. was condemned to bearheaven on his head and hands, standing in thefar west where day and night meet, at theapparent junction of sky and sea. (Hes. , 746.) According to Homer (Od. i. 52, ), Atlas bears the long columns which keepasunder heaven and earth (or, as some inter-pret, he was merely in charge of the pillarswhich keep apart, or which support on bothsides), and he seems to be imagined there as agiant standing on the floor of the sea; he is inthat account the father of Calypso. It doesnot follow that Homers idea o
. was condemned to bearheaven on his head and hands, standing in thefar west where day and night meet, at theapparent junction of sky and sea. (Hes. , 746.) According to Homer (Od. i. 52, ), Atlas bears the long columns which keepasunder heaven and earth (or, as some inter-pret, he was merely in charge of the pillarswhich keep apart, or which support on bothsides), and he seems to be imagined there as agiant standing on the floor of the sea; he is inthat account the father of Calypso. It doesnot follow that Homers idea of holding thepillars is necessarily older than the simpleridea of Hesiod, which makes Atlas himself thepillar; and no explanation of the myth is pre-ferable to that which assumes it to have arisenfrom the idea that lofty mountains supportedthe heaven. Later traditions distort the ori-ginal idea still more, by making Atlas a manwho was metamorphosed into a Ovid (Met. iv. 626 seq.) relates that Per-seus came to Atras and asked for shelter, which. Atlas. (From the Farnese Collection.) was refused, whereupon Perseus,by means of thehead of Medusa, changed him into M. Atlas, onwhich rested heaven with all its stars. Otherstry to rationalise, and represent Atlas as apowerful king, who possessed great knowledgeof the courses of the stars, and who was thefirst who taught men that heaven had the formof a globe. Hence the expression that heavenvested on his shoulders was regarded as amerely figurative mode of speaking. (Diod. , iv. 27 ; Paus. ix. 20.) At first, the story ofAtlas referred to one mountain only, which wasbelieved to exist on the extreme boundary ofthe earth; but, as geographical knowledge ex-tended, the name of Atlas was transferred toother places, and thus we read of a Mauretanian,Italian, Arcadian, and even of a Caucasian,Atlas. The common opinion, however, was, thatthe heaven-bearing Atlas was in the NW. ofAfrica. [See below.] Atlas was the father of t
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