The Ancients - Poseidon: God of the Sea

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

God of the sea, earthquakes, and horses, Poseidon is one of the most iconic Olympians.In this episode, host Tristan Hughes is joined by Seth Pevnick, Curator of Greek and Roman art. Together, they untangle the various myths that describe Poseidon, his children, most notably Theseus and Polyphemus, as well as how the people of Ancient Greece used him to make sense of the world around them.Senior Producer was Elena GuthrieScript was written by Andrew HulseVoice over was performed by Lucy DavidsonAssistant Producer was Annie ColoeEditor was Aidan LonerganDiscover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Matt Lewis, Tristan Hughes and more. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code ANCIENTS. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.For more Ancient's content, subscribe to our Ancient's newsletter here.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. Sing, muses. Sing to me a story of Olympus and the deathless gods who govern earth, sea, and sky. So asks Odysseus, king of Ithaca. His hosts, these Phaeacians, have asked to hear his story.

The tale of his shipwreck upon their coast, and the laws of hospitality see Odysseus honour-bound to oblige. For he is a man cursed. The seas are set against him. No ship he sails is safe. No sailor who serves him survives. is safe. No sailor who serves him survives. He has transgressed against the Lord of the Deep himself, and Poseidon's temper is tempest. And yet, the fates are not without a sense of irony, for these Phaeacians are a seafaring people. Their island of Sceria is a

perfect port, a bounty of deep anchors and shallow keys. Their prows carve the wine-dark waves, as keen as blades, and their sails don't merely catch the wind, they stalk it. If anyone can help Odysseus, it is surely them. But the question is, once the muses have told the story, his blinding of Poseidon's son, will they dare to? Poseidon, god of the sea, horses and so much more. We're going to be covering various parts of Poseidon's story from his family and mythology to how he is depicted in art to the many different sanctuaries associated, dedicated to him all across the Greek world. Now the crux of today's episode will be an interview with Dr Seth Pevnik. Seth is the curator of Greek and

Roman art at the Cleveland Museum of Art and he also a few years back curated an exhibition all about Poseidon. Before we get to this interview, as we do with all of our special Greek Gods and Goddesses episodes, well we have a story, a retelling of a myth associated with Poseidon. And that myth today is all about one of Poseidon's most famous children, the Cyclops Polyphemus, and his unfortunate run-in with the Greek hero Odysseus. I really do hope you enjoy, and without further ado, here is the latest episode in our special Greek Gods and Goddesses series, All About Poseidon. The Muses open their song with dreadful discord.

It is the sound of chewing flesh and crunching bone. It is the Cyclops, Polyphemus, as he devours two men whole. They tried to escape at first, Odysseus and his band of Ithacans. They keep to the edges of the great cave the Cyclops calls home, hiding in among the produce of his livestock. The wheels of cheese, the deep pails of milk, the countless bales of wool. They hope to sneak out unnoticed. They hope to sneak out unnoticed. But Polyphemus guards his sheep well.

After leading them into the cave, he shuts off the entrance with a huge boulder and lights a fire. There is no place to hide them. The single eye sees all. Who comes into my home? The Cyclops asks. Odysseus replies that they are sailors shipwrecked, that they have come as guests in hope of hospitality. hospitality. But the rights of guests are guaranteed by Zeus, and Polyphemus answers to no god but his father, Poseidon. He is a force of nature after all, and nature makes no promise of hospitality. He grabs the first of Odysseus' men and makes his monstrous meal of them. The other Ithacans want to charge the Cyclops then, but Odysseus stays their blades. After all, even if they could overcome their captor, an unlikely outcome, they would be trapped. They could never move the boulder. No, they must rely on cunning. After such a hearty meal, you must be thirsty,

great Cyclops, shouts Odysseus. He holds aloft wineskins taken from his comrades, the very finest of vintages, the last from Troy's scorched vineyards. Offer me mercy in exchange for this gift. Who are you who asks for mercy? Polyphemus replies. Who are you who asks for mercy? Polyphemus replies. He peers down at the mortal, and his iris is the grey of stone, his pupil a depthless black. It reminds Odysseus of looking down the throat of a well. Nobody. My name is Nobody, the Ithacan replies. Then, Nobody, I will show you mercy.

