Editing Cyclopes (section)

===Virgil===
The first-century BC [[Ancient Rome|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.<ref name="auto2"/> In his Latin epic ''[[Aeneid]]'', Virgil has the hero [[Aeneas]] follow in the footsteps of [[Odysseus]], 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".<ref name="auto1">[[Virgil]], ''[[Aeneid]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/virgil-aeneid/1916/pb_LCL063.409.xml 3.554&ndash;571].</ref> 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."<ref>[[Virgil]], ''[[Aeneid]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/virgil-aeneid/1916/pb_LCL063.415.xml 3.641&ndash;644].</ref> After narrowly escaping from Polyphemus, Aeneas tells how, responding to the Cyclops' "mighty roar":
{{Blockquote|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.<ref>[[Virgil]], ''[[Aeneid]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/virgil-aeneid/1916/pb_LCL063.417.xml 3.672&ndash;681].</ref>}}

Later, in Book 8 of 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]].<ref>[[Virgil]], ''[[Aeneid]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/virgil-aeneid/1916/pb_LCL064.89.xml 8.416&ndash;423].</ref> As the assistants of the smith-god [[Vulcan (mythology)|Vulcan]], they forge various items for the gods: thunderbolts for [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]], a chariot for [[Mars (mythology)|Mars]], and armor for [[Minerva]]:
{{Blockquote|In the vast cave the Cyclopes were forging iron—Brontes and Steropes and bare-limbed Pyracmon. They had 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 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.<ref>[[Virgil]], ''[[Aeneid]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/virgil-aeneid/1916/pb_LCL064.91.xml 8.424&ndash;438].</ref>}}