Triton and the fate of Misenus

This morning while browsing artifacts in the collections of the Getty Villa, I came across this exquisite gilded silver sculpture of a Triton forming the handle of an oinochoe.  As I described in a post a couple of years ago, the original sea god, Triton, was the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite according to Hesiod's Theogony. Triton is usually represented as a merman, with the upper body of a human and the tailed lower body of a fish. At some time during the Greek and Roman era, Tritons became a generic term for mermen in art and literature. A female version (tritoness) was eventually introduced as well.

Triton was said to dwell with his parents in  a golden palace claimed to be located at Aegae on the island of Euboea in a passage from book 5 of Homer's Iliad. It describes how  Poseidon "lashed his long-maned horses and drove to Aegae, where he had his famous palace" after having destroyed Odysseus' raft with a storm. Later in Book 13 of the Iliad, Poseidon "took three strides, and with the fourth he reached his goal—Aegae, where is his glittering golden palace, imperishable, in the depths of the sea."

Only in later times was Triton associated with possessing a conch shell, which he blew like a trumpet to calm or raise the waves. He was "trumpeter and bugler" to Oceanus and Poseidon. Its sound was so cacophonous that when loudly blown, it was said to put the giants to flight, who imagined it to be the roar of a dark wild beast.

in Virgil's epic poem the Aeneid, Misenus, a brother-in-arms of Hector and, after Hector's death, Aeneas' trumpeter, challenged the gods to a musical contest on a conch shell. He, like Marsyas, was punished for his hubris when he was drowned by Triton.  Aeneas was told by the Cumaean Sibyl at that time that Misenus's body had to be buried before he could enter the Underworld and detailed the necessary funeral rites required that were later adopted by the Romans. Cape Misenum, the headland that marks the northwestern limit of the Gulf of Naples as well as the Bay of Pozzuoli in southern Italy and supposedly named for Misenus,  was important to the Romans since it was a natural shelter for passage into the inner harbor of Portus Julius, the home port for the Roman western imperial fleet.

Image: Gilded silver oinochoe handle depicting Triton from Macedonia or Illyria, 100-1 BCE, at the Getty Villa in Gallery 111, Pacific Palisades, California. Now detached from the vessel of which it was once part, Triton’s scaly lower body serves as the functional part of the handle, and the acanthus leaves from which the torso rises would have hidden the join at the rim. Triton's torso would have projected as a decorative element above the mouth, and gilding elaborates much of its surface. The figure probably held a trident in its left hand, a frequent attribute of sea beings. Such an elaborate pouring vessel would have been part of an ornate set of serving and drinking vessels used at banquets or symposia.

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The Roman nature of Neptune

Some scholars argue that Indo-European people, having no direct knowledge of the sea as they originated from inland areas, reused the theology of a deity originally either chthonic or wielding power over inland freshwaters for the god of the sea as contact was made with seafaring peoples. They then paired him with Salacia, the goddess of saltwater who subsequently came to represent the virile force of Neptune.  This conclusion was arrived at by the numerous findings of inscriptions mentioning Neptune in the proximity of such locations. Servius the grammarian also explicitly identified Neptune as the deity in charge of all the rivers, springs, and waters.

Before the 1st century BCE, the Romans thanked the god Portunus or Fortunus for naval victories, but Neptune supplanted him in this role by at least the first century BCE when Sextus Pompeius, younger son of Pompey Magnus, called himself "son of Neptune." 

Like Poseidon, Neptune was also worshipped by the Romans as a god of horses, under the name Neptunus Equester, a patron of horse-racing.  This may account for the marine-themed sculptures, such as dolphins, in the circus that were used to mark laps during each race. In Roman mythology, Neptune worked with Minerva to create the chariot.

Neptune was also considered the legendary progenitor god of a Latin stock, the Faliscans, who called themselves Neptunia proles. In this respect he was the equivalent of Mars, Janus, Saturn and even Jupiter among Latin tribes. 

The Neptunalia was the festival of Neptune celebrated by the Romans on July 23, at the height of summer. The festival included free and unrestrained merrymaking, and outings in the wood between the Tiber and the Via Salaria where springwater and wine were drunk to escape the heat. Neptune is one of only four Roman gods to whom it was appropriate to sacrifice bulls, the other three being Apollo, Mars and Jupiter, although Vulcan was also allowed the offering of a red bull and a red bull calf which symbolized the force of his forge.

Neptune is often depicted with two paredrae (accompanying deities), Salacia and Venilia, who represent the overpowering and the tranquil aspects of water. Salacia would impersonate the gushing, overbearing waters and Venilia the still or quietly flowing waters.

