Record #113
One-Eyed Beings-Arimaspians
One-eyed warriors engaged in endless conflict over hidden gold.
Original Text
The Cyclops were not the only race of men having one
eye; Pliny (VII, 2) also mentions the Arimaspians,
a nation remarkable for having but one eye, and that placed in the middle of the forehead. This race is said to carry on a perpetual warfare with the Griffons, a kind of monster, with wings as they are commonly represented, for the gold which they dig out of the mines, and which these wild beasts retain and keep watch over with a singular degree of cupidity, while the Arimaspi are equally desirous to get possession of it.
Five hundred years earlier, the first encyclopedist, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, had written (III, II6):
This is also plain, that to the north of Europe there is by far more gold than elsewhere. In this matter again I cannot with certainty say how the gold is got; some will have it that one-eyed men called Arimaspians steal it from griffons. But this too I hold incredible, that there can be men in all else like other men, yet having but one eye.
eye; Pliny (VII, 2) also mentions the Arimaspians,
a nation remarkable for having but one eye, and that placed in the middle of the forehead. This race is said to carry on a perpetual warfare with the Griffons, a kind of monster, with wings as they are commonly represented, for the gold which they dig out of the mines, and which these wild beasts retain and keep watch over with a singular degree of cupidity, while the Arimaspi are equally desirous to get possession of it.
Five hundred years earlier, the first encyclopedist, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, had written (III, II6):
This is also plain, that to the north of Europe there is by far more gold than elsewhere. In this matter again I cannot with certainty say how the gold is got; some will have it that one-eyed men called Arimaspians steal it from griffons. But this too I hold incredible, that there can be men in all else like other men, yet having but one eye.