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Atlas   

In Plato’s account Atlas is the offspring of the god Poseidon and a mortal woman, in Greek mythology he is the progeny of Uranus the personification of the sky/heaven and Gaia the personification of the earth and belongs to the giant race of Titans – in both accounts then, Atlas is semi-divine, born of  earth and heaven. There is strong evidence, which will emerge later in the narrative, that this mixed parentage lies at the heart of Plato’s account of the ruling ten Atlantean Titans being twins, for the twin motif features in other parts of their mythology, and will be shown to represent the duality that is at the heart of these mysteries – the ancient belief in a divine template behind life on earth.

 Robert Graves states the name Titan means ’king’, also ’god-like’, similar to the Greek theos and the Roman deus – which doubtless derives from the important kingly role they fulfilled, and their divine antecedents.

The mother of the Titans Gaia eventually became enraged with her spouse Uranus, because he had imprisoned her unruly off-spring the Cyclopes, in the dark underworld domain of Tartarus. She incited her Titan offspring to overthrow their own father, and Cronos the leader, succeeded in deposing and castrating his father; and then reigning in his place.

According to the Greek poet Hesiod 700 BC, in his ‘Works and Days’, Cronos then ruled over a perfect golden age – although his violent actions against his own father, taken at face value and not hiding a deeper mythic meaning, would indicate a less auspicious time. Hesiod states, humanity has known five races, which he named after metals, expect for the Heroic Age.  The first race was golden ‘. . .subjects of Cronus, who lived without cares or labour, eating only acorns, wild fruit, and honey that dripped from the trees, drinking the milk of sheep and goats, never growing old, dancing, and laughing much; death, to them was no more terrible than sleep.’ 2 The next race was silver, then bronze, then the age of the heroes, and finally the last an iron age.

The paradise of the first Golden Age was soon blighted – there is always a worm in the apple, or a serpent up a tree – by a prophecy that one of the sons of Cronos would usurp his throne, and so he began swallowing his children as soon as they were born.

Distraught, Rhea decided to plot against her husband, the next time she gave birth, to her son Zeus, she bundled up a stone in place of the baby and offered it to Cronos; who unsuspecting swallowed it. Zeus was then hidden in a cave and fed on honey and goat’s milk.

When Zeus was grown, he became the cup bearer of the still unsuspecting Cronos and gave him an emetic drink provided by Rhea. Cronos then promptly vomited up the children he had swallowed. Cronos was overthrown – it seems nothing can deter the wheels of fate – and banished. Zeus then reigned supreme, chief of the gods who are called Olympian.

Atlas was opposed to the overthrow of Cronus by Zeus, and led a revolt against his younger relative, which failed miserably. This revolt against the victorious new order, is most likely one of the causes for the Titans in some accounts, being regarded as a wild, rebellious and violent race.

The penalty imposed upon the defeated was severe. The Olympian gods, forgetting all familial ties, banished them beneath the earth forever. Atlas was singled out for a different punishment, he was condemned to hold upon his shoulders, the mighty globe of the heavens – in this context it is interesting to note the name Atlas originates in ‘the bearer’ from henai ‘to bear’. Atlas was called the first astronomer, and Robert Graves interprets the myth of his shouldering the celestial sphere, as symbolic of the extent of his sidereal knowledge.

Atlas had three daughters called the Hesperides. The name means ‘of the west’ and ‘of the evening’ from the Greek feminine plural hesperios.  Their names bear out their association with the evening. Aegla means dazzling twilight, Hespere is the evening star and Erytheis the dawn. These daughters of Atlas were said to tend a golden apple tree of immortality, in a garden in a far western country, surrounded by the true ocean; which matches the location where Atlantis was said to be situated.

 Although the apples are said to belong to the goddess Hera, the garden itself is in the control of Atlas, who built a solid wall around it, to protect the tree from strangers.

Unfortunately, the Hesperides were discovered by the goddess Hera, stealing apples from the tree, and so she set the dragon Draco or in other accounts the serpent-like dragon Ladon, to coil around the trunk of the tree; and guard against any more pilfering.

