Of Titans and Gods and Knowing the Difference

I enjoyed reading Paul Guinnessy’s Issues and Events piece “Statue Hid Hipparchus Star Catalog” (Physics Today, April 2005, page 27). Insight into ancient historical achievements teaches, if nothing else, humility about our achievements. There is a minor error in the explanatory text: Atlas is not a Greek god, but a Titan, and thus an adversary of the gods.

According to classical Greek mythology, ¹ after a 10-year war, the gods won, and all male Titans except Atlas were exiled to an island in the Far West. The female Titans were left unharmed, since two of them had aided the gods in their struggle. Atlas, as ringleader, got a particular sentence: He was condemned to carry the heavens on his shoulders.