A complete dictionary of the Greek and Roman antiquities explaining the obscure places in classic authors and ancient historians relating to the religion, mythology, history, geography and chronology of the ancient Greeks and Romans, their ... rites and customs, laws, polity, arts and engines of war : also an account of their navigations, arts and sciences and the inventors of them : with the lives and opinions of their philosophers / compiled originally in French ... by Monsieur Danet ; made English, with the addition of very useful mapps.

ATLAS,

King of Mauritania, who be∣cause he was much addicted to Astronomical Observations, gave occasion to the Fables, which will have Atlas hold up the Heaven, and that Hercules took his Place for a Day to ease him, because Atlas being the first, who taught the Course of the Sun and Moon, the setting and rising of the Stars, and all the Motion of the Heavens, which he had disco∣ver'd with much Ingenuity and Labour. The Painters and Carvers in Memory of it have represented him as holding up the Heavens upon his Shoulders. Ovid tells us, that Atlas was changed into a Mountain by Perseus, at his Return from his Expedition against the Gorgens, for refusing to entertain him, but Hyginus says, that Atlas having sided with the Giants in the War against Jupiter, when he had overcome them, the God con∣strained Atlas for favouring them to bear the Heavens upon his Shoulders.

Indeed there were 3 Atlas's, the 1st. King of Italy, the Father of Electra the Wife of Co∣rytus. The 2d. was of Arcadia, the Father of Maia, of whom Mercury was born. The 3d. of Mauritania, Brother of Prometheus, of whom we have already spoken.

Herodotus knew no other Atlas, but a Moun∣tain in Africa, which seemed to touch the Heavens by its heighth, so that the neighbou∣ring People called it the Pillar of Heaven, and derived their Name from it. But Dio∣dorus Siculus tell us, that in the furthermost Parts of Africk, Hesperus, and Atlas two Bro∣thers had Flocks of Sheep with red Wooll, from whom the Poets took occasion to make

these red Sheep to pass for golden Apples, because the Greek Word 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 signifies Sheep and Apples. Hesperides gave his Daugh∣ter Hasperis in Marriage to Atlas, who had 7 Daughters by her, who were called Hespe∣rides or Atlantiades, who Busiris King of Aegypt stole, but Hercules travelling through Africk conquered Busiris, recovered Atlas's Daughters, and restored them to their Fa∣ther. Atlas to require this Favour taught Hercules Astrology, in which he grew famous, and gave him a Celestial Globe. Hercules carried this Science and Knowledge into Greece, and the Greeks feigned that Atlas sup∣ported the Heavens, and was released from it by Hercules.