Within the depth-psychology and classical scholarship corpus, Poseidon emerges not as a single, coherent deity but as a palimpsest of archaic religious strata imperfectly consolidated under the Olympian order. Walter Otto’s reading is foundational: Poseidon preserves only ‘fragments’ of a far older, chthonic sovereignty — earth-shaker, husband of earth, lord of springs, father of the horse — each epithet testifying to powers that predate his Homeric reduction to sea-ruler. Kerényi extends this, tracing the etymological claim that Poseidon means ‘Husband of the goddess Da,’ linking him to Demeter-Erinys, Amphitrite, and a series of aquatic-terrestrial feminine powers; his marriages constitute a cosmogonic record of successive territorial claims. Burkert grounds this mythology in cult and Linear B evidence, demonstrating Poseidon’s primacy at Mycenaean Pylos and his intimate connection to the horse’s introduction into Greek warfare. In Homeric narrative, Poseidon operates as the chief antagonist of Odysseus — his wrath structuring the entire epic’s delay — while in the Iliad he embodies the terrifying force that threatens to shatter the boundary between the living world and the realm of the dead. Liz Greene’s astrological-mythological synthesis characterizes him as an originally chthonic fertility power who became god of ‘earthquakes and ocean depths,’ ‘husband of the Mother.’ Across these registers, Poseidon figures the deep, destabilizing, pre-rational dimension of existence that civilization must negotiate but cannot fully contain.
in Homer, and also in post-Homeric belief generally, Poseidon retained only fragments, albeit very important
Otto argues that the Homeric Poseidon is a diminished residue of a far more ancient chthonic deity encompassing earth-shaking, springs, horses, and the abyss — only fragments of whose original power survive in literary tradition.
, The Homeric Gods: The Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion, 1929thesis
His alliance with Demeter — which is probably reflected also in the name Poseidon, or Poteidan, “Husband of the goddess Da” — presupposes an earlier and close alliance with terra-firma and the soil.
Kerényi reads Poseidon’s mythological marriages as evidence of a pre-Olympian chthonic sovereignty, identifying his original domain as earth and fertility rather than sea.
, The Gods of the Greeks, 1951thesis
the narrative of the poem can be seen as an extended balancing act between Athena’s desire to restore Odysseus to a place of honor and stability in his household, and Poseidon’s to curse him with eternal wandering.
This reading frames the Odyssey’s structural tension as the opposition between Poseidon’s destabilizing wrath and Athena’s civilizing will, making Poseidon the mythological embodiment of the hero’s resistance to homecoming.
, The Odyssey, 2017thesis
The Linear B tablets revealed him as the principal god of Pylos; the Telemachy has preserved a memory of this when it introduces Nestor of Pylos at the great sacrifice for Poseidon on the seashore.
Burkert establishes Poseidon’s Mycenaean primacy through Linear B evidence, showing that his later Homeric subordination to Zeus masks an archaic supremacy in the Aegean cult landscape.
, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, 1977thesis
Poseidon is said to have spilled his semen on a rock from which the first horse sprang forth. Other versions tell how he mated with a grim female creature who became the mother of the horse.
Burkert surveys the mythological traditions connecting Poseidon to the primordial origin of the horse, revealing his deep association with generative, violent, and chthonic sexuality.
, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, 1977thesis
Originally a fertility deity, he became the god of earthquakes and of the ocean depths. He is portrayed both as a horse and as a giant bull. He is called ‘the husband of the Mother’.
Greene’s mythographic gloss condenses Poseidon’s developmental arc from chthonic fertility power to sea-and-earthquake god, preserving his archetypal identity as consort of the Great Mother.
, The Astrology of Fate, 1984supporting
Poseidon, the turbulent husband not only of Amphitrite, but also of many Nereids, Naiads, nymphs and heroines, was the father of numerous sons who played their parts in heroic saga.
Kerényi maps Poseidon’s erotic and genealogical breadth across sea-nymphs, heroines, and monsters, demonstrating how his paternity anchors a lineage of turbulent heroic and monstrous offspring.
