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122-615: In Cyclops , the fifth-century BC play by Euripides , a chorus of satyrs offers comic relief based on the encounter of Odysseus and Polyphemus. The third-century BC poet Callimachus makes the Hesiodic Cyclopes the assistants of smith-god Hephaestus , as does Virgil in the Latin epic Aeneid , where he seems to equate the Hesiodic and Homeric Cyclopes. From at least the fifth century BC, Cyclopes have been associated with

244-505: A votive offering which later became a constellation, the Coma Berenices ("Hair of Berenice"). Another notable story from the second half of the work is the love story of Acontius and Cydippe . At the close of his Aetia , Callimachus wrote that he would proceed to a more pedestrian field of poetry. By this, he referred to his collection of 13 Iambs , drawing on an established tradition of iambic poetry whose defining feature

366-508: A "better work" ( Latin : maius opus ). Vergil's formulation leaves open whether he sought to write an epic with the refinement called for by Callimachus or whether he had turned his back on Callimacheanism as his career progressed. Having referred to himself as a "Roman Callimachus" ( Latin : Romanus Callimachus ), the elegist Propertius follows the example of Callimachus's Aetia by introducing obscure mythological material and numerous recondite details into his erotic history of Rome. At

488-517: A chariot and flying wheels, with which he stirs upmen and cities; and eagerly with golden scales of serpents were burnishing the awful aegis, armour of wrathful Pallas, the interwoven snakes, and on the breast of the goddess the Gorgon herself, with neck severed and eyes revolving. The mythographer Apollodorus , gives an account of the Hesiodic Cyclopes similar to that of Hesiod's, but with some differences, and additional details. According to Apollodorus,

610-457: A child of Leto, even as Apollo. And if I with my bow shall slay some wild creature or monstrous beast, that shall the Cyclopes eat. The first-century BC Roman poet Virgil seems to combine the Cyclopes of Hesiod with those of Homer, having them live alongside each other in the same part of Sicily. In his Latin epic Aeneid , Virgil has the hero Aeneas follow in the footsteps of Odysseus ,

732-584: A complete lack of belief in any god, in Greek thought". The location of the cyclopes in the Odyssey is not specified, but Euripides' Cyclops is set in Sicily , possibly following Epicharmus , portrayed as barbarous and desolate and hostile. This was not an accurate representation of Sicily. But the point is that the place is "completely non-Bacchic" and "non-Dionysiac". This is mentioned by every character in

854-542: A convenient source of heavenly weaponry, since the smith-god Hephaestus —who would eventually take over that role—had not yet been born. According to Apollodorus, the Cyclopes also provided Poseidon with his trident and Hades with his cap of invisibility , and the gods used these weapons to defeat the Titans . Although the primordial Cyclopes of the Theogony were presumably immortal (as were their brothers

976-527: A few lines to extensive narratives, they are unified by a common metre—the elegiac couplet . With few exceptions, the collection is the earliest extant source for most of the myths it presents. Throughout the work, the poet's voice repeatedly intrudes into his narratives to offer comments on the dramatic situation. This pattern is described by the Hellenist Kathryn Gutzwiller as one of the poem's most influential features. The poem

1098-455: A goatherd. He often mixes different metaphors to create effects of "wit and incongruity", such as when a laurel tree is described as "glaring like a wild bull". Ferguson also notes the poems' witty use of proverbs in dialectic passages of dialogue. Callimachus made only one attempt at writing a narrative poem, a mythological epic entitled Hecale . Since the poem is estimated to run to have had around 1000 lines, it constitutes an epyllion ,

1220-432: A particular god; examples of this genre can be found in most Greek lyric poets . A typical hymn would contain an invocation of the god, praise of his or her attributes, and a concluding prayer with a request for a favour. Callimachus wrote six such hymns, which can be divided into two groups: his Hymn to Apollo , to Demeter and to Athena are considered mimetic because they present themselves as live re-enactments of

1342-583: A period of relative poverty while working as a schoolteacher in the suburbs of the city. The truthfulness of this claim is disputed by the classicist Alan Cameron who describes it as "almost certainly outright fiction". Callimachus then entered into the patronage of the Ptolemies , the Greek ruling dynasty of Egypt, and was employed at the Library of Alexandria . According to the Suda , his career coincided with

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1464-619: A place sacred to Poseidon, where sacrifices were offered to the Cyclopes. There is no evidence for any other cult associated with the Cyclopes. According to a version of the story in the Iliad scholia (found nowhere else), when Zeus swallowed Metis , she was pregnant with Athena by the Cyclops Brontes. Although described by Hesiod as "having very violent hearts" ( ὑπέρβιον ἦτορ ἔχοντας ), and while their extraordinary size and strength would have made them capable of great violence, there

1586-593: A prominent family in the Greek city of Cyrene in modern-day Libya , he was educated in Alexandria, the capital of the Ptolemaic kings of Egypt . After working as a schoolteacher in the city, he came under the patronage of King Ptolemy II Philadelphus and was employed at the Library of Alexandria where he compiled the Pinakes , a comprehensive catalogue of all Greek literature. He is believed to have lived into

1708-521: A religious ritual in which both the speaker and the audience are imagined to take part. The Hymn to Zeus , to Demeter , and to Delos are viewed as non-mimetic since they do not re-create a ritual situation. It is contested among scholars of ancient literature whether Callimachus's hymns had any real religious significance. The dominant view holds that they were literary creations to be read exclusively as poetry, though some scholars have linked individual elements to contemporary ritual practice. This issue

1830-422: A sanctuary to Zeus in honour of his host. Since most of Callimachus's poetry is critical of epic as a genre, there has been some speculation about why he chose to write an epic poem after all. The author of the scholia , an ancient commentary on the work of Callimachus, stated that Callimachus abandoned his reluctance after being ridiculed for not writing lengthy poems. This explanation was probably derived from

1952-432: A shorter form of epic poetry dealing with topics not traditionally present in larger-scale works. It recounts a story about the Greek hero Theseus , who, after liberating the city of Marathon from a destructive bull, was hosted by a poor but kindly old woman named Hecale . They form a friendship as she recounts her former life as a member of the upper class . At the end of the poem, Theseus establishes an annual feast and

