The poet Callimachus locates the Cyclopes forge on the island of Lipari, the largest of the Aeolians. Virgil associates both 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 the fire and smoke often seen rising from them. Etymology
For the ancient Greeks the name "Cyclopes" meant "Circle-eyes" or "Round-eyes", derived from the Greek kúklos ("circle") and ops ("eye"). This meaning can be seen as early as Hesiods Theogony  (8th–7th century BC), which explains that the Cyclopes were called that "since a single circle-shaped eye was set in their foreheads". Adalbert Kuhn, expanding on Hesiods etymology, proposed a connection between the first element kúklos (which can also mean "wheel") and the "wheel of the sun", producing the meaning "wheel (of the sun)-eyes". Other etymologies have been proposed which derive the second element of the name from the Greek klops ("thief") producing the meanings "wheel-thief" or "cattle-thief". Although Walter Burkert has described Hesiods etymology as "not too attractive", Hesiods explanation still finds acceptance by modern scholars. Possible origins
A possible origin for one-eyed Cyclopes was advanced by the palaeontologist Othenio Abel in 1914.
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 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." Homeric Cyclopes
In an episode of Homers Odyssey (c. 700 BC), 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 Hesiods Cyclopes is unclear. Homer described a very different group of Cyclopes, than the skilled and subservient craftsman of Hesiod. Homers Cyclopes live in the "world of men" rather than among 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 Homers, are uncultured cave-dwelling shepherds.