Cyclōpes

, a certain race of men of gigantic stature, supposed to be the sons of Cœlus and Terra. They had but one eye, in the middle of the forehead; whence their name ( κυκλος , circulus , ὠψ , oculus ). They were three in number, according to Hesiod, called Arges, Brontes, and Steropes. Their number was greater according to other mythologists, and in the age of Uly es, Polyp hem us was their king. See: Polyp hem us . They inhabited the western parts of the island of Sicily; and because they were uncivilized in their manners, the poets speak of them as men-eaters. The tradition of their having only one eye originates from their custom of wearing small bucklers of steel which covered their faces, and had a small aperture in the middle, which corresponded exactly to the eye. From their vicinity to mount Ætna, they have been supposed to be the workmen of Vulcan, and to have fabricated the thunderbolts of Jupiter. The most solid walls and impregnable fortre es were said, among the ancients, to be the work of the Cyclops, to render them more respectable; and we find that Jupiter was armed with what they had fabricated, and that the shield of Pluto, and the trident of Neptune, were the produce of their labour. The Cyclops were reckoned among the gods, and we find a temple dedicated to their service at Corinth, where sacrifices were solemnly offered. Apollo destroyed them all, because they had made the thunderbolts of Jupiter, with which his son Æsculapius had been killed. From the different accounts given of the Cyclops by the ancients, it may be concluded that they were all the same people, to whom various functions have been attributed, which cannot be reconciled one to the other, without drawing the pencil of fiction or mythology. Apollo dor us , bk. 1 , chs. 1 & 2.— Homer , Ody ey , bks. 1 & 9.— Hesiod , Theogony , li. 140 .— Theocritus , Idylls , poem 1, . — Strabo , bk. 8 .— Virgil , Georgics , bk. 4 , li. 170 ; Æneid , bk. 6 , li. 630 ; bk. 8 , li. 418 , . ; bk. 11 , li. 263 .— Ovid , Metamorphoses , bk. 13 , li. 780 ; bk. 14 , li. 249 .――A people of Asia.