Poseidon chuckled. “Okay, well, nice try. I guess we know who won this contest!”
“Not so fast,” Athena said. “The olive tree may not look like much, but you can grow it with very little effort. It will spread across the countryside until olives are the most important food in Greece.”
“Those knobby black things?” Poseidon protested. “They’re tiny!”
“But they will grow by the thousands,” Athena said. “And they’re tasty on pizza! The mortals of this city will export olives across the world and become rich! You can use olive oil for cooking and lighting lamps. You can even add perfume to the oil and use it for bathing, or moisturizing, or cleaning those hard-to-get-out stains on your kitchen counters.”
She turned to the crowd of mortals. “How much would you pay for it now? But don’t answer! It’s my gift to you, free of charge. And if you order today, you’ll also get my patronage for your city, which includes tons of wisdom, advice about warfare, and all sorts of helpful crafts. You will be the richest and most important city in Greece! All I ask is that you name your city after me and build me a temple, which can be done in three easy installments.”
Poseidon’s confidence started to crumble. “But wait…my horses…”
The mortals were no longer listening. They were much more interested in making money, and while the countryside around their city was great for growing olives, it was too hilly and rocky for horses to be much use.
It was kind of ironic. The people of the city would eventually become famous sea traders, exporting their olive oil; but they turned down the sea god Poseidon’s patronage. He might’ve done better if he’d offered them trained whales.
So Athena won the contest, and that’s why the city is named Athens, after her, when it could have been named something cool like Poseidonopolis.
Poseidon stormed off, literally. He forgot his promise not to take revenge and almost destroyed the lower part of the city with a huge flood, until finally the Athenians agreed to build a temple on the acropolis honoring both Athena and Poseidon.
The temple is still there. If you go, you can see the marks left by Poseidon’s trident where he struck the rock to make the saltwater spring. There are probably still olive trees around, too. But I doubt you’ll see any horses.
After that, Poseidon got a little obsessed with finding a city to sponsor, but he didn’t have any luck. He fought with Hera for the city of Argos. Hera won. He fought with Zeus for the island of Aegina. Zeus won. He fought with Helios for the city of Corinth and almost won, but Zeus said, “No, you guys split it. Helios, you can have the main city and the acropolis. Poseidon—you see that little skinny strip of land next to the city? You can have that.”
Poseidon just kept getting shafted—or lightning-bolted, or olive-treed. The more times it happened, the crankier he got.
This was bad, because when Poseidon got touchy, he was more likely to punish whoever he thought was insulting him.
For instance, he was very proud of these fifty sea spirits called the Nereids, whose beauty was known throughout the world. They had long, flowing hair as dark as midnight, sea-green eyes, and gossamer white dresses that billowed around them in the water. Everyone knew they were absolute knockouts, and having them in his domain was something that delighted Poseidon, kind of like living in a town with a championship football team.
Anyway, this mortal queen named Cassiopeia down in North Africa—she started bragging about how she was way more beautiful than the Nereids.
Poseidon had no patience for that nonsense. He summoned up a flesh-eating, blood-drinking sea serpent about a thousand feet long, with a mouth that could swallow a mountain, and he sent it to terrorize the coast of Africa. The monster raged up and down, devouring ships, making waves that sank villages, and bellowing so loudly no one could get any sleep.
Finally, to stop the attacks, Cassiopeia agreed to sacrifice her own daughter, Andromeda, to the sea monster. Like, Oh, yeah, my bad. I shouldn’t have bragged. Here, you can kill my innocent daughter!
In case you’re worried, my dad didn’t actually let that happen. He allowed a hero to rescue Andromeda and kill the sea monster (which is a whole other story), but even after Cassiopeia died, Poseidon never forgot her insult. He put her in the night sky as a constellation, and because she had lied about being more beautiful than the Nereids, she always appeared to be spinning backward.
She’s a stupid-looking constellation, too.
After that, the Nereids were grateful to Poseidon for upholding their honor. Maybe that was his plan all along. You can’t beat having fifty beautiful women thinking you’re awesome.
