ATAHUALLPA (atahu, Lat. virtus, and allpa, sweet), “the last of the Incas” (or Yncas) of Peru, was the son of the ruler Huayna Capac, by Pacha, the daughter of the conquered sovereign of Quito. His brother Huascar succeeded Huayna Capac in 1527; for, as Atahuallpa was not descended on both sides from the line of Incas, Peruvian law considered him illegitimate. He obtained, however, the kingdom of Quito. A jealous feeling soon sprang up between him and Huascar, who insisted that Quito should be held as a dependent province of his empire. A civil war broke out between the brothers, and, about the time when the Spanish conqueror Pizarro was beginning to move inland from the town of San Miguel, Huascar had been defeated and thrown into prison, and Atahuallpa had become Inca. Pizarro set out in September 1532, and made for Caxamarca, where the Inca was. Messengers passed frequently between them, and the Spaniards on their march were hospitably received by the inhabitants. On the 15th of November, Pizarro entered Caxamarca, and sent his brother and Ferdinando de Soto to request an interview with the Inca. On the evening of the next day, Atahuallpa entered the great square of Caxamarca, accompanied by some five or six thousand men, who were either unarmed or armed only with short clubs and slings concealed under their dresses. Pizarro’s artillery and soldiers were planted in readiness in the streets opening off the square. The interview was carried on by the priest Vicente de Valverde, who addressed the Inca through an interpreter. He stated briefly and dogmatically the principal points of the Christian faith and the Roman Catholic policy, and concluded by calling upon Atahuallpa to become a Christian, obey the commands of the pope, give up the administration of his kingdom, and pay tribute to Charles V., to whom had been granted the conquest of these lands. To this extraordinary harangue, which from its own nature and the faults of the interpreter must have been completely unintelligible, the Inca at first returned a very temperate answer. He pointed out what seemed to him certain difficulties in the Christian religion, and declined to accept as monarch of his dominions this Charles, of whom he knew nothing. He then took a bible from the priest’s hands, and, after looking at it, threw it violently from him, and began a more impassioned speech, in which he exposed the designs of the Spaniards, and upbraided them with the cruelties they had perpetrated. The priest retired, and Pizarro at once gave the signal for attack. The Spaniards rushed out suddenly, and the Peruvians, astonished and defenceless, were cut down in hundreds. Pizarro himself seized the Inca, and in endeavouring to preserve him alive, received, accidentally, on his hand the only wound inflicted that day on a Spaniard. Atahuallpa, thus treacherously captured, offered an enormous sum of money as a ransom, and fulfilled his engagement; but Pizarro still detained him, until the Spaniards should have arrived in sufficient numbers to secure the country. While in captivity, Atahuallpa gave secret orders for the assassination of his brother Huascar, and also endeavoured to raise an army to expel the invaders. His plans were betrayed, and Pizarro at once brought him to trial. He was condemned to death, and, as being an idolater, to death by fire. Atahuallpa, however, professed himself a Christian, received baptism, and his sentence was then altered into death by strangulation (August 29, 1533). His body was afterwards burned, and the ashes conveyed to Quito. (See also [Peru]: History.)
ATALANTA, in Greek legend, the name of two Greek heroines, (1) The Arcadian Atalanta was the daughter of Iasius or Iasion and Clymene. At her birth, she had been exposed on a hill, her father having expected a son. At first she was suckled by a she-bear, and then saved by huntsmen, among whom she grew up to be skilled with the bow, swift, and fond of the chase, like the virgin goddess Artemis. At the Calydonian boar-hunt her arrows were the first to hit the monster, for which its head and hide were given her by Meleager. At the funeral games of Pelias, she wrestled with Peleus, and won. For a long time she remained true to Artemis and rejected all suitors, but Meilanion at last gained her love by his persistent devotion. She was the mother of Parthenopaeus, one of the Seven against Thebes (Apollodorus iii. 9; Hyginus, Fab. 99). (2) The Boeotian Atalanta was the daughter of Schoeneus. She was famed for her running, and would only consent to marry a suitor who could outstrip her in a race, the consequence of failure being death. Hippomenes, before starting, had obtained from Aphrodite three golden apples, which he dropped at intervals, and Atalanta, stopping to pick them up, fell behind. Both were happy at the result; but forgetting to thank the goddess for the apples, they were led by her to a religious crime, and were transformed into lions by the goddess Cybele (Ovid, Metam. x. 560; Hyginus, Fab. 185). The characteristics of these two heroines (frequently confounded) point to their being secondary forms of the Arcadian Artemis.