I will eat you last. His laugh is a horrible grating thing. The only thing worse is the leer that accompanies it. His mouth is a red ruin. Odysseus bows his head in gratitude then, but he hides a smile of his own. Another dreadful discord plays amid the muse's song. It is a hissing and spitting like fat cooking over a fire. It is the sound of Polyphemus's eye blistering and boiling. It is the sound of Odysseus and his men blinding him with a flame-hardened stake while he sleeps, drunk from the wine.

The howls are deafening. They echo about the cave, sending the sheep into a frenzy. They are so loud that they rouse the attention of the other cyclops who live on the island. And from beyond the cave, they ask him, What has happened? They think Polyphemus mad then. For between his whimpers and his wails, Polyphemus roars, Nobody has blinded me! Nobody has blinded me! What can the other cyclops do then but withdraw? Polyphemus's sanity has clearly left him.

Odysseus need not hide his smile this time. not hide his smile this time. Even blind, Polyphemus still tries to prevent the Ithacan's escape. When he rolls aside the boulder the next morning, he does so just enough to let out his livestock one at a time, running monstrous fingers through their wool. But Odysseus has one final gambit. He orders each of his men to lash themselves to the underside of a sheep. As for himself, he takes the single It is Polyphemus' favourite. The cyclops mules and laments to it as he gently strokes its back. But he never notices the load the beast carries. Would that I had stayed silent then, Odysseus tells his audience, the Phaeacian court. He cuts the shape of a man bent low by the weight of his years.

As we cast off, fleeing the island by ship, I called back to the Cyclops. I needed him to know who truly had blinded him. Odysseus of Ithaca, son of Laertes, most cunning of the Greeks. But cunning is no match for the force of nature. It is no match for the wrath Polyphemus called down from his father, Poseidon. And so, I have been denied my homecoming for ten years. The Phaeacians share piteous looks, but it is their king, Alcinous, who alone Odysseus watches.

The man's face is expressionless, the calm of a placid ocean, a sight Odysseus has not seen for near a decade. Caprice, Alcinous says at last. Unpredictability. It is the sea's only promise. But we mortals are held to a higher standard. Laws enshrined by Zeus himself. You may be Poseidon's enemy, Odysseus of Ithaca. But to me, you are are a guest I will show you

what the Cyclops would not hospitality come the morning tide we will take you home Seth it is wonderful to have you on the podcast today thank you it's great to be here.

You're more than welcome. Let's delve straight into it. First off, who was Poseidon? Well, Poseidon is the Greek god of the sea. That's what he's most famous for. But I think we can say a little bit more about him. He's my favorite Greek god, of course. There's a wonderful quote from Pausanias, this great traveler in the ancient world. And he says, and I quote, all men call Poseidon god of the sea, of earthquakes, and of horses, end quote. Everyone knows today that he's the god of the sea, but may not know that he's also the god of earthquakes, right? The Greeks called him the earth shaker or the holder of the earth, and also a god of horses, so Poseidon Hippios.

So that horses thing, let's keep on that horses a bit longer because that did strike out. I wasn't expecting that. I mean, do we therefore see a continual association between Poseidon and horses throughout the mythology and I guess in artwork too? Yeah, we do see it for a long time. One of my favorite mythological creatures in ancient art is the hippocamp. And I don't think a lot of people know what the hippocamp is. Hippo, that's the Greek word for horse. And a hippocamp is a sort of seahorse, but not a seahorse like the seahorses one can see today in an aquarium, but really

a creature that has the body of a horse in the front and then sort of a fishy tail, almost a snaky fishy tail in the back. And this is a creature that is absolutely perfect for Poseidon. And in fact, we see him sometimes riding on a hippocampus. Sometimes they have wings as well. So there are these great mythological creatures that really get down to the essence, I think, of who Poseidon is or was. Is it quite interesting with the whole god of Poseidon that because he is the ruler of this beneath the water kingdom, he's the god of the sea, that back in ancient Greek times, how much mystery there is surrounding what lurked beneath the waves, that it's not surprising that there is

this great association between him and these, I don't want to say monstrous, but these massive mythical creatures that dwelled beneath the waves. Yeah, I think absolutely. I think for the Greeks and for the Romans as well, the sea was both more important and more mysterious than it is for us today. If you look at a map of the ancient Greek world, in a way, the sea connects all of the people in a way that is very different from the way that we moderns conceptualize the world, right? If we think about the United States, where I am, for example, we often think that we're sort of bounded by the sea, right? We have the sea on the west coast and the sea on the east coast. And even where I am in Ohio, we have the Great Lakes, sort of the north coast, as people refer to it sometimes.

