Poseidon was one of the twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth. He was god of the Sea and other waters; of earthquakes; and of horses. In pre Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a chief deity at Pylos and Thebes. Poseidon was protector of seafarers, and of many Hellenic cities and colonies. In Homer's lliad, Poseidon supports the Greeks against the Trojans during the Trojan war. In the Odyssey, the Greek hero Odysseus provokes Poseidon's fury during the sea voyage from Troy to his home in Ithaca. He is punished by storms, the complete loss of his ship and companions, and a ten year delay, Poseidon is also the subject of a Homeric hymn. In Plato's Timaeus and Critias, the island of Atlantis was Poseidon's domain. His Roman equivalent is Neptune.
Poseidon was the second son of Titans Cronus and Rhea. In most accounts he is swallowed by Cronus at birth but later saved, with his other brothers and sisters, by Zeus. However, in some versions of the story, he, like his brother Zeus, did not share the fate of his other brothers and sisters who were eaten by Cronus. He was saved by his mother Rhea, who concealed him among a flock of lambs and pretended to have given birth to a colt, which she gave to Cronus to devour. According to John Tzetzes the kourotrophos, or nurse of Poseidon was Arne, who denied knowing where he was, when Cronus came searching; according to Diodorus Siculus Poseidon was raised by the Telchines on Rhodes, just as Zeus was raised by the Korybantes on Crete. According to a single reference in the lliad, when the world was divided by lot in three, Zeus received the sky, Hades the underworld and Poseidon the sea. In the Odyssey Poseidon has a home in Aegae.
