![]() ![]() Likewise, the hippocampus was considered an appropriate decoration for mosaics in Roman thermae or public baths, as at Aquae Sulis modern day Bath in Britannia. When an earthquake suddenly submerged the city, the temple's bronze Poseidon accompanied by hippocampi continued to snag fishermens' nets. Thus, it was natural for a temple at Helike in the coastal plain of Achaea to be dedicated to Poseidon Helikonios, (the Poseidon of Helicon), the sacred spring of Boeotian Helikon. The Greek picture of the natural hydrological cycle did not take into account the condensation of atmospheric water as rain to replenish the water table, but imagined the waters of the sea oozing back landwards through vast caverns and aquifers, rising replenished and freshened in springs. The appearance of hippocampi in both freshwater and saltwater is counter-intuitive to a modern audience, though not to an ancient one. Hippocampus in Roman mosaic in the thermae at Aquae Sulis ( Bath) Thus, hippocampi sport with this god in both ancient depictions and much more modern ones, such as in the waters of the 18th-century Trevi Fountain in Rome surveyed by Neptune from his niche above. This compares to the specifically "two-hoofed" hippocampi of Gaius Valerius Flaccus in his Argonautica: " Orion when grasping his father’s reins heaves the sea with the snorting of his two-hooved horses." In Hellenistic and Roman imagery, however, Poseidon (or Roman Neptune) often drives a sea- chariot drawn by hippocampi. In the Iliad, Homer describes Poseidon, god of horses, earthquakes, and the sea, driving a chariot drawn by brazen-hoofed horses over the sea's surface, and Apollonius of Rhodes, describes the horse of Poseidon emerging from the sea and galloping across the Libyan sands. Greek and Roman Terracotta bell-krater (mixing bowl) with lid, late 5th century BC ![]() Ī gold sea-horse was discovered in a hoard from the kingdom of Lydia in Asia minor, dating to the 6th century BC. ![]() Coins of the same period from Byblos show a hippocampus diving under a galley. The hippocampus has typically been depicted as having the upper body of a horse with the lower body of a fish.Ĭoins minted at Tyre around the 4th century BC show the patron god Melqart riding on a winged hippocampus and accompanied by dolphins. The hippocampus or hippocamp, also hippokampos (plural: hippocampi or hippocamps Ancient Greek: ἱππόκαμπος, from ἵππος, "horse" and κάμπος, "sea monster" ), often called a sea-horse in English, is a mythological creature shared by Phoenician, Etruscan, Pictish, Roman and Greek mythology, though its name has a Greek origin. Winged hippocamp in an Art Deco fountain, Kansas City, Missouri, (1937) For the moon of Neptune, see Hippocamp (moon). ![]()
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