2074-547: A stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. In this way, Zeus was spared the fate of his elder siblings, and was hidden away by his mother. When he was grown, Zeus forced his father to vomit up his siblings, who rebelled against the Titans. Zeus released the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires, who became his allies. While the Hundred-Handed Giants fought alongside Zeus and his siblings, the Cyclopes gave Zeus his great weapon,

2196-498: A thunderbolt, which their hands had shaped, like the many that the Father hurls down from all over heaven upon earth, in part already polished, while part remained unfinished. Three shafts of twisted hail they had added to it, three of watery cloud, three of ruddy flame and the winged South Wind; now they were blending into the work terrifying flashes, noise, and fear, and wrath with pursuing flames. Elsewhere they were hurrying on for Mars

2318-615: A traditional Orphic incantation and Zeus's punishment of the Titans , the "sons of Earth" and primordial enemies of the Orphic Dionysus. The central focus of Orphism is the suffering and death of the god Dionysus at the hands of the Titans, which forms the basis of Orphism's central myth. In the play the satyrs are devotees of Dionysus and on the island of Sicily, known to be "a center of Orphic cult ". Cyclops has been both lauded and scorned, with hostile commentators criticising its simplicity of plot and characterisation. There

2440-490: A unique style of poetry: favouring small, recondite and even obscure topics, he dedicated himself to small-scale poetry and refused to write longwinded epic poetry , the most prominent literary art of his day. Callimachus and his aesthetic philosophy became an important point of reference for Roman poets of the late Republic and the early Empire . Catullus , Horace , Vergil , Propertius , and Ovid saw his poetry as one of their "principal model[s]" and engaged with it in

2562-421: A variety of genres. This is made explicit in the final poem of the collection, where the poet compares himself to a carpenter who is praised for crafting many different objects. The Iambs are notable for their vivid language. Callimachus couches his aesthetic criticism in vivid imagery taken from the natural and social world: rival scholars are compared to wasps swarming from the ground and to flies resting on

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2684-575: A variety of ways. Modern classical scholars view him as one of the most influential Greek poets. According to the Hellenist Kathryn Gutzwiller , he "reinvented Greek poetry for the Hellenistic age by devising a personal style that came, through its manifestations in Roman poetry, to influence the entire tradition of modern literature". An entry in the Suda , a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopaedia ,

2806-558: A wide range of topics. While some of them are dedicatory or sepulchral , others touch on erotic and purely literary themes. Most of them were transmitted in the Palatine Anthology , a 10th-century manuscript discovered in 1606 at Heidelberg containing a collection of Greek epigrams and poems. Often written from a first-person perspective, the Epigrams offer a great variety of styles and draw on different branches of

2928-414: Is further complicated by Callimachus's purposeful amalgamation of fiction and potential real-world performance. The Greek word αἴτιον ( aition , 'cause') means an attempt to explain contemporary phenomena with a story from the mythical past . The title of Callimachus's work can be roughly translated into English as "origins". The Aetia contains a collection of origin stories. Ranging in size from

3050-481: Is going on. Silenus explains that Odysseus and his men have beaten him and are taking the Cyclops' things and have threatened the Cyclops with violence. The Cyclops decides to eat them. Odysseus says that Silenus is lying, but the Cyclops believes Silenus. Odysseus tries to persuade the Cyclops not to eat them. The Cyclops is not persuaded. All but the chorus exit into the cave. The chorus sings until Odysseus enters from

3172-478: Is little agreement. According to critics the play is derived entirely from the Homeric episode or mostly from the Homeric episode, is an interrogator of Homeric and tragic portrayals, or "a rival version of a Homeric episode with new contemporary implications." Callimachus Callimachus ( Ancient Greek : Καλλίμαχος , romanized :  Kallimachos ; c.  310  – c.  240 BC )

3294-416: Is manifest throughout Euripides' plays "not only in his rhetorical style but also in his skeptical, down‐to‐earth approach". In Cyclops both Odysseus and the Cyclops employ deft and appropriative rhetorical manipulation, "aggressive sophistry that reduces men to meat, and fine talk to deceptive barter". Gluttonous ingestion is a theme and "[t]he imagery of grotesque ingestion surfaces almost immediately in

3416-421: Is no indication of the Hesiodic Cyclopes having behaved in any other way than as dutiful servants of the gods. Walter Burkert suggests that groups or societies of lesser gods, like the Hesiodic Cyclopes, "mirror real cult associations ( thiasoi ) ... It may be surmised that smith guilds lie behind Cabeiri , Idaian Dactyloi , Telchines , and Cyclopes." In an episode of Homer 's Odyssey (c. 700 BC),

3538-482: Is not the only ancient dramatist who wrote a Cyclops satyr play. Aristias of the early fifth century did also. But Cyclops is apparently the only thing which Euripides wrote with a particular Homeric foundation. Euripides' play combines the myth of Dionysus's capture by pirates with the episode in Homer 's Odyssey of Odysseus ' time with the cyclops Polyphemus . Into this scenario Euripides thrust Silenus and

3660-426: Is sometimes subsumed under the term of Alexandrianism , describing the entirety of Greek literature written in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. In spite of their differences, his work shares many characteristics with that of his contemporaries including the didactic poet Aratus , the epicist Apollonius of Rhodes , and the pastoral poet Theocritus . They all interacted with earlier Greek literature, especially

3782-499: Is the main source about the life of Callimachus. Although the entry contains factual inaccuracies, it enables the re-construction of his biography by providing some otherwise unattested information. Callimachus was born into a prominent family in Cyrene , a Greek city on the coast of modern-day Libya. He refers to himself as "son of Battus" ( Ancient Greek : Βαττιάδης , romanized :  Battiades ), but this may be an allusion to

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3904-525: Is thought to have had about 4,000 lines and is organised into four individual books, which are divided in halves on stylistic grounds. In the first book, Callimachus describes a dream in which, as a young man, he was transported by the Muses to Mount Helicon in Boeotia . The young poet interrogates the goddesses about the origins of unusual present day customs. This dialogue frames all aetiologies presented in

