ATARANTES
Eth.
ATARANTES (
Ἀτάραντες), a people of Inner Libya, in the N. part of the Great Desert (
Sahara), in an oasis formed by salt hills, between the Garamantes and Atlantes, at a distance of ten days' journey from each (
Hdt. 4.184), apparently in
Fezzan. They used no individual names; and they were accustomed to curse the Sun for its burning heat (
῾ηλίῳ ὑκερβάλλοντι, the sun as it passes over-their heads, or when its heat is excessive ; the commentators differ about the meaning).
In all the MSS. of Herodotus, the reading is
Ἄτλαντες. But,. as Herodotus goes on to speak separately of the Atlantes, the editors are agreed that the reading in the first passage has been corrupted by the common confusion of a name comparatively unknown with one well known; and this view is confirmed by the fact that Mela (1.8.5) and Pliny (
5.8) give an account of the
Atlantes, copied from the above statements of Herodotus, with the addition of what Herodotus affirms in the second passage of the Atlantes (where the name is right), that they saw no visions in their sleep.
The reading
Ἀτάραντες is a correction of Salmasius (
ad Solin. p. 292), on the authority of a passage from the
Achaica of the Alexandrian writer Rhianus (ap. Eustath.
ad Dion. Perieg. 66: comp.
Steph. B. sub voce Ἄτλαντες; Nicol. Damasc. ap. Stob. Tit. xliv. vol. ii. p. 226, Gaisf.;
Diod. 3.8; Solin.
l.c.; Baehr,
ad Herod. l.c.; Meineke,
Anal. Alex. pp. 181, 182.)
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P.S]
