Neptunus merupakan dewa lautan dan air tawar[1] serta kuda[2] dalam agama dan kepercayaan masyarakat Rom purba. Dewa ini setaraf Poseidon dalam mitologi Yunani.[3]

Neptunus
Dewa lautan
Patung Neptunus bertarikh abad ke-2 M.
dipamerkan di Museo del Prado, Madrid
Tempat tinggalLautan
SymbolKuda, trisula, lelumba, lembu jantan
PerayaanNeptunalia; Lectisternium
Maklumat peribadi
PasanganSalacia
ZuriatTriton, Proteus, Rhodes, Benthesikyme
Ibu BapaSaturnus, Ops
Adik-beradikJupiter, Plouton, Juno, Ceres, Vesta
Kesetaraan YunaniPoseidon
Kesetaraan HinduismeVaruna

Neptunus kononnya bersaudara kerabat dengan Jupiter dan Plouton yang bersemayam menjaga alam-alam syurga, bumi dan yang ghaib.[4] Neptunus diisterikan dengan Salacia.

Rujukan sunting

  1. ^ Pengenalan dewa ini dalam kedua-dua air tawar dan masin oleh J. Toutain di Les cultes païens de l'Empire romain, jilid I (1905:378).
  2. ^ cf. Epona.
  3. ^ Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia, The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215.
  4. ^ About the relationship of the lord of our earthly world with water(s) Bloch, p. 342-346, gives the following explanations: 1. Poseidon is originally conceived as a chthonic god, lord and husband of the Earth (for the etymolog gearoid γαιήοχος, he who possesses the Earth, εννοσίδας he who makes the Earth quake) with an equine form. He mates with Demeter under this form in the Arcadian myth from Thelpusa, they beget the racing horse Areion and the unnamed daughter of those mysteries (story in Pausanias VIII 25, 3). 2. Poseidon hippios (horse) is the god of Earth and as springs come from beneath the earth, this is also a metaphora (or better a figure) of the origin of life on Earth; the horse is universally considered as having a psychopompous character and Poseidon is known as tamer of horses (damaios) and father of Pegasus who with its hoof can open up a spring. 3. Poseidon is the god worshipped in the main temple of the Isle of Atlantis in the myth narrated by Plato in the dialogues Timaeus and Critias; there was also a hippodrome nearby. 4. The island was swallowed up by an earthquake caused by Poseidon himself. This factor would connect the power over earth and that over waters. The Greek had a memory of the explosion of the Island of Santorini and of the seaquake it provoked as well as other consequences affecting climate.