Atlas’s Family Tree

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Family

• Clymene(parent),Iapetus(parent),Epimetheus(sibling),Menoetius (Titan)(sibling),Prometheus(sibling)— Consort

  Iapetus and Clymene fathered four sons — Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Menoetius Titan — each punished differently by Zeus after the Titanomachy. Atlas bears the sky, Prometheus is chained to a rock, Menoetius Titan was cast into Erebus, and Epimetheus loosed suffering on mankind by accepting Pandora.

  ⚠ Hesiod (Theogony 507) names the Oceanid Clymene as their mother; Apollodorus (Bibliotheca 1.2.3) names the Oceanid Asia instead.

• Pleione(spouse),Electra (Pleiad)(child),Maia(child),Merope(child),Pleiades(child)— Consort

  Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione bore the seven Pleiades — Maia, Electra, Merope, Taygete, Alcyone, Celaeno, and Sterope — who were placed among the stars by Zeus to shield them from Orion's relentless pursuit across the earth.

• Calypso(child)

  Atlas fathered Calypso, the nymph who held Odysseus captive on Ogygia for seven years, whom Homer calls 'daughter of baneful Atlas who knows the depths of all the seas.'

• Hyades(child)

  Atlas fathered the Hyades, nymphs who nursed the infant Dionysus on Mount Nysa and were placed among the stars in gratitude by Zeus.

  ⚠ Apollodorus (Bibliotheca 3.4.3) names their mother as Aethra, an Oceanid; Hyginus (Astronomica 2.21) names Pleione, making them full sisters of the Pleiades.

Enemy of

• Zeus

  Atlas led the Titans' war against the Olympians, and Zeus singled him out for the most enduring punishment — not imprisonment in Tartarus with his brothers, but eternal conscious labor holding the sky at the western edge of the world.

Member of

• Titans

  Atlas, strongest of the Titans, served as their general during the Titanomachy and earned the harshest individual punishment — eternal labor holding the sky rather than imprisonment in Tartarus with his kin.

Associated with

• Heracles

  Heracles offered to hold the sky while Atlas fetched the golden apples of the Hesperides. Atlas, tasting freedom, tried to leave Heracles beneath the heavens forever, but the hero tricked him into taking the burden back by asking him to hold it for just a moment while he adjusted his cloak.

• Ladon

  The serpent Ladon coiled around the tree of golden apples in Atlas's garden at the western edge of the world. When Heracles came for the apples, Atlas walked past the deathless dragon to pluck them himself while the hero bore the sky in his stead.

• Perseus

  Perseus came to Atlas seeking rest on his westward journey, but the Titan barred his door, warned by a prophecy that a son of Zeus would steal the golden apples. Perseus drew forth Medusa's head and turned Atlas to stone — his body becoming the Atlas Mountains, his hair the forests, his shoulders the cliffs.