Neptune

Also known as: King Neptune / earth-encircling Neptune / earth-shaker / lord of the earthquake · Family: Olympian · Role: god · First appears: BOOK VII

🌐 Also appears in: Greek Mythology — A Family Orrery (as Poseidon) · The Odyssey (as Neptune) · The Aeneid (as Neptune) · The Metamorphoses of Ovid (as Neptune) · Greek Tragedy — The Same Myth, Three Voices (as Poseidon)

In Book VII, Neptune recalls that he and Apollo worked for Laomedon for a year at an agreed wage; Book XXI also describes Laomedon as their employer. In Books VII and VIII, Jove rebukes Neptune, and Juno appeals to him to pity the dying Danaans. In Book XI, Mulius credits Neptune with hiding and carrying away the two Moliones, sons of Actor. In Book XII, Neptune and Apollo take counsel to destroy the wall.

In Book XIII, Neptune assumes Calchas’s form and voice to encourage the Achaeans, and enables Idomeneus to kill Alcathous. He fears to defend the Argives openly because Jove is elder-born; he encourages the two Ajaxes, is angered by the fall of his grandson Amphimachus, and stands guard over Antilochus. In Book XIV, he leads the Achaeans forward as they rearm, while waging fierce war against Hector.

In Book XV, Neptune leaves the battlefield for the sea at Jove’s command. He says that Rhea bore him and his brothers Jove and Hades to Saturn, and objects to Jove rebuking him, as they are peers with like empires. In Book XX, as the gods take sides in battle, Neptune faces Apollo; he rescues Aeneas from Achilles and is described as Aeneas’s guardian. In Book XXI, Neptune and Minerva reassure Achilles that he will survive the river, and Neptune challenges Apollo to fight.