Poseidon

Poseidon underwater holding his mighty trident

Poseidon in Greek mythology, is the god of the land and the sea (and therefore also called Pelagaios), rivers, springs and drinking waters.

Son of Cronus and Rhea and brother of Zeus lived on Mount Olympus or at his palace in the depths of the sea, where he lived and his wife, the Nereid Amphitrite.

According to one version he grew in Rhodes, where after their association with Alia, sister of Telhinia,were born six sons and a daughter, Rodi, who gave her name to the island. Poseidon was the father of Theseus,  Procrustean ,Skirona and giants: the twin Otou and Ephialtes (in association with Ifimdeia, daughter of the king of Thessaly) of Tityus (from Elara, daughter of Orchomenus and Orion (from Euryale, daughter of Minos). Yet  he is considered tamer of the first horse and begetter of the mythical horse Pegasus.

Greek god Poseidon holding his trident (created by me)

The name of  god  Nethuns is Etruscan and was adopted in Latin,  Neptune is in Roman mythology (Neptounous). Both were sea gods analogous to Greek god Poseidon. According to inscriptions, Poseidon was worshiped at Pylos and Thebes and integrated into the Olympian gods as the brother of Zeus and Hades. Poseidon gained many children. There is a Homeric hymn to Poseidon, who was the protector of many Greek cities, although he lost the contest for Athens, by Athena.

As god of the sea, Poseidon was traveling with a gold chariot on wild waves or on earthquakes. With his trident he could either create storms or calm the waters. Considered the patron saint of sailors and fishermen and even as responsible for geological phenomena such as earthquakes, he was offered sacrifices and prayers for soil stability and security of the buildings, while honored by horse racing. 

Greek god Poseidon

His symbols were the trident, fish (usually tuna or dolphin) and occasionally horse or bull.

Poseidon was a major god in several cities: in Athens, he was second only to Athena in importance, while in Corinth and many cities of Magna Graecia he was the chief god. Poseidon was presented creating new islands and offering calm seas. But when he enraged, by beating the ground with his trident he caused chaos, earthquakes, shipwrecks and drownings at the sea. In the Odyssey, the resentment of Poseidon against Odysseus  was averted by the resourceful hero since his arrival in his homeland, Ithaca. Sailors prayed to Poseidon for a safe voyage, sometimes they drawn horses as a sacrifice.

Oracle of Delphi

According to Pausanias, god Poseidon was one of the caretakers of the oracle at Delphi before Apollo. Apollo and Poseidon worked closely in many places: in colonization, for example. The Delphic Apollo provided the approval of human settlement in colonies, while Poseidon over the colonists helped by giving them the purifying water for the sacrifice that involved the establishment of the colony. The Anabasis of Xenophon describes a group of soldiers in 400-399 BC singing to Poseidon a paean, a kind of hymn normally sung for Apollo. Like Dionysus, which affects the maenads, Poseidon caused certain forms of mental disturbance. A Hippocratic text of 400 BC, the sacred Diseases, says that he was accused of certain types of epilepsy.

tags: Greek god Poseidon in Greek mythology, Olympian god Poseidon in Greek mythology