But for the Greeks, it was very much the opposite, right? They have these winding, jagged coastlines and many, many islands. And the sea is the thing that connects all of those places. coastlines and many, many islands, and the sea is the thing that connects all of those places. And if you look not only at this map, but if you then populate that map with all of the cities, the city-states where the Greeks lived, they're very much concentrated along the coastlines and along the oceans. There's a great quote also from Plato who talks about the Greeks living like frogs about a pond, right? So it's a very different way of understanding the world. And then if you think that Poseidon is the god who is the lord of that

realm, well, then it makes quite a lot of sense, I think, that he is so important and that he is so pervasive. So given the importance of the sea for the ancient Greeks, in regards to, I guess, importance of the sea for the ancient Greeks, in regards to, I guess, Poseidon's status in the Greek pantheon, whereabouts does he sit in it? Well, this is something that I think he and Zeus, about which he and Zeus might disagree, right? So we always hear about Zeus being the king of the gods, the lord of the gods, and we think of him sitting upon a throne. And in fact, that's often how we see Zeus in ancient art, whereas Poseidon more frequently is sitting, sometimes on a hippocamp, like I was saying, but often he's standing and holding his trident. And a very regal god, right, bearded, older. And in fact, he and Zeus are the eldest of the gods, together with Hades, of course. If you think about Percy

Jackson, right, if we want to put it in more modern terms, they're considered sort of the big three. But this is a tradition that goes way, way back. And Homer tells us that these three, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, divided the realms. And they sort of drew lots lots if we understand it. And Zeus drew the sky and Poseidon drew the sea and Hades drew the underworld. But Homer tells us, and Poseidon and Zeus would say as well, they share earth and Mount Olympus. And so in a certain sense, Poseidon might say, well, we're equals, whereas Zeus would say, no, no, no, I'm on top. But that's quite interesting in itself. So if he is part of, say, if we put it in those more modern terms, the big three, in regards to Poseidon's origin story in the mythology, is he therefore one of the, this might be wrong, but one of the first of these, this pantheon of

that's created almost. So when you're thinking of those, if he sits alongside the likes of Zeus and Hades and they cut up the world almost together. Yeah. I mean, in fact, although we have so many different written sources and of course, lots of ancient lore does not survive. So we're dependent on what we have, right? But if the story is, of course, that Kronos was scared that his offspring would eventually unseat him. Then Zeus is the one who fools him by feeding him a rock instead of Zeus himself. And then these are all regurgitated, right? And then this is how the oldest of the Olympians come to be. Then in fact, Poseidon must be older than Zeus, right? Because he was swallowed before Zeus. But I suppose then maybe Zeus was born first if he was made free by this trick. But yes, so there was a history even before

Zeus and Poseidon and Hades and then the younger Olympians before they came along, right? And so we hear different stories. And so we hear, for example, people sometimes are confused and they say, well, what about this god Pontos? And Pontos is the sea, right? So this is different from Poseidon. Poseidon rules over the sea. He is the god of the sea. Pontos is the sea. He's the personification of the sea. And he's the son of Gaia, who is the earth, and of Uranus, who is the heaven, right? So there are these different stories that are all trying to make sense of the world as we see it, or as the ancient Greeks saw it, right? And so people will ask, well, are these real? Is Poseidon real? Is Zeus real? And I would say, yeah, they're real in the sense that for many, many centuries, for millennia,

people were using them to make sense of the world. They were praying to them. They were thanking them. They were fearing them. And so in that sense, yes, absolutely. They're very real. And you can go to a museum today and see images of them and see the artworks that sort of allowed the ancients to make sense of them in ways that sometimes make sense to us and in ways that sometimes totally confuse us. Well, let's therefore delve into this artwork. I know this is an area that you've done a lot of work around. In regards to how the ancient Greeks represent how they depict Pose I mean, let's start with statues. How is Poseidon usually depicted in statues? Well, this is a good question. And scholars argue sometimes because sometimes

we're not sure whether the individual represented is Poseidon or is Zeus. So we know, for example, that these two are conceived of as elders, right? And so they're usually shown bearded. But the way that we would distinguish Poseidon from Zeus, for example, is by the other attributes that they have, right? If they look similar to one another, then we have to think about the things that they're holding, right? And so Poseidon most often carries the trident. Sometimes he holds it like a scepter. Sometimes he wields it like a weapon, right? The trident is essentially a giant fork, right? And so it's good for fishing. That's why it's associated with Poseidon. You can use it to spear fish, but you can also hold it if you're trying to present yourself as this sort of kingly figure. You can hold it

