50 free Poseidon trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Poseidon trivia that goes deeper than 'god of the sea'. This quiz covers the myths - the fifth child of Cronus, the trident forged by the Cyclopes, the drawing of lots, the contest with Athena for Athens, the white bull that led to the Minotaur, the walls of Troy, the grudge against Odysseus - and the god's stranger side: the horse-shaped Poseidon of Arcadia who fathered the talking horse Arion, the earth-shaker of the Linear B tablets, and the fact that the Mycenaeans may not have linked him to the sea at all. It also covers his cult and temples (Sounion, the Isthmian Games, Helike swallowed by a tsunami), his consort Amphitrite and the dolphin who found her, his many children from Theseus to Polyphemus, his Roman counterpart Neptune, and Poseidon in modern culture: Percy Jackson, God of War and The Poseidon Adventure. Easy questions come first and the last ten will test a classicist. Every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our Hades, Athena and Greek Mythology quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Poseidon is the Greek god of the sea and of which two other things?
Earthquakes and horses
His title as god of earthquakes is older than his link to the sea, and appears on Bronze Age tablets.
Q 02What is Poseidon's signature weapon?
A trident
The Cyclopes forged it for him for the war against the Titans, just as they made Zeus's thunderbolt.
Q 03What is Poseidon's Roman equivalent?
Neptune
The Roman god was probably a freshwater deity first; his festival fell on 23 July, when water was scarcest.
Q 04Poseidon competed with which goddess for the patronage of Athens?
Athena
He struck the Acropolis and made a salt spring; she offered an olive tree and won.
Q 05What gift did Poseidon offer the Athenians in the contest for the city?
A salt-water spring
It was not much use for drinking, but it stood for access to the sea and to trade.
Q 06What did Poseidon send to punish the Athenians for not choosing him?
A flood
He also sent his son to chop down the winning olive tree; the son missed and killed himself with his own axe.
Q 07Poseidon and his brothers divided the world by what method?
Drawing lots
Zeus got the sky, Hades the underworld and Poseidon the sea, with the earth and Olympus shared.
Q 08Poseidon was which child in birth order of Cronus and Rhea's six children?
Fifth
Being swallowed and disgorged in reverse made him both second youngest and second oldest at once.
Q 09In a rare later version, Rhea saved the infant Poseidon by giving Cronus what to swallow instead?
A foal
The horse trick suits a god who was worshipped as a horse in Arcadia.
Q 10Which Cyclops, Poseidon's son, does Odysseus blind, earning the sea god's lasting hatred?
Polyphemus
The grudge costs Odysseus his ship, all his companions and ten extra years at sea.
Q 11Poseidon's consort, an ancient sea goddess and daughter of Nereus, is who?
Amphitrite
A Bronze Age tablet even records a female 'Poseideia', an earlier lost consort.
Q 12Which creature persuaded Poseidon's fleeing bride to marry him, earning a place among the stars?
A dolphin
She had hidden with Atlas; the constellation Delphinus is the reward.
Q 13Poseidon's son with his sea-goddess consort, a merman, is which sea deity?
Triton
He gave his name to the largest moon of the eighth planet.
Q 14Poseidon fathered which winged horse with the Gorgon Medusa?
Q 21Poseidon granted his hero son's rash wish by sending what to kill the grandson Hippolytus?
A sea monster to spook his horses
The horses bolted and dragged the innocent young man to his death.
Q 22Poseidon disputed the city of Argos with which goddess, and lost?
Hera
He sent a drought in revenge, then rescued the Argive woman Amymone from a satyr and fathered Nauplius on her.
Q 23Poseidon and Helios both wanted Corinth; who was asked to settle the dispute?
Briareus
The hundred-handed elder god gave Helios the Acrocorinth and Poseidon the isthmus.
Pegasus
It sprang from Medusa's neck when Perseus beheaded her, along with the warrior Chrysaor.
Q 15Poseidon, as a stallion, pursued Demeter in mare form; their child was a horse named what?
Arion
In Arcadia they also had a daughter whose name could not be spoken to the uninitiated.
Q 16Poseidon created the first horse, Skyphios, by doing what?
Striking a rock with his trident
In Thessaly he was called Petraios, 'of the rocks', and was said to have drained the vale of Tempe the same way.
Q 17Which Athenian hero was Poseidon's son by Aethra, conceived on the same night she slept with King Aegeus?
Theseus
To prove his parentage he dived for a ring Minos threw into the sea and came back with a crown from the sea queen.
Q 18Poseidon gave King Minos a splendid animal to prove his right to rule Crete; what was it?
A white bull
Minos kept it instead of sacrificing it, so Poseidon made his queen fall in love with it, and the Minotaur followed.
Q 19Poseidon and Apollo were made to build the walls of which city as punishment for rebelling against Zeus?
Troy
King Laomedon refused to pay them, so Poseidon sent a sea monster that Heracles later killed.
Q 20In Plato's dialogues, which legendary island was Poseidon's domain?
Atlantis
He built rings of water and land around the hill where his mortal lover Cleito lived; their eldest son Atlas ruled it.
Q 24Poseidon turned Caenis into the male warrior Caeneus at whose request?
Her own
After he assaulted her he offered any wish; she asked to become a man so it could never happen again.
Q 25Poseidon fathered the twins Pelias and Neleus with Tyro after disguising himself as what?
The river god Enipeus
Tyro was in love with the river, who had refused her.
Q 26Poseidon's charioteer and young lover Nerites was turned into what by the sun god Helios?
A shellfish
Their love was said to have produced Anteros, the god of mutual love.
Q 27Poseidon and the goddess Gaia were the parents of which half-giant, later wrestled by Heracles?
Antaeus
He drew his strength from his mother the earth, so Heracles had to lift him off the ground.
Q 28Poseidon crushed the giant Polybotes under a piece he broke off which island?
Kos
The broken piece became the island of Nisyros.
Q 29Under which epithet, common in Arcadia, was Poseidon worshipped as the god 'of horses'?
Hippios
He had temples under that name across Arcadia, and festivals with horseracing.
Q 30Homer's epithets Enosichthon and Ennosigaios for Poseidon mean what?
Earth-shaker
The same title appears in Linear B at Knossos and Pylos, centuries before Homer.