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| "The Triumph of Neptune" Roman mosaic from La Chebba, Tunisia, late 2nd Century CE. Women representing the four seasons occupy each corner, along with agricultural scenes and flora. Bardo National Museum, Tunis, Tunisia. |
Embedded within our night sky are the tales of the past in the context of the mythos of the myriad of civilizations whose myths' names the sky does bare.
One such myth can be found in the tale of Neptune, the Roman God Of The Sea, taken from the Greek God Poseidon. In those days the Roman Empire being administrators would never convert others to their beliefs, but would introduce the cultural icons of those civilizations they'd "persuaded to unite" into their own. Many of the Roman Gods had their origins in Greek mythology. Other Gods such as Venus (Aphrodite the Goddess Of Love), Mercury (Hermes, the messenger of the Gods), Mars (Ares the God Of War), Jupiter (Zeus), Uranus (the Greek God of the Sky and married to Gaia, the Mother Of The Earth) and Pluto (the ruler of the underworld which is known as Hades in Greek mythology).
The story of Neptune and his love for Amymone is depicted in many works of art. Amymone who had been the subject of the ravishes of a cthionic satyr, the mythical creature whose form included the upper body of a man and and lower body of an equestrian (in it's Greek form). The Roman satyr depicted this creature as half man and goat with it's head being adorned with two horns.
As the story goes, Neptune in an act of revenge for the loss to Hera of Argolis, a place which had been populated by his followers and the builders of his temples, he induced a drought completely drying every natural water source in the area leaving them to die of thirst. Danaos sent his fifty daughters to find water and to calm the wrath the God had shown them. Amymone upon seeing a deer fired an arrow from her bow, but missed alerting a nearby cthionic satyr. The satyr attempted to assault and rape Amymone prompting Neptune himself to invervene. Armed with his trident, Neptune chased the satyr away. Neptune was taken by Amymone's beauty and gave herself willingly to the God. She bore his child naming him Nauplius, meaning "the navigator".
Brian Joseph Johns
Shhhh! Digital Media