NEPTUNUS, nefrtre-nus, called PtiseeaTni by the Greeks, was son of Saturn and Ops, and brother of Jupiter, Pluto, and Juno. He was devoured by his father the day of his birth, but vomited up by the potion administered by Metis. On Jupiter's deposition of Saturn, Neptune received the dominion of the sea. He conspired to dethrone Jupiter, for which he was banished from Olympus for a year, and compelled, with Apollo, to build Troy's walls for Laomedon (q.v.), whom he punished when defrauded of his promised reward. He disputed, ineffectually, with Minerva the pri vilege of naming Athens, when, with a stroke of his trident, he produced the horse (whence his epithet Equestris, ixtrOvnr) from the earth, and he contended for the Isthmus of Corinth with Apollo, when the umpire, Briareus the Cyclops, awarded him the isthmus and Apollo the promontory. Neptune had power over the
ocean, rivers, and fountains, and could raise, depress, or shake the land at pleasure. His worship was very general, and the Greek Isthmian games and the Roman in 1.1i, honQat, wen celebrated with great solemnity ; his victims were bulls and horses. He was usually represented sitting in a chariot made of a shell, drawn by sea-horses or dol phins, or holding a trident and erect in his chariot, drawn with great speed by winged horses, and attended by the Nereides or Oceanides. Homer represents him as issuing from the sea and in three steps crossing to the horizon, while the monsters of the deep gam bolled before him. Neptune married Amphi trite, but he was enamoured of many others— Ceres, Astypalma, Anti6pe, Themisto, Hal cyiine, Arethasa, Harpalyce, &c.