Poseidon: Wild or Tamed?

  Writing a blog about Ancient Greek Religion is as much about me learning about it, as you reading it. As such the best way for me to start it is to take a gamble, pluck an interesting character who I find interesting, and investigate that character's role in Greek religion.

   A figure that interests me is Poseidon. For the Myths and Mythology module I investigated Athena; from this investigation I came to perceive her as "one of the good guys", a character on the side of the heroes, worthy of worship and veneration.

  When it came to deciding a character for study in this module Poseidon struck me as an interesting polar opposite. In the Odyssey Poseidon is portrayed as a villain; all of his efforts go into stopping the hero Odysseus from getting home after Odysseus blinded Poseidon's son, the Cyclops Polythemus. He seems very different from Athena, the goddess who aids heroes, such as Herakles. It seems odd, from a Christian background, to believe in a god who may, at some points, be against you, though it has also to be acknowledged that the Judeo-Christian God also destroys whole civilisations numerous times as well as flooding the whole world once in the Bible, so a destructive and vengeful god is not totally alien to my preconceptions.

This image was taken from the 

game Rome Total War (2004) 

by Activision.

 Nevertheless, I thought about what it was that might have made Poseidon important to the Ancient Greeks. Greece has an incredibly irregular coastline; its coast is huge compared to its total land mass. Sea trade was a big part of Ancient Greek culture and so asking the sea to be calm would be a common demand. The picture I have chosen is of a Trireme, a boat that Thucydides claimed originated in the city of Corinth and was used for centuries afterwards due to its technological superiority over other boats. 

Susan Deacy says '...the sea was regarded as violent, dangerous and "desolate" (atrugetos). These qualities were reflected in the nature of the god who was assigned the sea as his domain...' (Deacy (2008) 48-49)

  Deacy suggests that Poseidon is a metaphor for the sea and as his characteristics are akin to those of the sea this can be expected to true. This point could be furthered; the sea is untamed, dangerous and unpredictable, so the god whose domain it is must also have these characteristics. This would explain why the sea behaves as such, and why this god is not necessarily always on the side of mortals. Poseidon's purpose seems aetiological rather than  for salvation, a purpose associated with the Judeo-Christian God, though aetiology plays a big part in the role of the Judeo-Christian God as well. This is why I chose the two pictures which make up the background of this blog; on the left is the calm sea, on the right is its polar opposite the stormy sea. Both are the sea, but they are different from each other, Poseidon needs to have characteristics of a tame sea and a tumultuous sea.

Deacy says 'Poseidon's operations are guided by his role as an elemental force. Athena, in contrast brings to bear a duality between the 'civiliser' of the sea who promotes skilled activities and the power able to create violent storms.' (Deacy (2008) 50)

  I would now like to go back to the comparison between Poseidon and Athena. Deacy describes Poseidon's actions as temperamental as the sea, a force that cannot be quelled by reason; Athena is a sentient force who promotes human activity to overcome the elemental force of the sea. In Greek mythology, Athena invented the horse bit, which she uses to ride Pegasus, a creature whom Poseidon was involved in the creation, which shows many of the same untamed characteristics of Poseidon. This could be a demonstration of human ingenuity overcoming nature. Poseidon and Athena may both be included in the sphere of horsemanship, yet where Poseidon represents the wildness of the horse, Athena represents the taming.

'The key to the mode of intervention peculiar to Athena lies in the mythical representation of this instrument [the bit], a power at once technical and magical over the creature of Poseidon.' (Detienne (1971) 175)

  This seems to suggest that the Greeks perceived ingenuity as greater than nature. The invention of the trireme links well with this. Human ingenuity overcomes the force of the sea. Robert Parker makes a different observation:

'Poseidon embodies the power of the horse, the power needed to tame horses, and the potential of horses to resist control. Athena comes to the horse via skill and technology' (Parker (2011) 94)

  This statement initially made sense when I read it, but I have found it difficult to perceive Athena as only representing intelligence, when she is known as a warrior goddess, a role which requires a great deal of might.

 It could possibly be showing Athena subduing Pegasus, a metaphor for Poseidon, with intelligence. Maybe Athena's domination over Pegasus is a lesson to people to tell them to use both intelligence and might to overcome the forces of nature, rather than assuming might will be enough, and in a more precise message, to tell people how horses were tamed and how they should still be ridden. Where Poseidon is used for aetiological contexts, Athena's purpose is a combination of aetiology and education.

Sources Used

Deacy, D., (2008) Athena, Oxon: Routledge.

Detienne, M., 'Athena and the Mastery of the Horse'. Translated by A. B. Werth, In: History of Religions, Vol 11, No. 2 (Nov., 1971), pp. 161-184

Detienne, M., 'The 'Sea-Crow', In: R. L. Gordon (ed.) (1981) Myth, religion and society, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Parker, R., (2011) On Greek Religion, Cornell University Press: New York.