Editing Cyclopes (section)

==Transformations of Polyphemus==
{{Main|Polyphemus}}
[[File:Affreschi romani - polifemo galatea - pompei.JPG|thumb|Polyphemus receives a love-letter from Galatea, a 1st-century AD fresco from Pompeii]]
Depictions of the Cyclops Polyphemus have differed radically, depending on 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 ''Odyssey'', 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 poetry#Pastoral poetry|pastoral poets]], created of him a comedic and generally unsuccessful lover of 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]].<ref>Creese 2009</ref> Still later tradition made him the eventually successful husband of Galatea and the ancestor of the Celtic and Illyrian races.<ref>Appian of Alexandria, ''The Illyrian Wars'' 1, [https://www.livius.org/sources/content/appian/appian-the-illyrian-wars/appian-the-illyrian-wars-1 para 2]</ref>