like a scepter. Zeus, on the other hand, most frequently holds the thunderbolt. And this is a much smaller thing. But then if you think about all the ancient sculptures that you've seen in museums, well, usually they're incomplete, right? And so often those attributes that they should have been holding are lost. So sometimes we might see a statue of someone with his hand up as if to hold something, right? The most famous one for many people is the god from the sea. This is a larger than life size striding figure, a bearded striding figure with both arms out, right? Holding his right arm back as if he's about to throw something. This is in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. It's called the

god from the sea because it was discovered in the sea from a shipwreck. We don't know what he held in his hand. I think he probably held a trident and therefore he's Poseidon. But there are lots of other eminent scholars who have said, no, no, no, he held a thunderbolt and therefore he's Poseidon. But there are lots of other eminent scholars who have said, no, no, no, he held a thunderbolt and therefore he's Zeus. So this is an example of one where we're not quite sure, but also a good example to show us just how similar they looked to one another. You're absolutely right. I think I remember seeing a copy of it in the Ashmolean, the Zeus Artemision. It said, I remember learning about that, studying about that at school and learning about it as the Zeus Artemision. But as you say, it's a fascinating

example where that was because it was the belief or some believe they say it's a thunderbolt, but it could actually be an overhead trident. I can imagine with someone like Poseidon, it's very difficult unless those attributes do survive. Do we ever get cases where the attributes like a trident does survive, so we can say more clearly that this statue does represent Poseidon? We have some tridents that survive. There's a larger-than-life trident in the J. Paul Getty Museum in California that almost certainly belonged to a statue. It's way too big to have been used as a functional trident, but the statue to which it belonged does not survive, at least as far as I know. We have smaller scale pieces with tridents, and certainly we have lots and lots of painted representations of Poseidon

with a trident on vases, on terracotta clay tablets. And sometimes we also have inscriptions that connect certain artworks to Poseidon, whether they were dedications to Poseidon or statue bases that once held his likeness. I appreciate that was a tricky question. So let's move on to pottery then that you highlighted there. So how is Poseidon usually depicted in pottery? I'm guessing as you hinted at there, with these depictions of the god, it's more easy to distinguish him. Yeah. So if you see someone on an ancient pot holding a trident and with a beard, then almost certainly it's going to be Poseidon. But occasionally we see representations of some of his very famous offspring holding his attributes. And so there's a vase, for example,

that shows Bellerophon, who's most famous for having slayed the chimera, usually a stride pegasus, but sometimes Bellerophon is holding a trident. And that's a way, I think, of identifying Bellerophon and also indicating his very distinguished parentage. So let's focus on this parentage then. So Bellerophon, and therefore go back to Poseidon. Do we know that Poseidon had many children? Yes, Poseidon had many, many children, and not that many with Amphitrite, who's properly his wife. Most famously, I think, Poseidon's child is Triton. When we see him represented, often he's shown as a fishtailed god and lived at the bottom of the sea, and that is the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite. But Poseidon also had children with lots and lots of other women or goddesses or nymphs,

as is the case for his brother Zeus and for many other divinities. And who were these children or what did these children become? Were they usually heroes of Greek mythology or was there a wider range of who Poseidon's children were? There's a wide range. So maybe the most famous is Theseus, who is second to Heracles, I would say, in terms of most famous heroes in ancient Greece. And Theseus becomes extra famous because he's the hero par excellence for the city of Athens, which is the most famous city of Greece, right? But Theseus, like a number of these children, has sort of a complicated parentage. So Theseus is the son of Poseidon, but he's also sometimes held up as the son of Aegeus. So sometimes heroes can have both a divine family and a mortal family, which is a way, I think, of connecting them to the living people of the time.

