Atlas (mythology)

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Greek deities series
Primordial deities
Olympians
Aquatic deities
Chthonic deities
Personified concepts
Other deities
Titans
The Twelve Titans:
Oceanus and Tethys,
Hyperion and Theia,
Coeus and Phoebe,
Cronus and Rhea,
Mnemosyne, Themis,
Crius, Iapetus
Sons of Iapetus:
Atlas, Prometheus,
Epimetheus, Menoetius

In Greek mythology, Atlas was one of the primordial Titans.

Atlas (Eng. /'æt ləs/ Gk. Ἄτλας) was the son of the Titan Iapetos (Eng. /aɪ ə 'pi: təs/) and the Oceanid Clymene (Eng. /'klɪ mə ni:/ Gk. Κλυμένη Klyménē).^[1] Where a Titan and a Titaness are assigned each of the seven planetary powers, Atlas is paired with Phoebe and governs the moon. ^[2] He had three brothers — Prometheus, Epimetheus and Menoetius.^[3]

Contents 1 Punishment 2 Variations 3 Encounter with Heracles 4 Etymology 5 Cultural influence 5.1 Children 6 Trivia 7 Other Media 8 Gallery 9 Notes 10 Sources

[edit] Punishment

Atlas sided with the Titans in their war (known as the Titanomachy) against the Olympians. His brothers Prometheus, Epimetheus and Menoetius weighed the odds and betrayed the other Titans by an alliance with the Olympians. When the Titans were defeated, many of them were confined to Tartarus, but Zeus condemned Atlas to stand at the western edge of the earth and hold up the Sky on his shoulders, to prevent the two from resuming their primordial embrace.

A common misconception is that Atlas was forced to hold the earth on his shoulders, but this is incorrect. Classical art shows Atlas holding a Celestial Sphere, not a Globe.

[edit] Variations

In a late story,^[4] a giant named Atlas tried to drive a wandering Perseus from the place where the Atlas mountains now stand. Later, out of pity, Athena revealed Medusa's head, turning Atlas to stone. As is not uncommon in myth, this account cannot be reconciled with the far more common stories of Atlas' dealings with Heracles, who was Perseus' great-grandson.

According to Plato, the first king of Atlantis was also named Atlas, but that Atlas was a mortal son of Poseidon.^[5] Another Atlas was said to have been a king of Mauretania and an expert astronomer.

[edit] Encounter with Heracles

One of the hero Heracles' Twelve Labors involved the acquisition of some of the golden apples which grow in Hera's garden, tended by the Hesperides and guarded by the dragon Ladon. Heracles went to Atlas, the father of the Hesperides, and offered to hold the heavens for a little while in exchange for the apples, to which Atlas agreed. Upon his return with the apples, however, Atlas attempted to trick Heracles into carrying the sky permanently by offering to deliver the apples himself. Heracles, suspecting Atlas didn't intend to return again, pretended to agree to Atlas' offer, asking only that Atlas take the sky again for a few minutes so Heracles could rearrange his cloak as padding on his shoulders. When Atlas set down the apples and took the heavens upon his shoulders again, Heracles took the apples and ran away.

In some versions, Heracles instead built the two great Pillars of Hercules to hold the sky away from the earth, liberating Atlas much as he liberated Prometheus.

[edit] Etymology

The etymology of the name Atlas is uncertain and still debated. Some derive it from the Proto-Indo-European root *tel, 'to uphold, support'; others suggest that it is a pre-Indo-European name. Since the Atlas mountains fell in the region inhabited by Berbers, it could be that the name as we know it is taken from Berber.

[edit] Cultural influence

Atlas' most well-known cultural association is in cartography. The first publisher to associate the Titan Atlas with a group of maps was Antonio Lafreri, on the title-page to Tavole Moderne Di Geografia De La Maggior Parte Del Mondo Di Diversi Autori; however, he did not use the word "atlas" in the title of his work, an innovation of Mercator who dedicated his "atlas" specifically "to honour the Titan, Atlas, King of Mauritania, a learned philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer."

Since the middle of the sixteenth century, any collection of cartographic maps has come to be called an atlas. Gerardus Mercator was the first to use the word in this way, and he actually depicted the astronomer king.

Atlas continues to be a commonly used icon in western culture (and advertising), as a symbol of strength or stoic endurance. He is often shown kneeling on one knee while supporting an enormous round globe on his back and shoulders. The globe originally represented the celestial sphere of ancient astronomy, rather than the earth. The use of the term atlas as a name for collections of terrestrial maps and the modern understanding of the earth as a sphere have combined to inspire the many depictions of Atlas' burden as the earth.

[edit] Children

Sources describe Atlas as the father, by different goddesses, of numerous children, mostly daughters:

• by Hesperis, the Hesperides;^[6]
• by Pleione (or Aethra^[7])

• the Hyades,^[8]
• a son, Hyas,^[9]
• the Pleiades;^[10]

• and by one or more unspecified goddesses

• Calypso,^[11]
• Dione,^[12]
• Maera.^[13]

Some of these are assigned conflicting or overlapping identities or parentage in different sources.

[edit] Trivia

The novelist Ayn Rand named her magnum opus Atlas Shrugged. The title is explained in a passage between two of the protagonists:

"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater the effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders--what would you tell him to do?"

"I . . . don't know. What . . . could he do? What would you tell him?"

"To shrug."

This attitude reflects the novel's general themes of rational self-interest and Objectivism.

Jeanette Winterson's novel Weight is a retelling of the Atlas myth.

"Atlas" is used as the name of many objects and places, see Atlas (disambiguation).

The film "Superman Returns" includes a scene in which Superman catches the falling globe from the top of the Daily Planet building and holds it in the same manner as Lee Lawrie's statue in Rockefeller Center. This alludes to the popular myth of Atlas holding the world on his shoulders rather than the heavens.

The Led Zeppelin song 'Achilles' Last Stand' makes numerous references to the Titan.

In anatomy, the first cervical vertebra is called the "Atlas" (C1). The atlas vertebra holds up the globe that is the skull.

[edit] Other Media

• Atlas has a guest appearance on Class of the Titans

• An entire level of the video game God of War II took place on, and inside the body of the mighty Titan, who was voiced by Michael Clarke Duncan. In the game, Atlas was incorrectly shown as holding the world on his shoulders. He is depicted as a four-armed humanoid with grey skin.

[edit] Gallery

Bronze sculpture of Atlas on a building in Collins Street, Melbourne, Australia

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 507
2. ^ Res Homer, Iliad v.898; Apollonius Rhodius ii. 1232; Bibliotheke i.1.3; Hesiod, Theogony 113; Stephanus of Byzantium, under "Adana"; Aristophanes Birds 692ff; Clement of Rome Homilies vi.4.72.
3. ^ Hesiod, Theogony 371
4. ^ Polyidus, Fragment 837; Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.627
5. ^ Plato, Critias
6. ^ Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History 4.26.2
7. ^ Hyginus, Astronomica 2.21; Ovid, Fasti 5.164
8. ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 192
9. ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 192
10. ^ Hesiod, Works and Days 383; Apollodorus, 3.110; Ovid, Fasti 5.79
11. ^ Homer, Odyssey 1.52; Apollodorus, E7.23
12. ^ Hyginus, Fabulae 82, 83
13. ^ Pausanias, Guide to Greece 8.12.7, 8.48.6

[edit] Sources

• Origin of "Atlas" for a collection of maps
• Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, London: Penguin, 1955; Baltimore: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-001026-2