Poseidon

Not to be confused with Neptune, the planet named after his Roman counterpart.

Poseidon is the violent and ill-tempered god of the sea. One of the major Olympian gods, he was also feared as the Shaker of the Earth, who causes earthquakes, and worshipped as the god of horses. He was the brother of Zeus and Hades, and in the division of the world he received the sea. A hot-blooded deity, Poseidon had many disputes with both gods and men, most famously with Athena and Odysseus.

Poseidon’s Role

Poseidon's Name

Poseidon’s name is very old, and its meaning is lost to us. Various modern authors have tried to translate it as either “husband of the earth” or “lord of the waters.” In Plato’s Cratylus (402e–403a), Socrates offers three playful derivations, “foot-fetter”, “knower of many things” or “the Shaker”, but these are guesses, not serious etymology. The Romans identified Poseidon with their own god Neptune, who in Virgil also wields a trident and shakes the walls of Troy (Aeneid 2.608–612).

Poseidon's Portrayal and Symbolism

What is Poseidon the god of? In the Iliad, Poseidon himself says that when the three sons of Cronus drew lots for the world, he won the grey sea as his home forever, Hades the misty darkness, and Zeus the broad sky, while earth and Olympus were left common to all (15.187–193). He lived in a golden palace in the depths of the sea near Aegae (Iliad 13.17–22). Homer calls him “dark-haired,” “Earth-shaker” and “Earth-holder,” and says that his battle shout was as loud as that of nine or ten thousand men (Iliad 14.147–152). The Homeric Hymn to Poseidon (22) calls him lord of Helicon and wide Aegae and gives him a twofold office: “a tamer of horses and a saviour of ships.”

Oftentimes, he is shown riding a chariot over the waves. In Homer he drives bronze-hoofed, golden-maned horses over the sea, and the sea creatures play around him (Iliad 13.23–31). His weapon is the trident. In the Odyssey he strikes the Gyraean rock with it (4.505–510) and uses it to stir up the sea against Odysseus (5.291–294). During the Gigantomachy, he chased the Giant Polybotes through the sea to Cos, broke off a piece of the island called Nisyros, and threw it on him (Apollodorus, Library 1.6.2).

Poseidon's Epithets

Since Poseidon had multiple powers, the Ancient Greeks invented various epithets to describe his manifestations and pray to him. In Homer he is Earth-shaker and Earth-holder; in the Hymn to Poseidon, he is tamer of horses and saviour of ships (Homeric Hymn 22.3–6). Pindar calls him “lord of horses” (Pythian 4.45), and Sophocles says it was Poseidon who first set the bridle, which cures the fury of horses, on the roads of Athens (Oedipus at Colonus 707–719). In Arcadia, according to Pausanias, people called Poseidon “Horse” because of the story of Demeter, Poseidon, and Arion (8.25.7).

Poseidon's Family

Poseidon was a son of Cronus and Rhea. In Hesiod’s list of the children, Rhea bore Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus, in that order (Theogony 453–458), which makes Poseidon the fifth child and Zeus the youngest. Homer makes Zeus the elder of the two brothers (Iliad 13.354–355, 15.165–167). Hestia, Demeter, and Hera were his sisters.

Like all of his siblings aside from Zeus, Poseidon was swallowed by Cronus at birth and, thanks to Zeus, afterward disgorged unharmed (Hesiod, Theogony 459–506; Apollodorus, Library 1.1.5–1.2.1).

However, some say that Rhea managed to hide Poseidon from his father’s rage as well. The Arcadians told Pausanias that she left him to live among the lambs at the spring called Arne and gave Cronus a foal to swallow instead (8.8.2). In Diodorus, Rhea gave the baby to the Telchines and Capheira, a daughter of Oceanus, in Rhodes, to be nurtured (5.55.1).

Disputes with Other Gods and Men

Poseidon Challenges Zeus

Poseidon had a very violent character. In the Iliad, Achilles’ mother Thetis reminds Zeus how Hera, Poseidon and Pallas Athena once conspired to bind him, and she saved him by calling Briareus, the hundred-handed, to his side (1.396–406).

