- Cyclops
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1. Class. Myth. a member of a family of giants having a single round eye in the middle of the forehead.2. (l.c.) a freshwater copepod of the genus Cyclops, having a median eye in the front of the head.[ < Gk Kýklops, lit., round-eye, equiv. to kýkl(os) a circle, round + óps EYE]
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In Greek mythology, any of several one-eyed giants.In the Odyssey, the Cyclopes were cannibals who lived in a faraway land (traditionally Sicily). Odysseus was captured by the Cyclops Polyphemus, but he escaped being devoured by blinding the giant. According to Hesiod, there were three Cyclopes (Arges, Brontes, and Steropes) who forged thunderbolts for Zeus. In a later tradition, they were assistants to Hephaestus in this task. Apollo destroyed them after one of their thunderbolts killed Asclepius.* * *
Greek“Round Eye”in Greek legend and literature, any of several one-eyed giants to whom were ascribed a variety of histories and deeds. In Homer the Cyclopes were cannibals, living a rude pastoral life in a distant land (traditionally Sicily), and the Odyssey contains a well-known episode in which Odysseus escapes death by blinding the Cyclops Polyphemus. In Hesiod the Cyclopes were three sons of Uranus and Gaea—Arges, Brontes, and Steropes (Bright, Thunderer, Lightener)—who forged the thunderbolts of Zeus. Later authors made them the workmen of Hephaestus and said that Apollo killed them for making the thunderbolt that slew his son Asclepius.The walls of several ancient cities (e.g., Tiryns) of Mycenaean architecture were sometimes said to have been built by Cyclopes. Hence in modern archaeology the term cyclopean is applied to walling of which the stones are not squared.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
