When was atlas born

In Greek Mythology, Atlas was a Titan who was responsible for bearing the weight of the heavens on his shoulders, a punishment bestowed on him by Zeus. Atlas was given this task in retribution for him leading the Titans into battle, or Titanomachy , against the Olympian Gods for control of the heavens.

Atlas also fathered the nymph Calypso and Maia who was one of the Pleiades and mother of the messenger God Hermes. However, Atlas had a different fate, and Zeus condemned Atlas to stand at the Western edge of Gaia the Earth and hold the heavens on his shoulders to prevent the two from resuming their primordial embrace. In later years, Atlas is associated with the Atlas Mountains in, Northwest Africa or modern day Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, where legends say the Titan was transformed from a shepherd into a huge rock mountain by Perseus , using the head of Medusa and her deadly stare.

In this story, Atlas was the father of the Hesperides, nymphs and guardians of the tree of golden apples. The earth goddess Gaea gave the tree of golden apples to Hera as a wedding present and placed it in a secret location; nevertheless, an oracle told Atlas that a son of Zeus would one day steal the golden apples guarded by his daughters.

To prevent this Atlas refused to let anyone visit his home and when Perseus asked for hospitality in his land, Atlas denied him. The most famous myth involving Atlas is his role in the Twelve Labours of Hercules. Hercules was commanded by King Eurystheus to steal the golden apples from the fabled gardens of the Hesperides.

These gardens were sacred to Hera and guarded by the deadly hundred-headed dragon Ladon. On the advice of Prometheus Hercules asked Atlas to retrieve the apples for him, while Hercules, aided by Athena would take the burden of the heavens on his shoulders giving Atlas a respite from his duty and also the freedom to steal the apples.

Upon returning with the apples, Atlas was reluctant to resume his responsibility and attempted to leave Hercules with the weight of the heavens on his shoulders. Hercules managed to trick the Titan into swapping places temporarily under the guise of acquiring cushions to put on his shoulders to aid in the weight bearing.

As soon as the switch was made, with Atlas once again carrying the heavens Hercules took the golden apples and ran back to Mycenae. In some versions of the story, Hercules instead built the Pillars of Hercules to hold the sky away from the earth, liberating Atlas from his burden.

If you use any of the content on this page in your own work, please use the code below to cite this page as the source of the content. According to another account she fled from him to Atlas, when the god's dolphin spied her out and brought her to him. In Homer she is not yet called Poseidon's wife, but a sea-goddess, who beats the billows against the rocks, and has the creatures of the deep in her keeping. Her son is the sea-god Triton. She had no separate worship.

She is often represented with a net confining her hair, with crabs' claws on the crown of her head, being carried by Tritons, or by dolphins and other marine animals, or drawn by them in a chariot of shells.

As the Romans identified Poseidon with their Neptune, so they did Amphitrite with Salacia, a goddess of the salt waves. Like the parents, the children and grandchildren bear the name of Titan. Incited to rebellion by their mother Gaea, they overthrew Uranus q. He was dethroned in turn by his son Zeus, whereupon the best of the Titans and the majority of their number declared for the new ruler, and under the new order retained their old positions, with the addition of new prerogatives. The rest, namely, the family of Iapetus, carried on from Mount Othrys a long and fierce struggle with the Olympian gods, who fought from Mount Olympus.

Finally, by help of their own kindred, the Hecatoncheires and the Cyclopes, whom by Hera's counsel Zeus had set free from their prison, they were conquered and hurled down into Tartarus, where the Hecatoncheires were set to guard them.

A later legend represents the Titans as reconciled with Zeus and released from Tartarus, and assigns them a place with Cronus in the Islands of the Blest. When he was a child, his father slew him, cut him to pieces and seethed him, and set him as food before the gods.

The gods did not touch the horrible meal; only Demeter, absorbed in grief for her stolen daughter, ate one shoulder. By the command of Zeus, Hermes replaced the pieces in the caldron, and Clotho drew the boy from it in renewed beauty, while Demeter replaced the missing shoulder by one made of ivory.

Hence it was that his descendants, the Pelopidae, bore on one shoulder a mark of dazzling whiteness. Pelops, when grown to manhood, went to Pisa in Elis as a wooer of Hippodamia, daughter of king Enomaus. He won the victory, the bride, and the kingdom, by the help of the winged steeds given him by Poseidon, and by the treachery of Myrtilus, the chariot driver of Enomaus. When Myrtilus or Myrsilus , a son of Hermes, claimed the promised reward, half the kingdom, Pelops hurled him from his chariot into the sea.

Through his curse and the anger of Hermes, the baneful spell was once more cast upon the house of Pelops. He returned to Pisa, and, after he had made himself master of Olympia, he is said to have restored the games with great splendour, a service for which his memory was afterwards honoured above that of all other heroes.

By another act of violence he obtained possession of Arcadia, and extended his power so widely over the peninsula that it was called after his name the Peloponnesus , or "island of Pelops. The latter, his father's favourite, was killed by Atreus and Thyestes, at the instigation of Hippodamia, and his dead body was cast into a well. Peleus discovered the crime, and banished the murderers from the country. Hippodamia thereupon took refuge with her sons at Midea in Argolis.

On her death, Peleus buried her bones in the soil of Olympia. TABLE Immediately after his birth upon the Arcadian mountain of Cyllene, he gave proof of his chief characteristics, inventiveness and versatility, united with fascination, trickery, and cunning. Born in the morning, by mid-day he had invented the lyre; in the evening he stole fifty head of cattle from his brother Apollo, which he hid so skilfully in a cave that they could not be found; after these exploits he lay down quietly in his cradle.

