Pontus as the Sea
Pontus, also known as Pontos or The Sea, was the ancient Greek primordial god of the sea. Pontus was the father of several sea deities as well as most of the sea creatures.
Description[]
Pontus was usually depicted as a large head with a water-colored gray beard rising out of the sea. He had a pair of horns on his head that were similar to crab claws.
In a Roman sculpture of the 2nd century, Pontus, rising from seaweed, grasps a rudder with his right hand and leans on the prow of a ship. He wears a mural crown, and accompanies Fortuna, whose draperies appear at the left, as twin patron deities of the Black Sea port of Tomis in Moesia.
History[]
Theogony[]
Pontus was born in the void state of Chaos, at a time before anything ever existed. Pontus came to be during a perfect union of duality between chaos and order as saltwater and freshwater were opposites of one another in the spectrum. Essentially, he is a child of the primordial gods Abzu and Tiamat and upon consorting with the latter, who Hesiod dubs as Thalassa, came forth all sea life including the Telchines. The Telchines were a mix of different things; they had flippers in place of hands and the head of a dog. Some of these individuals included Argyron, Megalesius, Nicon and Skelmis.
Later on with Gaia, he fathered Nereus (the Old Man of the Sea), Thaumas (the awe-striking "wonder" of the Sea, embodiment of the sea's dangerous aspects), Phorcys and his sister-consort Ceto, and the "Strong Goddess" Eurybia, who represented having power and mastery over the seas. She could even control the winds, which helped boaters move on the waters, and the showing of constellations, which navigators used back then as a map to travel the seas. Poseidon, king of the sea, wed Pontus' eldest granddaughter Amphitrite.
Pontus was the Lord of the Sea before his title was taken over by his much younger brother, Oceanus, and eventually his nephew, Poseidon. However, Pontus was the most powerful of all the Sea Lords, since he was literally the personification or spirit of the actual sea, rather than being just a deity of the sea.