Atlas: The Strongest Titan (Greek Mythology Explained)

during the war between zeus and his father the titan cronus a war known famously as the titanokomi he would be forgiven for thinking that cronus the child devouring monster of a god was the big bad boss of the battle however there was yet another titan who had adopted this role and served as the leader of all other titans in the war against the rebellious zeus indeed zeus's most ferocious and deadly enemy on this battlefield was not cronus at all but instead the fearsome and powerful son of the titans yapitus and clemony his name was atlas as the son of the apotus and clemony atlas is considered to be a second generation titan despite this youth he did not lack for brute strength and tremendous power i mean any being that could give zeus paws would certainly be a noteworthy adversary homer describes atlas in the odyssey as deadly-minded and that he knew the depths of all the seas implying that not only was atlus lethal but that he was wise beyond the years of zeus despite cronus being the cause of the war in the first place it was atlas who was at the center of the battles leading the titans against the three tagatonkaris who with their thousand arms launched boulders at them there were also the recently regurgitated olympians for atlas and the titans to worry about too not to mention the occasional blast from zeus's lightning bolts one that in some legends actually destroyed atlas's brother an equally terrifying titan named minotius could this have been the reason why atlus was so hellbent on leading the charge against zeus or was it simply a tribal thing and us against them sort of mentality in which atlas would have rather stood on the side of the child eating cronus simply because he was a titan himself we know that not all the titans sided with cronus in the war the other brothers of atlas prometheus and epimetheus took the side of zeus and were able to avoid much of if not all of the conflict so atlas's motivations are not necessarily clear but maybe he didn't much like the idea of having to bow down to a much smaller and perhaps seemingly inferior being as zeus when a battle was done and zeus stood victorious he did not show the surviving titans much mercy at all in fact when it came to conquering his enemies zeus did not treat the stragglers of his opposition with anything but contempt hesio tells us that atlas suffered a terrible fate at the hands of his conqueror and that was to bear on his back forever the cruel strength of the crushing world and vault of the sky upon his shoulders the great pillar that holds apart the earth and heaven a load not easy to be born so instead of just being killed off which i think would have been better for him zeus decided to in effect kill a few birds with one stone or with one lightning bolt i guess he not only established a means to hold up the sky or the heavens in some wording but also got to make an example out of atlas and who better to make an example out of than the most brutal titan of them all the war leader no less whilst other titans are seen to incur some nasty punishments atlas is by far the most extreme and perhaps the most famous with someone holding up the sky zeus needn't have burdened himself with such a huge responsibility and this of course gave him more time to go sleeping around the entire world with virtually anything with a pulse atlas meanwhile was forever forsaken to this endless burden and at the junction of what would become africa and europe he stood as firm as he could locked in place muscle straining bones aching his body in unimaginable agony as the weight of the sky rested on his shoulders in other versions atlas is described as holding pillars far out in the atlantic ocean which hold the heavens apart from the earth the name atlas is thought to have meant very enduring by the ancient greeks and romans and this is pretty fitting given the task that atlas must endure for the sake of not only himself but for the entire world and all of its inhabitants in this case we can see atlus in quite a selfless and heroic light given that despite being defeated by zeus and despite zeus's many many children frolicking about beneath him he never tries to shrug the skies of his shoulders in an effort to bring about not just his end but the end of zeus zeus gives atlas such a pivotal role in holding up the sky and never once considers the fact that if atlus broke free of it all of their fates would be sealed perhaps he is playing on atlas's good nature knowing that the titan would not drop the sky because if he did he'd be killing well everyone else this show makes atlas seem more like a tragic protagonist than a barbaric villain who warned against zeus there is honour to atlas in that he won't condemn others in order to be free of his terrible punishment even if it means killing zeus in the process despite desperately wanting freedom from his burden he endures it for the sake of everyone else who quite sadly do not even know of his incumbent or at least don't seem to care he's hardly mentioned by the other characters in the mythology and when others do find themselves in his presence he usually