Isthmia and the God Sailors Actually Prayed To

Poseidon's worship reflected the two faces his myths already suggest, a god of the sea addressed by anyone whose livelihood or survival depended on it, and a god of earthquakes and horses addressed for entirely different, land bound reasons. Sailors and coastal communities across the Greek world kept shrines and made offerings to him before voyages and after safe returns, a practical devotional relationship distinct from the more literary myths of his rivalries, and cities well inland from any coast still maintained his cult for protection against earthquakes, a hazard the Greek world faced constantly. His major public sanctuary sat at Isthmia, near Corinth, where the Isthmian Games were held in his honor every two years, one of the four great Panhellenic athletic festivals alongside the Olympic, Pythian and Nemean Games, drawing competitors and spectators from across the Greek speaking world. Temples to Poseidon Hippios, protector of horses and horsemanship, were kept separately from his sea cult in several regions, particularly Thessaly and Arcadia, underscoring that ancient worshippers approached his different domains as distinct enough to warrant separate shrines and separate prayers rather than treating him as a single god invoked the same way for every need.