According to Hygīnus, Atlas having assisted the giants in their war against Jupiter, was doomed by the victorious god, as a punishment, to sustain the weight of the heavens. Ovid, however, represents him as a powerful and wealthy monarch, proprietor of the gardens of the Hesperĭdes, which bore golden fruit; but that being warned by the oracle of Themis that he should suffer some great injury from a son of Jupiter, he strictly forbade all foreigners access to his presence. Perseus, however, having the courage to appear before him, was ordered to retire, with strong menaces in case of disobedience; but the hero presenting his shield, with the dreadful head of Medūsa, turned him into the mountain which still bears his name. The Abbé la Pluche has given a very clear and ingenious explication of this fable. Of all nations the Egyptians had, with the greatest assiduity, cultivated astronomy. To point out the difficulties attending the study of this science, they represented it by an image bearing a globe or sphere on its back, which they called _Atlas_, a word signifying _great toil or labor_; but the word also signifying _support_, the Phœnicians, led by the representation, took it in this sense, and in their voyages to Mauritania, seeing the high mountains of that country covered with snow, and losing their tops in the clouds, gave them the name of _Atlas_, and thus produced the fable by which the symbol of astronomy used among the Egyptians became a Mauritanian king, transformed into a mountain, whose head supports the heavens. The rest of the fable is equally obvious to explanation. The annual inundations of the Nile obliged the Egyptians to be very exact in observing the motions of the heavenly bodies. The Hyades, or Huades, took their name from the figure V, which they form in the head of Taurus. The Pleiades were a remarkable constellation and of great use to the Egyptians in regulating the seasons: hence they became the daughters of Atlas; and Orion, who arose just as they set, was called their lover. By the golden apples that grew in the gardens of the Hesperides, the Phœnicians expressed the rich and beneficial commerce they had in the Mediterranean, which being carried on during three months only of the year, gave rise to the fable of the Hesperian sisters. The most usual way of representing Atlas, among the ancient artists, was as supporting a globe; for the old poets commonly refer to this attitude in speaking of him.