Atlas
Ἄτλας
A Titan condemned to carry the heavens for losing a war.
He sided with Cronus in the Titan war and lost; his punishment was to hold up the sky at the western edge of the world.
When Heracles came for the golden apples, they briefly traded burdens — and when Atlas tried not to take it back, Heracles tricked him into shouldering it again.
The Atlas Mountains of North Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean off their shore, carry his name.
SourcesHesiod, Theogony
Commonly confused
What Atlas carried was the sky, not the earth. The image of him holding a globe spread after the Renaissance.