Like his other siblings, aside from Zeus, Poseidon was swallowed at birth by his father. Hoping to ensure that he would never lose power to one of his children, the king of the Titans tried to ensure that they would never grow to challenge him. He failed in this, however, because Rhea and Gaia hid the infant Zeus from him. Poseidon and his brothers were very similar in both their personalities and the ways in which they were depicted.
Rather than being just because they shared parents, this was also because of the ways in which the characters developed when Greek religion was in its infancy.
Poseidon was, like Zeus, a son of Cronus and Rhea. His father was the youngest of the Titans. Despite this, Cronus became the king of the gods because he was the one to overthrow his father, Uranus.
Cronus married his sister, Rhea. Although they had many children, Cronus endeavored to make sure none would grow into adulthood. Gaia , the Mother Earth, had warned her son that one of his children would someday defeat him just as he had his own father. To prevent this, Cronus swallowed each of his children as soon as they were born. His three daughters were first, Hestia, Demeter , and Hera, followed by two sons, Poseidon and Hades. Only Zeus was spared, because his mother and Gaia hid his birth.
Cronus was tricked into swallowing a stone instead, and his youngest son grew up in hiding. When Zeus was grown, he returned to challenge his father. His first act was to disguise himself as a cupbearer to free his siblings. With the help of a Titaness, Metis, Zeus gave his father a powerful purgative.
The potion induced vomited, causing Cronus to expel his children from his stomach. Poseidon and Hades joined their brother in his rebellion. The three brothers led a coalition of younger gods and allies in the Titanomachy, the war against the Titans.
Eventually they, like the Titans before them, defeated the older generation of gods and took power for themselves. After the Titan War had ended, Zeus did something different than his father. Instead of claiming kingship solely for himself, he shared power with the brothers who had helped him win the war. While Zeus was the king of the gods, each of the brothers took a realm for themselves. They also shared power on Earth, as no single god could claim power over Gaia.
Zeus took the sky for his realm, while Hades took the Underworld. Poseidon became the god of the sea, second only to his younger brother in overall power and authority. While each god and goddess of Olympus was powerful in their own right, Zeus and his brothers were recognized as rulers over all of the others. Rather than having domain over a specific aspect of life, each of the sons of Cronus ruled over an entire realm. This gave them authority not only over mankind, but also over the other deities that operated within their sphere of power.
Zeus had been named the king of all the gods, but in most instances, Poseidon was his near-equal. The three lords of the gods shared not only a family of origin, but also a level of authority. Poseidon and Zeus, and to a lesser extent Hades as well, were very similar gods. They were depicted in virtually identical ways, were said to have similar personalities and temperaments, and their powers sometimes overlapped. Both Poseidon and Zeus, for example, were notorious for being quick to anger and violent in their wrath.
Both took many mistresses, and in different traditions there was often confusion over which of the brother fathered certain figures. The similarities between the gods were often explained by their shared ancestry. As brothers, Zeus and Poseidon could be expected to be relatively similar. Other sibling gods, however, did not share the same close affiliation as the sons of Cronus, however. Instead, the similarities between Poseidon and his brothers may be due to the shared origins of their characters outside of legend.
One explanation favored by some historians is that the three chief Olympians were originally one deity. Poseidon gratefully awarded his lieutenant by creating a constellation in his honor.
He would father several children by Amphitrite, including a son named Triton. Like Zeus. Athena and Poseidon had a rivalry between them since the two of them both wanted to be the patron of the city of Attica, as it was named at the time.
The people of the city petitioned the two gods to each create a gift for the city, and whichever gift was favored the most, that god would be the city's patron. Athena gave the people an olive tree and Poseidon made them a salt-water spring.
At first, the people of Attica though Poseidon's gift was the more amazing, that is until they tasted the water and realized it was salt-water.
Because they couldn't drink the water, they chose Athena's gift of an olive tree and made her the patron goddess of the city because they could use the olives for food and oil. As a show of appreciation to Athena, they named the city Athens after her and they turned the symbol of the city to an owl on an olive branch.
They also had people build her the Parthenon in her honor. When Poseidon was courting Medusa, Athena caught them together in her temple. Furious with Poseidon and Medusa, she turned Medusa and her two sisters, who had helped her sneak into the temple, into the three Gorgons. She additionally cursed Medusa so that whenever anyone looked into her eyes, they would be turned to stone. Despite their mutual animosity, there were times Athena and Poseidon worked together. They were responsible for inventing the chariot which combined their creations.
Athena came up with the idea for the shape and design of the chariot while Poseidon supplied the horses to pull it. Poseidon was overall a benevolent god even though he shared many characteristics with Zeus including pride, stubbornness, and being temperamental.
He loved and cared for his children and watched over them more than most of the other gods, actively giving them advice, and aiding them indirectly. Poseidon has a more caring and overall human personality. Due to caring dearly for his children, according to Polybotes; Poseidon's greatest weaknesses is his demigod son, Percy Jackson, as if Percy is harmed the giants believe that Poseidon will weaken.
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