Notes

Poseidon (/pəˈsaɪdən, pɒ-, poʊ-/;[1] Greek: Ποσειδῶν, pronounced [poseːdɔ́ːn]) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, the god of the sea, storms, earthquakes, and horses.[2] In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a chief deity at Pylos and Thebes.[2] His Roman equivalent is Neptune.

Poseidon was the protector of seafarers, and of many Hellenic cities and colonies. In Homer's Iliad, Poseidon supports the Greeks against the Trojans during the Trojan War and in the Odyssey, during the sea-voyage from Troy back home to Ithaca, the Greek hero Odysseus provokes Poseidon's fury by blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, resulting in Poseidon punishing him with storms, the complete loss of his ship and companions, and a ten-year delay. Poseidon is also the subject of a Homeric hymn. In Plato's Timaeus and Critias, the island of Atlantis was Poseidon's domain.
The earliest attested occurrence of the name, written in Linear B, is 𐀡𐀮𐀆𐀃 Po-se-da-o or 𐀡𐀮𐀆𐀺𐀚 Po-se-da-wo-ne, which correspond to Ποσειδάων (Poseidaōn) and Ποσειδάϝονος (Poseidawonos) in Mycenean Greek; in Homeric Greek, it appears as Ποσειδάων (Poseidaōn); in Aeolic as Ποτειδάων (Poteidaōn); and in Doric as Ποτειδάν (Poteidan), Ποτειδάων (Poteidaōn), and Ποτειδᾶς (Poteidas).[6] The form Ποτειδάϝων (Poteidawon) appears in Corinth.[7]

The origins of the name "Poseidon" are unclear. One theory breaks it down into an element meaning "husband" or "lord" (Greek πόσις (posis), from PIE *pótis) and another element meaning "earth" (δᾶ (da), Doric for γῆ (gē)), producing something like lord or spouse of Da, i.e. of the earth; this would link him with Demeter, "Earth-mother".[8] Walter Burkert finds that "the second element da- remains hopelessly ambiguous" and finds a "husband of Earth" reading "quite impossible to prove."[2]

Another theory interprets the second element is related to the word *δᾶϝον dâwon, "water"; this would make *Posei-dawōn into the master of waters.[9] There is also the possibility that the word has a Pre-Greek origin.[10] Plato in his dialogue Cratylus gives two alternative etymologies: either the sea restrained Poseidon when walking as a "foot-bond" (ποσίδεσμον), or he "knew many things" (πολλά εἰδότος or πολλά εἰδῶν).[11]

At least a few sources deem Poseidon as a "prehellenic" (i.e. Pelasgian) word, considering an Indo-European etymology "quite pointless" Origins
It seems that the Arcadian myth is related to the first Greek-speaking people who entered the region during the Bronze Age. (Linear B represents an archaic Greek dialect). Their religious beliefs were mixed with the beliefs of the indigenous population. It is possible that the Greeks did not bring with them other gods except Zeus, Eos, and the Dioskouroi. The horse (numina) was related to the liquid element and with the underworld. Poseidon appears as a beast (horse), which is the river spirit of the underworld, as it usually happens in northern-European folklore, and not unusually in Greece.[26][27] Poseidon "Wanax", is the male companion (paredros) of the goddess of nature. In the relative Minoan myth, Pasiphaë is mating with the white bull, and she bears the hybrid creature Minotaur.[28] The Bull was the old pre-Olympian Poseidon.[29] The goddess of nature and her paredros survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the following words were uttered: "Mighty Potnia bore a strong son".[30]

In the heavily sea-dependent Mycenaean culture, there is not sufficient evidence that Poseidon was connected with the sea. We do not know if "Posedeia" was a sea-goddess. Homer and Hesiod suggest that Poseidon became lord of the sea following the defeat of his father Cronus when the world was divided by lot among his three sons; Zeus was given the sky, Hades the underworld, and Poseidon the sea, with the Earth and Mount Olympus belonging to all three.[2][31] Walter Burkert suggests that the Hellene cult worship of Poseidon as a horse god may be connected to the introduction of the horse and war-chariot from Anatolia to Greece around 1600 BC.[2]

It is almost sure that once Poseidon was worshiped as a horse, and this is evident by his cult in Peloponnesos. However he was originally a god of the waters, and therefore he became the "earth-shaker" because the Greeks believed that the cause of the earthquakes was the erosion of the rocks by the waters, by the rivers who they saw to disappear into the earth and then to burst out again. This is what the natural philosophers Thales, Anaximenes and Aristotle believed, which could not be different from the folklore belief.[32] Later, when the Myceneans traveled along the sea, he was assigned a role as god of the sea.

In any case, the early importance of Poseidon can still be glimpsed in Homer's Odyssey, where Poseidon rather than Zeus is the major mover of events. In Homer, Poseidon is the master of the sea.[33]

Worship of Poseidon
Poseidon was a major civic god of 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 of the polis.[2]

In his benign aspect, Poseidon was seen as creating new islands and offering calm seas. When offended or ignored, he supposedly struck the ground with his trident and caused chaotic springs, earthquakes, drownings, and shipwrecks. Sailors prayed to Poseidon for a safe voyage, sometimes drowning horses as a sacrifice; in this way, according to a fragmentary papyrus, Alexander the Great paused at the Syrian seashore before the climactic battle of Issus, and resorted to prayers, "invoking Poseidon the sea-god, for whom he ordered a four-horse chariot to be cast into the waves."[34]

According to Pausanias, Poseidon was one of the caretakers of the oracle at Delphi before Olympian Apollo took it over. Apollo and Poseidon worked closely in many realms: in colonization, for example, Delphic Apollo provided the authorization to go out and settle, while Poseidon watched over the colonists on their way, and provided the lustral water for the foundation-sacrifice. Xenophon's Anabasis describes a group of Spartan soldiers in 400–399 BC singing to Poseidon a paean—a kind of hymn normally sung for Apollo.

Like Dionysus, who inflamed the maenads, Poseidon also caused certain forms of mental disturbance. A Hippocratic text of ca 400 BC, On the Sacred Disease[35] says that he was blamed for certain types of epilepsy.

Epithets

Dionysus, Plato, or Poseidon sculpture excavated at the Villa of the Papyri.
Poseidon was known in various guises, denoted by epithets. In the town of Aegae in Euboea, he was known as Poseidon Aegaeus and had a magnificent temple upon a hill.[36][37][38] Poseidon also had a close association with horses, known under the epithet Poseidon Hippios, usually in Arcadia. He is more often regarded as the tamer of horses, but in some myths, he is their father, either by spilling his seed upon a rock or by mating with a creature who then gave birth to the first horse.[2] He was closely related to the springs, and with the strike of his trident, he created springs. Many springs like Hippocrene and Aganippe in Helikon are related to the word horse (hippos). (also Glukippe, Hyperippe).[39] In the historical period, Poseidon was often referred to by the epithets Enosichthon, Seisichthon, and Ennosigaios, and Γαιήοχος Gaiēochos all meaning "earth-shaker" and referring to his role in causing earthquakes.