Most of the Nereids would’ve been happy to marry Poseidon, but one Nereid avoided him, because she was shy and didn’t ever want to get hitched. Naturally, she was the one who caught Poseidon’s eye.
Her name was Amphitrite, and her idea of paradise was living a quiet life at the bottom of the sea with no gods calling her up for dates or trying their cheesy pickup lines on her when she went to the underwater mall.
Unfortunately, Amphitrite was gorgeous. The more she tried to avoid the gods, the more they pursued her. Her black hair was pinned back in a net of pearls and silk. Her eyes were as dark as mocha. She had a kind smile and a beautiful laugh. Usually she dressed in a simple white gown, her only piece of jewelry a circlet of polished red crab claws across her brow—which doesn’t strike me as very attractive, but I guess it was fashionable among the Nereids.
Poseidon tried everything to win her heart: saltwater taffy, a serenade of whale songs, a bouquet of sea cucumbers, a Portuguese man-of-war festooned with pretty red ribbons. Amphitrite refused all his advances. Whenever he got too close, she blushed and swam away.
Finally she got so spooked that she fled for good. Poseidon searched for her everywhere, with no luck. He began to think that he’d never see her again. His heart sank deeper than a navy submersible. He moped around his palace, crying like a humpback whale, confusing all the sea mammals, and giving the giant squids migraines.
Eventually the sea creatures elected this god named Delphin to go talk to Poseidon and see what was wrong. Delphin was the immortal king of dolphins and a good friend of the sea god’s. What did Delphin look like? A dolphin. Duh.
So Delphin swam into the throne room and chattered in Dolphinese: “What’s up, P-man? Why the face?”
“Oh, it’s Amphitrite.” Poseidon heaved a sigh. “I love her, but she ran away!”
“Huh.” Delphin thought that was a pretty stupid reason to mope around. “You do realize there are forty-nine other Nereids, right?”
“I don’t care!” Poseidon sobbed. “I want Amphitrite!”
“Yeah, well, that’s a bummer,” Delphin said. “Look, your moaning and groaning is messing up everybody’s sonar. Just this morning two blue whales got in a head-on collision and backed up the Aegean morning commute for miles. So how about I find this lady Amphitrite and convince her to marry you?”
Poseidon’s tears dried immediately, which was impressive since he was underwater. “You could do that for me?”
“I’m a dolphin,” Delphin chattered. “I have a huge brain. Back soon.”
It took Delphin a while, but he finally located Amphitrite at the western edge of the Mediterranean, near where the Titan Atlas held up the sky.
Amphitrite sat on a coral ledge, watching the sunset filter through the deep water and make rosy streaks in the seaweed forests. A seabass lay in her open palm, all blissed out, because Amphitrite really had a way with fish. Normally I don’t think of sea bass as cuddly, but they loved her.
Delphin could see why Poseidon liked her. She radiated a sort of kindness and gentleness that you don’t see in a lot of immortals. Usually with gods, the longer they lived, the more they acted like spoiled children. Delphin wasn’t sure why, but that whole thing about getting wiser as you got older? Not so much.
br /> Delphin floated up to Amphitrite. “Hey, what’s up?”
Amphitrite didn’t try to flee. She had never felt threatened by Delphin, maybe because of his dolphin smile.
“Oh, Poseidon keeps bothering me.” Amphitrite sighed. “He wants me to marry him.”
The seabass swam in a lazy circle around Amphitrite’s hand, then settled back into her palm. Delphin had to resist the urge to snap up the fish. Seabass were tasty.
“Poseidon’s not a bad guy,” Delphin offered. “You could do a lot worse.”
“But I don’t want to get married to anyone!” Amphitrite protested. “It’s too much trouble, and it’s scary. I’ve heard stories about the gods, the way they treat their wives….”
“Most of the gods are jerks,” Delphin agreed. “And they have a lot of girlfriends even after they get married—”
“Gah!” Amphitrite said. “I wouldn’t care about that. I’m not the jealous type. I just don’t want to be mistreated. I want to be my own person, do my own thing, without some man lording over me!”
