Cyclops, in Greek mythology, giants with one enormous eye in the middle of the forehead. In Hesiod, the three sons—Arges, Brontes, and Steropes—of Uranus and Gaea, the personifications of heaven and earth, were Cyclopes. They were thrown into the lower world by their brother Cronus, one of the Titans, after he dethroned Uranus. But Cronus's son, the god Zeus, released the Cyclopes from the underworld, and they, in gratitude, gave him the gifts of thunder and lightning with which he defeated Cronus and the Titans and thus became lord of the universe.

In Homer's Odyssey, the Cyclopes were shepherds living in Sicily. They were a lawless, savage, and cannibalistic race fearing neither gods nor humans. The Greek hero Odysseus was trapped with his men in the cave of the Cyclops Polyphemus, a son of Poseidon, god of the sea. In order to escape from the cave after the giant devoured several men, Odysseus blinded him.