Atlas

Atlas was one of the Titans, the son of Iapetus and the Oceanid Clymene according to Hesiod, who stood at the western edge of the earth and held up the sky. He was the brother of Prometheus, Epimetheus and Menoetius, and the father of the Pleiades, the Hyades and, in Homer, the nymph Calypso. Two heroes meet him in the myths: Heracles, who takes his place for a short time, and Perseus, who turns him to stone.

Name and Portrayal

Hesiod pictures Atlas as a figure of endless endurance: he stands at the ends of the earth, in front of the clear-voiced Hesperides, holding the broad sky with his head and tireless hands, because Zeus assigned him this fate (Hesiod, Theogony 517–520). In Aeschylus he is a groaning giant who bears the pillar of heaven and earth on his shoulders in the west, “a burden not easy to hold” (Prometheus Bound 349–352, 427–430). In Homer Atlas “knows the depths of every sea” and himself holds the tall pillars that keep earth and sky apart (Odyssey 1.52–54). Ovid describes him in another version as a huge king whose body becomes a mountain (Metamorphoses 4.631–662).

Family

According to Hesiod, Atlas was the son of the Titan Iapetus and Clymene, a daughter of Oceanus; his brothers were Menoetius, Prometheus and Epimetheus (Theogony 507–511). Apollodorus gives Iapetus’ wife as Asia (Library 1.2.3). Hesiod says that Zeus struck Menoetius with a thunderbolt and sent him down to Erebus for his arrogance (Theogony 514–516).

The sources name several wives and many children:

• By Pleione, a daughter of Ocean, he had seven daughters, the Pleiades: Alcyone, Merope, Celaeno, Electra, Sterope, Taygete and Maia, who became the mother of Hermes (Apollodorus, Library 3.10.1).
• Homer calls Calypso, who keeps Odysseus on her island, the daughter of the “baleful-minded” Atlas (Odyssey 1.52–55).
• According to Musaeus, as reported by Hyginus, Atlas and Aethra, a daughter of Oceanus, had fifteen daughters, five of whom were called the Hyades after their brother Hyas, who was killed by a lion while hunting (Hyginus, Astronomica 2.21).
• In Diodorus’ version, Atlas married Hesperis, the daughter of his brother Hesperus, and their seven daughters were called the Atlantides after him and the Hesperides after their mother (Diodorus 4.27.1–2). Hesiod instead makes the Hesperides daughters of Night (Theogony 215–216).

The Titanomachy and Atlas’ Punishment

Hesiod does not describe what Atlas did in the war between the Olympians and the Titans. He only says that Zeus gave him the task of holding up the sky at the ends of the earth near the Hesperides (Theogony 517–520). According to Aeschylus, Prometheus himself took the side of Zeus, after his advice to the Titans had been ignored (Prometheus Bound 201–221).

Sources differ on how Atlas holds the sky. Hesiod and Aeschylus put the sky on his head, hands and shoulders; Homer has him hold the pillars that keep earth and sky apart (Odyssey 1.52–54). Hesiod places him at the edge of the earth before the Hesperides (Theogony 517–518). Apollodorus places the apples of the Hesperides on the mountain of Atlas among the Hyperboreans, not in Libya (Library 2.5.11).

Meetings with Heroes

Since Atlas cannot move, the myths that include him tell of heroes who reach him at the end of the world.

Heracles

In Apollodorus, Eurystheus did not count two of the labours of Heracles, and so ordered an eleventh: to bring golden apples from the Hesperides (Library 2.5.11). The guardian of the apples was an immortal hundred-headed dragon, and Heracles was told by Prometheus not to pick them himself, but to send Atlas for them while Heracles held up the sky for him. Heracles did this. When Atlas came back with three apples, he said that he would carry them to Eurystheus himself and told Heracles to go on holding the sky. Heracles agreed, but by a trick he asked Atlas to take the sky for a moment so that he could put a pad on his head. When Atlas took it up again, Heracles picked up the apples and went away (Library 2.5.11).

Perseus

In Ovid, Perseus arrives at the western edge of the world at sunset and asks Atlas, king of the land of the Hesperian west, for hospitality. Atlas, who owns a tree of golden apples guarded by a dragon, remembers a prophecy by Themis that a son of Jupiter would one day strip the tree of its gold. He refuses and tries to drive Perseus away. Perseus, weaker in strength, turns away and holds up the head of Medusa, and Atlas becomes a mountain: his hair and beard turn to forests, his shoulders and hands to ridges, his head to a summit, and the sky with all its stars rests upon him (Metamorphoses 4.627–662). Ovid himself says only that he became a mountain. Herodotus describes a tall, cloud-capped mountain called Atlas in Libya, which the people there called the pillar of heaven (Herodotus 4.184), and the name was later attached to the Atlas range of north-west Africa.

Atlas Sources

There are few verses in Hesiod’s “Theogony” recounting the stories of Atlas and his brothers (Theogony 507–520, 215–216). Heracles’ encounter with Atlas is retold in the fifth chapter of the second book of Apollodorus’ “Library,” while his transformation into a mountain is narrated by Ovid in the fourth book of his “Metamorphoses.” Atlas also appears in Homer (Odyssey 1.52–55), Aeschylus (Prometheus Bound 201–221, 349–352, 427–430), Apollodorus (Library 1.2.3, 3.10.1), Hyginus (Astronomica 2.21), Diodorus (4.27.1–2) and Herodotus (4.184).

See Also: Twelve Labours of Heracles, Perseus, Iapetus, Clymene, Asia, Menoetius, Prometheus, Epimetheus, Pleione