Poseidon, the first king of Atlantis, according to Plato, was, according to Greek mythology, a brother of Zeus, and a son of Chronos.  In the division of the kingdom he fell heir to the ocean and its islands, and to the navigable rivers; in other words, he was king of a maritime and commercial people.  His symbol was the horse.  “He was the first to train and employ horses;” that is to say, his people first domesticated the horse.  This agrees with what Plato tells us of the importance attached to the horse in Atlantis, and of the baths and race-courses provided for him.  He was worshipped in the island of Tenos “in the character of a physician,” showing that he represented an advanced civilization.  He was also master of an agricultural people; “the ram with the golden fleece for which the Argonauts sailed was the offspring of Poseidon.”  He carried in his hand a three-pronged symbol, the trident, doubtless an emblem of the three continents that were embraced in the empire of Atlantis.  He founded many colonies along the shores of the Mediterranean; “he helped to build the walls of Troy;” the tradition thus tracing the Trojan civilization to an Atlantean source.  He settled Attica and founded Athens, named after his niece Athena, daughter of Zeus, who had no mother, but had sprung from the head of Zeus, which probably signified that her mother’s name was not known—­she was a foundling.  Athena caused the first olive-tree to grow on the Acropolis of Athens, parent of all the olive-trees of Greece.  Poseidon seems to have had settlements at Corinth, AEgina, Naxos, and Delphi.  Temples were erected to his honor in nearly all the seaport towns Of Greece.  He sent a sea-monster, to wit, a slip, to ravage part of the Trojan territory.

In the “Iliad” Poseidon appears “as ruler of the sea, inhabiting a brilliant palace in its depths, traversing its surface in a chariot, or stirring the powerful billows until the earth shakes as they crash upon the shores. . . .  He is also associated with well-watered plains and valleys.” (Murray’s “Mythology,” p, 51.) The palace in the depths of the sea was the palace upon Olympus in Atlantis; the traversing of the sea referred to the movements of a mercantile race; the shaking of

Poseidon, or Neptune.

the earth was an association with earthquakes; the “well-watered plains and valleys” remind us of the great plain of Atlantis described by Plato.

All the traditions of the coming of civilization into Europe point to Atlantis.

For instance, Keleos, who lived at Eleusis, near Athens, hospitably received Demeter, the Greek Ceres, the daughter of Poseidon, when she landed; and in return she taught him the use of the plough, and presented his son with the seed of barley, and sent him out to teach mankind bow to sow and utilize that grain.  Dionysos, grandson of Poseidon, travelled “through all the known world, even into the remotest parts of India, instructing the people, as he proceeded, how to tend the vine, and how to practise many other arts of peace, besides teaching them the value of just and honorable dealings.” (Murray’s “Mythology,” p. 119.) The Greeks celebrated great festivals in his honor down to the coming of Christianity.