“Oh, is that all?” Delphin chittered with relief. “Because Poseidon is easygoing. I can’t guarantee he’d be faithful to you forever, but he would totally treat you well and let you do whatever you wanted. I can talk to him, make him promise. If he breaks his word, he’ll have to deal with Mr. Dolphin.”
Delphin flexed his flippers, which he thought made him look intimidating.
“You would do that for me?” Amphitrite asked.
“Sure!” Delphin said. “And the best thing: if you married Poseidon, none of the other gods could flirt with you or pester you anymore. They’d have to leave you alone, because Poseidon is so powerful. You could have kids, too. Kids are awesome. Even better than seabass.”
“Really?” Amphitrite studied the seabass flopping around in her hand, as if she had trouble believing anything could be better than that. “Well…I suppose if you talked to Poseidon first, and he promised…”
“Trust me,” Delphin said. “The dolphin god’s got your back!”
So Delphin returned to Poseidon and explained the deal. Poseidon was overjoyed. He agreed immediately. His marriage to Amphitrite was the biggest party ever held under the ocean. Gods, sea monsters, all forty-nine of Amphitrite’s Nereid sisters…everybody was on the guest list. Whales swam overhead, spitting glowing clouds of krill that spelled out, CONGRATULATIONS, POSEIDON + AMPHITRITE, which was no easy task since whales can’t spell very well. The dolphins put on an acrobatics show. The jellyfish glowed above the palace courtyards as the sea nymphs and merpeople danced the night away.
Poseidon and Amphitrite made a good couple. They were happy together and had three godly children. The first was Triton, who looked like a merman but had two fish tails instead of one. He served as Poseidon’s herald. Whenever Poseidon was on the move, Triton swam in front, blowing his conch horn to clear the way, like The boss is coming! Everybody look busy!
Poseidon and Amphitrite’s second kid was Rhode, a sea nymph who became the patron goddess of the island Rhodes (named after her, of course). She ended up marrying the sun Titan Helios.
Their third kid, a daughter named Kymopoleia, was big and clumsy and loud, and just never got as much love as her siblings. I always felt sorry for her. Her name meant the Wave Ranger, which makes her sound like a sports utility vehicle, but she looked more like a monster truck. Eventually she found happiness. She became the goddess of violent sea storms and married Briares, one of the Hundred-Handed Ones, who was also big and loud and didn’t mind a monster-truck wife.
As the years went by, Amphitrite discovered that Delphin was right. She did love her children even more than seabass, and most of the time Poseidon was a very good husband. He did have a lot of affairs with nymphs and mortals and whatnot, but strangely that didn’t bother Amphitrite so much. As long as Poseidon didn’t try to own her and tell her what to do, and as long as he was good to their three children, Amphitrite was cool.
She was even nice to Poseidon’s demigod children, unlike some other goddesses I could name. (Cough, Hera, cough.) One time the hero Theseus came to visit, and Amphitrite treated him like an honored guest. She even gave him a purple cloak to wear, which was a sign of kingship.
She’s been pretty cool to me, too. She doesn’t freak out when I leave my dirty laundry in the guest room. She makes cookies for me. She’s never tried to kill me that I know of. Pretty much all you could ask of an immortal stepmom.
As for Poseidon, it’s a good thing he had an easygoing wife, because he had so many girlfriends and kids from other relationships….I mean, you think Zeus was busy? Poseidon holds the record for the most demigod children.
If I tried to tell you about all the ladies he dated, we’d need an extra three hundred pages with a separate index and table of contents. We’d call it Poseidon’s Little Black Book. But it would be too weird for me to talk about all my dad’s girlfriends, so I’m just going to hit the highlights.
First was a Greek princess named Koroneis. She had feathery black hair and always wore dark dresses like she was going to a funeral, but for some reason Poseidon thought she was incredibly hot. One day he was following her along the beach, trying to flirt with her, when she got scared and ran off. Poseidon didn’t want her to get away like Amphitrite had, so he started running after her. “Hey, come back! I just want a kiss! I won’t kill you!”