Neptune, the god of the sea, stands completely nude with his weight on his right leg. Originally, his raised right hand would have supported a trident, and he may have held a dolphin or ship's ornament in his left. Even with these attributes missing, the figure's unkempt hair, spiky crown of water plants, and mobile, restless-looking pose identify him as the sea god.

The elongated but muscular physique, small head, and majestic stance, as well as the way in which the figure’s arms extend into the space around it, derive from the innovations of the Greek sculptor Lysippos in the late 300s B.C.E. The mannered and almost playful exaggeration of the traits in this statuette, however, typifies a Roman revival of the style in the late 100s B.C.E. Image courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Neptune in the caves of the gardens of the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte in Maincy, France courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Velvet.

Fountain of Neptune by Antonio Della Bitta (1878) that I photographed in the Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy.

 

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Earth Shaker

 In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, Poseidon was venerated as a chief deity at Pylos and Thebes. He had also the cult title "earth shaker". In the myths of isolated Arcadia he is related with Demeter and Persephone and he was venerated as a horse, however it seems that he was originally a god of the waters. He is often regarded as the tamer or father of horses, and he could create springs with a strike of his trident.

 Homer and Hesiod suggest that Poseidon became lord of the sea following the defeat of his father Cronus, when the world was divided by lot among his three sons: Zeus was given the sky, Hades the underworld, and Poseidon the sea, with the Earth and Mount Olympus belonging to all three. In Homer's Iliad, Poseidon supports the Greeks against the Trojans during the Trojan War and in the Odyssey, during the sea-voyage from Troy back home to Ithaca, the Greek hero Odysseus provokes Poseidon's fury by blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, resulting in Poseidon punishing him with storms, the complete loss of his ship and companions, and a ten-year delay. In Plato's "Timaeus and Critias", the legendary island of Atlantis was Poseidon's domain.

Poseidon was named Neptune by the Romans and held a special place in their pantheon of deities because in Book XX of the Iliad, even though Poseidon (Neptune) favored the Greeks, he rescues Aeneas from Achilles.  In Virgil's Aeneid, Neptune is still resentful of the wandering Trojans, but is not as vindictive as Juno, and in Book I he rescues the Trojan fleet from the goddess's attempts to wreck it, although his primary motivation for doing this is his annoyance at Juno's having intruded into his domain.

Poseidon. National Archaeological Museum of Athens courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Ricardo André Frantz

High reliefs of Poseidon and Demeter, from the Nerva–Antonine dynasty period, found in the Agora of Smyrna, now on display in the Izmir's History and Culture Museum Athens courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Isabeau

Closeup of Neptune by Adam Lambert-Sigisbert 1725-1727 CE that I photographed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Bronze statuette of Poseidon, found in the Gulf of Livadostra, c. 480 BCE, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Sailko.

Roman mosaic depicting the Triumph of Neptune, 2nd century CE, at the Bardo National Museum in Tunisia courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Tony Hisgett.

Mosaic depicting Neptune and Amphitrite, 1st century CE, that I photographed in the House of Neptune and Amphitrite in Herculaneum in 2007.

Reproduction of a frieze depicting an archaic style Neptune decorating the sacred area in Herculaneum that I photographed in 2007.

Sculpture of Neptune that I photographed at Huntington Gardens in Pasadena, California.

Neptune with a Hippocamp by Michel Anguier French 1652 CE Bronze that I photographed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. in 2015.

Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite", a Roman mosaic from Cirta, now in the Louvre courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Neptune (with Cosimo I's head) on his chariot by Bartolomeo Ammannati II that I photographed in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence in 2005.

The Lateran Poseidon is a 2nd century CE colossal statue which derived from the lost bronze sculpture made by Lysippos (IV century BCE) for the Temple of Isthmia, on the Isthmus of Corinth, dedicated to the god Poseidon. The statue was originally in the Lateran Museum in Rome (then suppressed) and is probably the most significant evidence of the lost masterpiece of Lysippos.

Roman mosaic of Neptune from Monastir, Tunisia courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Touzrimounir

Terracotta lekythos (oil flask), ca. 440 B.C.E. attributed to the Phiale Painter at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Poseidon, the god of the sea and the brother of Zeus and Hades is said to have created fresh water springs including the great springs at Lerna in the southern Peloponnesos which gushed forth as a result of his pursuit of Amymone, the daughter of the king of Argos.

Detail of Neptune from the Roman "Mosaic of the Seasons" from Palermo in the Regional Archaeological Museum of Palermo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Giovanni Dall'Orto.

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