Ατλας
A giant, the son of Iapetus and the sea-nymph Clymene (or in some versions of the sea-nymph Asia). He was the brother of Menoetius, Prometheus and Epimetheus, 'the men of violence' (Table 25 and Table 38). According to some traditions he was the son of Uranus and thus the brother of Cronus. He belongs to the generation of monstrous and unbridled divinities which preceded the Olympians. He took part in the struggle between the Gods and the Giants and Zeus sentenced him to carrying the vault of the sky on his shoulders as a punishment. His dwelling was generally regarded as in the very far west, in the country of the Hesperides, though it was sometimes said to be 'among the Hyperboreans'. Herodotus was the first person to refer to Atlas as a mountain in North Africa. Perseus was said to have turned Atlas into a rock on returning after slaying the Gorgon, by confronting him with Medusa's head.
Atlas is said to have had several children: the Pleiadeas and the Hyades by Pleione, and the Hesperides by Hesperis. Dione was also regarded as his daughter and his sons were Hyas and Hesperus. Late conjectures regarded Atlas as an astronomer who taught men the laws governing celestial bodies and he was deified for that reason. Sometimes it was said that there were three separate figures, all known as Atlas, one African, one Italian and one Arcadian, the father of Maia and hence the grandfather of Hermes. For the Atlas who gave his name to Atlantis, see Atalantis.
{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}
Table of Sources:
- Hesiod, Theog. 507ff.
- Hom. Od. 1, 52ff.; 7, 245
- Aeschylus, PV 348, 425f
- Pind. Pyth. 4, 289ff. (516ff.)
- Euripides, Ion 1ff.; HF 402
- schol. on Apoll. Rhod. Arg. 3, 106; 1, 444
- Ovid, Met. 2, 296; 6, 174
- Apollod. Bibl. 1, 2, 3; 2, 5, 11
- Hyg. Fab. 150
- Hdt. 4, 185
- Serv. on Virgil, Aen. 8, 134
- See also Heracles.