So Theseus, I would say, is among the most famous. And then sort of ironically, Theseus, in all of his heroic acts, ends up fighting against other children of Poseidon. So he fights against Scyron, for example, or Procrustes, or Antioch, just to name a few. And these are some of the lesser known of the offspring of Poseidon. I guess Poseidon also, sort of interestingly, is the father of Pegasus. And Pegasus has a very unusual birth story. So Poseidon famously lay with Medusa. And when Medusa later is slain by Perseus, who's also riding on Pegasus, so this doesn't always make sense, who later, I should say, is riding on Pegasus, right? He beheads Medusa and out of her neck spring two winged horses. One of them is Pegasus, the other Chrysaor. And Pegasus then goes on,

of course, to be the horse ridden sometimes by Perseus, but also by Bellerophon, as I mentioned before. I'm James Patton Rogers, a war historian, advisor to the UN and NATO, and host of the warfare podcast from History Hit. Join me twice a week, every week, as we look at the conflicts that have defined our past and the ones shaping our future. We talk to award-winning journalists. ISIS, this peculiar strain that we all came to know very well in the mid-2010s, really got its start because of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. We hear from the people who were actually there.

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whether it's a winged horse or a hero or some other figure, because these other figures I've got in my notes that Poseidon is also he's the father of the Cyclopses too yeah and this is a really interesting one right because the Cyclopses are most famous right for being these huge uncivilized one-eyed monsters right and the most famous of them is Polyphemus. And of course, Odysseus, one of the most famous of the Greek heroes, on his way back from Troy, ends up on the island of the Cyclops and tangles famously with Polyphemus, right? But if you look carefully at the other texts that tell us about the Cyclopes, they don't talk about Polyphemus. I think Polyphemus only appears in the Odyssey.

And in these other texts that talk about the Cyclopes, they don't talk about Poseidon. And so it seems that there might be these two divergent stories that then come together. there might be these two divergent stories that then come together, right? And so Hesiod, for example, tells us that the Cyclops are sons of Uranus and Gaia, of heaven and earth, and that they're divine craftsmen. Sometimes they work with Hephaestus, right? So we hear that the Cyclops is responsible, or these three Cyclops brothers are responsible for creating the thunderbolt of Zeus and the trident of Poseidon and the helmet of Hades, right? These very interesting objects. When they appear in Homer, I don't think there's a mention of this, but rather we hear, and then it's very important that Polyphemus is the son of Poseidon, right? Because when Odysseus gets trapped in the

cave of Polyphemus, right, he comes up with this great plan. Odysseus is famous for coming up with these great plans. He's so resourceful, right? He comes up with this plan that he will get Polyphemus drunk and he will sharpen this stake. And with his his men once Polyphemus is drunk and falls asleep they'll blind him with this burning hot pointed stake and then they'll be able to escape and all goes well they they escape Odysseus has this great idea that rather than saying Odysseus is his name he tells him no one is my name and in Greek Odysseus and no one sound very much alike, right? So it's this clever pun in Greek. But this allows them to escape because when Polyphemus is shouting out in pain, the other Cyclopses are yelling, what's the problem?

Who's hurting you? And he says, no one is hurting me. And they say, well, nothing we can do then. And Odysseus and his men are able to escape. And all is going very well, except Odysseus has this great pride, right? It's one of his tragic flaws. And on his way out, he says, I fooled you. I'm not no one. I'm Odysseus. And then Polyphemus can invoke the wrath of his father, Poseidon, right? And so he says, Poseidon is going to make your trip home so, so difficult.

And in fact, we hear about that at the very beginning of the Odyssey, right? That part of the reason that Odysseus' trip home is difficult is because Poseidon is holding it up. So although Poseidon is on the side of the Greeks for the most part in the Trojan War, he's not on the side of Odysseus. And that in itself is fascinating as we delve into the portrayal of Poseidon in so many of these myths. If we focus on the Trojan War and the Odyssey for now, from what you're highlighting there, although he is on the winning side, when it comes to the story of Odysseus, if Odysseus is being depicted as this great hero, well, Poseidon almost feels like one of the great villains trying to hinder him amongst the gods.

