Poseidon / Neptune
God of the sea, earthquakes, and horses
Poseidon is the god of the sea, earthquakes, and horses, and one of the three great brothers who divided the world between them. With his trident he could raise storms, shatter rocks, and shake the earth itself.
How they were born
Poseidon was the son of the Titans Cronus and Rhea, and the brother of Zeus and Hades. In the most common telling, Cronus swallowed him at birth, as he had swallowed his other children, fearing a prophecy that one of them would overthrow him. In another version Rhea hid the baby among a flock of sheep, or gave Cronus a foal to swallow instead, and the child was raised in secret until Zeus freed his brothers and sisters.
The greatest stories
The Contest for Athens
When the new city on the Acropolis needed a patron god, Poseidon and Athena each offered it a gift. Poseidon struck the rock with his trident and a spring of salt water burst out, and in some versions the first horse leaped from the blow. Athena planted the first olive tree, a gift of food, oil, and wood. The judges, the twelve gods or the Athenian king Cecrops, chose Athena's olive, and the city was named Athens. Furious, Poseidon flooded the Thriasian Plain, but his salt spring and the mark of his trident were still shown on the Acropolis centuries later.
Poseidon Against Odysseus
Poseidon held a ten-year grudge against the hero Odysseus. After the Trojan War, Odysseus and his men landed on the island of the Cyclops Polyphemus, a one-eyed giant and a son of Poseidon, and Odysseus blinded him to escape his cave. Polyphemus prayed to his father, and Poseidon answered by wrecking Odysseus's ships, drowning his crew, and keeping him wandering the seas for ten years. Only when Odysseus humbly made peace with the sea god, carrying an oar inland as the prophet Tiresias had told him, was the curse finally lifted.
Medusa and the Birth of Pegasus
Poseidon and the Gorgon Medusa were lovers in Athena's temple, and Athena punished Medusa by turning her hair to snakes and making her gaze deadly. When Perseus later beheaded Medusa, two children sprang from her neck: the giant Chrysaor and Pegasus, the winged horse. Pegasus, Poseidon's son, became the horse of heroes and the bearer of Zeus's thunderbolts, and Poseidon himself was said to have created the very first horse, striking it from the earth or the sea foam with his trident.
The Walls of Troy
Poseidon and Apollo once served King Laomedon of Troy for a year, building the city's great walls as a punishment from Zeus. Poseidon raised the massive stone ramparts, and Apollo played music and tended the herds, but when the work was done Laomedon refused to pay them their agreed wages. In revenge Poseidon sent a sea monster to ravage Troy's coast and demanded the sacrifice of the king's daughter Hesione, whom Heracles later rescued, and the insult was one more reason the gods turned against Troy in its final war.
The Titanomachy and the Drawing of Lots
When Zeus freed his brothers and sisters from their father Cronus, Poseidon fought beside him in the ten-year war against the Titans. The Cyclopes, freed from Tartarus, gave the three brothers their great weapons: the thunderbolt to Zeus, the helm of darkness to Hades, and the trident to Poseidon. After the Titans were defeated and cast into Tartarus, the three brothers drew lots for the world: Zeus won the sky, Hades the Underworld, and Poseidon the sea, where he built his golden palace beneath the waves and rode in a chariot drawn by sea horses.
Family & connections
Symbol, animal & weapon
Fun facts
- The famous Artemision Bronze, pulled from the sea off Cape Artemision in 1928, is still debated by scholars: with its weapon lost, no one can be sure whether it shows Zeus about to throw a thunderbolt or Poseidon about to hurl his trident.
- Poseidon's Roman name, Neptune, was given to the eighth planet when it was discovered in 1846, and the planet's largest moon, Triton, is named after Poseidon's son.
- His epithet Ennosigaios means "Earth-shaker," and Greeks blamed earthquakes and the great wave that destroyed the city of Helike in 373 BC on his anger.
- The temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion, on a cliff above the Aegean, was the last sight of land for Athenian sailors heading out to sea and the first sight on their return.
Gallery — sculpture & art