Apollo, by means of his prophetic power, discovered the thief and took the miscreant to Zeus, who ordered the cattle to be given up. However, Hermes so delighted his brother by his playing on the lyre that, in exchange for it, he allowed him to keep the cattle, resigned to him the golden staff of fortune and of riches, with the gift of prophecy in its humbler forms, and from that time forth became his best friend.

Zeus made his son herald to the gods and the guide of the dead in Hades. In this myth we have allusions to several attributes of the god. In many districts of Greece, and especially in Arcadia, the old seat of his worship, Hermes was regarded as a god who bestowed the blessing of fertility on the pastures and herds, and who was happiest spending his time among shepherds and dallying with Nymphs, by whom he had numberless children, including Pan and Daphnis.

In many places he was considered the god of crops; and also as the god of mining and of digging for buried treasure, His kindliness to man is also shown in his being the god of roads.

At cross-roads in particular, there were raised in his honour and called by his name, not only heaps of stones, to which every passer by added a stone, but also the quadrangular pillars known as Hermae q. At Athens these last were set up in the streets and open spaces, and also before the doors. Every unexpected find on the road was called a gift of Hermes hermaion.

Together with Athene, he escorts and protects heroes in perilous enterprises, and gives them prudent counsels. He takes special delight in men's dealings with one another, in exchange and barter, in buying and selling; also in all that is won by craft or by theft.

Thus he is the patron of tradespeople and thieves, and is himself the father of Autolycus q. He too it is who endowed Pandora, the first woman, with the faculty of lying, and with flattering discourse and a crafty spirit. On account of his nimbleness and activity he is the messenger of Zeus, and knows how to carry out his father's commands with adroitness and cunning, as in the slaying of Argos the guard of Io , from which he derives his epithet of Argos-Slayer, or Argeiphontes.

Again, as Hermes was the sacrificial herald of the gods, it was an important part of the duty of heralds to assist at sacrifices. Strength of voice and excellence of memory were supposed to be derived, from him in his capacity of herald. Owing to his vigour, dexterity, and personal charm, he was deemed the god of gymnastic-skill, which makes men strong and handsome, and the especial patron of boxing, running, and throwing the discus; in this capacity the palaestrae and gymnasia were sacred to him, and particular feasts called Hermaia were dedicated to him.

He was the discoverer of music for besides the lyre he invented the shepherd's pipe , and he was also the god of wise and clever discourse. A later age made him even the inventor of letters, figures, mathematics, and astronomy. He is, besides, the god of sleep and of dreams, with one touch of his staff he can close or open the eyes of mortals; hence the custom, before going to sleep, of offering him the last libation.

As he is the guide of the living on their way, so is he also the conductor of the souls of the dead in the nether-world Psuchopompos , and he is as much loved by the gods of those regions as he is by those above. For this reason sacrifices were offered to him in the event of deaths, Hermae , were placed on the graves, and, at oracles and incantations of the dead, he was honoured as belonging to the lower world; in general, he was accounted the intermediary between the upper and lower worlds.

His worship early spread through-out the whole of Greece. As he was born in the fourth month, the number four was sacred to him.

In Argos the fourth month was named after him, and in Athens he was honoured with sacrifices on the fourth of every month. His altars and images mostly simple Hermae were in all the streets, thoroughfares, and open spaces, and also at the entrance of the palaestra. In art he is represented in the widely varying characters which be assumed, as a shepherd with a single animal from his flock, as a mischievous little thief, as the god of gain with a purse in his hand cp.

He was portrayed by the greatest sculptors, such as Phidias, Polyclitus, Scopas, and Praxiteles, whose Hermes with the infant Dionysus was discovered in , in the temple of Hera, at Olympia. In the older works of art he appears as a bearded and strong man; in the later ones he is to be seen in a graceful and charming attitude, as a slim youth with tranquil features, indicative of intellect and good will.

His usual attributes are wings on his feet, a flat, broad-brimmed hat see PETASUS , which in later times was ornamented with wings, as was also his staff. This last Gr.

But even in early times it was regarded as a herald's staff and an emblem of peaceful intercourse; it consisted of three shoots, one of which formed the handle, the other two being intertwined at the top in a knot. The place of the latter was afterwards taken by serpents; and thus arose our ordinary type of herald's staff.

The Doric column consists a of the shaft, which increases in diameter almost invisibly up to about one-quarter of its height, and diminishes slightly after that point. It has no base, but rests immediately on the stylobate. It is surrounded with semi-circular flutings, meeting each other at a sharp angle.

These were chiselled with a cedar-wood tool after the separate drums had been put together. This consists of three parts, a the hypotrachelion , or neck of the column, a continuation of the shaft, but separated by an indentation from the other drums. It is wider at the top than at the bottom, and is generally ornamented with several parallel and horizontal rings. The architrave is a quadrangular beam of stone, reaching from pillar to pillar.

On this again rests the frieze, zophoros, so called from the metopes which are adorned with sculptures in relief. These metopes are square spaces between the triglyphs: the triglyphs are surfaces out into three concave grooves, two whole grooves in the centre, and two half grooves at the sides. Gill is a Latinist, writer, and teacher of ancient history and Latin. Updated November 14, Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Gill, N. The Story of Atlas. Birth of the Olympian Gods and Goddesses.

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