by Lieutenant General (Ret.) K. H. Konstantinidis
Atlas was the son of the Titan Iapetus and Clymene. With Pleione, he fathered the daughters known as the Pleiades; with Aethra, the Hyades; and with Hesperis, the Hesperides. The Giant Atlas is mentioned in many traditions. There were several figures bearing the same name. At times, he is considered the son of Iapetus and Asia (an Oceanid), or the son of Uranus and brother of Cronus.
In the battle of the Giants against the Gods, Zeus punished him by making him hold the Earth and the vault of Heaven upon his shoulders for the rest of his life. His kingdom was in Northwestern Africa, around the mountain bearing his name, and under his jurisdiction lay the land of the Hesperides, which was situated at the far end of the West, as well as the land of the Hyperboreans.
Once, Heracles went to fetch the Apples of the Hesperides. On his return, he encountered Atlas, who was carrying the sphere of the Earth upon his shoulders. According to tradition, Atlas knew the depths of the Ocean and had erected columns (pillars) that supported Europe —and, according to another tradition, the Earth— so that it would not sink into the depths of Tartarus beneath the Ocean.
From the position of his kingdom, Atlas was able to assist the ancient Greeks in their overseas voyages, enabling them to spread their Civilization. From his name, all maps came to be known as ATLASES.
1. PERSEUS
Another hero of antiquity, also a son of the Titan Iapetus and Clymene, was Perseus. He too travelled across the Atlantic Ocean and elsewhere.
During his great expedition to Hesperia, Perseus killed Medusa the Gorgon. As he was returning to Greece, flying through the heavens on his winged horse, Pegasus, he turned the eyes of Medusa toward Atlas. Atlas was immediately turned to stone and transformed into the mountain bearing his name in Northwestern Africa.
2. PROMETHEUS
Prometheus was the son of the Titan Iapetus and Clymene. His name allegorically signifies the one who “knows beforehand, learns beforehand, is provident and farsighted.” He foresaw everything and understood that particular causes or actions bring about particular results.
According to tradition, he stole Fire from the Gods and gave it to humankind.
3. EPIMETHEUS
Epimetheus, too, was a son of Iapetus and Clymene, opposite in character and actions to his brother Prometheus. His name signifies the one who thinks after the event, or the one who suffers and then learns.
The younger Epimetheus (+/- 14,000 B.C.) married Pandora, and they had a daughter, Pyrrha, who married Deucalion, the king who survived the Flood bearing his name.
Pandora was the woman whom Hephaestus, together with Athena, fashioned —or, one might say, shaped and educated— on Mount Olympus. According to tradition, each god or goddess endowed her with a particular virtue: beauty, skill, grace, persuasion and the gift of speech. Hermes alone endowed her with cunning and deceit.
Zeus intended her to become the wife of Prometheus, as punishment for his having stolen fire from Olympus and given it to humankind. Prometheus warned his brother not to accept Pandora as his wife, because she would bring many evils upon humanity.
But the credulous Epimetheus was dazzled by her beauty and married her.
Pandora brought as a gift from Olympus a jar, sealed and containing all the good and evil destined for the human race. Impatient, however, she opened it, and immediately all the good things returned to Heaven. She managed to close it again when all that remained inside were the evils, which had been placed at the bottom of the jar.
The only good that remained in the jar was Hope, which humanity inherited as a consolation.
Not much has been written about the life and work of Epimetheus. The myth was shaped in the time of Hesiod.
COMMENTARY
a/ Atlas and his children symbolize the seafaring wanderings of the Greek people from the deepest antiquity, a journey that continues uninterrupted to this day.
b/ Within this framework belong the ancient organized expeditions of the Greeks —the Argonautic Expedition and the expedition to Troy— undertaken for the dissemination of their Civilization throughout the world.
c/ The seafaring Greek people have continued this wandering from the earliest times through successive migratory movements, establishing colonies throughout the world, spreading their Civilization, but also satisfying their thirst “to know” —to explore and discover the world.
Even today, in the most remote and inaccessible parts of the world, one can find Greeks who arrived there driven by the flame of discovery and the desire to encounter the unknown.
d/ Atlas, apparently, had established a base around Gibraltar and supported voyages across the Atlantic —providing supplies, meteorological information, navigational safety and rest for crews, among other things.
e/ The marriage of the impulsive Epimetheus and Pandora is timeless and also characterizes modern humanity, which first follows the wrong path and only afterward learns and corrects its course. Yet it has always had Hope as its ally.
f/ Never before, however, had humanity ventured so deeply into the dark tunnel as it has in our present age through Artificial Intelligence.
And while the modern Prometheuses who created it warn humanity that, with this instrument —through which it attempts to become equal to the gods— if it continues along the same path, it will be led into the abyss of complete destruction,
it nevertheless moves relentlessly toward its possible destruction.
g/ Here the myth ends, and the real agonizing struggle with oneself begins, in order to free oneself from the illusions and stereotypes that have cast humanity into the tunnel of the false Amalthea.
h/ The “Cornucopia of Amalthea” symbolizes the inexhaustible source of abundance.
(10 September 2026)
Lieutenant General (Ret.) Konstantinos Konstantinidis
Author – Member of the Society of Greek Writers
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