4026-548: Is unknown, but it was probably written late in Euripides' career. It is the only complete satyr play extant. The play is set in Sicily at Mount Etna . Silenus explains that he and his sons, the chorus, are slaves to the Cyclops Polyphemus . The chorus enter with singing and sheep. Silenus tells them to stop singing and send the sheep into the cave because he can see a Greek ship by the coast and men coming to

4148-665: Is written by the poet Nonnus in the Homeric dialect , and its main subject is the life of Dionysus . It describes a war that occurred between Dionysus' troops and those of the Indian king Deriades. In book 28 of the Dionysiaca the Cyclopes join with Dionysian troops, and they prove to be great warriors and crush most of the Indian king's troops. Depictions of the Cyclops Polyphemus have differed radically, depending on

4270-623: The Victory of Berenice . Composed in the style of a Pindaric Ode , the self-contained poem celebrates queen Berenice's victory in the Nemean Games . Enveloped within the epinician narrative is an aetiology of the games themselves. The end of Book 4 and the Aetia as a whole is marked by another court poem, the Lock of Berenice . In it, Callimachus relates how the queen gave a lock of her hair as

4392-458: The recent Athenian enterprise against Sicily , which was undertaken for greed against an intractable and difficult enemy when Athens could barely provide money or men and which did not go well. The Homeric Polyphemus is brutish and alien to Odysseus and his crew. Euripides' Polyphemus is sophisticated and intellectually analogous to sophists of the fifth century. The influence of the Sophists

4514-554: The Celtic and Illyrian races. From at least the fifth-century BC onwards, Cyclopes have been associated with the island of Sicily , or the volcanic Aeolian islands just off Sicily's north coast. The fifth-century BC historian Thucydides says that the "earliest inhabitants" of Sicily were reputed to be the Cyclopes and Laestrygones (another group of man-eating giants encountered by Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey ). Thucydides also reports

4636-590: The Cyclopean wall-builders share several features with the Hesiodic Cyclopes: both groups are craftsmen of supernatural skill, possessing enormous strength, who lived in primordial times. These builder Cyclopes were apparently used to explain the construction of the stupendous walls at Mycenae and Tiryns, composed of massive stones that seemed too large and heavy to have been moved by ordinary men. These master builders were famous in antiquity from at least

4758-407: The Cyclopean wall-builders, while "hands-to-mouth" was one of the three kinds of Cyclopes distinguished by scholia to Aelius Aristides . Similarly, possibly deriving from Nicophon's comedy, the first-century Greek geographer Strabo says these Cyclopes were called "Bellyhands" ( gasterocheiras ) because they earned their food by working with their hands. The first-century natural philosopher Pliny

4880-416: The Cyclopean wall-builders. Euripides calls their walls "heaven-high" ( οὐράνια ), describes "the Cyclopean foundations" of Mycenae as "fitted snug with red plumbline and mason’s hammer", and calls Mycenae "O hearth built by the Cyclopes". He calls Argos "the city built by the Cyclopes", refers to "the temples the Cyclopes built" and describes the "fortress of Perseus" as "the work of Cyclopean hands". For

5002-555: The Cyclopes as "men overweening in pride who plundered [their neighbors the Phaeacians] continually", driving the Phaeacians from their home. In Book 9, Homer gives a more detailed description of the Cyclopes as: an overweening and lawless folk, who, trusting in the immortal gods, plant nothing with their hands nor plough; but all these things spring up for them without sowing or ploughing, wheat, and barley, and vines, which bear

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5124-581: The Cyclopes were born after the Hundred-Handers, but before the Titans (unlike Hesiod who makes the Titans the eldest and the Hundred-Handers the youngest). Uranus bound the Hundred-Handers and the Cyclopes, and cast them all into Tartarus , "a gloomy place in Hades as far distant from earth as earth is distant from the sky." But the Titans are, apparently, allowed to remain free (unlike in Hesiod). When

5246-463: The Cyclopes, killed their sons (one of whom he named Aortes) instead. No other source mentions any offspring of the Cyclopes. A Pindar fragment suggests that Zeus himself killed the Cyclopes to prevent them from making thunderbolts for anyone else. The Cyclopes' prowess as craftsmen is stressed by Hesiod who says "strength and force and contrivances were in their works." Being such skilled craftsmen of great size and strength, later poets, beginning with

5368-590: The Cyclopes: "Brontes and Steropes and bare-limbed Pyracmon" toil under the direction of Vulcan (Hephaestus), in caves underneath Mount Etna and the Aeolian islands . Virgil describes the Cyclopes, in Vulcan's smithy forging iron, making a thunderbolt, a chariot for Mars , and Pallas 's Aegis , with Vulcan interrupting their work to command the Cyclopes to fashion arms for Aeneas . The later Latin poet Ovid also has

5490-571: The Cyclops drink wine until the Cyclops decides to take the now very appealing Silenus to bed, and the pair exit into the cave. The chorus affirm that they are ready to help Odysseus, but urge him to go in and help Silenus. Odysseus calls on Hephaestus and Hypnos then exits into the cave. The chorus sing. Odysseus enters from the cave and tells them to be quiet and come and help burn the eye out. The chorus excuse themselves. Odysseus suggests that they can at least offer encouragement. They agree to provide this and do provide this while Odysseus exits into

5612-400: The Cyclops is based on food and exchange. In the play the Cyclops suggests that people are the source of morality and not the gods. He says that he sacrifices only to his belly, the greatest of divinities. Such impiety was of substantial interest to Athenians in the fifth century. Euripides often dealt with "the consequences of impiety". One facet of Greek religion was "to honor and placate

5734-511: The Cyclops' "mighty roar": the race of the Cyclopes, roused from the woods and high mountains, rush to the harbour and throng the shores. We see them, standing impotent with glaring eye, the Aetnean brotherhood, their heads towering to the sky, a grim conclave: even as when on a mountaintop lofty oaks or cone-clad cypresses stand in mass, a high forest of Jove or grove of Diana. Later, in Book 8 of

