Poseidon was known in Ancient Greece as the mighty god of the seas and rivers. He was born in the region of Crete, the son of Kronos (the god of time) and Reia (goddess known as the mother of the gods), and like all his brothers except Zeus, he was swallowed and regurgitated by his father.
Represented as a physically strong man, with a long beard and with a trident or a dolphin in one hand, in Ancient Rome, Poseidon became known as Neptune and also the god of tidal waves. He formed with Zeus and Hades, the triad that ruled the Universe.
Meet Poseidon, the emotional god of Ancient Greece.
Or myth of Poseidon
Poseidon disputed with Athena, the goddess of wisdom, who would be the representative deity of the city that is currently known as Athens. Athena won by a single vote, the election made for such a decision, having been chosen by the women, while Poseidon was voted by the men.
With a more aggressive temperament, Poseidon would have been dissatisfied and furious with the result and attacked the city with waves caused by his trident.
In order to appease the god of the seas, the women of Athens accepted three punishments: they lost the right to vote, the children would only have their father's name and they would not be called Athenians.
Poseidon supported the Greeks against the Trojans in the Trojan War, as both he and Apollo helped the Trojan king build the wall around the city, under the promise of a reward that did not materialize. So Poseidon sent a sea monster that plundered the city.
Normally, Poseidon used water and earthquakes to exact his revenge, which could be the focus of his attention for many years, as happened with Odysseus, who injured the offspring of one of the Cyclopes, sons of Poseidon. However, he also manifested his help, as he did, then, with the Greeks in the aforementioned war.
Poseidon fell in love with Amphitrite, daughter of Nereus and Doris, but she refused him. So he forced her to marry him. Amphitrite, however, hid in the depths of the ocean, so only her mother knew where she was.
With the passage of time, Amphitrite changed her mind and returned to Poseidon, whom she married, became the queen of the oceans and had three children, two women and a man, known as Triton, god of the oceanic abysses, with a more temperamental temperament. calmer than your father's.
Fidelity wasn't exactly a virtue for Poseidon, who had many extramarital relationships. One of them was with Gorgon, Medusa, who ended up generating Pegasus, the winged horse.
Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, was also one of Poseidon's passions, who pursued her a lot. She, to avoid his approach, changed herself into a mare, and he into a stallion. From that relationship Arion was born.
Worship of the god Poseidon
Poseidon was celebrated with the Mystic Games, athletic, musical and poetry competitions, held every two years in Greece.
The Ethiopians, under the rule of the Greek empire, at the time, also venerated him.
Sacrifices with horses were offered to Poseidon that were drowned by seafarers, in exchange for good winds and safe travel, but being unpredictable, of variable mood and vain, he caused winds and earthquakes according to his will.
The Poseidon Archetype
When we deal with the archetypes that the gods represent, we consider that they represent a basic structure in which man is inserted, family, community, religion, values, appearance and the way he uses his intelligence, among other aspects.
God of the seas, earthquakes and tidal waves, Poseidon had an unstable and vengeful temper. He represents the unconscious, vast, mysterious and unpredictable. He is the archetype of emotions, which are deep and hidden and emerge, albeit irrationally and instinctively.
It also represents the archetype of revenge and persecution, as Poseidon pursued Odysseus for ten years.
Poseidon was a deeply caring, loyal and protective father. Whoever did any harm to any of his children would feel the result of his fury. He was capable of being sensitive and understanding. Sensibility justifies the fact that he is an archetype associated with the soul of composers, therapists and poets.
The trident, as a symbol of Poseidon, represents sexuality, male fertility, the triple phallus, because at the same time he was able to relate to the woman he loved, he also related to others, including his own mother, characterized by women of any age: the young, the mature and the elderly.
Having many wives and many children brings the archetype of virility (also represented by horses) and power.
Poseidon is a god dedicated to marriage, as it gives him the power and dominion of his domestic kingdom, a patriarchal representation.
Poseidon's power outside the home was quite controversial, as he often lost his territories, as he lacked the strategy and good use of intelligence to keep them under his control.
It was an emotional personality, in which everything is felt and experienced in an intense way, sometimes uncontrolled and exaggerated, generating an irrational result. So when Poseidon loved, he did it with depth, with intensity. A representation about bringing out the most hidden and deepest feelings, a fact also observed in the connection with the myth of the Minotaur.
Poseidon and the Minotaur
After he took over the island of Crete, Minos began to fight his brothers to stay in power and asked Poseidon to send him a white bull, demonstrating that he, as a god, approved of his reign. As an agreement, Minos would then sacrifice the bull in honor of the god. However, due to the great beauty of the animal, Minos decided to spare it, breaking the agreement and provoking the wrath of Poseidon.
Poseidon's revenge was to ask Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, to make Pasiphae, wife of Minos, fall in love with the bull coming from the sea, also known as the Cretan Bull.
Pasiphae, in love with the bull, asked the craftsman Daedalus to build a wooden cow, which she could enter to later copulate with the Cretan Bull, the one that Minos had spared. So, the Minotaur was born.
The Minotaur grew up cared for by Pasiphae and became wild because it was the result of a union between a human being and an animal and, not having a food that suited it, to survive, it devoured humans.
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Poseidon symbols
Trident: carries the forces of the human mind: id (unconscious), ego (preconscious) and superego (conscious), and the three human drives: sexuality, spirituality and survival. For Poseidon it was a weapon of war, with which he transformed calm seas into agitated ones or opened cracks in rocks to make water spring up, representing the inconstancy of mood.
Dolphin: represents a sacred guide that the Cretans used in funerary rituals as an image, and sailors and fishermen believe that it was a guide and protector of sea voyages, as it was linked to the god of the seas.
Horse: in the myth of Poseidon, it represents the instinctual aspect of the human being, linked to desires.
Taurus: symbol of virility, it is, at the same time, overcoming the sexual impulse, discipline and self-control.
Poseidon is the most emotional god of Greek mythology, whose myth was widely used in cinema, representing the duality between reason and emotion, and bringing the public a reflection on how emotional balance is fundamental in people's lives for coexistence, predictable or serene results. Enjoy the story and think about the subject and how it is possible to seek self-knowledge through it.
