| Greek deities series |
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|---|---|
| Primordial deities | |
| Titans and Olympians | |
| Chthonic deities | |
| Personified concepts | |
| Other deities | |
| Aquatic deities | |
In Greek mythology, Pontus (or Pontos (Πόντος), English translation: "sea") was an ancient, pre-Olympian sea-god, one of the protogenoi, the "first-born". Pontos was the son of Gaia, the Earth: Hesiod [1] says that Gaia brought forth Pontos out of herself, without coupling. For Hesiod, Pontos seems little more than a personification of the sea, ho pontos, "the Road", by which Hellenes signified the Mediterranean Sea.[2] With Gaia, he was the father of Nereus (the Old Man of the Sea), of Thaumas (the awe-striking "wonder" of the Sea, embodiment of the sea's dangerous aspects), of Phorcys and his sister-consort Ceto, and of the "Strong Goddess" Eurybia.[3] With Thalassa (whose own name simply means "sea" but is derived from a pre-Greek root), he was the father of the Telchines. Compare the sea-Titan Oceanus, the Ocean-Stream that girdled the earth, who was more vividly realized than Pontus among the Hellenes.
In a Roman sculpture of the second century CE (illustration, left) Pontus, rising from seaweed, grasps a rudder with his right hand and leans on the prow of a ship. He wears a mural crown, and accompanies Fortuna, whose draperies appear at the left, as twin patron deities of the Black Sea port of Tomis in Moesia.
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