The Cyclopes were called Arges, Steropes, and Brontes (“Flashing,” “Lightener,” and “Thunderer”). They were primitive, powerful, and unruly monsters who were twice imprisoned in Tartarus, a dark region far below the earth in Hades. Initially the Cyclopes were imprisoned by their father, Uranus. When Cronus took over power from his father, he released them, but imprisoned them again later.
When Zeus liberated the Cyclopes from Tartarus, he harnessed their power to manufacture the weaponry of his divine regime. They became the forgers of his thunderbolts and they were also said to have made instruments for Zeus’s two brothers—the trident for Poseidon and the hat of invisibility for Hades. When the Olympians succeeded to power, the Cyclopes served as assistants to Hephaestus, the metalworker god, in his foundry.
According to some later accounts, the Cyclopes were killed by Apollo. Apollo’s son Asclepius, the first doctor, had used his knowledge to raise people from the dead. To punish him for usurping the power of the gods, Zeus
Left: This head of Polyphemus (fourth century BCE) is a fragment from an ancient Greek sculpture. It was found in Smyrna, now Izmir, Turkey.
Below: Ulysses in the Cave of Polyphemus.
Polyphemus in Art
From the Renaissance onward, European artists looked back to the works of ancient Greece and Rome for inspiration. Characters drawn from Greek and Roman history and mythology became immensely popular subjects for paintings and sculpture because they enabled artists to depict larger-than-life characters and lush landscapes, bringing out the contrasts and contradictions in their stories.
The Cyclops Polyphemus is one of the characters encountered by Homer's hero Odysseus on his journey home after the Trojan War. Artists used scenes from this myth but felt free to interpret them according to their individual artistic style. Flemish painter Jacob Jordaens (below) used strong contrasts of light and shade to create a dramatic effect, whereas Alessandro Allori's palette of cool colors emphasizes his powerfully drawn figures and focuses attention on the action (see page 72). Italian artist Pellegrino Tibaldi (see page 73) was a great admirer of his fellow countryman Michelangelo's work, and his version of the myth is dominated by the powerful nude figure of Polyphemus. In complete contrast, Francois Perrier's decorative painting (see page 74) evokes no feelings of horror or drama, but depicts a pastoral scene in a romantic landscape.
Killed him with a thunderbolt. Apollo took revenge on the makers of Zeus’s weapon, the Cyclopes. As a punishment, Zeus then forced Apollo to spend a year in servitude to the mortal Admetus.
The Cyclopes were seen as brutes who provided the crude but essential “proletariat” force that drove industry. They were the ancestors of all the forge-working slaves of later European myth who labored for superior masters.
World History
