10.4

According to Pherecydes, quoted by the Scholiast on Eur. Alc. 1, it was not the Cyclopes but their sons whom Apollo slew. The passage of Pherecydes, as quoted by the Scholiast, runs as follows: “To him” （that is, to Admetus） “came Apollo, to serve him as a thrall for a year, at the command of Zeus, because Apollo had slain the sons of Brontes, of Steropes, and of Arges. He slew them out of spite at Zeus, because Zeus slew his son Aesculapius with a thunderbolt at Pytho; for by his remedies Aesculapius raised the dead.”

Gantz

p. 10

Next born are the Kyclopes, three in number, and like to the other gods in all things save for a single round eye in their foreheads (Th. 139-46). Their names—Brontes, Steropes, and Arges—are connected with lighting and thunder, and indeed they will be the ones to forge the thunderbolt for Zeus.

p. 12

As for other details in Hesiod's account, the Kyclopes of this early period could scarcely be more different from those encountered by Odysseus in Book 9 of the Odyssey. The latter are expressly described as uncultured shepherds, sons of Poseidon (actually Homer says only that Polyphemos is a son of Posei- [cont.]

p. 13

don). who have little use for the gods and 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). In the later sections of the Theogony, the Ouranian Kyclopes recede into the background as the Hundred-Handers become more prominent. We will certainly expect them to be immortal, and yet the Ehoiai presents them as slain by Apollo, presumably in anger over the killing of his son Asklepios by Zeus' thunderbolt (Hes frr 52, 54 MW). Pherkeydes confirms this story and motive but makes Apollo's victims the sons of the Kyclopes (3F35a: we hear nothing elsewhere about their having offspring). And a fragment of Pindar suggests that Zeus himself killed them, lest they forge weapons for anyone else (fr 266 SM). The Catalogue Poet's version of their fate reappears in the prologue to Euripides' Alkestis as motive for Apollo's exile;

p. 44

In Hesiod, Zeus' first act after recovering the other Olympians is to release the Kyklopes; they remember the favor, and in return give him the thunderbolt, which Gaia had previously hidden (Th 501-6).

p. 45

Apollodorus would seem acquainted with a more detailed version of some events than that given by Hesiod, for he tells us that Zeus slew a female guard named Kampe in orer to release those under the earth (ApB 1.2.1).

p. 51

Unique to the Iliad scholia is the version in which Metis is already pregnant with Athena by the Kyklops Brontes when Zeus swallows her (ΣbT Il 8.39).

p. 71

Elsewher in Iliad 5 we learn that Hades possesses a cap that makes that makes the wearer invisible: Athena has borrowed it so that she might deceive Ares (Il 5.844-45). The origins of this cap are nowhere mentioned in our early sources; Apollodorus says that the Kyclopes gave Hades a cap (no special properties mentioned, although it is likely this one) when they gave Zeus the thunderbolt and Poseidon the Trident (ApB 1.2.1).

p. 92

What happened after Asklepios' death is likewise told as early as the Ehoiai: Apollo slays the providers of the thunderbolt, the Kyklopes (despite their presumed immortality), in anger over the loss of his sonm (Hes fr 54 MW, with supplements).

p. 310

[Perseus] himself ... and leaves for Argos with Dane, Andromeda, and the Kyklopes (here inexplicably mentioned for the first time, at least in the scholiast's summary). Subsequently, these Kyclopes will have some role to play in the continuation of the story as builders of the walls of Tiryns and Mykenai (Bak 11.77-81; Paus 2.16.5), but what they would be doing on Seriphos remains a mystery. Apollodorus, who agrees with Pherekydes [3F11] in other points of the narrative, does not mention them at all.

p. 703

Next is the island of the Kyclopes, giants lacking most of the trappings of communal life or the civilization brought by fixed agriculture.

Grimal

s.v. Cyclopes

p. 118

Cyclopes (Κύxλωπες) Ancient mythographers recognized three different kinds of Cyclopes: the [cont.]

p. 119

Uranian Cyclopes, sons of Uranus and Gaia (Heaven and Mother Earth), the Sicilian Cyclopes, companions of Polyphemus, who appear in the Odyssey, and the 'master-mason' Cycolpes.