He doesn't seem to have a good reputation. He doesn't have a positive light in these myths. Well, I suppose you could think about it that way. You could also say he's the one who makes possible all of Odysseus' heroics, right? If Odysseus had smooth sailing back home, like so many of his buddies, then there wouldn't be a great poem about him, right? If Odysseus had smooth sailing back home, like so many of his buddies, then there wouldn't be a great poem about him, right? But yes, I think there is this idea of Poseidon being a wrathful god and a difficult god. He's responsible, after all, for earthquakes, right? One of the most ferocious and terrifying things that happen in the Mediterranean world. And that's one reason that we must appease him, right? We must make sacrifices to him. We must thank him for the good things that he makes possible for us. But I think it's also going back to this bit of

antagonism between Zeus and Poseidon, right? Zeus and Athena want Odysseus to be okay and get back home. And Poseidon, for a long time, has this ongoing animosity with his brother Zeus, but also with Athena, right? We see that very often in the artworks and the myths that survive from ancient Athens. And so given Poseidon's importance to ancient Greeks, when it comes to the worship of the god of the sea by ancient Greeks, and you say, if he does come across sometimes as quite a wrathful god, god of the earthquakes, god of the sea, do we find sanctuaries to Poseidon all across the Greek world? We do, absolutely. Somewhat surprisingly, not always right by the sea, right? I talked about how the Greeks mostly live by the sea, and that's true.

But of course, there are lots of inland sites, and there are plenty of sanctuaries to Poseidon in those places as well. And if we go back briefly to the story of Odysseus, right, the way that Odysseus is eventually going to get free is that he should be carrying an oar so far inland that someone will recognize it not as an oar, but as a winnowing fan, and in that place, make a sacrifice to Poseidon, right? Which is a good indication of just how far and wide Poseidon was worshipped. If we focus therefore more on the peripheries of the Greek world, I mean, are there any If we focus therefore more on the peripheries of the Greek world, I mean, are, right? In South Italy. And they not only took their name from the god, but

also he appears on their coinage, right? So some of the best archaic images of Poseidon are just like we described before of this bearded figure, usually bearded, occasionally at least on the coins, it's hard to tell, maybe he's not bearded, but a bearded figure striding and holding that trident up about to launch it, right? And in big Greek letters, it says P-O-S, the first letters not only of Poseidon, but also Poseidonia, right? So marking this coinage as belonging to the citizens of Poseidonia, and therefore related to Poseidon. Because I mean, earlier, we did focus in on his depictions in statues on black figure on red figure pottery earlier. But that's another important point, isn't it, Seth? Poseidon's

depiction in coinage too. Once again, is it the usual attributes that are associated with Poseidon, whether it's a trident, or maybe even do we sometimes see him with a horse or a marine animal? We do sometimes see him with a marine animal, but that's the most famous one on the coins of Poseidonia. We see his offspring sometimes. So not too far from Poseidonia, there's a famous city, Taras, now Taranto, in the sort of heel of the boot of Italy. And on their coins, they have a young man riding on a dolphin, sometimes also with a trident. And this is not Poseidon, but probably one of his many, many offspring, Taros, who lends his name to the city. Well, if we go back to the Greek mainland then, and I've got on my notes Sunion. I feel like we have to talk about Sunion if we're talking about Poseidon.

Now, Seth, what is Sunion? Sunion is a cape in the region of Greece called Attica, where Athens is, but Athens is not quite on the coast. And Sunion is a cape that most ships, as they approach Piraeus, the port of Athens, this is a cape that most ships would go around. And on the top of this great promontory is a beautiful temple. It's still there. And it's one of the highlights for many people of a visit to Greece, right? It's not too long a bus ride out from Athens proper to Sunion. And ancient authors talk about it as well, that you could see this as a sort of beacon. And it makes sense, right, talking about Poseidon as the god of the sea, that it would be a temple to Poseidon that one would see as one came out of the dangerous sea. Hopefully by that point,

you're safely making your way back to land. So his position is key there. You can really understand why that sanctuary is dedicated to Poseidon, given the, I guess, deadliness. If you are a trader, a fisherman, if you're going by boat, the importance of getting past that cape, and then you have the safety of Athens, well, in your sights. Absolutely. There's also a temple to Athena, not too far from there, but the most prominent one that you see at Sunion and which is to a certain extent still standing is the temple to Poseidon. I'd like to focus in on celebrations. How did these ancient Greeks celebrate Poseidon? What sorts of celebrations are associated with this god of the sea?

