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| Attic Greece Kylix - Poseidon with Trident urges on the Greek Heroes attacking Troy ca. 540 BC painted terracotta Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Poseidon who circles the earth and shakes it spoke, and striking
both of them with his staff filled them with powerful valour,
and he made their limbs light, and their feet, and their hands above them . . .
Now as these two were saying such things to each other, joyful
in the delight of battle the god had put into their spirits,
meanwhile the earth-encircler stirred up the Achaians behind them
who were cooling the heat of the inward heart back beside their vessels,
for their very limbs were broken with weariness of hard work, and also
discouragement of the heart came over them, as they watched
the Trojans, and how in a mass they had overswarmed the great wall.
As they saw them the tears dripped from their eyes; they did not
think they could win clear of the evil, but the earth-shaker
lightly turning their battalions to strength drove them onward.
– from the Iliad of Homer, translated by Richmond Lattimore (1951)
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| Attic Greece Fragment of Poseidon statue from west pediment of the Parthenon ca. 438-432 BC marble British Museum |
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| Attic Greece Fragment of Poseidon statue from west pediment of the Parthenon ca. 438-432 BC marble British Museum |
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| Paolo Farinati Contest of Athena and Poseidon for dominion over Athens ca. 1590 fresco Sala Rossa, Villa Nichesola-Conforti, Ponton di Sant' Ambrogio di Valpolicella |
"Kekrops, a son of the soil, with a body compounded of man and serpent, was the first king of Attika. . . . In his time, they say, the gods resolved to take possession of cities in which each of them should receive his own peculiar worship. So Poseidon was the first that came to Attika, and with a blow of his trident on the middle of the Acropolis, he produced a sea which they now call Erektheis. After him came Athena, and, having called on Kekrops to witness her act of taking possession. she planted an olive tree, which is still shown in the Pandrosion. But when the two strove for possession of the country, Zeus parted them and appointed arbiters. . . . And in accordance with their verdict the country was adjudged to Athena, because Kekrops bore witness that she had been the first to plant the olive. Athena, therefore, called the city Athens after herself, and Poseidon in hot anger flooded the Thriasian plain and laid Attika under the sea."
– from the Library of Apollodorus (2nd century AD), translated by J.G. Frazer (1921)
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| Hellenistic workshop under Roman dominion Marriage Procession of Poseidon and Amphitrite from the Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus ca. 100 BC marble relief (detail) Glyptothek, Munich |
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| Palissy ware Neptune on a Seahorse ca. 1560-1620 lead-glazed earthenware Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Lambert-Sigisbert Adam Bust of Neptune ca. 1725-27 terracotta Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Paolo Farinati Neptune in his chariot before 1606 drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Hendrik Goltzius Neptune and Amphitrite ca. 1594 engraving British Museum |
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| Pietro della Vecchia Neptune ca. 1650 oil on canvas Musée des Augustins de Toulouse |
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| Guercino Neptune riding on a Dolphin before 1666 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Paolo Farinati Neptune and Medusa ca. 1590 drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |
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| Nicolas Poussin Triumph of Neptune, with Amphitrite 1634 oil on canvas Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Sebastiano Ricci Neptune and Amphitrite ca. 1691-94 oil on canvas Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid |
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| Giorgio Ghisi after Perino del Vaga Neptune ca. 1550-70 engraving British Museum |