The Uranian Cyclopes belonged to the first divine generation, that of the Giants. ...names which correspond to Thunder, Lightning, and Thunderbolt respectively. ... In return they provided Zeus with thunder, lightning and thunderbolts; to Hades, they gave a helmet which made him invisible, and to Poseidon, they gave a trident.

In Alexandrine poetry, the Cyclopes are considered as subordinate spirits; smiths and craftsmen who made every type of weapon for the gods. Under the direction of Hephaestus, the smith-god, for example they fashioned the bows and arrows used by Apollo and his sister Artemis. They lived in the Aeolian Islands, or perhaps in Sicily, where they owned an underground forge and made a cacophonous noise as they worked: their panting breath and the constant clanging of their anvils could be heard reverberating deep in the volcanoes of Sicily. The fire of their forge reddened the evening sky at the top of Mount Aetna. These legends linking the Cyclopes to the volcanoes also tend to confuse the Cyclopes with the Giants imprisoned under the mountain masses, whose convulsive struggles sometimes shook the land above.

By the time of the Odyssey, the Cyclopes had come to be regarded as a race of gigantic, savage beings, with one single eye and tremendous strength, who lived on the coast of Italy (in the Phlegraean Fileds near Naples). They were devoted sheep-breeders and their sole resources consisted of their flocks; they were cannibals by choice, and were strangers to wine, and indeed viticulture itself. They lived in caves, and had not learned how to build cities. ...

Cyclopes who supposedly came from Lycia were credited with the construction of all the prehistoric monuments to be seen in Greece, stones of weight and size which seemed beyond the capacity of mere human strength. ... They were given the curious epithet of 'Gasterocheires', ...

Hansen

p. 143

These Cyclopes are essentially blacksmiths, forgers of thunderbolts, and their names reflect their function: Brontes (Thunderer), Steropes (Lightner), and Arges (Flasher).

p. 144

A different tradition [Homer Odyssey 6.4-6, 9.105-555] represents the Cyclopes not as a particular set of brothers but as a society of one-eyed giants who dwell in an unspecified, out-of-the-way place in the world. They are arrogant brutish shepherds whose society lacks laws and assemblies, each man ruling his own wife and children and being indeifferent to neighbors, and whose level of technology is quite simple, for they live in caves and possess no knowledge of agriculture or, for all their nearness to the sea, of sailing.

Hard

p. 32

Gaia bore ... the one-eyed Kyklopes

p. 65

THE GREEK SUCCESSION MYTH

In the standard version of the succession myth, as recounted by Hesiod, the Titans were the first-born children of the primordial couple Gaia (Earth) and Ouranos (Sky), [cont.]

p. 66

who then generated two sets on monsters, the Kyklopes and the Hekatoncheires (Hundred-Handers).²

The three KYKLOPES (Round-eyes), who were giants with a single eye in the middle of their forehead, would help Zeus to victory in his war against the Titans by providing him with his thunder-weapon (see p. 74). Their connection with thunder and lightning as the manufactures of the thunderbolt is reflected in their names that Hesiod assigns them, Brontes (Thunder-man), Steropes (lightning-man) and Arges (Vividly bright, an epithet applied to Zeus' thunderbolt in early epic)³ Since they must have been skilled and powerful craftsmen, it came to be imagined in the Hellenistic tradition that they assisted the smith-god Hephaistos in his labours, toiling at his side in a huge forge unter Mt Etna or elsewhere (see p. 166).⁴ Although one would expect the Kyklopes to be immortal in view of their divine birth, Apollo was sometimes said to have killed them for having made the thunderbolt that killed his son Asklepios⁵ (see p. 151); or according to a fragment from Pindar, Zeus killed them to ensure that nobody would be able to aquire arms from them in the future.⁶

In an astral myth of Hellenistic origin, it was said the the Kyklopes fashioned the altar on which Zeus and his allies swore their allegiance before making war against the Titans, and that this altar was later transferred to the heavens, presumably by Zeus himself, to become the constellation of the Altar (Ara) in the southern sky.⁷ Pausanias reports that sacrifices were offered to the Kyklopes at an ancient altar at the Isthmus of Corinth,⁸ but there is no indication otherwise that they were honoured in cult.