, The Gods of the Greeks, 1951supporting
When Poseidon observed this, he avenged the disgrace that his sons had brought upon their mother by causing them to sink beneath the earth; since when they have been called Gods, or Spirits, of the East.
Kerényi’s account of the Halia myth shows Poseidon as both progenitor of violence and chthonic punisher, his power literally driving transgressive offspring into the underworld.
, The Gods of the Greeks, 1951supporting
There Poseidon the shaker of the earth reined in his horses, and slipped them from the yoke, and threw fodder immortal before them… And Poseidon went to the ships of the Achaians.
Lattimore’s Iliad renders the full epic image of Poseidon as earth-shaker and charioteer of the sea-depths, acting in the narrative as a sovereign divine force intervening to shape mortal battle.
, The Iliad of Homer, 2011supporting
Poseidon, Lord of Earthquakes, still remembered his hatred of Odysseus; he asked Zeus what he meant to do.
The Odyssey presents Poseidon’s sustained wrath as a divine political grievance against Zeus’s authority, showing how his enmity toward Odysseus is embedded in the broader economy of Olympian power.
, The Odyssey, 2017supporting
he who circles the land, Poseidon, might break the earth open and the houses of the dead lie open to men and immortals, ghastly and moldering, so the very gods shudder before them
In the divine battle of the Iliad, Poseidon’s earth-shaking power is figured as the ultimate cosmic threat — the dissolution of the boundary between the world of the living and the underworld.
, The Iliad of Homer, 2011supporting
but gently Sleep went on the run to the ships of the Achaians with a message to tell him who circles the earth and shakes it, Poseidon
The epithet ‘he who circles the earth and shakes it’ in this Iliad passage encapsulates Poseidon’s defining Homeric function as the god whose power encompasses and threatens the terrestrial order.
, The Iliad of Homer, 2011supporting
the Earthshaker had not forgotten those threats he had once uttered at godlike Odysseus in the beginning, and he asked Zeus for counsel
Lattimore’s Odyssey foregrounds Poseidon’s unrelenting divine memory as the engine of Odysseus’s suffering, illustrating how divine wrath operates as a structural force within the epic’s narrative logic.
, Odyssey of Homer, 2009supporting
Poseidon rescues Aeneas in the middle of his battle with Achilles precisely because, as the god himself says, ‘it is destined’ (morimon: XX 302) that Aeneas must not die at this point.
Nagy reads Poseidon’s unexpected rescue of Trojan Aeneas from the pro-Achaean deity as evidence of a variant epic tradition, demonstrating how Poseidon’s interventions serve larger narrative and genealogical imperatives beyond simple allegiance.
, The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry, 1979supporting
A special ceremony is ordered for Poseidon, a ‘spreading of the bed’ (reketoroterijo, Lechestroterion), at which oil for libations is used. A sacred marriage festival springs to mind.
Burkert’s Linear B analysis identifies a sacred marriage rite for Poseidon at Mycenaean Pylos, reinforcing the view that his cult included a hieros gamos dimension now largely obscured in later literary tradition.
, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, 1977supporting
Horses’ violence is inseparable from their violent divine associations. They, as well as bulls, are the right sacrifice to Poseidon.
Padel contextualizes sacrificial practice to show that the horse and bull, as animals of Poseidon, embody the violent divine energy he represents, linking cultic sacrifice to the god’s character.
, In and Out of the Mind Greek Images of the Tragic Self, 1994supporting
and the wrath of Poseidon
Lattimore’s marginal heading identifies ‘the wrath of Poseidon’ as the Odyssey’s structuring counter-force to Zeus’s plan, echoing the Iliad’s use of divine wrath as the engine of epic action.
, Odyssey of Homer, 2009aside
Poseidon; and the Hippodrome in Sparta
A passing bibliographic reference to Poseidon’s association with the hippodrome at Sparta, confirming his persistent cultic link to horses in the Peloponnesian religious landscape.
, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, 1977aside