50 Fun Facts About Poseidon

Poseidon is the Greek god of the sea and of which two other things?

His title as god of earthquakes is older than his link to the sea, and appears on Bronze Age tablets.

What is Poseidon's signature weapon?

The Cyclopes forged it for him for the war against the Titans, just as they made Zeus's thunderbolt.

What is Poseidon's Roman equivalent?

The Roman god was probably a freshwater deity first; his festival fell on 23 July, when water was scarcest.

Poseidon competed with which goddess for the patronage of Athens?

He struck the Acropolis and made a salt spring; she offered an olive tree and won.

What gift did Poseidon offer the Athenians in the contest for the city?

It was not much use for drinking, but it stood for access to the sea and to trade.

What did Poseidon send to punish the Athenians for not choosing him?

He also sent his son to chop down the winning olive tree; the son missed and killed himself with his own axe.

Poseidon and his brothers divided the world by what method?

Zeus got the sky, Hades the underworld and Poseidon the sea, with the earth and Olympus shared.

Poseidon was which child in birth order of Cronus and Rhea's six children?

Being swallowed and disgorged in reverse made him both second youngest and second oldest at once.

In a rare later version, Rhea saved the infant Poseidon by giving Cronus what to swallow instead?

The horse trick suits a god who was worshipped as a horse in Arcadia.

Which Cyclops, Poseidon's son, does Odysseus blind, earning the sea god's lasting hatred?

The grudge costs Odysseus his ship, all his companions and ten extra years at sea.

Poseidon's consort, an ancient sea goddess and daughter of Nereus, is who?

A Bronze Age tablet even records a female 'Poseideia', an earlier lost consort.

Which creature persuaded Poseidon's fleeing bride to marry him, earning a place among the stars?

She had hidden with Atlas; the constellation Delphinus is the reward.

Poseidon's son with his sea-goddess consort, a merman, is which sea deity?

He gave his name to the largest moon of the eighth planet.

Poseidon fathered which winged horse with the Gorgon Medusa?

It sprang from Medusa's neck when Perseus beheaded her, along with the warrior Chrysaor.

Poseidon, as a stallion, pursued Demeter in mare form; their child was a horse named what?

In Arcadia they also had a daughter whose name could not be spoken to the uninitiated.

Poseidon created the first horse, Skyphios, by doing what?

In Thessaly he was called Petraios, 'of the rocks', and was said to have drained the vale of Tempe the same way.

Which Athenian hero was Poseidon's son by Aethra, conceived on the same night she slept with King Aegeus?

To prove his parentage he dived for a ring Minos threw into the sea and came back with a crown from the sea queen.

Poseidon gave King Minos a splendid animal to prove his right to rule Crete; what was it?

Minos kept it instead of sacrificing it, so Poseidon made his queen fall in love with it, and the Minotaur followed.

Poseidon and Apollo were made to build the walls of which city as punishment for rebelling against Zeus?

King Laomedon refused to pay them, so Poseidon sent a sea monster that Heracles later killed.

In Plato's dialogues, which legendary island was Poseidon's domain?

He built rings of water and land around the hill where his mortal lover Cleito lived; their eldest son Atlas ruled it.

Poseidon granted his hero son's rash wish by sending what to kill the grandson Hippolytus?

The horses bolted and dragged the innocent young man to his death.

Poseidon disputed the city of Argos with which goddess, and lost?

He sent a drought in revenge, then rescued the Argive woman Amymone from a satyr and fathered Nauplius on her.

Poseidon and Helios both wanted Corinth; who was asked to settle the dispute?

The hundred-handed elder god gave Helios the Acrocorinth and Poseidon the isthmus.

Poseidon turned Caenis into the male warrior Caeneus at whose request?

After he assaulted her he offered any wish; she asked to become a man so it could never happen again.

Poseidon fathered the twins Pelias and Neleus with Tyro after disguising himself as what?

Tyro was in love with the river, who had refused her.

Poseidon's charioteer and young lover Nerites was turned into what by the sun god Helios?

Their love was said to have produced Anteros, the god of mutual love.

Poseidon and the goddess Gaia were the parents of which half-giant, later wrestled by Heracles?

He drew his strength from his mother the earth, so Heracles had to lift him off the ground.

Poseidon crushed the giant Polybotes under a piece he broke off which island?

The broken piece became the island of Nisyros.

Under which epithet, common in Arcadia, was Poseidon worshipped as the god 'of horses'?

He had temples under that name across Arcadia, and festivals with horseracing.

Homer's epithets Enosichthon and Ennosigaios for Poseidon mean what?

The same title appears in Linear B at Knossos and Pylos, centuries before Homer.

In the Iliad, where is Poseidon's golden palace beneath the sea?

Greek art imagines it built of coral and gems.

Which Panhellenic athletic festival at Corinth was held in Poseidon's honour?

Legend says they were founded in the Bronze Age over the dead prince Palaimon.

The famous marble temple of Poseidon at Sounion stands at the southern tip of which region?

The first temple there was destroyed by the Persians before it was even finished.

Helike, home of a great Panhellenic temple of Poseidon, was destroyed in 370 BC by what?

A fitting end for a city of the god of earthquakes; some think it inspired Plato's sunken island.

Poseidon was worshipped as god of fishing; which fish was offered to him and became his attribute?

The famous marine mammal only later took over as his animal.

According to a papyrus, Alexander honoured Poseidon before Issus by throwing what into the sea?

Sailors more usually drowned horses as an offering for a safe voyage.

Poseidon was one of the caretakers of which oracle before Apollo took it over?

Apollo compensated him with an island sanctuary that became a place of refuge.

Bronze Age tablets from which palace show Poseidon as the chief god, ahead of Zeus?

The Linear B name po-se-da-o appears more often than Zeus's does.

Poseidon's names Kyanochaites and 'dark-haired lord' refer to the colour of what?

It is Homer's usual way of picturing him.

A Hippocratic text of about 400 BC blamed Poseidon for causing certain types of what?

Like Dionysus with the maenads, he was thought able to disturb the mind.

What did Poseidon exchange with Leto so that she could have Delos, birthplace of her twins?

He made a similar swap with Apollo, giving up his share of a famous oracle for Taenarum.

Poseidon is the father of the title hero in which best-selling series of novels by Rick Riordan?

Kevin McKidd played him in the 2010 film The Lightning Thief.

In which Sony video game does Poseidon appear as a boss for the player to defeat?

In Supergiant's Hades, by contrast, he is a friendly uncle handing out boons.

In the 1972 disaster film The Poseidon Adventure, what happens to the SS Poseidon?

The dining-room set was built in sections a forklift could tilt, then remounted upside down.

The Poseidon Adventure's ill-fated liner is on its final voyage from New York to which country?

It is heading for Athens to be scrapped when it is overturned by a wave on New Year's Day.

Which song from The Poseidon Adventure won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?

Maureen McGovern's version became a hit single in 1973.

The Neptunalia, the Roman festival of Poseidon's Roman counterpart, was held in which month?

It fell on the 23rd, at the height of summer, when water was scarcest.

The Roman sea god's wife, goddess of salt water, was who?

Her name survives in the word 'salacious', which originally meant 'fond of leaping'.

In the Iliad, which side does Poseidon support in the Trojan War?

He still rescues the Trojan Aeneas from Achilles in Book 20.

After Odysseus leaves Calypso's island, Poseidon lets loose all four of what to drown him?

The Anemoi are the wind gods, one for each compass point.