Greek to Me: Atlas
Atlas never carried the world. Hesiod had him holding up the sky, and the Earth turned up much later.
Atlas never carried the world.
Hesiod wrote it down around 700 BC: Atlas holds up the sky at the western edge of the earth, and an anvil dropped from that sky would fall for nine days, which works out to a start beyond the Moon. The kneeling statue everyone pictures, a Roman marble of about AD 150 in Naples, carries a ball covered in constellations. Then in 1595 Mercator named his book of maps Atlas, and the ball on his shoulders turned into the Earth. He did get one break, while Heracles held the sky and Atlas fetched the golden apples. It lasted about five minutes.
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Greek to Me
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