As ancient mythographers already remark,⁹ these primordial Kyklopes should be distinguished from some mythical giants of two other kinds who were called by the same name, the Homeric Kyklopes and the master-builders of popular lore. The Kyklopes of the Odyssey lived a primitive pastoral life without government or law on a mythical island somewhere in th futhest most reaches of the sea; if all were like Polyphemos, the ogre who captured Odysseus (see p. 492), they were savage sons of Poseidon with a single eye.¹⁰ The Kyklopes of the other race were giants of folklore who were supposed to have erected the walls of Mycenae and Tiryns (see pp. 237 and 243) and other Mycenaean structures whose 'Cyclopean' masonry seemed to lie beyond the capacity of ordinary human workmanship.¹¹ They may be compared with the giants of modern folklore who are credited with the erection of megaliths or are said to have thrown down massive stones of that kind playing at quoits.

[p. 611]

³ Ibid [Hes. Theog] 138-46

⁴ First in Call. Hymn 3.46ff., cf. Verg. Aen. 8.416ff.

⁵ E.g. Apollod. 3.10.4; already in Hesiodic Catalogue, see frr. 52 and 54.

⁶ Pi. fr. 266 SM.

⁷ Eratosth. 39, Hyg. Astr. 2.39.

⁹ Hellanic. 4F88, schol. Aristid. 52.10, p.408 Dindorf.

¹⁰ Polyphemos' single eye, Hom. Od. 9.382ff etc. his parentage, 1.68-72, 9.528-9; Homer says nothing about the appearance or birth of the Kyklopes in his general account of them, 9.105-15, or subsequently.

¹¹ E.g. Paus. 2.16.4, 2.25.7, 7.25.3, Apollod. 2.2.1.

p. 67

Trouble arose within the newly generated family of Ouranos because he hated his offspring and prevented them from coming into the light. 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, especially the monsters who were born first of all. He hid them deep away inside the earth as each was born, apparently blocking their emergence by engaging in ceaseless intercourse with his consort (although Hesiod is vague on this matter as too); ... The Titans were now able to emerge into the light, and to assume power as the lords of the unierse under the sovereignty of Kronos. It would seem, however, that in Hesiod's version (unlike that of Apollodorus, see below) the Kyklopes and Hundred-Handers remain imprisoned beneath the earth until they were rescued by Zeus.

p. 68

Zeus also released the Kyklopes, who had apparently remained imprisoned beneath the earth since they had been confined there by their father Ouranos; and they showed their gratitude by arming Zeus with his all-powerful weapon, the thunderbolt.²³

p. 69

also gave Poseidon his trident provided Hades with a cap of invisibility.

p. 74

It was fashioned for him, as we have seen, by the Kyclopes.

p. 151

Apollo's servitude to Admetos, and the story of Alkestis

Apollo was enraged by the death of his son, but he could hardly exact vengeance on his mighty father even if he had dared attempt it, and therefore consoled himself by killing the Kyklopes who had made the thunderbolt. ... In an alternative version which was presumably developed because the Kyklopes might be expected to be immortal as brothers of the Titans, Apollo is said to have killed the sons of Kyklopes rather than the Kyklopes themselves.⁴⁶

[p. 621]

⁴⁶ Pher. 3F35 (also that Asklepoios was condemed to serve Admetos for a year).

p. 166

His [Hehaistos'] usual workshop in the early tradition lay neither on Lemnos [where he landed after his fall from heaven] nor anywhere else on earth below, but in his house of bronse on Olympos where he fashioned marvelous objects of every kind,¹¹⁰ ... From the classical period onwards, his forge is located at various places in the everyday world. It was sometimes placed on Lemnos, where the blinded Orion was supposed to have visited it ... ¹¹¹ but since Lemnos had no active volcano, most authors preferred to imagine that the divine forge lay in the west, either under Mt. Etna in Sicily¹¹² or under a volcano in the Aeolian islands to the north,¹¹³ hence the flames and smoke that arise from them. In contrast to Homer, who presents Hephaistos as working on his own (with some help from automata and a semi-automatic bellows), authors from Callimachus onwards provide [Hehaistos] with assistants in the form of the Kyklopes, the primordial beings who had armed Zeus with his thunderbolt (see p. 66).¹¹⁴

[p. 623]

¹¹¹ Eratosth. 32 (Hes. fr. 148a). Forge on Lemnos, Cic. N.D. 3.22, schol. Il. 14.231

¹¹² Call. Hymn 4.141-7. Hephaetus is addressed as lord of Etna in Eur. Cycl. 509.

