The Cyclops
The Cyclops ("round eyes") were strong, one-eyed giants in Greek mythology, who helped Zeus defeat the Titans and hindered Odysseus from getting home on time. Their name is also spelled Cyclopes, and, as usual with Greek words, the letter K may be used in place of the C: Kyklopes or Kuklopes. There are several stories in Greek mythology about the Cyclops, and the two main ones appear in the works of Hesiod and Homer, 7th century BCE poets and storytellers.
The stories of a one-eyed human-eating monster are quite ancient, with images appearing in Babylonian art and Phoenician inscriptions. In his "Natural History," the historian Pliny the Elder, among others, credited the Cyclops with building the cities of Mycenae and Tiryns in the style known as Cyclopean—the Hellenists believed that the enormous walls were simply beyond the building capability of normal human men. In Strabo's "Geography," he described the skeletons of the Cyclops and their brothers on the island of Sicily.