![]() ![]() ‘It is clear to me,’ he said, ‘that Poseidon's loving wife has just unyoked his team. Peleus was overjoyed and at once explained the portent to the others. Then, fast as the wind, he galloped away. He shook himself, tossing off the spray in showers. ![]() A great horse came bounding out of the sea, a monstrous animal, with his golden mane waving in the air. It was followed by the most astounding prodigy. The Minyai listened with amazement to his tale. ![]() Now I admit that the meaning of this oracle eludes me. " ‘They said that when Amphitrite had unyoked the horses from Poseidon's rolling chariot we were to recompense our mother amply for what she had suffered all the long time she bore us in her womb. Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.Īpollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 4. The later poets and artists conceived and represented the horses of Poseidon and other marine divinities as a combination of a horse and a fish. The horse appears even in the Homeric poems as the symbol of Poseidon, whose chariot was drawn over the surface of the sea by swift horses. 1), was a horse, but the part of its body down from the breast was that of a sea monster or fish. HIPPOCAMPE and HIPPOCAMPUS (Hippokampê and Hippokampos), the mythical sea-horse, which, according to the description of Pausanias (ii. Fabulous creatures of this type were believed to be common in the Indian Ocean (see Ketea Indikoi). The last was the form of the constellation Capricorn. Other fish-tailed land animals which appear in ancient art include the "Leokampos" (fish-tailed lion), "Taurokampos" (fish-tailed bull), "Pardalokampos" (fish-tailed leopard), and "Aigikampos" (fish-tailed goat). Hippokampoi were the mounts of Nereid nymphs and sea-gods, and Poseidon drove a chariot drawn by two or four of the creatures. The ancients believed they were the adult-form of the small fish we call the "sea-horse". In mosaic art they were often had green scales and fish-fin manes and appendages. They were depicted as composite creatures with the head and fore-parts of a horse and the serpentine-tail of a fish. HIPPOKAMPOI (Hippocamps) were the fish-tailed horses of the sea. The taxonomic genus Hippocampus, of the seahorses, has its name derived from the hippocampus, as well as the organ hippocampus, the main seat of memory and an important component of the human limbic system, which was so named by Giulio Cesare Aranzio in 1587 because of its resemblance to a seahorse.Īs an integral part of Greek mythology, the hippocampus appears in several works of popular culture, such as Saint Seya.( kampos, hippos) Winged Hippocamp, Apulian red-figure plate C4th B.C., State Hermitage Museum The Greek image of the natural hydrological cycle does not take into account the condensation of water in the atmosphere in the form of rain to replenish the water table, but imagined seawater being "replenished" through caves and aquifers. The appearance of hippocampi in freshwater and saltwater is counterintuitive to a modern audience, though not the ancient one. Thus, hippocampi are associated with this god in both ancient and more modern depictions, such as in the 18th century waters at the Trevi Fountain in Rome. In Hellenistic and Roman images, however, Poseidon (or Neptune) often carries a sea chariot pulled by hippocampi. Homer associates Poseidon, who was the god of horses, with tremors on land and sea, caused by the horses' bronze hooves on the surface of the sea, and Apollonius of Rhodes, being consciously archaic in Argonautica, describes Poseidon's horse emerging from the sea and galloping away across the Libyan sands. Hippocampi are the mounts of Poseidon's army. It was also depicted in bronzes, silverware and paintings from Roman antiquity to the Baroque period.Ĭreated by Poseidon from sea foam, they are animals with bright, rainbow-like fish tails, and the front of their bodies are white steed. Beings with similar characteristics appear in the art of other cultures, including Mesopotamia and India. In Greek mythology, the hippocampus served as a companion and mount for the nereids and as a draft animal for Poseidon's chariot. Silver coins of the same period from Biblos display a hippocampus diving under a galley with three hoplites on its obverse. Mythology PhoeniciansĬoins minted in Tyre around the 4th century BCE show Melcarte, the city's tutelary god, on a winged hippocampus and accompanied by dolphins. It has typically been described as horse on the front part of its body and fish on the back part with a scaly tail, like a seahorse. The hippocampus (Greek: ἱπππόκαμπος, joining ἵππος, horse, plus κάμππος kampos, monster) is a mythological creature shared by Phoenician and Greek mythology. ![]()
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