The one-eyed giant you know and love has dominated popular imagination for thousands of years.
The Cyclops combines two monstrous elements into one: a humanoid of massive stature and
a physical malformation that only rarely occurs in real life.
The most famous Cyclops, the cannibalistic shepherd of the Ancient Greek Homeric myth,
isn’t the only one.
He’s one of many that turn up not just in Greek mythology, but in other cultures throughout
the world.
So why is this?
Why a one-eyed monster in the first place?
Does paleontology play a part in this?
To help us out, we asked our friends from Eons for some insight into the possible origins
of this giant with only one eye.
The Cyclops is not a singular creature that always looks the same or comes from the same
place.
The word means “round-eye” and can apply to all kinds of monsters.
Chances are the one you’ve encountered is some variation from Homer’s famous text
the Odyssey.
The hero Odysseus and his men sail to the “land of the Cyclopes” an island home
to a people described as arrogant “lawless folk.”
While exploring the island they find a remote cave, and see a “monstrous man,” named
Polyphemus living apart from the others tending to his large flock of sheep.
In Ancient Greece, only “primeval” or “faraway peoples” were attributed to living
in caves so those hearing this tale would know straight away that Odysseus was about
to encounter something very different from the sophisticated Greeks.
While Polyphemus is away, they secretly enter the monster’s cave and help themselves to
the giant’s food while waiting for him to return.
When the immense shepherd finally arrives, he seals the door with a huge stone before
spotting the humans.
When questioning how they arrived to his land, Odysseus lies and tells the creature their
ship crashed.
In a sudden wild fit of rage, Polyphemus snatches two of the men, violently throwing their bodies
to the ground before cutting them limb from limb.
While the others watch on in horror, he eats them raw.
Odysseus and his friends are understandably horrified, and begin plotting their escape
while the giant sleeps.
More men are eaten the next day, but Odysseus manages to sharpen a large stake from the
giant’s own massive club and begins to execute his master plan by getting Polyphemus drunk.
With the wine in full-effect, the buzzed giant asks his drinking buddy’s name.
Odysseus responds with “Noman.”
While the giant is asleep, Odysseus and four men hold the stake in a fire until it glows
red-hot.
They thrust this into his eye, blinding the giant.
When the other Cyclopes on the island hear his cries of agony and rush to come to see
what’s wrong, the injured Polyphemus can only say he was hurt by “no man.”
The next morning the now blind giant opens his cave to graze his sheep and Odysseus and
his men escape clinging underneath the bellies of the wooly animals.
As the crew sails away (with some of the giant’s sheep in tow, I might add) Polyphemus hurls
massive rocks at the boat when Odysseus taunts him.
Legend has it, you can even see these rocks today.
The unique formation of the Faraglioni of Aci Trezza are called the “Islands of the
Cyclops.”
Despite the popularity of this story, Homer never actually says Polyphemus, or any of
the other Cyclopes, have only one eye.
It’s only assumed from the events of the story, which might be why a lot of art from
Ancient Greece takes some artistic liberties and shows the enormous figure with one, two,
and even three eyes.
But there is another Greek myth with creatures also named Cyclopes who are specifically described
as only having one eye.
So that author clearly stole from Homer, right?
Well not exactly.
Scholars still argue today about which text came first.
In his Theogony, written around the same time as Homer, famous Greek poet Hesiod tell of
of a trio of “smiths.”
These three brothers were said to be born from the union of the gods Gaia (Earth) and
Ouranos (Uranus/Sky or Heaven)—each with a single eye in their middle of their foreheads.
They are referred to by their surname, Cyclopes, after their appearance.
Each brother is given their own name, and in Greek they translate to ‘Thunder’ [Brontes/Βροντή],
Lightning [Steropes/Στερόπης"], and Flash [Arges/Ἄργης].
These one-eyed children of gods gifted Zeus with his thunderbolt.
Much more sophisticated and powerful than the simple, violent shepherds of Homer’s
story.
Hesiod details that “Strength and might and craft were in their works.”
The Cyclopes here are portrayed as blacksmiths, and according to one Ancient Greek historian,
they are even credited with the invention of bronze weapons.
Let’s think about this association for a second.
The ability to forge iron, the job of a blacksmith, requires immense physical strength.
It’s not really hard to see how such figures would be considered giants in mythology.
Smiths were important in antiquity, but were often seen as outsiders given that they did
not labor in the field or hunt like most other people of the time.
And if you’ve watched an episode of this show before, you’ll know by now, marginality
often equals monstrosity.
So whichever story came first, we have two Greek traditions of the Cyclopes: one as a
society of sheep herding giants, and the other as one-eyed children of gods.
But why giants with only one-eye in the first place?
Well, there’s a pretty popular theory involving skull fossils.
Now I’m definitely not a paleontology expert, but luckily for me I do know a few cool ones,
could dinosaur bones help explain the Cyclopes myths?
