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Posei’don was the son of Cronus and Rhea and brother of Zeus. To him, after the overthrow of the Titans, was given control over all the waters, fresh as well as salt. He supplanted Oceanus of the older dynasty. The early Greeks thought that the waters were beneath the earth and held it up; earthquakes were due to them. Moreover the Ocean flowed all about the circle of the earth as a great salt river. Homer speaks of Poseidon as, "he that girdleth the world, the shaker of the earth." Though he was a member of the Olympic Council, he had his palace in the depths of Ocean.

There was his famous palace in the deeps of the mere, his glistering golden mansions builded, imperishable forever. Thither went he and let harness to his car his bronze-hoofed horses, swift of flight, clothed with their golden manes. He girt his own golden array about his body and seized the well-wrought lash of gold, and mounted his chariot, and forth he drove across the waves. And the sea-beasts frolicked beneath him, on all sides out of the deeps, for well they knew their lord, and with gladness the sea stood asunder. (Iliad, XIII. 21 ff.)

Beside him was seated his wife, "fair-ankled Am phi tri’te," the daughter of Nereus (see p. 148, while before and about his chariot swam the Tritons, half man, half fish, heralding their lord's approach by blasts on their shells.

In addition to his lordship over the waters Poseidon presided over horses and horsemanship. One version of his contest with Athena over Athens, as was said earlier, attributes to him the creation of a salt spring, but the other version attributes to him the creation of the horse.

After the overthrow of the giants, Apollo and Poseidon fell under the displeasure of Zeus, who therefore forced them to serve a mortal. They agreed with La om’e don, king of Troy, for a certain reward to build the walls of his city. When the work was completed, Laomedon refused to abide by his bargain and insolently dismissed the gods. Poseidon in his anger sent floods and a terrible sea-monster to ravage the coast. To appease the monster no sacrifice was acceptable but that of He si’o ne, daughter of Laomedon. The princess was about to be devoured by the monster when Heracles, that friend of troubled mankind, appeared and rescued her. How he too was cheated of his reward by the faithless Laomedon, and how he avenged his wrongs, will be told later in the story of Heracles. (See p. 220.)

Fig. 39. Poseidon.

It is as god of horses and horsemanship that Poseidon appears in the story of Pelops and Hippo da mi’a. This Hippodamia was the daughter of Œn o ma’us, king of Elis. Many young men wished to marry her, but her father had been warned by an oracle to beware of his future son-in-law. As he was the owner of horses as fleet as the wind, he made the condition that he who would win the daughter must first contend with the father in a chariot-race, the reward of success being the hand of Hippodamia and the price of failure the suitor's life. Many had staked their lives on the venture, and the maiden remained unmarried. Pelops had been granted by Poseidon extraordinary skill in horsemanship; now he obtained in addition four winged steeds, and so offered himself for the perilous race. Nor was Poseidon Pelops' only divine helper, for, by the power of Aphrodite, Hippodamia's heart was so won at first sight that she bribed her father's charioteer Myrtilus to take out the bolt from his chariot-wheel before starting on the race. So Œnomaüs perished and Pelops led away Hippodamia as his wife. The lovers, however, by their ingratitude and treachery brought down upon their already accursed family the further displeasure of the gods, for Pelops, in a fit of rage, hurled Myrtilus into the sea. The tragic history of the race of Pelops is associated with the Trojan War and will be told in that connection. (See p. 281.)

The Romans had from early times worshiped Neptune as god of moisture and of flowing water, when they identified him with the Greek Poseidon, they recognized him also as god of the sea.

Ne’reus, the wise and kindly "Old Man of the Sea," lived with his fifty charming daughters below the waters in a great shining cave. He personifies the sea as a source of gain to men, the sea on whose calm and friendly surface merchants and sailors venture out in ships. His fifty daughters, the Ne’reids, represent the sea in all its many phases. They live together happily in their deep-sea cave, but often rise to the surface, and in sunlight or in moonlight may be seen sitting on the shore or on a rock covered with seaweed, drying their long green locks, or riding on the dolphins, or playing in the waves with the Tritons. If a mortal comes near, they will slide down into the sea and disappear, for their bodies end in green fishes' tails and the deep water is their real home. Three of the fifty are especially famous: Amphitrite, Poseidon's wife; Thetis (see p. 283), the mother of Achilles, and Gal a te’a, whom the Cyclops Poly phe’mus loved.

Fig. 40. Marriage of Poseidon and Amphitrite.

A stranger and more mysterious "Old Man of the Sea" was Pro’teus, the shepherd of Poseidon's flock of seals. He had the gift of prophecy, and would tell the future if one could catch and hold him. But, like the sea itself, he continually changed his form, and when one had seized him as a roaring lion, he glided away as a serpent, or if one still held to that slippery form, suddenly he was a flame of fire, or as running water he slipped through the hands.

Fig. 41. Head of a Sea-God.

Although from the earliest times the Greeks were a sea-faring people, they never forgot the perils that lurked in the deep, nor the uncertainty of trusting themselves to its waters. Especially in the west, near Sicily and Italy, fable told of the dangers that lay in wait for the rash voyager. Somewhere in that part of the sea was the island of the Sirens, beautiful maidens in face and breast but winged and clawed as birds. By the charm of their singing they lured mariners to drive their ships upon the rocks. He who heard their magic voices no longer remembered his dear native land, nor his wife and children, but only heard the charmer and cast himself into the sea. All the beach below where they sat and sang was white with the bones of men. Fair they seemed as the smooth bright surface of the sea that treacherously smiles over the bones of its victims. The much-enduring Odysseus was warned of these alluring maidens and passed by them safely only by having the ears of his companions stuffed with wax, while he himself was kept from the fatal leap by being fast bound to his own mast.

Wholly terrible, without the malign charm of the Sirens, were the Harpies, with their huge wings and strong talons. They were goddesses of storm and death, who snatched and carried away their booty as if on the wings of the wind. When weary sailors had ignorantly landed on the Harpies' shores, and, having prepared their feast, sat down to enjoy it, down swooped these vile birds and carried off the food in their claws. Their coming brought not alone famine but the mournful omen of approaching death.

The passage between the coasts of Sicily and Italy was beset with danger. Here in the side of a precipitous cliff was a cave where lurked the monster Scylla. From out the dark cavern she stretched her six heads, armed with rows of great sharp teeth. Woe to the unlucky mariners who had steered too close to shore! Drawn in as by a drag-net by her twelve long arms, they were crunched in the great jaws, and only the bones were left to tell the tale. And if men escaped this horror, on the other side lay Charyb’dis, sucking down the water into her black whirlpool and belching it forth again, three times each day. Against these monsters even Poseidon's help was of no avail.

Fresh water as well as salt had each its own deity. From the river at any moment its god might rise up, the water streaming from his hair and beard. So Alpheus rose to pursue Arethusa (see p. 84) ; so the god of the Xanthus near Troy rose and fought with Achilles. (See p. 296.) Sometimes the river-god took the form of a bull. (See p. 225.) Each little brook and spring had its own nymph, a lovely maiden with tossing hair, with laughing voice and lightly dancing feet. These are the Naiads. (See p. 184.)