Condemned by mighty Zeus to carry the weight of the firmament forever on his shoulders, Atlas in mythology of ancient Greece represents not only physical strength but also tenacity, firmness and commitment to acquired responsibility.
Atlas in mythology
Atlas in ancient Greek mythology, was a mighty titan who holds the firmament on his shoulders. The stories about this character in the works of ancient literature are contradictory and contain mutually exclusive statements. According to the most common version, he participated in the titanomachy - the battle of the titans with the Olympian gods. After the defeat, Zeus threw the Titans into Tartarus and put the vault of heaven on the shoulders of Atlas.
During the performance of the eleventh feat, Heracles replaced Atlas. According to one of the interpretations of the myth, the burden of Atlantis represented divine wisdom, which he transmitted to people through Heracles. In the context of this understanding of the role of Atlas as a bearer of knowledge, the cartographer G. Mercator used the image of the mythical titan and titled his work Atlas. Subsequently, collections of images that describe a subject in the most complete way possible (atlas of the sky, anatomy, etc.) began to be called "atlases".
Another version of Atlas in mythology, cited in Plato's dialogue "Critias", Poseidon's son Atlas was the first king of Atlantis, after whom this island was named. The ancient Hellenes connected the Atlas Mountains with Atlanta, and the people who lived in this area are called Atlanteans. The name of this mythological character has become an eponym of the Atlantic Ocean.
Nacimiento
There is a slight difference of opinion in the myths about the ancestry of Atlas. According to most ancient writers, Atlas was the son of the Titan Iapetus and his wife, the Oceanid Clymene, also known as Asia. Hyginus is the only writer who mentions Atlas, in his Fables, as a son of Ether and Gaia. Atlas's brothers in mythology are Prometheus, Epimetheus and Menethius who, like Atlas, belong to the Titans. Atlas is a man of enormous size, has a powerful body, and becomes a wise god with a powerful disposition.
Offspring
Atlas marries, after Gaia's birth, an Oceanid, who is usually Pleyone but is sometimes also called Etra, while there is also a single writer who claims that he shared a bed with the Danaid Hesione. Atlas fathered with her, in the mountains of Cilene, seven daughters named Alcíone, Celeno, Electra, Maia, Merope, Estérope and Taygete. These seven daughters of the nymph would later be known by the collective name of Pleiades in honor of her mother.
After these seven nymphs, Atlas fathered ten more children. First the son Hyas, followed by the eight daughters: Ambrosia, Corónide, Dione, Eudora, Cleeía, Feo, Polixo and Fésile. These nymphs would later be called the Hyades due to the pain they felt over the tragic death of their brother Hyas. In the world history of Diodorus Siculus Atlas is the father of the seven Atlanteans: Aegle, Arethusa, Eritia, Hesperetusa, Hesperia and two more of unknown names. In this situation, Atlas is married to Hesperia, the daughter of Eosphorus, who in turn is a son of Eos.
Atlas and his daughters live in the far west, on the edge of the earth, where he has a beautiful orchard and grazes thousands of herds. The trees in this orchard were all golden and beautiful golden apples grew on them. Themis, however, once predicts to Atlas: “Atlas, the time will come when your forest will be stripped of its gold. A son of Zeus will be proud of that loot." Fearing this, Atlas decides to surround his apple orchard with a huge wall, the huge dragon appointing Ladon to protect the apples and keep visitors out of the orchard.
Titanomachy
Chronos was predicted to die at the hands of his son. Not to tempt fate, Cronus swallowed all of his children shortly after they were born. With the help of the land of Gaia, Rhea managed to save Zeus. When she grew up, she was able to free the brothers and sisters from her father's womb. Between the titans and Zeus, a battle with the brothers and sisters took place, called titanomachy. According to some sources, it began immediately after birth, according to others - after some time.
In the course of the Titanomachy, the Olympian gods won and the Titans were thrown into Tartarus. Of the participants in the battle on earth, only Atlas remained, on whom Zeus put a special punishment. He must go to the far west where Zeus forces him to take the vault of heaven on his shoulders. From now on Atlas, with his head down and shoulders hunched, carries this huge weight on his aching back and has to use his hands to keep everything in balance.
Standing there toiling and groaning in the land of the Hyperboreans, near his own orchard, his gigantic body is illuminated each night by the glow of his daughters placed in the sky like constellations and each night he sees the sunset.
Associated with Atlas's role in mythology in holding up the firmament is his role as a kind of celestial axis. In the ancient world, they even tried to explain the change in the map of the starry sky by the movements of Atlas. According to them, the horses of Helios (the Sun) ran daily through the firmament with the stars. At night, without their light, the stars became visible. The map of the starry sky was unstable precisely due to the movement of Atlas around its axis.
Meeting with Perseus
According to the myth established in Ovid's Metamorphoses, after the victory over the gorgon Medusa, Perseus entered the kingdom of Atlas, which was located at the westernmost end of the earth, where "the sun for tired horses" . In this region grew a grove with golden branches and fruits. The Pythian priestess predicted to the king of the western edge that "The time will come, Atlas, and the gold will be stolen from the tree, and the best part will go to the son of Zeus." Remembering the prophecy, Atlas surrounded the golden grove with a wall and made the dragon to be saved.
Perseus arrived in Atlanta for no purpose of looting. He only asked for hospitality and a chance to rest. Atlas, remembering Pythia's prophecy, threateningly demanded that he leave. Perseus, seeing that he was significantly inferior to the giant in strength, pulled out the head of the Gorgon Medusa and showed it to Atlas. From there he turned to stone, his hair and beard turned to forests, shoulders and arms to the Atlas Mountains, and his head became a mountain peak, on which "heaven rested upon him with the depths of his eyes." constellations”.
