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6We call telamones those figures placed for the support of mutuli or cornices, but on what account is not found in history. The Greeks, however, call them ἄτλαντες (atlantes). Atlas, according to history, is represented in the act of sustaining the universe, because he is said to have been the first person who explained to mankind the sun’s course, that of the moon, the rising and setting of the stars, and the celestial motions, by the power of his mind and the acuteness of his understanding. Hence it is, that, by painters and sculptors, he is, for his exertions, represented as bearing the world: and his daughters, the Atlantides, whom we call Vergiliæ, and the Greeks, Πλειάδες, were honoured by being placed among the constellations.
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