Argive crater, 7th c. BCE

ODYSSEUS ENCOUNTERS THE CANNIBAL CYCLOPS

The adventures involving the Lotus Eaters, Circe and Calypso are aspects of an inward itinerary. A second category has to do with kinds of society. The Cyclopes live in primitive solitude without ships or agriculture, dependent on their flocks. ("Kyclopes have no muster and no meeting, no consultation and old tribal ways, but each one dwells in his own mountain cave dealing out rough justice to wife and child, indifferent to what the others do."Translation by Robert Fitzgerald) Here Odysseus and his men are shown blinding the one-eyed giant after he has fallen asleep in a drunken stupor brought on by the wine Odysseus has given him.

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