Atlas in mythology thus became the personification of the Atlas Mountains in northwest Africa. These huge mountains were considered by the ancient Greeks as the base of the heavens and Atlas, in this way, was the first to discover that the earth was round and to become the founder of astrology that he developed to perfection.
Meeting with Heracles
During the performance of the eleventh feat, Heracles needed to bring the apples of the Hesperides to Eurystheus. They, according to one version, were given to Hera by the earth goddess Gaia during her wedding to Zeus. The bride liked the gift and placed it in a grove near the mountain that Atlas was on. When Hera learned that the daughters of Atlas Hesperides were picking apples without permission, she made Ladon guardian. According to another version, the Hesperides guarded the apples together with the dragon.
Heracles did not know where the apples were. During a long journey, he freed Prometheus chained to the mountain and killed the raven that ate his liver. As thanks he told Heracles about the Garden of the Hesperides and gave him advice on how to get them.
Following the advice of Prometheus, Heracles, upon reaching the Atlas Mountains, assured Atlas that he would hold the firmament for him. For this he asked her to get the golden apples. Atlas agrees, carefully placing the weight of the sky on Heracles' trembling shoulders before heading to the orchard. Shortly after, he returns to Heracles, but refuses to take the globe on his shoulders and says that he himself will carry the apples to Eurystheus.
Then Heracles, also on the advice of Prometheus, pretended to agree and asked to substitute him for a while to make himself a pillow under his head. Atlas put apples on the ground and replaced Heracles. This, he took the fruits and left, leaving Atlas deceived and holding the firmament.
According to another later interpretation of the myth, the story of the transfer of heaven from Atlas to Heracles is an allegory. The Titan did not give the son of Zeus a physical burden, but the knowledge of astronomy and mysteries. And the very heavy load of Atlas represents divine wisdom, which with the burden of him does not allow him to straighten his shoulders. Heracles then transmitted the doctrine of the celestial sphere to the Hellenes, for which he earned their glory and honor.
Heraclitus, in the most succinct way in this sense, reconsiders the figure of Atlas in mythology: “And he was a wise man and he was the first to explore what concerns the science of the stars, they predict storms and changes in winds and rising stars and sunsets; that is what they wrote about him that he carries the cosmos in himself”
Atlas in geography and science
The ancient Greeks associated the Atlas Mountains with Atlas and the local tribes call them Atlanteans. The name Atlantic Ocean was first found in the XNUMXth century BC. C. in the works of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who wrote that "the sea with the pillars of Hercules is called Atlantis."
The Roman scientist Pliny the Elder in the XNUMXst century uses the modern name Oceanus Atlanticus (Atlantic Ocean). At different times, certain parts of the ocean are called the Western Ocean, the North Sea, the Outer Sea. Only from the middle of the XNUMXth century did the name Atlantic Ocean begin to be used in its modern meaning.
The image of Atlas has found a reflection in science. A later interpretation of the myth of the encounter with Hercules presented the titan as the guardian of wisdom, allegorically represented in the form of a huge globe. For the first time the image of Atlas was placed in a map collection in 1572 by the cartographer Antonio Lafreri.
In 1578, the cartographer Gerard Mercator titled his work Atlas, placing Atlas on its title page. Later, the term "atlas" was extended to other areas of science. Collections of images (anatomy atlases, starry sky atlases, etc.) that describe a particular subject as completely as possible, began to be called atlases.
The first cervical vertebra that supports the head was named Atlas. A lunar crater, the fifteenth moon of Saturn, as well as a group of launch vehicles for putting satellites into orbit bear the name of this mythological character.
Atlases in the arts
The Atlas image found the greatest diffusion in architecture. The "Atlantean" sculptures depicting the figures of men play a decorative or functional role in supporting the roof of a building, balcony, cornice, etc. It can be located in the place of a column or pilaster.
Of the ancient sculptures of Atlas, the Farnese Atlas, now on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, a statue in the Temple of Zeus at Agrigento in Sicily, and an image on the metope of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, have survived. showing the myth of the encounter with Hercules.
Renaissance artists and sculptors used images of Atlas in different forms. Thus, in Francesco di Giorgio's engraving, Atlas is depicted as an astrologer influencing the arrangement of the stars. This interpretation of this character's role in ancient Greek mythology was reflected in his placement on the title page of Michel Nostradamus' Predictions in 1568.
Erasmus of Rotterdam, in his Adagia, used the image of Atlas to describe the severity of power. Emperor Charles V, transferring power to his son Philip, represents this process metaphorically, using the story of how the weary Atlas Charles places the weight of power on the shoulders of the young Heracles Philip. This officially promoted idea was coined in a series of medals. In modern times, Atlas began to be placed on banknotes. The old character was present on the bills from Austria and Belgium.
In modern times, the image of Atlas began to be perceived as a person carrying a huge load. Against this background, near the Rockefeller Center, the giant was established in 1937, the statue of Atlas. The same image gave the name to Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged: in a dialogue between two of the novel's protagonists, industrialists Francisco d'Anconia and Hank Rearden, the former asks:
If you saw Atlas in mythology, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw him standing up, blood pounding in his chest, knees bending, arms trembling, but still trying to hold on. to the world on high with his last strength, and the greater his effort, the greater the weight that the world carries on his shoulders, what would you tell him to do?...Let him rebel.»
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