5856-459: The Elder , in his Natural History , reported a tradition, attributed to Aristotle , that the Cyclopes were the inventors of masonry towers. In the same work Pliny also mentions the Cyclopes, as being among those credited with being the first to work with iron, as well as bronze. In addition to walls, other monuments were attributed to the Cyclopes. For example, Pausanias says that at Argos there

5978-460: The Greek succession myth, which told how the Titan Cronus overthrew his father Uranus, and how in turn Zeus overthrew Cronus and his fellow Titans, and how Zeus was eventually established as the final and permanent ruler of the cosmos. The names that Hesiod gives them: Arges (Bright), Brontes (Thunder), and Steropes (Lightning), reflect their fundamental role as thunderbolt makers. As early as

6100-586: The Hesiodic Cyclopes Brontes and Steropes (along with a third Cyclops named Acmonides), work at forges in Sicilian caves. According to a Hellenistic astral myth, the Cyclopes were the builders of the first altar. The myth was a catasterism , which explained how the constellation the Altar (Ara) came to be in the heavens. According to the myth, the Cyclopes built an altar upon which Zeus and

6222-528: The Hesiodic and the Homeric Cyclopes with Sicily. He has the thunderbolt makers: "Brontes and Steropes and bare-limbed Pyracmon", work in vast caverns extending underground from Mount Etna to the island of Vulcano, while the Cyclops brethren of Polyphemus live on Sicily where "near at hand Aetna thunders". As Thucydides notes, in the case of Hephaestus' forge on Vulcano, locating the Cyclopes' forge underneath active volcanoes provided an explanation for

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6344-519: The Titans overthrew Uranus, they freed the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes (unlike in Hesiod, where they apparently remained imprisoned), and made Cronus their sovereign. But Cronus once again bound the six brothers, and reimprisoned them in Tartarus. As in Hesiod's account, Rhea saved Zeus from being swallowed by Cronus, and Zeus was eventually able to free his siblings, and together they waged war against

6466-485: The Titans), the sixth-century BC Hesiodic Catalogue of Women , has them being killed by Apollo . Later sources tell us why: Apollo's son Asclepius had been killed by Zeus' thunderbolt, and Apollo killed the Cyclopes, the makers of the thunderbolt, in revenge. According to a scholiast on Euripides' Alcestis , the fifth-century BC mythographer Pherecydes supplied the same motive, but said that Apollo, rather than killing

6588-405: The Titans. According to Apollodorus, in the tenth year of that war, Zeus learned from Gaia, that he would be victorious if he had the Hundred-Handers and the Cyclopes as allies. So Zeus slew their warder Campe (a detail not found in Hesiod) and released them, and in addition to giving Zeus his thunderbolt (as in Hesiod), the Cyclopes also gave Poseidon his trident , and Hades a helmet (presumably

6710-465: The Trojan War and gives Odysseus his opinion of it. By playing with metapoetic images throughout the play Euripides fostered "a collective consciousness" in his democratic audience and facilitated their recognition that cooperation was necessary throughout Athens if they were to overcome their enemies. Both the Homeric episode and Euripides' Cyclops are based on the blinding of the Cyclops. It

6832-606: The allegory are two reasons why Callimachus did not write in this genre: firstly, to Callimachus, poetry required a high level of refinement which could not be sustained over the course of a drawn-out work; secondly, most of his contemporaries were writers of epic, creating an over-saturation of the genre which he sought to avoid. Instead, he was interested in recondite, experimental, learned and even obscure topics. His poetry nevertheless surpasses epic in its allusions to previous literature. Although Callimachus attempted to differentiate himself from other poets, his aesthetic philosophy

6954-511: The bellows and the heavy groaning of the Cyclopes themselves. For Aetna cried aloud, and Trinacia cried, the seat of the Sicanians, cried too their neighbour Italy, and Cyrnos therewithal uttered a mighty noise, when they lifted their hammers above their shoulders and smote with rhythmic swing the bronze glowing from the furnace or iron, labouring greatly. Wherefore the daughters of Oceanus could not untroubled look upon them face to face nor endure

7076-442: The bidding of Hephaestus that he might give thee handsel and Brontes set thee on his stout knees—thou didst pluck the shaggy hair of his great breast and tear it out by force. And even unto this day the mid part of his breast remains hairless, even as when mange settles on a man’s temples and eats away the hair. And Artemis asks: Cyclopes, for me too fashion ye a Cydonian bow and arrows and a hollow casket for my shafts; for I also am

7198-467: The book are the stories Busiris , king of Egypt , and Phalaris , the tyrant of Akragas , who were known for their excessive cruelty. The second half of the Aetia does not follow the pattern established in Books 1 and 2. Instead, individual aetiologies are set in a variety of dramatic situations and do not form a contiguous narrative. The books are framed by two well known narratives: Book 3 opens with

7320-530: The bread of menial servitude, god though I am. Zeus was the cause: he killed my son Asclepius, striking him in the chest with the lightning bolt, and in anger at this I slew the Cyclopes who forged Zeus’s fire. As my punishment for this Zeus compelled me to be a serf in the house of a mortal. Euripides' satyr play Cyclops tells the story of Odysseus ' encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus , famously told in Homer 's Odyssey . It takes place on

7442-466: The broad categories of 'poetry' and 'prose'. Both categories were further broken down into precise subcategories. For poets, these included, among others, 'drama', 'epic', and 'lyric'; for prose writers, 'philosophy', 'oratory', 'history', and 'medicine'. Entries were sorted alphabetically, giving an author's biography and a list of his works. According to the classicist Lionel Casson , the Pinakes were

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7564-406: The cave and tells the chorus that the Cyclops has eaten some of his men and that he has been giving the Cyclops wine and that he intends to blind the Cyclops and save everyone, including the satyrs. The chorus is keen to help. The Cyclops exits from the cave singing and drunk and wanting more wine from Odysseus. The Cyclops wants to go and share with his brothers but is persuaded to stay. Silenus and

7686-451: The cave. Odysseus enters with his men and asks where they can find water and if anyone will sell them food. Silenus questions Odysseus and Odysseus questions Silenus. On learning that he will probably be eaten if found, Odysseus is keen to leave. Silenus is keen to swap the Cyclops' food for Odysseus' wine. Silenus exits into the cave while the chorus talk to Odysseus. Silenus reenters with much food. The Cyclops enters and wants to know what

