Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Atlantes

（ἄτλαντες) and Telamōnes (τελαμῶνες). Terms used in architecture, the former by the Greeks, the latter by the Romans, to desig

Atlantes. (From Temple at Agrigentum: Prof. Cockerell.)

nate those male figures which are sometimes fancifully used, like the female caryatides, in place of columns. Both words are derived from τλῆναι, and the former evidently refers to the fable of Atlas, who supported the vault of heaven; the latter perhaps to the strength of the Telamonian Aiax. A representation of such figures is given in the preceding illustration, from the temple of Zeus Olympius at Agrigentum. See Caryatides.