The Life of Tycho Brahe

can lie hidden under the coverings of fables. And to begin with the most ancient of the gods; he was called Caelus (in Greek, Οὐρανὸς), according to Diodorus Siculus, for no other reason than because he was intensely devoted to the observation of the stars. Since he had many children, and above all Atlas, Saturn, and the Titans, among whom specifically Hyperion and Iapetus; it may be considered that almost his entire family applied themselves to the same care of the celestial bodies. For, since Caelus dwelt in Mauritania by the Ocean, and from there ruled widely not only in Africa but also in Europe; it is known that Atlas, who succeeded him in that same region, is considered to have given his name to the famous Mountain of that region because he observed the stars from it: for the ancients, like the common people even today, considered Heaven to be so near the tops of the mountains that the higher one climbed, the more clearly and distinctly it was believed one could view the stars. Lib. 3. l. 2. c. 8. Diodorus, Pliny, and others add that it was believed that Atlas sustained Heaven on his shoulders because he had fashioned a sphere in which the whole of Heaven was represented: Strom. 1. Clement of Alexandria, however, notes after Herodotus that Hercules, since he was a seer and a physicist, was said to receive the pillars of the World from Atlas (perhaps as from his great-uncle), or to relieve him of the burden of Heaven, because he succeeded him in that science and study of Heaven. Diod. ibid. Concerning Hesperus, the son of Atlas, it is handed down that while he was watching the stars from the same mountain, he was suddenly taken by a disease and vanished; and the common people, because of his piety and justice, named the most beautiful star after him, which is also called Vesperugo (namely, Venus, while it is in the west). As for his sisters, who were called both Atlantides and Pleiades, because of the same study they gave their name to the cluster of stars