7808-438: The cave. The Cyclops enters from the cave with noise and blindness. The chorus mock him and direct him away from Odysseus and the others while they escape from the cave. Odysseus addresses the Cyclops before exiting toward his ship. The Cyclops says that he is going to smash the ship then exits into the cave, which is "pierced through" (ἀμφιτρῆτος). The chorus say that they will go with Odysseus and be slaves to Dionysus. Euripides

7930-668: The characterization of the main character. Frequent allusions to the Odyssey and the Iliad appear, for example reference to Antilochus in Hymn 6. Some Homeric influences can be seen through the use of Homeric hapaxes , such as katōmadian. Callimachus and his aesthetic philosophy became an important point of reference for Roman poets of the late Republic and the early Empire . Catullus , Horace , Vergil , Propertius , and Ovid saw his poetry as one of their "principal model[s]". Due to

8052-479: The city's mythological founder Battus rather than to his father. His grandfather, also named Callimachus, had served the city as a general. His mother's name was Megatima, falsely given as Mesatma by the Suda . His unknown date of birth is placed around 310 BC. During the 280s, Callimachus is thought to have studied under the philosopher Praxiphanes and the grammarian Hermocrates at Alexandria , an important centre of Greek culture. He appears to have experienced

8174-430: The complexity of his poetic production, Roman authors did not attempt to reproduce Callimachus's poems but creatively reused them in their own work. Vergil, in his Aeneid , an epic about the wanderings of Aeneas , repeatedly alludes to Callimachus when contemplating the nature of his own poetry. Having followed Callimachus's example by rejecting traditional epic poetics in his 6th Eclogue , Vergil labels his Aeneid as

8296-608: The din in their ears. No shame to them! on those not even the daughters of the Blessed look without shuddering, though long past childhood’s years. But when any of the maidens doth disobedience to her mother, the mother calls the Cyclopes to her child—Arges or Steropes; and from within the house comes Hermes, stained with burnt ashes. And straightway he plays bogey to the child and she runs into her mother’s lap, with her hands upon her eyes. But thou, Maiden, even earlier, while yet but three years old, when Leto came bearing thee in her arms at

8418-605: The epigrammatic tradition. According to the Callimachus scholar Benjamin Acosta-Hughes, "[t]heir intelligent play on language, meter, and word placement" have placed the poems among the most prominent works of the Hellenistic period . Among the oldest forms of religious writing, hymns were "formal addresses to a god or group of gods on behalf of a community". Cultic hymns were written and performed in honour of

8540-472: The exception of his Epigrams and Hymns . All other works mentioned below have been preserved in fragments . Callimachus was an admirer of Homer , whom he regarded as impossible to imitate. This could be the reason why he focused on short poems. Epigrams , brief, forceful poems originally written on stone and on votive offerings , were already an established as a form of literature by the 3rd century BC. Callimachus wrote at least 60 individual epigrams on

8662-485: The fifth century BC onwards. The poet Pindar has Heracles driving the cattle of Geryon through the "Cyclopean portal" of the Tirynian king Eurystheus. The mythographer Pherecydes says that Perseus brought the Cyclopes with him from Seriphos to Argos , presumably to build the walls of Mycenae. Proetus , the mythical king of ancient Argos , was said to have brought a group of seven Cyclopes from Lycia to build

8784-456: The fire and smoke often seen rising from them. Cyclops (play) Cyclops ( Ancient Greek : Κύκλωψ , Kyklōps ) is an ancient Greek satyr play by Euripides , based closely on an episode from the Odyssey . It is likely to have been the fourth part of a tetralogy presented by Euripides in a dramatic festival in 5th Century BC Athens , although its intended and actual performance contexts are unknown. The date of its composition

8906-564: The first book. The stories in the book include those of Linus and Coroebus , Theiodamas, king of the Dryopes and the voyage of the Argonauts . The second book continues the first's dialectic structure. It may have been set at a symposium at Alexandria , where Callimachus worked as a librarian and scholar . Since most of its content has been lost, little is known about Book 2. The only aetiology commonly assumed to have been placed in

9028-510: The first comprehensive bibliographic resource for Greek literature and a "vital reference tool" for using the Alexandrian Library. In his poetry, Callimachus espoused an aesthetic philosophy that has become known as Callimacheanism. He favoured small-scale topics over large and prominent ones, and refinement over long works of poetry. At the beginning of the Aetia , he summarised his poetic programme in an allegory spoken by

9150-454: The flesh of sheep." They have no wine, "hence the land they dwell in knows no dancing". They show no respect for the important Greek value of Xenia ("guest friendship). When Odysseus asks if they are pious and hospitable toward strangers ( φιλόξενοι δὲ χὤσιοι περὶ ξένους ), he is told: "most delicious, they maintain, is the flesh of strangers ... everyone who has come here has been slaughtered." Several of Euripides' plays also make reference to

9272-431: The god Apollo : "my good poet, feed my victim as fat as possible, but keep your Muse slender. This, too, I order from you: tread the way that wagons do not trample. Do not drive in the same tracks as others or on a wide road but on an untrodden path, even if yours is more narrow." The allegory is directed against the predominant poetic form of the day: heroic epic , which could run to dozens of books in length. Contained in

9394-425: The god Dionysus. They were thought to possess their own kind of wisdom that was useful to humans if they could be convinced to share it. In Cyclops the chorus "claim to know an incantation of Orpheus that will bring down a form of fiery destruction upon their enemy". When the satyrs identify the Cyclops as a "son of Earth" and present their firebrand as igniting the Cyclops' skull rather than his eye they mimic

9516-446: The gods because they are powerful". The Athenians judicially punished philosophers and sophists. Euripides himself may have left Athens in "self-imposed exile". But in his play his Cyclops is punished for impiety by having his eye burned out. In Euripides' plays, "Characters might refuse to worship certain gods, blaspheme them, or even at times question the morality of the gods, but there is little evidence of what we would call atheism,

