Poseidon
po-SY-dun
Attested elsewhere in ancient sourcesGod of the sea, of earthquakes, and of horses. In the Iliad he tells how the world was divided by lot between three brothers: Zeus took the sky, Hades the mist and darkness, Poseidon the grey sea, and the earth and Olympus were left common to all three. He says it to explain why he does not take orders from Zeus.
Herodotus records the marks of his claim on Athens still visible on the Acropolis in his own day, the salt sea he struck from the rock, shown beside Athena's olive.
The dolphins that carry Acenes after the wreck are his. So is the blue-green work on the boy's left arm, waves and tridents, set there when the god takes an interest in a child he has no obligation to.
Sources
- Hom. Il. 15.187-193
- Hdt. 8.55
- Hom. Od. 5
References are to the standard divisions of the ancient texts, not to any one edition.
Acenes of Sparta: The Dragon Slayer
A dragon is the reason the 300 died. Leonidas used the magic of the gods to bind Kalaxes beneath Taygetus, and the price was his life and his men's. Sixty-two years later a seven-year-old of the agoge falls into the dragon's crypt and inherits the unpaid balance.
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