ATARGATIS, a Syrian deity, known to the Greeks by a shortened form of the name, Derketo (Strabo xvi. c. 785; Pliny, Nat. Hist. v. 23. 81), and as Dea Syria, or in one word Deasura (Lucian, de Dea Syria). She is generally described as the “fish-goddess.” The name is a compound of two divine names; the first part is a form of the Himyaritic ’Athlar, the equivalent of the Old Testament Ashtoreth, the Phoenician Astarte (q.v.), with the feminine ending omitted (Assyr. Ishtar); the second is a Palmyrene name ’Athe (i.e. tempus opportunum), which occurs as part of many compounds. As a consequence of the first half of the name, Atargatis has frequently, though wrongly, been identified with Astarte. The two deities were, no doubt, of common origin, but their cults are historically distinct. In 2 Macc. xii. 26 we find reference to an Atargateion or Atergateion (temple of Atargatis) at Carnion in Gilead (cf. 1 Macc. v. 43), but the home of the goddess was unquestionably not Palestine, but Syria proper, especially at Hierapolis (q.v.), where she had a great temple. From Syria her worship extended to Greece, Italy and the furthest west. Lucian and Apuleius give descriptions of the beggar-priests who went round the great cities with an image of the goddess on an ass and collected money. The wide extension of the cult is attributable largely to Syrian merchants; thus we find traces of it in the great seaport towns; at Delos especially numerous inscriptions have been found bearing witness to its importance. Again we find the cult in Sicily, introduced, no doubt, by slaves and mercenary troops, who carried it even to the farthest northern limits of the Roman empire. In many cases, however, Atargatis and Astarte are fused to such an extent as to be indistinguishable. This fusion is exemplified by the Carnion temple, which is probably identical with the famous temple of Astarte at Ashtaroth-Karnaim.
Atargatis appears generally as the wife of Hadad (Baal). They are the protecting deities of the community. Atargatis, in the capacity of πολιοῦχος, wears a mural crown, is the ancestor of the royal house, the founder of social and religious life, the goddess of generation and fertility (hence the prevalence of phallic emblems), and the inventor of useful appliances. Not unnaturally she is identified with the Greek Aphrodite. By the conjunction of these many functions, she becomes ultimately a great Nature-Goddess, analogous to Cybele and Rhea (see [Great Mother of the Gods]); in one aspect she typifies the function of water in producing life; in another, the universal mother-earth (Macrobius, Saturn, i. 23); in a third (influenced, no doubt, by Chaldaean astrology), the power of destiny. The legends are numerous and of an astrological character, intended to account for the Syrian dove-worship and abstinence from fish (see the story in Athenaeus viii. 37, where Atargatis is derived from ἄτερ Γάτιδος “without Gatis,”—a queen who is said to have forbidden the eating of fish). Thus Diodorus Siculus, using Ctesias, tells how she fell in love with a youth who was worshipping at the shrine of Aphrodite, and by him became the mother of Semiramis, the Assyrian queen, and how in shame she flung herself into a pool at Ascalon or Hierapolis and was changed into a fish (W. Robertson Smith in Eng. Hist. Rev. ii., 1887). In another story she was hatched from an egg found by some fish in the Euphrates and by them thrust on the bank where it was hatched by a dove; out of gratitude she persuaded Jupiter to transfer the fish to the Zodiac (cf. Ovid, Fast. ii. 459-474, Metam. v. 331).
See articles s.v. in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyk. (1897), by W. Baudissin; and Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyc.; Fr. Baethgen, Beiträge zur Semit. Religiongesch. (1888); R. Pietschmann, Gesch. der Phönizier (1889).
ATAULPHUS (the Latinized form of the Gothic Ataulf, “Father-wolf,” from atta, father, and vulfs, wolf; mod. Germ. Adolf, Latinized as Adolphus, the form used by Gibbon for the subject of this article), king of the Goths (d. 415). On the death of Alaric (q.v.) his followers acclaimed his brother-in-law Ataulphus as king. In 412 he quitted Italy and led his army across the Alps into Gaul. Here he fought against some of the usurpers who threatened the throne of Honorius; he made some sort of compact with that emperor and, in 414, he married his sister Placidia, who had been since the siege of Rome a captive in the camp of the Goths. The ex-emperor Attalus danced at the marriage festival, which was celebrated with great pomp at Narbonne. In 415 Ataulphus crossed the Pyrenees into Spain and died at Barcelona, being assassinated by a groom. The most important fact in his history is his confession, recorded by Orosius, that he saw the inability of his countrymen to rear a civilized or abiding kingdom, and that consequently his aim should be to build on Roman foundations and blend the two nations into one.