Poseidon

Poseidon, the Roman Neptune, is lord of the sea and of all waters, the 'earth-shaker' whose trident stirs both waves and earthquakes, and the giver of horses. Brother of Zeus and Hades, he received the sea as his portion when the three divided the cosmos. Powerful and quick to wrath, he is the implacable foe of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey.

He was honored wherever Greeks took to the sea, and his contest with Athena for the patronage of Athens — he offered a salt spring, she the olive, and the city chose the olive — became one of the city's founding myths. To the cosmological allegorists Poseidon was the principle of moisture and the watery, ever-moving element of the world.

Epithets

• Enosichthon Ἐνοσίχθων — the earth-shaker
• Gaieochos Γαιήοχος — holder and embracer of the earth
• Hippios Ἵππιος — of horses
• Asphalios Ἀσφάλιος — the securer, who steadies the ground
• Pelagios Πελάγιος — of the open sea
• Soter Σωτήρ — savior of sailors