ends up suffering even more another idea is that zeus has bound atlas to hold the sky in such a way that even if he wanted to drop it he couldn't this would literally make atlas a prisoner devoid of any free will and curse to hold the heavens not because he is morally good and choosing to spare people but because he doesn't have a choice atlas here becomes less of a tragic hero and more of a bitter defeated villain one whose struggle is almost justified given that he would not hesitate to destroy everyone including himself to be free another idea is that atlas shares the selfishness of cronus in that he values his own life too much he would rather live in such eternal agony forever and ever than end his own life even if it brought about the relief he surely craves pride becomes another element here to atlas's character that he would rather endure the punishment than see himself obliterated much less be the cause of it one last idea is that atlus will not drop the sky because if he does he would be crushing his daughters though he had through the nymph pleoni there was also the goddess nymph calypso and then the seven sisters the pleiades as well as their children one being the god hermes in some versions atlas was also given children by the oceanid aethra who bought him more daughters known as the heidi's a sisterhood of nymphs who bring the rain and his only son haius in some tales atlas is also the father of the evening and sunset nymphs known as the hesperides sometimes coined as the atlantities after their father some accounts have atlas condemned to hold the sky at the west edges of the earth right next to the garden of where the hesperides lived so by this if he was to shrug the sky of his shoulders he might very well have felt like he was killing them himself additionally the pleiades who after being stalked by orion are eventually placed into the sky as a constellation by zeus so you might say that if atlus was to drop the sky he would also be hurtling his daughters down to their deaths as well here atlas gets some nobleness assigned to him in that he bears this weight not because of his pride or because of his own need for self-preservation but for the sake of his daughters and grandchildren so that they may live in this atlas gives up his own life to infinite pain so that his offspring may know the joys of life you might say that atlas sure had a rough deal and he certainly was not a fortunate titan perhaps if he sided with zeus he might have gotten a better deal although if you look at how prometheus is treated thereafter it might not have been for the best after all but there exists an idea that atlas was doomed to his fate from the very beginning from before he was even born in fact in some legends when gaia was begging her children to kill cronus for her she went to yapitus and clemene who was pregnant at the time with atlas and his brothers when the appetist and clemene refused to help gaia in her quest to murder the terrible cronus she cursed a pair of them and more importantly cursed their sons given how it plays out for the second generation titans it seems the curse was no simple bluff in the entirety of greek mythology atlas is only included in two stories that which include two of the greatest greek heroes heracles and perseus many will be familiar with the 12 labels of heracles where after being driven mad by hera the queen of the gods heracles kills his own sons and his wife megara after recovering his sanity he wished to atone for his grievous mistake and after being advised by the oracle of delphi pythia to seek employment from the king euristius heracles it is the king who sets heracles to perform 10 tasks or 10 labors thus which he is able to achieve but the king disputed the completion of two of these tasks and so another two were added on one was to capture cerberus the three-headed dog who guards the gateway to hades the other was to fetch the legendary golden apples of the hesperides those being the daughters of atlas the issue was that heracles didn't exactly know where to find the golden apples but on his journey he did come across atlas still straining under the weight of the sky knowing that atlas was their father heracles believed that if anyone knew where to find her spirities it would be him atlas did indeed claim to know where they were but he was pretty tight-lipped about it so heracles came to a compromise and offered to hold the sky for atlas whilst atlas went and brought the apples to him seeing a chance to be free of his burden atlas eagerly agreed and so he and harry police traded places atlas was free but he did not pick up where he left off in his mission to destroy zeus and the olympians possibly seeing how strong zeus had grown and probably painfully aware that there were no titans left to lead so instead atlas did indeed go and get the apples from his daughters and return to heracles but when heracles offered the sky back to him atlas declined and said that he would take the apples to the king instead and that this holding up the sky business was now heracles problem atlas proves here to not only be scheming but also still kind of noble i mean he could have