¹¹³ Thucy. 3.88 (reputed to be at Hiera in the Aeolian Islands); Call. Hymn 3.46-50 (at isle of Lipara), cf. A.R. 4.760-2 with schol. 761, Theoc. 2.133-4; Verg. Aen. 8.414-54 (Lipara, linked to Etna by an underground cavern and galleries).

¹¹⁴ Call. Hymn 3.46-60; cf. Verg. I.c

p. 237

So Proitos ruled at Tiryns, which was fortified for him by the Kyklopes (see p. 66)

p. 243

Perseus invited Kyklopes to construct the massive 'Cyclopean' walls that can still be seen at Mycenae, and also to fortify Midea for him.¹¹²

[p. 634]

¹¹² Paus. 2.16.4; cf. Pi fr. 169 SM; Pher. 3F12 states surprisingly, that he had brought them over from Seriphos with him.

p. 492

From there [Odysseus] sailed to the land of the Kyklopes, who were a race of giants with a single eye in the middle of their forehead.

p. 493

Polyphemus cried out to his fellow Kyklopes, who lived on the heights around.

p. 589

Aeneas ...

p. 611

³ Ibid [Hes. Theog] 138-46

⁴ First in Call. Hymn 3.46ff., cf. Verg. Aen. 8.416ff.

...

⁹ Hellanic. 4F88, schol. Aristid. 52.10, p.408 Dindorf.

¹⁰ Polyphemos' single eye, Hom. Od. 9.382ff etc. his parentage, 1.68-72, 9.528-9; Homer says nothing about the appearance or birth of the Kyklopes in his general account of them, 9.105-15, or subsequently.

Heubeck, Hainsworth, and West

[in folder]

p. 84

69. The poet's failure to mention that Polyphemus had only one eye should be noted ...; it is not explained by the assumption that everyone took it for granted that Cyclopes were one-eyed. Here, in this rather summary account, the omission of any explicit reference to Polyphemus' abnormality is understandable; but it is not made good in ix, where it would be natural to alert the audience to this essential precondition for Odysseus' statagem. On this and some related problems see R. Mondi, ... (1983), 17 ff.

71-3. Polyphemus' mother Thoosa seems to be an ad hoc invention, ... Nothing is said about the lineage of the other Odyssean Cyclopes, and it is left unclear whether they too are regarded as sons of Poseidon (cf. esp. ix 412). The Hesiodic Cyclopes, ...

p. 293

...the 'Land beyond the horizon'. Its location would depend on that of the Cyclopes ... is in keeping with the Homeric idea of the extreme distance of the Phaeacians from the rest of mankind.

to judge by their lawless behaviour these are the same Cyclopes as those of ix ...

Heubeck and Hoekstra

[in folder]

pp. 19–21

p. 19

105-556. After the Lotus-eaters Odysseus comes to the Cyclopes, presumably on the same day. ... Polyphemus legends were told and retold almost throughout the ancient world; modern scholarship has identified well over two hundred different versions; cf. most recently J Glenn. 'The Polyphemus Folktale and Homer's Kyklopeia', TAPbA cii (1971), 133-85, who gives an extensive bibliography; Germain, Genèse, 55-129 gives the North African parallels. It is of course possible that some of the other versions, which were of course recorded only relatively late are ultimately dependent on Homer; see e.g. ... Most scholars, however, quite rightly reject this view; cf. ... Glenn, loc. cit. Analysis of the folk-tale material shows that the poet was using two originally unconnected stories, the first about a hero blinding a man-eating giant. Consistent features of this story are the hero's use of an animal, usually a sheep, or at least an animal skin, to effect an escape and the giant's attempt to bring the hero back with the help of a magical object. The second story concerns a hero outwitting a monster by giving a false name, usually 'I myself'. The fusion of these two stories is surely the work of the poet himself. ... Nor need we consider attempts, begun in classical times, to place the land of the Cyclopes on a map, except to note thta Th. (vi 2) knew of an old tradition that the Cyclopes had lived in Sicily, that the localization became widely established (cf. E. Cyc.; Theoc. vi and xi), and that in our own century attempts have been made to place the Cyclopes in Tunisisa (...

p. 20

[105-556. continued] ... The oldest pictorial representations of the blinding are on a vase from Elusis discovered in 1954 (K. Schefold, ... ) and the seventh-century krater of Aristonothus.