Well Emily, according to paleontologist Othenio Abel, it was elephant fossils--as opposed
to dinosaur bones--that inspired the original cyclopean myths.
Elephants and their relatives belong to a group known as the proboscideans.
Although these amazing animals are no longer found in the wilds of southern Europe, they’re
well-represented in the Mediterranean fossil record.
One of the first species to arrive in Europe was Gompotherium, a bizarre beast with tusks
on both its upper and lower jaws.
Scientists think the animal made its grand debut on the European continent around 20
to 17 million years ago.
Its remains have been found in such locales as Spain and Turkey.
Other trunk-faced giants who settled the Mediterranean coastlines included mammoths, mastodons, extinct
elephants and a behemoth named Deinotherium.
A mega-mammal whose name means “terrible beast,” Deinotherium is recognizable by
the downward-curving, banana-shaped tusks anchored to its chin.
And did we mention it was big?
Like, really, really big?
A full-grown Deinotherium stood four meters tall at the shoulder and may have tipped the
scales at twelve metric tons, making it twice as heavy as a living African elephant!
Yet the proboscideans of yore weren’t always giants.
On Cyprus, Crete and a host of other Mediterranean islands, paleontologists have found the remains
of “dwarf” elephants.
We also know that Sardinia, an island near eastern Italy, once had miniature mammoths.
Among these elephantine pipsqueaks, Palaeoloxodon falconeri was among the very smallest.
A resident of Sicily and Malta, it was a puny little critter, standing no more than 1.19
meters tall.
Much like Odysseus’ cyclops, its remains are often found inside caves.
In fact, the Spinagallo Cave in southwestern Sicily has yielded over 2000 dwarf elephant
bones to date.
How can we explain these shrunken beasts?
Well, in biology, there’s a concept called Foster’s Rule.
In a nutshell, it states that on isolated islands, the descendants of small animals
(like rats) frequently get larger.
And the reverse is often true.
When big-bodied creatures, such as hippos and elephants, populate an island, natural
selection can make dwarves out of their descendants.
(You see, on the mainland, herbivores usually have to deal with more predators.
This is one reason why modern elephants are so big: They’ve evolved to fight off lions,
tigers and other charismatic carnivores.
)
But on an island where predators are scarce and the food supply is limited, being huge
becomes a major handicap.
With the threat of predation removed, the island-dwelling elephants and mammoths across
the Mediterranean evolved smaller body sizes so they could subsist on less food.
Big or small, though, a proboscidean skeleton might look downright bizarre to anybody who’s
never seen a live elephant.
In 1914, our friend Othenio Abel proposed that when the ancient Greeks came across these
fossils, they mistook them for the remains of one-eyed, humanoid giants.
He pointed to one feature that most proboscideans share: A large nasal cavity high up on the
forehead.
Abel reasoned that if you saw a naked elephant skull, and had no idea what its owner looked
like, you might not know this cavernous hole had once been connected to a fleshy trunk.
Instead, you might assume it was an extra-large eye socket in the middle of the animal’s
face.
While these kinds of giants are present in the myths of most ancient civilizations, Homer’s
version dominates.
Variants of the Homeric Cyclopes have been found in France, Turkey, and Estonia among
other places, and there’s even a version in a famous collection of Arabian folktales,
One Thousand and One Nights.
In the 16th century, a Turkish manuscript showed the myth existed outside of Greece.
In this version, a Cyclops-like figyur demands to be fed two people and 500 sheep a day.
He is ultimately defeated with a spit to the eye and the hero escapes under the skin of
a ram.
Later in the 19th century, Wilhlem Grimm, yes, he’s one of those brothers, published
a book collecting 10 folkloric versions of the ‘Blinded Ogre’ story.
Grimm is widely considered the first folklorist to investigate the various global versions
of Homer’s Polyphemus.
In the book he states that all versions of the myth had ancient origins.
Maybe those fossils we were talking about?
In 1904, German scholar Oskar Hackman published a collection of 221 versions of the “Blinding
of the Ogre” myth taken from 25 different nations.
Take that Brother Grimm!
The number has only expanded since then.
We still see the Greek versions of the Cyclops myth appearing in literature class and a few
popular instances.
Wrath of the Titans, Disney’s Hercules; Percy Jackson; and O’ Brother Where Art
Thou.
And today, the figure has evolved into loveable monsters like mutant aliens, and the famous
X-Men character Cyclops (you may have heard of him).
Despite these examples, overall, the image of the one-eyed giant as a monster has largely
faded.
If you take a look at modern visual depictions of cyclops, they aren’t really scary.
Even the violent cannibals of ancient mythology seem laughable now, in part because they are
often shown as being oafish, gullible, and well—easy to defeat.
All you need is a simple plan and a pointy stick.
That doesn’t exactly inspire terror.
But that doesn’t mean the stories about them are any less significant.
They show us how modern paleontology can sometimes help explain the beliefs of the past, and
give us a unique insight into ancient cultures.
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