just walked off after heracles took hold of the sky and not bothered to come back with the apples at all but he lives up to his word and even offers to help heracles complete his quest by taking the apples to the king instead you might say that this was a consolation for heracles by atlas who possibly didn't feel all that good about duping heracles into this horrible fate but couldn't stand suffering it himself any longer it's almost as if atlus had reached his breaking point and was so desperate to be free that it was not beneath him to rope someone else in to take on the burden i guess you can hardly blame him but again at least he tries to offer some peace to heracles by offering to fulfill his mission if only atlas was as smart as he was honorable however realizing the gravity of the situation heracles pretended to agree to atlas's proposal and bore the weight of the sky on his shoulders but after a few moments he asked atlas to take it back for just a second so that he could place a few pillows on his shoulders to ease the strain sensing nothing amiss by this and understanding the need for pillows like no one else can atlas took back the sky under the assumption that heracles would fetch some pillows and come back instead heracles took the apples and walked off and atlas was imprisoned again in other versions of this tale heracles is far more compassionate and instead of leaving atlas to his dreary fate he builds two great pillars to hold the sky from the earth thus liberating atlas from his burden the second encounter that atlas has with the greek heroes is perseus and this one implies a far more permanent end for the titan you might say that after having been duped by heracles atlas was far more suspicious of man and in a much worse mood because of this he refused to let anyone into the vicinity of the golden apples and would become something of a guardian for the elusive treasure in another version he is privy to a prophecy by an oracle who tells him that one day a son of zeus would come to steal the apples so by this he was hyper aware of the presence of perseus who emerged before him seeking hospitality in the land in ancient greece the welcoming of guests and the offering of hospitality to weary travelers was a pretty big deal and to deny a guest of such honours what seemed to be something of a sin and something most certainly punishable by the gods but because of the prophecy or because of his own suspicions and bitterness after having been outsmarted by heracles atlas denied perseus any form of welcome having already slain the gorgon medusa perseus still carried her head in his satchel and the head was as potent as ever despite being severed perseus could still use her head as a weapon in that anyone medusa gazed upon would turn to stone sir perseus lifted her head and forced its gaze upon atlas who immediately transformed into stone or as the legend goes into the mountain rage in north west africa now known as the atlas mountains a common misconception is that atlas was forced to hold the weight of the world on his shoulders and that this has likely spawned out of the fact that he's been seen in classical art as holding a sphere which is easily misconstrued as a globe in fact these spheres are the celestial spheres which are cosmological models developed by the ancient astronomers to demonstrate or reflect the motion of stars this idea of atlas carrying the world may have been further reinforced by what we call a collection of maps which is also an atlas atlas was most certainly an unfortunate character in greek mythology like much of his fellow titans he endured great hardship in the wake of the titan defeat and is subjugated to both a grueling and humiliating fate by the hands of zeus in a way we can't help but feel bad for atlas given his never-ending punishment but i suppose we don't really get to see much of what he was like prior to his punishment whilst we understand he was ferocious on the battlefield can we really blame him for defending himself against the rise of the olympians who sought to overthrow cronus and take the world for themselves whilst many of the titans are marginalized when compared to the new gods atlas is one that sticks out most probably because of him being conducive to the survival of every other person it's possible the ancient greeks held atlas in great reverence to some degree given that it was he who in a sense kept them alive by not dropping the sky on them perhaps the saddest thing about atlas is that in most accounts after his encounter with perseus and being turned to stone he becomes the atlas mountain range where he loses his sentience his character and his very being but let me know in the comments below what you thought about the titan atlas and who you'd like to see next in this series of greek mythology explained as always don't forget to give this video a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe until next time you

Channel: The Legends of History

Views: 402,669

Keywords: Atlas, Greek Mythology, Legends, History, Legends of History

Id: aLOFvUf9VCc

Length: 16min 22sec (982 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 05 2020