106-15. Hes Th 144-45 has surely given the correct explanation for the Cyclopes' name. ... This conveys the conception underlying the Homeric narrative (the account of the blinding presupposes a one-eyed Cyclopes, even though the poet, surely intentionally (Glenn. op. cit. [1?] 105-566 n. [1?], 154-6), omits any direct reference to this detail. Already in classical times scholars speculated on the reason behind the omission; see Servius ad Aen. III.636. ... The exact relationship between these Hesiodic and the Homeric Cyclopes has not yet been established, despite many attempts: ... It is hardly possible to see how these figures can be derived from a single source in view of the profound differences between the three Titans and the man-eating monsters of folktale. The feature of having one eye, so essential to the story of blinding, is a common motif (cf. Hdt's legendary Arimaspeans, iv 27) It is concevable that the old title of the Titans was transferred to the Polyphemus-figure of the folk-tale at a relatively late stage, and with a shift of meaning from 'round-faced' to μονόφθαλμος; Hes. then adapted his account of the Cyclopes to fit the Homeric pattern. The poet also reguires that Polyphemus is only one of a whole community of Cyclopes for the hero's device of naming himself Οὗτις to be fitted into the story of the blinding, which of itself requires only one monster; without the presence of others of his kind the trick with the name cannot work. The poet's description of the Cyclopes' way of life deserves particular attention. They have no ...

p. 21

... This initial description is supplemented in 125-30: the Cyclopes no nothing of shpbuilding and seafaring.

Mayor

p. 35

In 1914, Othenio Abel, an Austrian paleontologist, suggested that the Cyclops of Homeric legend was based on fossil elephant finds in antiquity. Abel, who excavated many Mediterranean fossil beds, related the image of one-eyed giant cavemen to the remains of Pleistocene dwarf elephants, common in coastal caves of Italy and Greece. Shipwrecked sailors unfamiliar with elephants might easily mistake the skull's large nasal cavity for a central eye socket (fig. 9).

The small elephants ranged from 3 to 6 feet (1-1.8 m) high at the shoulder, and the skulls and teeth are much larger than men's. In profile, elephant skulls do resemble grotesque human faces, and the vertebrae and limb bones could be laid out to resemble a giant man. Anyone who saw such an assemblage would try to visualize how such a creature looked and behaved when alive. Since Cyclopes lived in caves, the ancient Greeks imagined them as primi- [cont.]

p. 36

tive troglodytes who used rocks and clubs as weapons. The great piles of bones on the cave floors might be the remains of ship-wrecked sailors—the savage Cyclopes were probably cannibals! Human occupation of Sicily and other islands where dwarf elephant bones abound occurred long before Homer, and descriptions of them probably circulated among sailors from Mycenaean times onward. The Cyclops story was assimilated into epic poetry tradition and made famous in Homer's Odyssey.¹⁵

[p. 287]

15. ... Cyclops: Abel 1914 and 1939; ... For a history of interpretations of the Cyclops legend, see Glenn 1978.

Mondi

p. 17

Moreover there is a general consensus that the numerous versions of this tale, attested throughout Europe as well as parts of northern Africa and the Near East, constitute a folk tradition that is independent of the Greek epic tradition, upon which the Odyssey itself is has drawn.

...

1. Why is there such a discrepancy between the nature of the Homeric Cyclopes and the nature of those found in Hesiod's Theogony?

p. 18

Ancient commentators were so exercised by this problem that they supposed there to be more than one type of Cyclops, and we must agree that, on the surface at least, these two groups could hardly have less in common.³ Outside of the Odyssey and all subsequent literary works based on the Odyssean story of Polyphemus, the one salient feature of the Cyclopes is that they are craftsmen. In the Theogony they supply Zeus with the thunderbolts which enable him to defeat the Titans, and their work is terms of glowing praise:

...

Later sources attribute to them the construction of the walls of Argos, Tiryns, and Mycenae, and in the Hellenistic period they are portrayed as assistants at the forge of Hephaisotos.

³ The Hesiodic scholia at Theogony 139 attribute a three-fold distinction to Hellanicus: ... (fr. 88, FGrH); cf. also scholia to Aristides Rh. 52.10 (Dindorf 3.408). ...

p. 37

If the development that I have outlined is valid, it means that we should not attempt to wrestle some etymology out of the word κύκλωψ which would in any way connect it with eyes, round or otherwise ...