The Greek mythic hero Heracles, as one of his twelfth labours, was set the task of stealing one of the apples. He came upon Atlas walking in the garden, shouldering the celestial globe, and offered to carry the burden for a brief time; if Atlas would give him apples from the tree.

Atlas overwhelmed by the desire to be released from his burden, if only briefly, consented, but first demanded Hercules kill the dragon guarding the tree. Hercules killed it with an arrow, and shouldered the celestial globe, where upon Atlas brought him the apples he desired.

Obviously, Atlas was reluctant to resume his grievous celestial burden immediately and said he would himself take the apples to King Eurystheus of Mycenae; who had set Heracles this task. Hercules agreed, but asked if Atlas would shoulder the globe once more, so that he could first put on a protective pad to ease the discomfort of the burden. Atlas agreed and once more shouldered the globe, but Heracles had lied, and he ran off with the precious apples.

Afterwards Hera, finding the dead Draco, or in some accounts Ladon, beneath the tree, set them both up in the heavens as star constellations: Draco becoming Draco the Dragon, and Ladon the Serpent.

These are the main mythic elements of Atlas’ life, which I will next decode as to their real significance – because myths like poetry never say exactly what they mean. In the case of poetry, you must understand the alphabet of the poet’s heart, in myth the alphabet of the sacred mysteries.

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World Pillar, World Tree. The navel of the earth

The mythology of Atlas indicates very strongly, that he was a personification of a World Pillar, an axis mundi. The ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus c525-c456 BC in ‘Prometheus Bound’, has Prometheus, the brother of Atlas, referring to him as the pillar between heaven and earth.

A World Pillar – as I explained in the introduction – refers to the ancient belief, that certain places on the earth acted as an axis; around which the Earth, Heavens and the Underworld revolved in union. This axis was also imagined as an umbilical cord between these realms, and the place referred to as a ’navel’, also called ’the centre of the world’ – reflecting the central location of the human navel. These navels were marked with sacred stones and pillars, or trees and mountains. Atlas bears the hallmark of an archetypal World Pillar, with his feet on the ground, and his pillar-like body linking it with the stars.

The belief in navel sites exists worldwide – and as in the case of Atlas, is often connected to kingship – the ben-ben stone atOn (Heliopolis) in ancient Egypt is just such a navel stone, representing the sacred mound where all life began. The ancient Greek conical omphalos stones, the most famous at Delphi.  The ancient Canaanites, and the Hebrews in the Midrash Tanhuma, identifies the foundation stone of the Dome of the Rock (the location of Solomon’s temple) as the navel of the world. Ancient Rome also had its navel, the Umbilicus Urbis Romae, all that is left today is a brick cone shape, but it was originally covered with marble. In the Aztec empire, the Temple Mayor in Tenõchtítlãn (now Mexico City), was called the centre or navel of their world. The origins of the word ’Mexico’ may originate in the Nahuatl Aztec language meaning ’navel of the moon.’ In contemporary times, Heinrich Himmler 1900-45 chief of the SS and the Gestapo, called the SS ritual headquarters in Wewelsburg castle Westphalia, a navel of the world – the centre for a new Germanic religion.

So, in his mythology Atlas a ‘pillar’ who unites Heaven and Earth, was also a king ruling over the very heart of Atlantis that possesses a pillar also linking heaven to earth, for through it the will of the god Poseidon can be learnt. If Homer was referring to Atlantis in his Ogygia, is this why he called it  omphalos thalassic ‘navel of the sea’?  This Atlantean pillar, linked to the heavens in it declaring the will of the god Poseidon, was like an axle-rod at the heart of the city of turnings – mimicking the revolving Earth, Underworld and Heavens around a World Pillar.

 As I explained in the introduction in some cases a World Pillar and World Tree were united, and this is the case with Atlas – for the apple tree of the Hesperides has the prime features of a World Tree.

 Time to look more closely at this Atlantean apple tree.