Polyphemus eats six of Odysseus’s men in Homer’s Odyssey.
The Cyclops attacks in stages in Book 9. He seizes and eats two men when he first returns to his cave, two more the following morning, and another two that evening. Odysseus and the remaining crew then use strong wine to intoxicate him.
Odysseus tells Polyphemus that his name is “Nobody,” blinds him with a heated wooden stake, and escapes beneath the Cyclops’s sheep. The escape succeeds because Polyphemus’s fellow Cyclopes misunderstand his cries for help.
The number is sometimes confused with Scylla’s attack later in the poem, when the six-headed monster snatches six sailors. Polyphemus’s six victims are eaten in his cave; Scylla’s six victims are taken during the voyage through the strait. After Odysseus reveals his real name, Polyphemus asks his father, Poseidon, to punish him.