9638-530: The gods, as they presumably do in the Theogony . The Homeric Cyclopes are presented as uncivilized shepherds, who live in caves, savages with no regard for Zeus. They have no knowledge of agriculture, ships or craft. They live apart and lack any laws. The fifth-century BC playwright Euripides also told the story of Odysseus' encounter with Polyphemus in his satyr play Cyclops . Euripides' Cyclopes, like Homer's, are uncultured cave-dwelling shepherds. They have no agriculture, no wine, and live on milk, cheese and

9760-403: The hero Odysseus encounters the Cyclops Polyphemus , the son of Poseidon , a one-eyed man-eating giant who lives with his fellow Cyclopes in a distant land. The relationship between these Cyclopes and Hesiod's Cyclopes is unclear. Homer described a very different group of Cyclopes, than the skilled and subservient craftsman of Hesiod. Homer's Cyclopes live in the "world of men" rather than among

9882-542: The hero of Homer's Odyssey . Approaching Sicily and Mount Etna, in Book 3 of the Aeneid , Aeneas manages to survive the dangerous Charybdis , and at sundown comes to the land of the Cyclopes, while "near at hand Aetna thunders". The Cyclopes are described as being "in shape and size like Polyphemus ... a hundred other monstrous Cyclopes [who] dwell all along these curved shores and roam the high mountains." After narrowly escaping from Polyphemus, Aeneas tells how, responding to

10004-453: The island of Sicily and the volcanic Aeolian Islands . Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguished: the Hesiodic, the Homeric and the wall-builders. In Hesiod 's Theogony , the Cyclopes are the three brothers: Brontes, Steropes, and Arges , sons of Uranus and Gaia , who made for Zeus his characteristic weapon, the thunderbolt . In Homer 's Odyssey , the Cyclopes are an uncivilized group of shepherds, one of whom, Polyphemus ,

10126-458: The island of Sicily near the volcano Mount Etna where, according to the play, "Poseidon’s one-eyed sons, the man-slaying Cyclopes, dwell in their remote caves." Euripides describes the land where Polyphemus' brothers live, as having no "walls and city battlements", and a place where "no men dwell". The Cyclopes have no rulers and no government, "they are solitaries: no one is anyone’s subject." They grow no crops, living only "on milk and cheese and

10248-460: The land of the Cyclopes on the island of Sicily near Mount Etna . Like Euripides, Virgil has the Cyclopes of Polyphemus live on Sicily near Etna. For Virgil apparently, these Homeric Cyclopes are members of the same race of Cyclopes as Hesiod's Brontes and Steropes, who live nearby. Cyclopes were also said to have been the builders of the so-called 'Cyclopean' walls of Mycenae , Tiryns , and Argos . Although they can be seen as being distinct,

10370-463: The late seventh-century BC, the Cyclopes could be used by the Spartan poet Tyrtaeus to epitomize extraordinary size and strength. According to the accounts of Hesiod and the mythographer Apollodorus , the Cyclopes had been imprisoned by their father Uranus. Zeus later freed the Cyclopes, and they repaid him by giving him the thunderbolt. The Cyclopes provided for Hesiod, and other theogony-writers,

10492-435: The library's shelf-lists. His catalogue, named Pinakes after the plural of the Greek for 'tablet' ( Ancient Greek : πίναξ , romanized :  pinax ), amounted to 120 volumes or five times the length of Homer 's Iliad . Although the Pinakes have not survived the end of antiquity, scholars have reconstructed their content from references in surviving classical literature. Authors and their works were divided into

10614-407: The literary genres in which he has appeared, and have given him an individual existence independent of the Homeric herdsman encountered by Odysseus. In the epic he was a man-eating monster dwelling in an unspecified land. Some centuries later, a dithyramb by Philoxenus of Cythera , followed by several episodes by the Greek pastoral poets , created of him a comedic and generally unsuccessful lover of

10736-521: The local belief that Hephaestus (along with his Cyclopean assistants?) had his forge on the Aeolian island of Vulcano . Euripides locates Odysseus' Cyclopes on the island of Sicily , near the volcano Mount Etna , and in the same play addresses Hephaestus as "lord of Aetna". The poet Callimachus locates the Cyclopes' forge on the island of Lipari , the largest of the Aeolians. Virgil associates both

10858-401: The meat of sheep. They live solitary lives, and have no government. They are inhospitable to strangers, slaughtering and eating all who come to their land. While Homer does not say if the other Cyclopes are like Polyphemus in their appearance and parentage, Euripides makes it explicit, calling the Cyclopes "Poseidon's one-eyed sons". And while Homer is vague as to their location, Euripides locates

10980-411: The most important attributes of a poet. Classical scholars place Callimachus among the most influential Greek poets. According to Kathryn Gutzwiller, he "reinvented Greek poetry for the Hellenistic age by devising a personal style that came, through its manifestations in Roman poetry, to influence the entire tradition of modern literature". She also writes that his lasting importance is demonstrated by

11102-411: The northern coast of Sicily , where Artemis finds them "at the anvils of Hephaestus" making a horse-trough for Poseidon: And the nymphs were affrighted when they saw the terrible monsters like unto the crags of Ossa: all had single eyes beneath their brows, like a shield of fourfold hide for size, glaring terribly from under; and when they heard the din of the anvil echoing loudly, and the great blast of

11224-465: The other gods swore alliance before their war with the Titans. After their victory, "the gods placed the altar in the sky in commemoration", and thus began the practice, according to the myth, of men swearing oaths upon altars "as a guarantee of their good faith". According to the second-century geographer Pausanias , there was a sanctuary called the "altar of the Cyclopes" on the Isthmus of Corinth at

11346-403: The other gods, for the Cyclopes hold themselves to be "better far than they". Homer says that "godlike" Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon and the nymph Thoosa , the daughter of Phorcys , is the "greatest among all the Cyclopes". Homer describes Polyphemus as a shepherd who: mingled not with others, but lived apart, with his heart set on lawlessness. For he was fashioned a wondrous monster, and

