Cyclops
SY-klops
Attested elsewhere in ancient sourcesOne-eyed giants, of two kinds in the sources. Hesiod's are three smiths, Brontes, Steropes and Arges, who make Zeus the thunderbolt and are otherwise like the gods.
Homer's are different: herdsmen on an island with no laws, no assemblies and no ships, each ruling his own cave and caring nothing for his neighbour. Polyphemus is one of them.
The pairing is useful. The same word covers the craftsman who arms the king of the gods and the creature that eats guests, and no source tries to reconcile them.
Sources
- Hes. Theog. 139-146
- Hom. Od. 9.105-115
References are to the standard divisions of the ancient texts, not to any one edition.
Acenes of Sparta: The Dragon Slayer
A dragon is the reason the 300 died. Leonidas used the magic of the gods to bind Kalaxes beneath Taygetus, and the price was his life and his men's. Sixty-two years later a seven-year-old of the agoge falls into the dragon's crypt and inherits the unpaid balance.
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