Poseidon, Neptunus
"This son of Kronos and Rhea became the ruler of the sea. His queen was Amphitrite, one of the daughters of Nereus and Doris. Their children were Triton and Rhode,…
From: Unknown To: 1838 C.E.
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“Poseidon,” from The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy by Thomas Keightley, 1838.
Chapter VI
The Kronids:—Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia
The Kronids, or children of Kronos and Rhea, were Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Hera, and Demeter. The four first we shall place here: the two last, as wives of Zeus, will find their more appropriate situation along with their children.
Poseidon, Neptunus.
This son of Kronos and Rhea became the ruler of the sea. His queen was Amphitrite, one of the daughters of Nereus and Doris. Their children were Triton and Rhode, or Rhodos, which last became the bride of Helios. A late legend said that Amphitrite fled the love of the god, but that he came riding on a dolphin, and thus won her affection; and for his service he placed the dolphin among the stars.
Poseidon, like his brother Zeus, had a numerous progeny both by goddesses and mortals. The fleet steed Areion was the offspring of the sea-god and Demeter, both having assumed the equine form. According to one account the nymph Rhodos was his daughter by Aphrodite.
Tyro, the daughter of Salmoneus, and wife of Cretheus, loved the river Enipeus, and frequented his stream; Poseidon, under the form of the river-god, 'mingled in love’ with her, and she became the mother of Pelias and Neleus. Iphimedeia bore him Otos and Ephialtes, those gigantic babes, who in their ninth year attempted to scale heaven. As a ram, he was by Theophane, daughter of Bisaltos, the sire of the gold-fleeced ram which carried Phryxos to Colchis. The sea-nymph Thoosa bore him the huge Cyclops Polyphemos. The invulnerable Cycnos, who was slain by Achilles, was also the offspring of this deity: so also were Theseus, Eumolpos, and other heroes.
Poseidon was worshiped in Arcadia under the title of Hippios. One legend of that country made him the sire of the steed Areion; and another said that when Rhea brought him forth, she pretended to Kronos that she had been delivered of a foal, which she gave him to devour. The origin of the horse was also ascribed to this god. According to a Thessalian legend, he smote a rock in that country with his trident, and forth sprang the first horse, which was named Scyphios.
The vain people of Attica affected to believe that it was on their soil that the sea-god first presented the horse to mankind. The winged steed Pegasos is also the offspring of Poseidon. In the Ilias, when Zeus returns from Ida to Olympos, it is Poseidon that unyokes his horses; the same god is said to have given the Harpy-born steeds of Achilles to Peleus; he is joined with Zeus as the teacher of the art of driving the chariot; and when Menelaos charges Antilochos with foul play in the chariot-race, he requires him to clear himself by an oath to Poseidon .
All this indicates a close connexion between the sea-god and the horse. The usual solution given is, that as, according to Herodotus, the worship of Poseidon came from Libya to Greece, and (the Libyans being an agricultural, not a sea-faring people)the agents must have been the Phoenicians, who also, we are assured, brought the first horses into Greece (as the Spaniards did into America, and as much to the astonishment of the rude natives), the knowledge of the horse and of Poseidon thus came together, and they were therefore associated in the popular mind.
This, we may observe, is all merely gratuitous hypothesis. The absurd passion of Herodotus for deducing the religion of Greece from abroad is so notorious, that few, we should suppose, would lay any stress on his testimony in these matters. Had a god of the sea been worshiped in Egypt, beyond question the historian would have derived Poseidon from that country. Again, what can be more absurd than to suppose that Greece, a portion of the continent of Europe, to the north of which dwelt the Thracians and Scythians, renowned in all ages for their horses, should have first received these animals from the coast of Africa? We may therefore, we think, safely dismiss this hypothesis, and look for an explanation of the phenomenon elsewhere.
The horse is the principal means of transport by land, as the ship is by sea; the one name might therefore be metaphorically employed for the other. Thus in Homer Penelope says,
Why, herald, is my son gone? for no need Had he to mount the swift-coursed ships, which are For men the horses of the sea, and pass O'er the great deep;
In Plautus one of the characters says, "That is to say, you have been carried on a wooden horse along the azure roads;" and the Arabs call their camel the ship of the desert. This seems to offer a natural solution of the difficulty, the sea-god being regarded as the author of ships, the horses of the sea, and thence by an easy transition of the real animals. But still when we reflect how widely spread was the habit of regarding the horse as in some mysterious manner connected with the water, we may hesitate to give our full assent to this theory.
It is rather curious to observe the manner in which Poseidon and Pallas Athene are associated. They were worshiped together,—he as Hippios, she as Hippia,—at Colonos near Athens; we find them united in the legend of Bellerophontes; they contended for the possession of Attica and Troezen; in the former case the sea-god was forced to yield, in the latter Zeus decided that they should hold the dominion in common. In like manner Poseidon is said to have contended with Hera for Argos, and with Helios for Corinth; with Zeus for AEgina, and with Dionysos for Naxos; and to have exchanged Delos and Delphi with Apollo for Calauria and Taenaron. Mythes of this kind merely indicate a change or a combination of the worship of the deities who are the subjects of them, in the places where the scenes of the supposed contests are laid.
Beside his residence on Olympos, Poseidon had a splendid palace beneath the sea at Aegae. Homer gives a noble description of his passage from it on his way to Troy, his chariot-wheels but touching the watery plain, and the monsters of the deep gamboling around their king. His most celebrated temples were at the Corinthian isthmus, Onchestos, Helice, Troezen, and the promontories of Sunion, Taenaron, Geraestos, and other headlands.
Poseidon is represented, like Zeus, of a serene and majestic aspect; his form is strong and muscular. He usually bears in his hand the trident, the three-pronged symbol of his power: the dolphin and other marine objects accompany his images.
The poetic epithets of Poseidon are 1. Earth-keeping; 2. Earth-striking; 3. Dark-haired; 4. Wide-ruling; 5. Loud-sounding; etc.
In Poseidon we may discern the original god of water in general of springs and rivers as well as of the sea. The legends respecting him (his amour with Demeter, the earth, for instance,)are on this supposition easy of explanation. The simple Doric form of his name, ??????? shows its true origin to be from the root ???, and that it is of the same family all relating to water and fluidity.
Keightley, Thomas. The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy. Whittaker, 1838.
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