11468-541: The parentage or appearance of the other Cyclopes. The Hesiodic Cyclopes: makers of Zeus' thunderbolts, the Homeric Cyclopes: brothers of Polyphemus , and the Cyclopean wall-builders, all figure in the plays of the fifth-century BC playwright Euripides . In his play Alcestis , where we are told that the Cyclopes who forged Zeus' thunderbolts, were killed by Apollo. The prologue of that play has Apollo explain: House of Admetus! In you I brought myself to taste

11590-404: The play". Euripides' Cyclops has been described as "a figure of proto- Rabelaisian excess" and linked to ideas contained in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin . Polyphemus "likes to talk, he likes to eat, [...] to talk about eating, or to try to eat those who talk to him". The Cyclops and the satyrs continually refer to the Cyclops' belly and the satisfaction thereof. Interaction between Odysseus and

11712-789: The play. In Cyclops Polyphemus has captured and enslaved Silenus and a group of satyrs. The satyrs play an important role in driving the plot without any of them actually being the lead role, which, in the satyr play generally, was always reserved for a god or tragic hero (in this case Odysseus). According to Carl A. Shaw, the chorus of satyrs in a satyr play were "always trying to get a laugh with their animalistic, playfully rowdy, and, above all, sexual behavior." Satyrs were widely seen as mischief-makers who routinely played tricks on people and interfered with their personal property. They had insatiable sexual appetites and often sought to seduce or ravish both nymphs and mortal women alike (though not always successfully). A single elderly satyr named Silenus

11834-508: The poems of Homer and Hesiod . Drawing on the Library of Alexandria, they all displayed an interest in intellectual pursuits, and they all attempted to revive neglected forms of poetry. Callimachus used both direct and indirect characterization in his works. The use of comparisons and similes is rather sparse. The use of intertextuality is observed in Hymn 6 , where descriptions of other characters are offered in order to provide contrast to

11956-463: The poet's own intimation at the start of the Aetia and is therefore of limited authority. According to Cameron, Callimachus may have conceived the Hecale as a model epic according to his own tastes. When working at the Library of Alexandria, Callimachus was responsible for the library's cataloguing. In this function, he compiled a detailed bibliography of all existing Greek literature deriving from

12078-472: The reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus , who became sole ruler of Egypt in 283 BC. Classicist John Ferguson puts the latest date of Callimachus's establishment at the imperial court at 270 BC. Despite the lack of precise sources, the outlines of Callimachus's working life can be gathered from his poetry. Poems belonging to his period of economic hardship indicate that he began writing in the 280s BC, while his poem Aetia shows signs of having been composed in

12200-449: The reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes , who ascended to the throne in 246 BC. Contemporary references suggest that Callimachus was writing until about 240 BC, and Ferguson finds it likely that he died by 235 BC, at which time he would have been 75 years old. According to the Suda , Callimachus wrote more than 800 individual works in prose and poetry. The vast majority of his literary production, including all prose output, has been lost with

12322-562: The reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes . Although Callimachus wrote prolifically in prose and poetry , only a small number of his poetical texts have been preserved. His main works are the Aetia , a four-book aetiological poem, six religious hymns , around 60 epigrams , a collection of satirical iambs , and a narrative poem entitled Hecale . Callimachus shared many characteristics with his Alexandrian contemporaries Aratus , Apollonius of Rhodes and Theocritus , but professed to adhere to

12444-441: The rich clusters of wine, and the rain of Zeus gives them increase. Neither assemblies for council have they, nor appointed laws, but they dwell on the peaks of lofty mountains in hollow caves, and each one is lawgiver to his children and his wives, and they reck nothing one of another. According to Homer, the Cyclopes have no ships, nor ship-wrights, nor other craftsman, and know nothing of agriculture. They have no regard for Zeus or

12566-474: The same cap of invisibility which Athena borrowed in the Iliad ), and "with these weapons the gods overcame the Titans". Apollodorus also mentions a tomb of Geraestus, "the Cyclops" at Athens upon which, in the time of king Aegeus , the Athenians sacrificed the daughters of Hyacinth . Dionysiaca , composed in the 4th or 5th century BC, is the longest surviving poem from antiquity – 20,426 lines. It

12688-544: The same poem, Virgil has the Hesiodic Cyclopes Brontes and Steropes, along with a third Cyclopes which he names Pyracmon, work in an extensive network of caverns stretching from Mount Etna to the Aeolian Islands . As the assistants of the smith-god Vulcan , they forge various items for the gods: thunderbolts for Jupiter , a chariot for Mars , and armor for Minerva : In the vast cave the Cyclopes were forging iron—Brontes and Steropes and bare-limbed Pyracmon. They had

12810-435: The same time, he challenges Callimachean learnedness by depicting lowbrow details of contemporary nightlife such as strippers and dwarfs kept for entertainment purposes. Ovid described Callimachus as "lacking in genius but strong in art" ( Latin : Quamvis ingenio non valet, arte valet ). His statement, though seemingly a criticism of the poet, pays homage to Callimachus's belief that technical skill and erudition were

12932-782: The satyrs, comic characters. The satyr play as a medium was generally understood as a "tragedy at play". It relied extensively on the multifarious connotations which surrounded the concepts of "playfulness ( paidia ), education ( paideia ), child ( pais ), slave ( pais ), playful ( paidikos ), and childishness ( paidia )". In Cyclops Euripides employed "metapoetically loaded terms" like second and double and new to highlight interactions with his sources, familiar and foundational texts in Athenian education. The characters in Cyclops are not ignorant of Euripides' sources. "Silenus 'knows his Odyssey rather well'". Euripides' Cyclops knows about

13054-464: The son of Poseidon , is encountered by Odysseus . Cyclopes were also said to have been the builders of the Cyclopean walls of Mycenae and Tiryns . A scholiast, quoting the fifth-century BC historian Hellanicus , tells us that, in addition to the Hesiodic Cyclopes (whom the scholiast describes as "the gods themselves"), and the Homeric Cyclopes, there was a third group of Cyclopes: the builders of

13176-442: The strong reactions his poetry elicited from contemporaries and posterity. Richard L. Hunter , an expert on Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, states that the selective reception of Callimachus through Roman poets has led to a simplified picture of his poetry. Hunter writes that modern critics have drawn up a false dichotomy between the "content-laden and socially engaged poetry of the archaic and classical periods " and

