Poseidon, in ancient 

Greek religion, god of the sea (and of water generally),

earthquakes, and horses. He is distinguished from Pontus, the personification of the sea
and the oldest Greek divinity of the waters. The name Poseidon means either “husband
of the earth” or “lord of the earth.” Traditionally, he was a son of Cronus (the youngest of
the 12 Titans) and of Cronus’s sister and consort Rhea, a fertility goddess. Poseidon
was a brother of Zeus, the sky god and chief deity of ancient Greece, and of Hades, god
of the underworld. When the three brothers deposed their father, the kingdom of the sea
fell by lot to Poseidon. His weapon and main symbol was the trident, perhaps once
a fish spear. According to the Greek poet Hesiod, Poseidon’s trident, like Zeus’s
thunderbolt and Hades’ helmet, was fashioned by the three Cyclopes.

ruins of a temple of Poseidon

As the god of earthquakes, Poseidon was also connected to dry land, and many of his
oldest places of worship in Greece were inland, though these were sometimes centred
on pools and streams or otherwise associated with water. In this aspect, he was known
as enosichthon and ennosigaios (“earth-shaker”) and was worshipped
as asphalios (“stabilizer”). As the god of horses, Poseidon is thought likely to have been
introduced to Greece by the earliest Hellenes, who also introduced the first horses to
the country about the 2nd century BCE. Poseidon himself fathered many horses, best
known of which was the winged horse Pegasus by the Gorgon Medusa.