Poseidon Trivia
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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 01Which famous temple's west pediment showed Poseidon losing his contest for the city?
The Parthenon
The Parthenon was wrecked in 1687, when a Venetian shell set off gunpowder stored inside. The Venetian commander then tried to carry off the pediment's horses, and his lifting tackle failed and smashed them.
Q 02The Cyclopes who forged Poseidon's trident also made which other god's weapon?
Zeus's thunderbolt
Zeus's thunderbolt came from the same forge. Once Zeus freed the Cyclopes from Tartarus, they armed all three brothers for the war on the Titans, and Hades got a helmet.
Q 03What is Poseidon's Roman equivalent?
Neptune
Neptune was probably a god of fresh water first, and took over the sea when the Romans matched him with Poseidon, which they had done by 399 BC.
Q 04Poseidon lost the patronage of a famous city to which goddess, who offered an olive tree?
Athena
Athena won, and her olive became a legend of its own. Burned when the Persians sacked the city, it was said to have put out a fresh shoot by the very next day.
Q 05What gift did Poseidon offer the Athenians in the contest for the city?
A salt-water spring
A salt-water spring, grandly named the Sea of Erechtheus. Centuries later, visitors to the Erechtheion were still shown a well of sea water, said to sound of waves when the south wind blew.
Q 06What did Poseidon send to punish the Athenians for not choosing him?
A flood
A flood: in one Roman telling, the women had outvoted the men by a single vote to choose his rival. To calm him, the city stripped its women of the vote.
Q 07Poseidon and his brothers divided the world by what method?
Drawing lots
Drawing lots gave Zeus the sky, Hades the underworld and Poseidon the sea. In the Iliad he uses it to defy Zeus, insisting that earth and Olympus were left common to all three.
Q 08Which goddess was Poseidon's sister, and once turned down his offer of marriage?
Hestia
Hestia was the first-born of Cronus and Rhea. When both Poseidon and Apollo asked to marry her, she swore on Zeus's head to stay a maiden, and Zeus gave her the hearth instead.
Q 09In an Arcadian tale, Rhea hid the newborn Poseidon among lambs and gave Cronus what to swallow instead?
A foal
A foal: Rhea told Cronus she had given birth to a horse. It was the same trick she later played with a stone for Zeus, and it suits a god the Arcadians linked with horses.
Q 10Which Cyclops, Poseidon's son, does Odysseus blind, earning the sea god's lasting hatred?
Polyphemus
Polyphemus prayed to his father that Odysseus reach home late, alone and in someone else's ship. Every part of the curse came true.
Q 11Which sea goddess was Poseidon's wife and queen?
Amphitrite
Amphitrite grew into the role. In Homer she is hardly a goddess yet, and her name is little more than a poetic word for the sea itself.
Q 12Which creature persuaded Poseidon's fleeing bride to marry him, earning a place among the stars?
A dolphin
A dolphin tracked her down after she fled to Atlas, at the far end of the sea, and talked her into the match. Poseidon's thanks still hang in the night sky as the constellation Delphinus.
Q 13Poseidon's son with his sea-goddess consort, a merman, is which sea deity?
Triton
Triton served as his father's herald. He carried a conch shell and blew it like a trumpet to calm the waves or whip them up.
Q 21Poseidon sent what to kill Hippolytus, granting his own son's rash wish?
A sea monster to spook his horses
Poseidon sent a sea monster to spook his horses: a bull burst from the surf, and the team dragged him to death tangled in the reins. The accusation that had prompted the wish was a lie.
Q 22Poseidon lost a contest for the city of Argos to which goddess, one of his own sisters?
Hera
Hera won when three local river gods judged the land hers. In one telling Poseidon dried up their streams in revenge, so that they ran only after rain.
Q 23In one telling, which giant of a hunter was Poseidon's son, given the power to walk across the sea?
Orion
Q 14The winged horse Pegasus was Poseidon's child by which monster?
