Where Did Poseidon Live

June 27, 2018 3:16 AM

I understand that all the gods hung out in Olympus, but I also have read that Poseidon / Neptune had a coral palace that he occupied when he wasn't up on the mountain. Did this fortress / castle / seat of power have a name, in either the Roman or Greek traditions?
posted by The Blue Olly to Grab Bag (1 answer total)

Homer gives the location of the palace as Aegae, a town on the west coast of the island of Euboea. Well, in the depths of the sea, four god-strides into the ocean from Aegae, anyway. There was a temple dedicated to Poseidon Aegaeus in the hills above the town. His palace itself has no name I've ever heard, and is just referred to as "Poseidon's palace" or "Aegae," but there is no real tradition of rulers naming their palaces in the ancient world -- not the way that, say, English aristocrats would name their manors, or similar. Like, Agamemnon's palace was just "the palace of Agamemnon" or "Mycenae" (the city he ruled), and the same would go for Poseidon.

There's also a hymn to Poseidon wherein he is referred to as "Lord of Helicon," possibly because of the myth that Pegasus created the Hippocrene Spring there and Poseidon was associated with horses and with springs, but he had neither a mythical palace nor (as far as I know) an actual temple at Helicon.
posted by halation at 6:28 AM on June 27, 2018 [13 favorites]