Cyclops

In Greek mythology, one of a race of Sicilian giants with one eye in the middle of their foreheads. According to Homer, they lived as shepherds. Odysseus blinded the Cyclops Polyphemus in Homer's Odyssey.

In Theogony, the Greek poet Hesiod represents the Cyclops as Arges, Steropes, and Brontes; sons of Uranus, the sky, and Gaia, goddess of the Earth. They helped the Titan Kronos to depose their father, but ultimately aided his son Zeus to overthrow the Titans, giving Zeus a thunderbolt, Pluto a helmet of invisibility, and Poseidon a trident.

Later tradition represented them living in Mount Etna as workmen of Hephaestus, the god of fire and metalcraft, and suggested that they were killed by the god Apollo for supplying Zeus with the thunderbolt which slew his son Asclepius, god of medicine.

The massive fortifications of Tiryns in the Peloponnese and Mycenae, Crete, were believed to have been built with the aid of the Cyclops.