The Cyclopes were a primordial race of giants from ancient Greek and Roman mythology. Their main distinguishing feature was the single eye in the middle of their foreheads. Indeed the name Cyclops is a reference to this characteristic, as it means circle-eyed. There are various portrayals of the Cyclopes with both positive and negative connotations both by those of the ancients attempting to write history and those attempting to write drama.

Hesiod wrote one of the main accounts of the Cyclopes, called the Theogeny. This introduced three Cyclops brothers called Arges, Barges, and Steropes, who had been released from Tartarus, the punishment area of the underworld. They were the children of Uranus and Gaia, and had foul tempers, but they were very powerful, and they worked as masons. The noises of volcanoes were even attributed to them at their work.

The portrayal of The Cyclopes in the ancient mythology changed over time. In earlier portrayals they are described as creative craftsmen. They are, for example, linked to the building of the city walls of Tiryns as well as other fortifications at Mycenae, for example. They were also said to have helped Hephaistos, the smith god, in creating many of the magical weapons that were used by the gods, such as the invisible helmet of Hades, the thunderbolt of Zeus, and the trident of Poseidon. Artemis and Apollo were also said to have been provided with bows and arrows of moonlight and sunlight, respectively, by the Cyclopes smiths.

In later times they were portrayed as shepherds who disregarded laws and ate any human who strayed too close. It is this later portrayal that we see in Homer's Odyssey, where Odysseus and his crew are trapped in the lair of the Cyclops, Polyphemus, who eats some of the crew before being blinded by Odysseus. The survivors then escape by hiding amongst Polyphemus's sheep when he lets them out to pasture.

But it is the associated with the work of the blacksmith that may provide the clue as to where the myth of the Cyclopes came from. Blacksmiths would cover one eye with an eye patch so that if sparks flew up from the forge and hit them in the eye they would not be risking both eyes at the same time. Polyphemus, the Cyclops described by Homer, may have been taken from a different source, such as a local monster myth, or may have simply been based only loosely on the older Cyclopes myths.

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