Poseidon

by Gloria Ssali

Title

Poseidon

Artist

Gloria Ssali

Medium

Drawing - Drawing

Description

Neptune (Latin: Neptūnus) was the god of water and the sea[1] in Roman mythology and religion. He is analogous with, but not identical to, the Greek god Poseidon. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Neptune was the brother of Jupiter and Pluto, each of them presiding over one of the three realms of the universe, Heaven, Earth and the Netherworld. Depictions of Neptune in Roman mosaics, especially those of North Africa, are influenced by Hellenistic conventions.[2]
Unlike the Greek Oceanus, titan of the world-ocean, Neptune was associated as well with fresh water. Georges Dumézil suggested[3] that for Latins, who were not a seafaring people, the primary identification of Neptune was with freshwater springs. Like Poseidon, Neptune was worshipped by the Romans also as a god of horses, under the name Neptunus Equester, a patron of horse-racing.[4 The theology of Neptune may only be reconstructed to some extent as since very early times he was identified with the Greek god Poseidon, as he is present already in the lectisternium of 399 BC.[13] Such an identification may well be grounded in the strict relationship between the Latin and Greek theologies of the two deities.[14] It has been argued that Indo-European people, having no direct knowledge of the sea as they originated from inland areas, reused the theology of a deity originally either chthonic or wielding power over inland freshwaters as the god of the sea.[15] This feature has been preserved particularly well in the case of Neptune who was definitely a god of springs, lakes and rivers before becoming also a god of the sea, as is testified by the numerous findings of inscriptions mentioning him in the proximity of such locations. Servius the grammarian also explicitly states Neptune is in charge of all the rivers, springs and waters.[16]
He may find a parallel in Irish god Nechtan, master of the well from which all the rivers of the world flow out and flow back to.
Poseidon on the other hand underwent the process of becoming the main god of the sea at a much earlier time, as is shown in the Iliad.[17]
In the earlier times it was the god Portunes or Fortunus who was thanked for naval victories, but Neptune supplanted him in this role by at least the first century BC when Sextus Pompeius called himself "son of Neptune."[18] For a time he was paired with Salacia, the goddess of the salt water.[19]
Neptune was also considered the legendary progenitor god of a Latin stock, the Faliscans, who called themselves Neptunia proles. In this respect he was the equivalent of Mars, Janus, Saturn and even Jupiter among Latin tribes. Salacia would represent the virile force of Neptune.[20]

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November 15th, 2011

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