![]() They are also known to eat Sea Anemones.Ī Hippocampus’ upper half consists of a horse with the lower half being fish-like. ![]() "He towers on high above the peaceful waves, urging his team with his three-pronged spear: frontwise they run at furious speed amid showers of foam, behind they swim and blot out their footprints with their tails." Poseidon riding Hippocamp, Athenian black-figure vase C6th B.C.Their diet consists of undersea vegetation such as Algae, Seaweed, Some pieces of the Coral Reefs and any other sea plant. "There Neptunus brings hom to haven his coursers wearied by the Aegean flood in front their hooves paw the sand, behind, they end in fishy tails beneath the water." "Orion when grasping his father's reins he heaves the sea with the snorting of his two-hooved horses. There, I imagine, your thought is of dry-land horses-for Homer maintains that they are ‘bronze-hoofed,’ ‘swiftly-flying,’ and ‘smitten by the lash’-but here it is Hippokampoi (Hippocamps) that draw the chariot, creatures with web-footed hoofs, good swimmers, blue-eyed, and, by Zeus, in all respects like dolphins." " Poseidon's journey over the sea I think you have come upon in Homer, when he sets forth from Aigai (Aegae) to join the Akhaians (Achaeans), and the sea is calm, escorting him with its Sea Horses and its Ketea (Cetea, Sea-Monsters) for in Homer they follow Poseidon and fawn upon him as they do here in the painting. Fairbanks) (Greek rhetorician C3rd A.D.) : " The other offerings are images of Galene (Calm) and of Thalassa (Sea) and a horse like a whale ( ketos) from the breast onwards. And Eratosthenes says that he himself saw the place, and that the ferrymen say that there was a bronze Poseidon in the strait, standing erect, holding a Hippokampos (Hippocamp) in his hand, which was perilous for those who fished with nets." "The sea was raised by an earthquake and it submerged Helike (Helice), and also the temple of Poseidon Helikonios (of Helike). I am sure that his hoofprints will lead us to some bay that overlooks the sea.’" We will hoist her on our shoulders, and never resting, never tiring, carry her across the sandy waste in the track of the galloping horse. Argo carried us in her womb we have often heard her groaning in her pain. As for our mother, I take her to be none but the ship herself. ‘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. ( kampos, hippos) Winged Hippocamp, Apulian red-figure plate C4th B.C., State Hermitage Museum
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