world apart.
Mother Rhea must’ve sensed the tension early on. Shortly after the gods took over the world, she suggested that Poseidon get out of Olympus and explore his new domain. She sent him to live on the ocean floor with a tribe of aquatic weirdos called the telkhines.
This was a strange suggestion, since the telkhines were twisted little dudes. They’d once been land dwellers, until they did something to anger Zeus; so he tossed the worst ones into Tartarus and exiled the rest to the bottom of the sea.
What did they do? Not sure; but the telkhines were known for sorcery and crafting dangerous stuff. They could summon sleet, rain, or even snow (which you don’t get much in Greece), and call down sulfurous rain that destroyed plants and burned flesh, which was kind of cool in a gross, smelly way.
Some stories say that the telkhines invented metalworking, and even made Kronos’s scythe at Gaea’s request. Could be true. They were greedy, and would do anything for the right price.
After Zeus threw them into the ocean, their forms changed so that they looked like a cross between dogs, seals, and humans, with canine faces, stunted little legs, and half-flipper hands that were nimble enough for metalwork but still made great Ping-Pong paddles.
When Poseidon came to live with them, the telkhines showed him around and taught him the ways of the ocean: These are fish! This is coral! One especially nasty trick they taught him was how to use his trident as a lever. Poseidon learned how to wedge the trident’s points under the base of an island and flip it so that the whole landmass disappeared under the sea. In combat, he could do this with mountains on dry land. A couple of times he flipped mountains right on top of his enemies, crushing them flat. See, I told you he was a boss.
Eventually, Poseidon got tired of the telkhines and decided to build his own palace. (Good move, Dad.)
He went to the bottom of the Aegean Sea and used his earthshaking, wave-making powers to raise a big mansion made of pearl, sea stone, and abalone shell. His gardens were full of exotic sea plants, with luminescent jellyfish drifting around like Christmas lights. He had great white sharks for guard dogs and mermen for servants; and his doorways were huge, because every once in a while the whales and sea monsters would float through to pay their respects.
If you ask me, Poseidon’s crib was way cooler than Hades’s or Zeus’s, and when Poseidon was sitting on his polished coral throne, he felt pretty good about himself. The entire sea was under his control. The fish adored him. All the sailors in the Mediterranean made offerings to him and prayed for safe passage. Everybody seemed to love him.
So Poseidon thought, Hey, I should go up top and offer to be the patron for one of the mortal cities!
Like I mentioned earlier, this was a big deal for gods. The more mortals who prayed to you, the stronger you got. If you could get a whole city dedicated to you—with statues, and temples, and souvenir T-shirts in all the tourist shops—that was the ultimate in bragging rights.
Poseidon decided to try for the capital of Attica on the Greek mainland, which was one of the biggest and most important cities in Greece. Hey, go big or go home, right?
He showed up at the city’s acropolis, which was the main fortress on the top of the tallest hill. The earth shook. Poseidon appeared in a swirling column of salt and mist. He struck his trident against the nearest rock, splitting it open and creating a geyser of salt water.
“Behold!” he shouted to the crowds. “I am Poseidon, here to become patron of your city!”
Pretty good entrance. Unfortunately, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, had shown up a few seconds before with the exact same offer. She was standing nearby in her gray robes, her battle helmet tucked under her arm, conducting negotiations with the city elders.
“Ah,” Poseidon muttered. “Awkward.”
The city elders gaped at the sea god with his glowing trident, and at the massive geyser of salt water that now spouted from the hilltop.
“Lord Poseidon!” one said. “Oh…um…”
The poor mortals looked back and forth between the two gods. I can’t blame them for being nervous. You never want to be forced to choose between gods. No matter which you pick, the other one is likely to stomp you as if you were a cockroach.
Poseidon wasn’t