Medusa
Medusa's children by Poseidon were born as she died. When Perseus cut off her head, Pegasus sprang from her neck along with a warrior brother, Chrysaor.
Q 15In an Arcadian tale, Poseidon became a stallion to catch which goddess, who had turned into a mare while seeking her daughter?
Demeter
Demeter hid among a king's mares, but Poseidon was not fooled. She bore him the immortal horse Arion, and her rage earned her the local title of Fury.
Q 16In a Thessalian tale, how did Poseidon create the first horse?
Striking a rock with his trident
By striking a rock with his trident, and the horse leapt out. Thessalians called him Petraios, 'of the rocks', and said he also split the mountains to drain the vale of Tempe.
Q 17Which Athenian hero was Poseidon's son by Aethra, conceived on the same night she slept with King Aegeus?
Theseus
Theseus proved it on the voyage to Crete. When Minos threw a gold ring into the sea and dared him to fetch it, he dived in and came back with the ring and a crown as well.
Q 18Poseidon gave King Minos a splendid animal to prove his right to rule Crete; what was it?
A white bull
A white bull rose from the sea, and Minos found it too fine to sacrifice as he had promised. Poseidon made his queen fall in love with it, and the Minotaur was the result.
Q 19Poseidon built the walls of which city for a king who then refused to pay him?
Troy
Troy's king Laomedon sent him and Apollo away unpaid. He later cheated Heracles out of a promised reward in the same way, and Heracles came back with an army and sacked the city.
Q 20In Plato's dialogues, which legendary island was Poseidon's domain?
Atlantis
Atlantis was his share when the gods divided up the earth. He ringed the hill where his mortal lover Cleito lived with circles of sea and land, and their eldest son, Atlas, became its first king.
In the same telling, a king on Chios blinded Orion, and he set a boy on his shoulders as a guide and walked east until the rays of the rising sun healed his eyes.
Q 24Poseidon turned Caenis into the male warrior Caeneus at whose request?
Her own
It was her own wish. Poseidon offered her anything she liked, and the new Caeneus was also made proof against weapons, so the Centaurs could only beat him by hammering him into the ground with tree trunks.
Q 25Poseidon fathered the twins Pelias and Neleus with Tyro after disguising himself as what?
The river god Enipeus
The river god Enipeus was the one Tyro loved, so Poseidon borrowed his shape. One of the twins, Pelias, grew up to be the king who sent Jason after the Golden Fleece.
Q 26Poseidon punished which queen's kingdom after she bragged of beauty greater than the sea nymphs'?
Cassiopeia
Cassiopeia's boast fell hardest on her daughter. An oracle ruled that Andromeda be bound to a rock by the sea as an offering, and there Perseus found her and set her free.
Q 27Which giant son of Poseidon and Gaia grew stronger whenever he touched the ground, until Heracles wrestled him?
Antaeus
Antaeus made every stranger wrestle him and was roofing his father's temple with the skulls of the losers. Heracles won by hoisting him clear of the earth and crushing him in mid-air.
Q 28Poseidon drowned which Greek warrior, sailing home from the Trojan War, for boasting that he had survived a shipwreck despite the gods?
Ajax the Lesser
Ajax the Lesser had scrambled onto a rock when his ship went down. Poseidon heard the boast, split the rock with his trident, and the half he was sitting on carried him under.
Q 29To make peace with Poseidon, Odysseus was told to walk inland carrying what, until someone mistook it for a farm tool?
An oar
An oar: the ghost of the seer Tiresias told him to walk until someone took it for a winnowing fan. There he was to plant it in the ground and sacrifice a ram, a bull and a boar to Poseidon.
Q 30Homer's epithets Enosichthon and Ennosigaios for Poseidon mean what?
Earth-shaker
Earth-shaker, because earthquakes were thought to be his doing. Worshippers also prayed to him under the opposite title, Asphaleios, the one who keeps things steady, to hold the ground still.