Poseidon, Laomedon, and the Trojans

In the Iliad, Poseidon tells how he and Apollo served the Trojan king Laomedon for a year for wages: Poseidon built the vast, beautiful wall around Troy while Apollo herded the king’s cattle on Ida. When the year was over, Laomedon refused to pay them, and threatened to bind them hand and foot and sell them (Iliad 21.441–460). Homer does not say why they served him. Apollodorus says that they took the likeness of men to put Laomedon’s wantonness to the proof, and that, when the king would not pay, Apollo sent a plague and Poseidon a sea monster, which, carried by a flood, snatched away the people of the plain (Library 2.5.9). Later Heracles killed the monster. When the Trojan War came, Poseidon fought on the Greek side, even against the wishes of Zeus (Iliad 13.10–38, 14.135–152), though he also rescued the Trojan hero Aeneas from Achilles (Iliad 20.291–339).

Poseidon, the Greeks, and Odysseus

Poseidon was jealous of the wall built by the Greeks, complaining to Zeus that it would make his own wall at Troy forgotten (Iliad 7.442–453); after the war he and Apollo destroyed it, turning the rivers against it (Iliad 12.17–33). And, angry with Odysseus for blinding his son Polyphemus, he kept him from home for ten years: Polyphemus was the son of Poseidon and the nymph Thoosa (Odyssey 1.68–75). Poseidon wrecked Odysseus’ raft with a storm (Odyssey 5.282–332) and turned the Phaeacian ship that carried him home into stone (Odyssey 13.159–164).

Poseidon and Minos

When Minos claimed the throne of Crete, he prayed to Poseidon that a bull might appear from the sea, promising to sacrifice it. Poseidon sent up a fine bull, but Minos kept it in his herds and sacrificed another; in anger the god made the bull savage and caused Minos’ wife Pasiphae to fall in love with it, and from this union the Minotaur was born (Apollodorus, Library 3.1.3–4). The rest of that story is told on the page of the Minotaur.

Poseidon and Athena

Poseidon also wanted to possess the land of Athens. In Apollodorus’ account, he was the first to come to Attica, and with a blow of his trident on the middle of the Acropolis, he produced a sea, which the Athenians called the Erechtheis. Athena then came and, calling on Cecrops to witness that she had taken possession, planted an olive tree. When the two quarreled, Zeus parted them and appointed the twelve gods as judges, not, as some said, Cecrops and Cranaus. The land was adjudged to Athena because Cecrops testified that she had been first to plant the olive. In anger Poseidon flooded the Thriasian plain and put Attica under water (Library 3.14.1). Herodotus saw the sea-water spring and the olive tree in the temple of Erechtheus on the Acropolis (8.55).

Poseidon’s Women and Children

Just like Zeus, Poseidon had many unions with goddesses, nymphs and mortal women. Several of them were not willing, and his children range from heroes to monsters. Did Poseidon have children? Yes, many, and the ancient sources attribute these to him.

Caeneus and Medusa

Poseidon ravished the Thessalian girl Caenis and then granted her wish to become an invulnerable man, Caeneus (Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.189–209). He also lay with Medusa. In Hesiod he lay with her in a soft meadow among spring flowers, and when Perseus cut off her head, her sons Chrysaor and the horse Pegasus sprang forth (Theogony 278–281). In Ovid’s version he ravished her in the temple of Athena, and the goddess turned Medusa’s hair into snakes as a punishment (Metamorphoses 4.794–803).

