by Christina Pomoni

Created on: February 28, 2009

The Cyclopes are mythical beings both in the Greek and Roman mythology with one eye in the middle of forehead. The word Cyclop (in Greek, Kyklopas) emanates from the combination of the words "circle" (in Greek, kyklos) and "hole" (in ancient Greek, opi) and determines some being with only one eye (a hole) in the middle of the forehead.

Researchers and scholars have performed several hypotheses regarding the origin of the Cyclopes' single eye. In ancient times, people were using concentric rings to tattoo themselves in honor of the sun that provided the fire. Also, metalworkers were probably wearing an eye patch over one eye to avoid being blinded from fire sparks. Concentric rings were also used for making several metal objects such as bowls, helmets and masks.

Three are the known categories of Cyclopes.

The first category concerns a trinity of monstrous deities, Brontes ("thunderer"), Steropes ("flasher"), and Arges ("brightener"), who arepresented in the Hesiod's "Theogony". These Cyclopes are children of Uranus and Gaia. Because of their enormous physical force, stubbornness and lack of emotion they are imprisoned by Uranus in Tartars, the zone of the Under World where bad souls were sent, being regarded as a threat to his power. Cronos and his Titans released the three Cyclopes so that they help them to overpower Uranus. However, as soon as their mission was accomplished, the Cyclopes were sent to Tartars again. Zeus and the remainder of the Olympian Gods released them once again in order to help them overpower the Titans during the Titan Wars. Mainly, with Brontes' thunder and Steropes' lightning, the Olympians overpowered the Titans. When Zeus swept the power, he assigned the guarding of the Titans at Tartars to the Cyclopes, who in return offered him the lightning and the thunder, which became the emblems of Zeus since then.

Brontes, Steropes and Arges were killed by Apollo, who wanted to take revenge for the death of his son, Asclepius, the Greek god of Medicine. Thanks to his therapeutic expertise, Asclepius had brought back to life many dead people and this is why Zeus killed him with a lightning stroke to punish him.

The second category concerned a population of lawless shepherds with monstrous faces, sons of Poseidon, with one and unique eye in the middle of forehead. Homer writes in Odyssey that they were probably living in the island Sicily, in Western Mediterranean. Wild, without any element of culture and social organisation, they exterminated and ate those, who approached in their region. Odysseus and his sailors were carried away by the sea and approached the island of the Cyclopes, thus being enslaved in the cave of most powerful among them, Polyphemus. Finally, after a notorious trick of Odysseus they blinded Polyphemus and managed to escape, however with severe casualties.

The third category of Cyclopes concerns a population of gigantic persons in which the Greeks of classic era attributed the building of gigantic walls, whose remains are still maintained in a lot of regions of Greece. Obviously, these walls had been built in the acne of societies of Mycenae period. Stravon reports that the Cyclopes came from Lykia and made walls and other constructions in Tiryntha and in Mycenae, known as Cyclopean Walls.

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