Which is probably not the thing to say if you’re chasing a girl.
Koroneis panicked and screamed, “Help! Somebody help!”
She ran toward the city gates, but they were too far away. She knew she’d never make it. She scanned the horizon and happened to focus on the glittering roof of the temple of Athena in the distance.
Since Athena was the first Olympian she thought of, Koroneis yelled, “Athena, save me! I don’t care how you do it!”
Which again, is probably not a wise thing to say.
Way up on Mount Olympus, Athena heard Koroneis yelling her name. Gods have incredibly good hearing when it comes to their own names. The goddess spotted this poor helpless girl being chased by Poseidon, and Athena got angry.
“I don’t think so, barnacle beard,” she muttered.
She snapped her fingers, and down on the beach, Koroneis instantly turned into a bird with pitch-black feathers—the first crow, which is why koronis means crow in Greek. The crow flew away and left Poseidon on the beach, heartbroken and lonely with a black feather stuck in his hair.
Of course, Poseidon realized that Athena was responsible for changing Koroneis into a crow. He already resented Athena because of their contest over Athens. Now he was starting to hate her.
He decided to look for any opportunity to insult Athena. It didn’t take him long. Pretty soon he became obsessed with another beautiful girl named Medusa.
Unlike Koroneis, Medusa was flattered that the sea god liked her.
They had a nice candlelight dinner together and a walk on the beach. Finally Poseidon said, “Hey, why don’t we go somewhere more private?”
Medusa blushed. “Oh…I don’t know. My sisters warned me about sea gods like you!”
“Aw, c’mon!” Poseidon said. “I know a quiet spot. You’ll love it.”
Medusa should’ve said no, but Poseidon could be pretty charming when he wanted to be.
He took her into town, straight to the temple of Athena. It was closed for the night, but Poseidon opened the doors easily.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Medusa whispered.
“Sure,” Poseidon said. “We’ll have the place to ourselves.”
Now, I’m not going to excuse Poseidon’s behavior. He knew very well that Athena would get angry. He was using Medusa to get revenge. He lost sight of the fact that Hey, maybe Athena will take her anger out on this poor mortal girl….
Poseidon and Medusa made themselves comfortable and got romantic
at the foot of Athena’s statue, which was a huge insult to Athena—kind of like somebody leaving a burning bag of dog poo on your porch, ringing the doorbell, and running away. Not that I have ever personally done anything like that, of course.
Athena looked down from Olympus and saw what was going on. She wanted to hurl. “That is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen,” she grumbled. “I think I’ll show Poseidon something even more disgusting.”
She conjured up the most awful and creative curse she could think of—and Athena could be pretty creative.
Down in the temple, Medusa grew brass bat wings and brass talons. Her hair turned into a nest of writhing poisonous snakes. Her face twisted into something so horrible that one glance would turn anyone who saw her to stone.
Poseidon’s eyes were closed. He was leaning in for another kiss, his lips all puckered up, when he heard a weird hissing noise.
“Baby, did you spring a leak?” he teased.
Then he opened his eyes. He jumped back faster than a breaching whale. “Holy…What the…OH GODS! I kissed that…AHHH! MOUTHWASH! MOUTHWASH!”
Since he was immortal, he didn’t turn to stone, but he screamed a bunch of other stuff I can’t put into writing and got out of there fast, without even an apology to poor Medusa.
Medusa quickly realized what she looked like. She covered her head with her shawl and slunk away. Eventually she ended up living in a cave far from civilization, with just her two sisters for company. Together, the three of them were called the Gorgons. Over the years, just from being close to her, Medusa’s two sisters transformed into monsters as ugly as she was. They couldn’t turn people to stone, but the gods decided to make them immortal—maybe out of pity, maybe as a curse—so the sisters could take care of Medusa forever without getting petrified. The Gorgons caused all kinds of grief to heroes over the years, but that’s another story. Eventually the face of Medusa became one of Athena’s symbols, as if to say: THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU MESS WITH ME.