Demeter, Amymone, and Aethra

While Demeter was wandering in search of her daughter, Poseidon followed her. She turned herself into a mare and grazed among the mares of Oncius, but Poseidon changed himself into a stallion and mated with her; she bore a daughter whose name is not told to the uninitiated, and the horse Arion (Pausanias 8.25.5–7). Amymone, a daughter of Danaus, was saved by Poseidon from a satyr; she lay with him, and he showed her the springs at Lerna (Apollodorus, Library 2.1.4). Their son was Nauplius (Library 2.1.5). On the night Aegeus lay with Aethra, Poseidon also had intercourse with her (Library 3.15.7); Theseus was said to be the son of either Aegeus or Poseidon. Poseidon also took the form of the river Enipeus to lie with Tyro, who bore Pelias and Neleus (Odyssey 11.235–252). Libya bore Belus and Agenor to Poseidon (Apollodorus, Library 2.1.4), and Orion is called a son of Poseidon and Euryale (Apollodorus, Library 1.4.3, citing Pherecydes). Poseidon loved Cleito, who bore him the ten sons of Atlantis, the eldest being Atlas (Plato, Critias 113c–114a).

Poseidon and Amphitrite

Amphitrite, a Nereid and a daughter of Nereus (Hesiod, Theogony 243), was Poseidon’s wife. She was reluctant: according to Eratosthenes, as quoted in Hyginus’ Astronomica (2.17), she wanted to keep her virginity and fled to Atlas. Poseidon sent many men to find her, and one of them, called Delphinus, persuaded her to marry Poseidon; for this Poseidon placed the image of the Dolphin among the stars.

Amphitrite bore Poseidon three children: Triton (Hesiod, Theogony 930–933), Rhode, who married the Sun (Apollodorus, Library 1.4.5), and Benthesikyme (Library 3.15.4).

Poseidon: Myths and Hidden Truths

One common misconception about Poseidon is that he was only a destructive god. He was certainly known for his temper, and the sources regularly show him raising storms and shaking the earth (Iliad 20.57–66; Odyssey 5.291–296). But the Homeric Hymn calls him a saviour of ships and asks him to be kind to those who sail (22.5–7), and in the same hymn he is the god of horses.

Some people also mistakenly believe that Poseidon was responsible for every storm. In Homer, Zeus also raises storms and destroys ships with his thunderbolt (Odyssey 12.403–419), and Athena stills the winds for Odysseus (Odyssey 5.382–387).

Poseidon and Horses

A lesser-known fact about Poseidon is his association with horses and horsemanship. Often referred to as the “tamer of horses” (Homeric Hymn 22.5), the god is also the father of the horses Pegasus and Arion in the myths above. In Attic tradition, it was said that Poseidon introduced the bit in Athens (Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 707–719), and Pindar made the sea-god the giver of a chariot with winged horses to the young Pelops (Olympian 1.72–87).

Poseidon and Atlantis

Another intriguing fact about Poseidon is his link to Atlantis. According to Plato, when the gods divided the earth, Poseidon received the island of Atlantis. He fell in love with Cleito, daughter of the native Evenor, and fortified her hill with rings of water and land; their ten sons ruled the island, with Atlas the eldest as king (Critias 113c–114a). Plato presents this as an account told in Athens (Timaeus 24e–25d), not as a traditional myth.

Poseidon Sources

Homer, Iliad (1.396–406, 7.442–453, 12.17–33, 13.10–38, 13.354–355, 14.135–152, 15.165–167, 15.187–193, 20.57–66, 20.291–339, 21.441–460) and Odyssey (1.68–75, 4.505–510, 5.282–332, 5.382–387, 11.235–252, 12.403–419, 13.159–164); Homeric Hymn 22 to Poseidon; Hesiod, Theogony (243, 278–281, 453–458, 930–933); Pindar, Pythian 4.45 and Olympian 1.72–87; Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 707–719; Plato, Cratylus 402e–403a, Critias 113c–114a; Herodotus 8.55; Apollodorus, Library 1.1.5–1.2.1, 1.4.3, 3.1.3–4, 1.4.5, 1.6.2, 2.1.4–5, 2.5.9, 3.14.1, 3.15.4, 3.15.7; Diodorus Siculus 5.55; Pausanias 8.8.2, 8.25.5–7; Hyginus, Astronomica 2.17; Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.794–803, 12.189–209; Virgil, Aeneid 2.608–612. Lucian’s Dialogues of the Sea-Gods are a humorous later treatment of Poseidon and his family.

See Also: Nereus, Amphitrite, Odysseus, Laomedon, Athena, Triton, Pegasus, Theseus