Well, we know at Suneion, for example, we know that there were boat races that were held. We know more famously in Athens, there was the Panathenaic Festival, right? And this was held in honor of Athena, which makes sense, right? Because she was the patron goddess of Athens. But we know that on the Athenian Acropolis, there were also sanctuaries to Poseidon, right? So he was not completely forgotten in Athens, right? On the pedimental sculpture of the Parthenon, the most famous sculpture or the most famous temple to Athena, we see Poseidon actually a little bit in front of Athena, I think, right? But it's showing

this contest that they held for dominion over the city. And of course, Athena ends up winning that contest. But there are other places in the ancient world. The most famous one is Isthmia, which is a tricky word for us to say, right? It comes from the Greek word for the isthmus, this tiny land bridge, this very skinny land bridge that connects the Greek mainland in the north to the Peloponnesus in the south. There's now the Corinth Canal so that ships can go through there. But in antiquity, that canal did not yet exist. And people had the choice, sailors had the choice of sailing all the way around the Peloponnese or dragging their ships across this Isthmus. And very near the Isthmus, which was controlled by Corinth, developed a very large sanctuary called Isthmia. And this sanctuary was the largest pan-Hellenic sanctuary that was devoted primarily to Poseidon,

right? So everybody knows about Delphi and Apollo, and everybody knows about Olympia and Zeus. And I should add, there were altars and places to worship Poseidon at those places too, but Isthmia was primarily for Poseidon. And it makes sense, given what I just described, right, that it is at this critical point for sailors. And what went on there was worship in the sort of standard years, a huge festival was held. And this was part of what we call the sort of crown circuit for athletes in antiquity, right? So it was a religious sanctuary and a religious festival, but it also involved athletic competitions. And again, everyone has heard of the Olympic Games. Those happened every four years at Olympia. There were the Pythian Games at Delphi.

Those were held every four years in honor of Apollo. Well, there were two other sites that are not quite as famous today. One was Nemea, and that was sacred primarily to Zeus. And then Isthmia, which was sacred to Poseidon. And there were great games held there, not only athletic competitions, but also equestrian competitions, and even artistic competitions. So we hear about theatrical performances, musical performances, painting contests. And if you won a competition at Isthmia, like at Olympia or Delphi or Nemea, it was a huge, huge honor. So we can think about, there is not a great parallel, right? Because our athletic competitions

today don't usually have religious overtones, right? But if you think about the professional tennis tour or the golf tour, where there are lots and lots of tournaments, but then there are the four majors, right? These were the majors. So if you won at Olympia, that was the biggest and best you could do. But Nemea, Isthmia, Delphi were not a distant second, right? That was quite a big deal to win at the Isthmian Games. I think that is such a great parallel, isn't it? And we're saying like Olympia is almost like the Wimbledon, but then you have the US Open and the Australian Open. And, you know, these are the majors, these are the majors. And the Isthmian is one of those. And it is fascinating how it is sometimes overlooked compared to the others. again, does it emphasize how, well, I guess, A, the significance, the importance of this God in the Hellenic pantheon, but B, how he isn't always just associated just with the sea, how there is so much more surrounding this figure? Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's hard for us to understand

just how pervasive his importance would have been, right? Because our world today is so very different from that of the ancients. I'd like to focus a bit more on a couple of these myths. how pervasive his importance would have been, right? Because our world today is so very different from that of the ancients. I'd like to focus a bit more on a couple of these myths. You mentioned Athens there, and we focused in our interview with Rachel Kusser about Athena, about his contest with Athena for patronage of Athens. But if I'm correct, there's also a reference to Poseidon in the Gigantamachy that you see at the center of Athens. It seems to be a fascinating story surrounding Poseidon in the Gigantamachy. Now, what is this? Yeah, this is a really great story, right? Because it's one of these things where the depictions, the descriptions of Poseidon are about as literal as they can be, right? So we hear that in the

battle of the gods and the giants, right, each of the Olympian gods takes on a particular adversary and the gods take advantage of their strength. So what we hear that Poseidon does is he picks up an island. He picks up this island called Nisiros, which makes sense, right? He's the holder of the earth. He's the shaker of the earth. He's the god of the sea. So in all those ways, as literally as we can, we see Poseidon doing that. And there are great depictions on Greek vases of him holding a giant boulder. But it's not just a boulder. It has little sea creatures depicted on it, right? So it's quite clearly an island, and he buries this giant beneath the island. And so this is his contribution to the battle of the gods and the giants. So in regards to that island of Nisiros, is there therefore the local mythology in ancient

Greek times that there was this giant therefore lurking beneath the island? Yes, yes. And so you should be careful if you go to Nisiros, because he might just push it back upking beneath the island. Yes, yes. And so you should be careful if you go to Nisiros because he might just push it back up out of the earth. And so if we think about Poseidon as the god of earthquakes, right, he's also called euphemistically the securer, which is sort of the opposite. We're terrified that he might shake the earth, but we hope that he will secure the earth. And so perhaps that's what we should hope for when we visit Nisiros. And this is an island that one can still visit in the Aegean. That's brilliant. I love that story. I'm glad we got it in. I mean, if we talk about almost,