Storey

p. 401

... the tradition gives both cheirogastores and encheirogastores. The ancient lexicographers usually explain the word as meaning “those who feed themselves by manual labour,” while Eustathius (On the Iliad p. 286.21) says that it is used to describe the Cyclopes, who built the walls of cities in the Argolid in return for food. The scholiast to Aelius Aristeides (p. 408.25 Dindorf) distinguishes three sorts of Cyclopes, those in Sicily whom Odysseus encountered, these “hands-to-mouth,” and the “heavenly ones.”

Tripp

s.v. Cyclopes, p. 181

Cyclopes. Monsters, each with one eye in the center of his forehead. Thew tree original Cyclopes—Arges, Brontes, and Sterpes or Pyracmon—were ...

The relationship between these semidivine figures and the uncivilized shepherds encountered by Odysseus is not clear. ... they behaved like savages, with little regard for either men or gods. Late Classical writers tried to reconcile the two kinds of Cyclopes. Vergil, for example, located their thunderbolt forge in Vulcan's smithy in a cave of Mount Aetna, on the island of Sicily, which had early been identified as the home of Odysseus' shepherd giants. Many monumental works of craft from past ages, such as the walls of Tiryns and Mycenae, were attributed by the Greeks of the classical Age to the Cyclopes because they seemmed too difficult for mere human beings to have accomplished. The Cyclopes had a shrine on the Isthmus of Corinth where sacrifices were offered to them. ... Vergil, Aeneid 8.439-453 ...

Robson

[Children's book, probably not a RS for this purpose]

p. 17

Roller

p. 472

The rare word "Belly-Hands" (gasterocheira) may be from comedy.

Rose

s.v. Cyclopes , p. 304 (Oxford Classical Dictionary 2nd edition)

CYCLOPES (Κύκλωπες), gigantic one-eyed beings of whom at least two separate traditions exist. In Homer they are savage and pastoral; they live in a distant country, having no government or laws. ... Out of this tradition (Thunderer, Lightener, Bright)

West 1966

p. 207

on line 139

for Hesiod these are simply one-eyed craftsmen who made Zeus' thunder in gratitude for their release (501-6; Hephaestus had not yet been born). They have little in common with the Cyclopes of the Odyssey, who are a race of shepherds dwelling in the world of men, one of them at least being the son of Poseidon and a sea-nymph; the story of his blinding presupposes that he is one-eyed like Hesiod's Cyclopes, though this is not explicitly stated. Tyrtaeus knows them as a byword for size and strength (9.3), and the building of great fortifications such as those at Mycenae was attributed to them. In having only one eye, and in being hairy all over, they resemble the Arimaspi described in Aristeas' poem (cf. J. D. P. Bolton, Aristeas of Procooeus, p. 194, n. 20). There was an altar to them on the Isthmus, in an area sacred to Poseidon (Paus. 2.2.1), but otherwise they have no cult. ...

ὑπέρβιον ἦτορ ἔχοντας: cf. 898. ...

on line 140

The Cyclopes make thunder so Hesiod gives them names suggested by Thunder. Zeus' weapon is regularly described in three words: βροντή, στεροπή, and κεράυνός (504-505, 600-1, 707, 845-6, etc.). These really represent three different aspects of the same phenomenon: βροντή is what you hear, στεροπή is what you see, and κεράυνός is what hits you. But because there are three separate words, the unsophisticatted mind thinks of three separate things.

Thunder as the weapon of the Sky-god is a widespread conception; see ...

Βρόντην: probably named in fr. 54(a). 2.

Ἄργην: from ἀργής, a formulaic epithet of κεραυνός. But while the genitive of ἀργής is ἀργῆτος, that of Ἄργην is Ἄργεω ...

p. 208

on line 142

θεοῖς ἐναλίγκιοι: Hesiod does not mean that they are not themselves gods, only that in most respects their physique is like that of an ordinary god, i.e. like that of a perfect man (Od. 19.267 ...). Homer's Cyclopes on the other hand, are not gods, but uncivilized men (Od 6.5, 9.106 ff., 187), even if 'near' gods like the Giants and Phaeacians (7.205-6).