Roman Pantheon
Neptune
Also known as Neptunus
- sea
- earthquakes
- horses
- freshwater
God of the sea, earthquakes, and horses. Brother of Jupiter and Pluto, ruler of all waters. Also associated with freshwater springs and patronage of horse racing.
About Neptune
Neptune of horses and water
Neptune rules waters in Roman religion, including the sea the poets borrowed from Greek Poseidon. Older Italian cult, though, ties him as closely to freshwater and to horses as to the open Mediterranean. The Neptunalia in July was a festival of midsummer drought, when Romans built leaf shelters and remembered the god who could give or withhold water.
Brother of Jupiter
In the imported genealogy he is brother to Jupiter and Dis, sharing the world after Saturn's fall. Roman art gives him the trident and the sea-chariot. Roman calendars also remember Consus and other horse-gods whose turf overlaps his, which is why chariot teams and the Campus watering places sit near his name.
Earth-shaker in Italy
Poets call him Earth-shaker when they are translating Greek epic. In Italy his anger is drought, flood, and the sudden failure of a spring. Sailors still prayed to him, especially once Rome became a naval power, but he never quite became only a sea-king.
Across traditions
Parallel figures
Figures who play a role like Neptune's in other traditions.
GreekPoseidonIllustrationPoseidon is the direct Greek equivalent, ruling the seas with the same trident
Compare Neptune and Poseidon side by side
Worship and cult
Temples, festivals, and practices recorded for Neptune
In the July heat Romans built leaf shelters (umbrae) and kept the Neptunalia as a thirsty outdoor feast. Neptune's Roman life is water, horses, and the fear of drought more than a Greek-style sea epic. State sacrifice used a bull.
Sacred sites
- Temple of Neptune in the Circus Flaminius
- Campus Martius cult of Neptune Equester, close to the later circus and to horse-racing ground
Festivals
- Neptunalia (23 July)
Family
Questions about Neptune's family
- Who are Neptune's siblings?
- Siblings of Neptune recorded in the atlas: Jupiter.
In the museums
Neptune in art
Real objects in public collections, released into the public domain by the museums that hold them. Dates refer to when each object was made. Objects made within the tradition come first, later depictions after.
(opens the museum record)Ancient object
Bronze statuette of Neptune (opens the museum record)
A Roman bronze statuette the museum catalogs as Neptune, god of the sea. The figure's now-missing attribute would originally have been a trident.
(opens the museum record)Later European depiction
Neptune (opens the museum record)
A mid-sixteenth-century Italian bronze statuette by Severo Calzetta da Ravenna depicting Neptune. It reflects the Renaissance revival of classical sea-god imagery in collectors' bronzes, not an ancient cult image.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Virgil, Aeneid, Book I (trans. Dryden)
Appears in
Ancient and classical works featuring this figure.
calms the storm unleashed by Aeolus against the Trojan fleet (Book 1)
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Parallels are editorial comparisons across traditions: a shared role does not, by itself, establish a shared origin.
Family relationships come from the atlas's kinship records. Ancient sources often disagree on divine genealogy.
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Genealogy
Family tree
Neptune's parents, consorts, children and rivals, as recorded in the atlas.