1910–1911
Britannica 11th
Encyclopaedia Britannica · 11th edition
ATLAS, in Greek mythology, the " endurer," a son of the Titan lapetus and Clymene (or Asia), brother of Prometheus. Homer, in the Odyssey (i. 52) speaks of him as " on; who knows the depths of the whole sea, and keeps the tall pillars which hold heaven and earth asunder." In the first instance he seems to have been a marine creation. The pillars which he supported were thought to rest in the sea, immediately beyond the most western horizon. But as the Greeks' knowledge of the west increased, the name of Atlas was t…
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- Vol. 2, pp. 858-858