Poseidon

Poseidon is one of the three great brothers who divided the world, and in the Iliad he is a partisan of the Achaeans. He resents the Trojans because Laomedon cheated him and Apollo when they built the walls of Troy, and he repeatedly helps the Greek line, sometimes in defiance of Zeus’s orders. In Book XIII he takes the form of Calchas and rallies the Achaeans; in Book XIV he takes advantage of Zeus’s sleep to turn the battle.

His power is physical and immediate. When he moves, the mountains and the sea respond. The poem treats him as a force that is older and less negotiable than the Olympian order Zeus represents.

In the Odyssey Poseidon’s anger is personal. Odysseus blinds his son Polyphemus, and the Cyclops prays that Odysseus may never reach home, or if he must, that he may return late, alone, and to a house full of trouble. Poseidon hears the prayer and keeps the hero wandering for ten years.

The poem’s first divine council is about how to let Odysseus return despite Poseidon, and the god’s absence among the Ethiopians makes the plan possible. When he returns and sees the Phaeacians’ ship, he turns it to stone. Poseidon is not defeated at the end of the Odyssey; he is appeased, postponed, and given his due.