I guess, the evolution of Poseidon as ancient history goes on, as we get to the time of the Romans. Now, in Roman mythology, we always seem to see the Romans taking the Greek gods. How does Poseidon evolve or how does he change into the Roman god Neptune? Yeah, that's a good question. I think it's not just the Romans taking them and changing them, it's also melding with earlier Italic traditions. And so for the Romans and for the Etruscans, there was already a god of water. For the Etruscans, he's called Nethuns, which sounds very much like Neptune, right?

Or Neptunus in Latin. I'm told that Neptunus probably comes first before Nethuns, but that he's primarily a freshwater god. And so this is a little bit different from Poseidon. And he doesn't have the same connection, at least as far as I know, to earthquakes and horses. And as a result, in the Roman tradition, I don't think Neptune has quite as much importance as Poseidon has in the Greek tradition, but we still hear quite a lot about him. We still see him represented in ancient art. We still see him as the recipient of cult, of dedications, and we see him connected with important Roman leaders. So we see, for example, if we go back to coinage, right, we see Octavian

presenting himself as Neptune, or we see Domitian. I think there's a coin that says Neptune returning and has Domitian in that sort of guise. So if a Roman general or leader has a great sea battle, a great victory at sea, right, that is still connected back to Neptune. And some of the iconography associated with the god then becomes associated with the leader. Because that is interesting, isn't it? When you think of the Romans, or at least I think I do, they're often associated with the land empire, the power of the legionaries the mighty armed forces of rome and yes their naval power too is supreme but it's almost always looked at after the legions and the land army of the romans whereas with let's say greek city-states such as athens you think of it as a maritime power and you see several other city-states that follow with that maritime

supremacy do you think maybe that is potentially another reason why Poseidon is more, dare I say, important or prominent in ancient Greek culture compared to Neptune with the Romans? Yeah, I think we think of something like the Delian League, or going back much earlier into mytho-history, right, the Minoan thalassocracy, right, that we have these empires at sea, which are a little bit different from the Roman Empire. Certainly, the Roman Empire was powerful at sea, but its extent was quite a lot larger on land than we think of for the Athenian Empire, for example. Seth, this has been absolutely brilliant. Is there anything else you'd like to highlight about Poseidon

before we completely wrap up? I would say he's a fascinating and powerful god and worth studying and worth paying more attention to. And look closely at the things that you see when you visit a museum or an ancient archaeological site and try to imagine how Poseidon might have connected to those things. Well, Seth, actually talking about museums, you curated an exhibition all about Poseidon a few years back now, but that must have been quite

an experience in itself. Yeah, it was one of the highlights of my career so far. It was called Poseidon and the Sea, Myth, Cult, and Daily Life. And so it was really about how Poseidon and his many different aspects pervaded daily life in so many ways and across so many centuries. It was inspired by a statue of Poseidon or Neptune that's now in the Tampa Museum of Art, lacking his trident now. I made the mistake once when talking to a group of schoolchildren of asking what Poseidon was missing, what this statue was missing. And if you look at an image of this sculpture, you'll see that he's not only missing his trident. Well, Seth, it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time

to come on the podcast today. Oh, you're very welcome. Thanks for the invitation. It was a lot of fun. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Seth Pevnik talking all things Poseidon for the latest episode in our special Greek Gods and Goddesses series. I hope you enjoyed the episode and don't you worry, that series will be continuing in the near future. My thanks must go out to the scriptwriter Andrew Hulse, Lucy Davidson, the voice artist who did the story at the beginning of the episode, our assistant producer Annie Colo, our senior producer Elena Guthrie, and of course the man who put it all together, producer Elena Guthrie and of course the man who put it all together our editor Aidan Lonergan. Thank you to you all for all of your hard work in making this episode a reality. Now last things from me you know what I'm going to say but if you have been enjoying the ancients recently and you

want to help us out well you know what you can do. It's quick, it's easy, you can leave us a lovely rating on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts from. It really helps us as we continue our mission to share these amazing stories from our distant past with you and with as many people as possible. Long may that continue. But that's enough from me and I will see you in the next episode.