Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Atlantes

Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, and Greek Lexicon (Rich, 1849)

ATLANTES (Ἄτλαντες). Properly a Greek term (to which the Latin TELAMONES corresponds), used to designate human figures, when employed as architectural supports to an entablature or cornice, instead of columns, and so termed in allusion to the story of Atlas, who bore the heavens on his shoulders. (Vitruv. vi. 10.) One of these figures is given under ARCULUS, from a specimen at Pompeii.