Atlas, in Greek Mythology, son of the Titan Iapetus and Clymene, and brother of Prometheus and Epimetheus. He was father of the Pleiades and the Hyades. As leader of the Titans, he attempted to storm the heavens, and for this supreme treason was condemned by Zeus to bear the vault of heaven on his head and hands, in the neighbourhood of the Hesperides at the western extremity of the earth, where day and night meet, on the mountains in the north-west of Africa still called by his name. Some supposed, however, that he was originally a man metamorphosed into a mountain; and Ovid explains that Persus changed him by means of Medusa's head into stone for his inhospitality. Some tried to rationalise the myth, explaining Atlas as a mighty king who had great skill in astronomy, and only tried to storm heaven intellectually.
Mercator, in the 16th century, gave the name Atlas to a collection of maps; probably because the figure of Atlas supporting the heavens had been given on the title-pages of such works. The name is also applied to a collection of illustrative plates, large engravings, or a conspectus of any subject arranged in tabular form. See MAP.