13298-562: The third-century BC poet Callimachus , imagine these Cyclopes, the primordial makers of Zeus' thunderbolt, becoming the assistants of the smith-god Hephaestus , at his forge in Sicily, underneath Mount Etna, or perhaps the nearby Aeolian Islands . In his Hymn to Artemis , Callimachus has the Cyclopes on the Aeolian island of Lipari , working "at the anvils of Hephaestus", make the bows and arrows used by Apollo and Artemis . The first-century BC Latin poet Virgil , in his epic Aeneid , has

13420-464: The third-century BC poet Callimachus , the Hesiodic Cyclopes Brontes, Steropes and Arges, become assistants at the forge of the smith-god Hephaestus . Callimachus has the Cyclopes make Artemis ' bow, arrows and quiver, just as they had (apparently) made those of Apollo . Callimachus locates the Cyclopes on the island of Lipari , the largest of the Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea off

13542-561: The thunderbolt, with the aid of which he was eventually able to overthrow the Titans, establishing himself as the ruler of the cosmos. In Book 9 of the Odyssey , Odysseus describes to his hosts the Phaeacians his encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus . Having just left the land of the Lotus-eaters , Odysseus says "Thence we sailed on, grieved at heart, and we came to the land of the Cyclopes". Homer had already (Book 6) described

13664-537: The thunderbolt. These were like the gods in other regards, but only one eye was set in the middle of their foreheads; and they were called Cyclopes (Circle-eyed) by name, since a single circle-shaped eye was set in their foreheads. Strength and force and contrivances were in their works. Following the Cyclopes, Gaia next gave birth to three more monstrous brothers, the Hecatoncheires , or Hundred-Handed Giants. Uranus hated his monstrous children, and as soon as each

13786-453: The walls of Mycenae . Hesiod , in the Theogony (c. 700 BC), described three Cyclopes: Brontes, Steropes, and Arges, who were the sons of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), and the brothers of the Titans and Hundred-Handers , and who had a single eye set in the middle of their foreheads. They made for Zeus his all-powerful thunderbolt, and in so doing, the Cyclopes played a key role in

13908-418: The walls of Tiryns. The late fifth and early fourth-century BC comic poet Nicophon wrote a play called either Cheirogastores or Encheirogastores ( Hands-to-Mouth ), which is thought to have been about these Cyclopean wall-builders. Ancient lexicographers explained the title as meaning "those who feed themselves by manual labour", and, according to Eustathius of Thessalonica , the word was used to describe

14030-469: The water nymph Galatea. In the course of these he woos his love to the accompaniment of either a cithara or the pan-pipes . Such episodes take place on the island of Sicily, and it was here that the Latin poet Ovid also set the tragic love story of Polyphemus and Galatea recounted in the Metamorphoses . Still later tradition made him the eventually successful husband of Galatea and the ancestor of

14152-471: Was "a head of Medusa made of stone, which is said to be another of the works of the Cyclopes". According to the Theogony of Hesiod , Uranus (Sky) mated with Gaia (Earth) and produced eighteen children. First came the twelve Titans , next came the three one-eyed Cyclopes: Then [Gaia] bore the Cyclopes, who have very violent hearts, Brontes (Thunder) and Steropes (Lightning) and strong-spirited Arges (Bright), those who gave thunder to Zeus and fashioned

14274-580: Was almost certainly known by Euripides' audience that a particular Alcander had stuck a stick into the eye of Lycurgus the Spartan lawgiver. On one level of Euripides' play Alcibiades thrusts a stake into the eye of "a gross caricature of a Spartan", expressing "a shift of political alliances ostensibly achieved by Alcibiades". Like Sophocles' Philoctetes , Euripides' Cyclops made an appeal on behalf of Alcibiades that he be allowed to return from exile. Euripides also encouraged his audience to consider

14396-606: Was an ancient Greek poet , scholar , and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period , he wrote over 800 literary works, most of which do not survive, in a wide variety of genres. He espoused an aesthetic philosophy , known as Callimacheanism, which exerted a strong influence on the poets of the Roman Empire and, through them, on all subsequent Western literature . Born into

14518-561: Was believed to have been the tutor of Dionysus on Mount Nysa . After Dionysus grew to maturity, Silenus became one of his most devout followers and was perpetually drunk. The identity of satyrs is plastic and somewhat elusive, but a salient aspect in Cyclops is the "comic inversion of societal norms". They were overall "creatures that were funny and joyful, pleasing and delightful, feminine and masculine, but also cowardly and disgusting, pitiful and lamentable, terrifying and horrific". Satyrs were revered as semi-divine beings and companions of

14640-813: Was born, he imprisoned them underground, somewhere deep inside Gaia. Eventually Uranus' son, the Titan Cronus , castrated Uranus, becoming the new ruler of the cosmos, but he did not release his brothers, the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires, from their imprisonment in Tartarus . For this failing, Gaia foretold that Cronus would eventually be overthrown by one of his children, as he had overthrown his own father. To prevent this, as each of his children were born, Cronus swallowed them whole; as gods they were not killed, but imprisoned within his belly. His wife, Rhea, sought her mother's advice to avoid losing all of her children in this way, and Gaia advised her to give Cronus

14762-522: Was not like a man that lives by bread, but like a wooded peak of lofty mountains, which stands out to view alone, apart from the rest, ... [and as] a savage man that knew naught of justice or of law. Although Homer does not say explicitly that Polyphemus is one-eyed, for the account of his blinding to make sense he must be. If Homer meant for the other Cyclopes to be assumed (as they usually are) to be like Polyphemus, then they too will be one-eyed sons of Poseidon; however Homer says nothing explicit about either

14884-459: Was their aggressive, satirical tone. Although the poems are poorly preserved, their content is known from a set of ancient summaries ( diegeseis ). In the Iambs , Callimachus critically comments on issues of interest, revolving mostly around aesthetics and personal relationships. He uses the polemical tone of the genre to defend himself against critics of his poetic style and his tendency to write in

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