by Janet Grischy

Created on: April 17, 2008   Last Updated: May 24, 2009

The Greek god Poseidon ruled the waters. When he and his brothers Zeus and Hades divided all creation, he took dominion over the oceans. He also ruled the rivers and lakes, though these realms might have subsidiary gods as well.

As the sea god, Poseidon had the power to create storms, and to still them. Sailors sacrificed to him, sometimes drowning a horse (Poseidon created the first horse) before setting out on a voyage. He had power over all underground streams and springs, the power to make earthquakes, and the power to strike men down with epilepsy.

He married Amphitrite, a sea nymph. She was the daughter of the Old Man of the Sea and granddaughter of the Titan Ocean. The couple lived in a palace beneath the sea that was carved of coral and gold, and encrusted with aquamarine, emerald, and pearl.

Poseidon and Amphitrite had a merman child, Triton, who had the upper body of a man and the iridescent tail of a fish. When Triton played on a conch shell, he created a wave of sound that could put navies to flight. Like his father, he could raise the seas, or calm them. He was the messenger of Poseidon, as well.

Proteus was Poseidon's son too, or in other versions of the myth a faithful attendant. He could change his form in an instant, like the ever-changing sea, and would prophesy truthfully for anyone who could hold him until he became himself again. He was hard to hold though, as he shifted through a variety of forms human, animal, and supernatural, before he could be made to act as an oracle. In the Odyssey, Menelaus tells of holding and consulting him.

Polyhemus was Poseidon's son by a sea nymph, conceived in an underwater cave. He was a Cyclops, a gigantic lawless one-eyed monster whom Odysseus encountered on the road home from Troy. After the monster ate some of the ship's crew, Odysseus drugged him with wine, and plunged a sharp heated stake into his eye. Odysseus escaped with his men, but bragged to Polyhemus that he had blinded him. Thereafter, Poseidon took revenge on Odysseus, and kept him from his home. Polyhemus, as time passed and myth was transformed to literature, became a gentle oaf who loved a heartless sea nymph, Galatea.

Poseidon raped Medusa, on the floor of Athena's temple, but he was not punished. Instead, Medusa, apparently for inspiring the crime that profaned the temple, was given a face that turned men to stone.

In Athens, the status of Poseidon was slightly lower than that of Athena. She had given the city the olive tree, while he had given only a spring of brackish water, or, in some versions of the story, the horse. In Corinth, though, Poseidon reigned supreme.

He was one of the major Greek gods, worshipped throughout their society. The planet Neptune is named for the Roman form of his name and several of its moons for his consorts. In art and literature, Poseidon still stands for the restless sea, and evokes its mysterious depths.

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