148.) This
worship "was carried to Spain, and to Northern Africa, but most
abundantly to Italy, to many of the islands, and to the regions around
the AEgean Sea; also to Thrace." (Ibid., p. 155.)
Poseidon, or Neptune, is represented in Greek mythology as a sea-god;
but he is figured as standing in a war-chariot drawn by horses. The
association of the horse (a land animal) with a sea-god is inexplicable,
except with the light given by Plato. Poseidon was a sea-god because he
ruled over a great land in the sea, and was the national god of a
maritime people; he is associated with horses, because in Atlantis the
horse was first domesticated; and, as Plato shows, the Atlanteans had
great race-courses for the development of speed in horses; and Poseidon
is represented as standing in a war-chariot, because doubtless wheeled
vehicles were first invented by the same people who tamed the horse; and
they transmitted these war-chariots to their descendants from Egypt to
Britain. We know that horses were the favorite objects chosen for
sacrifice to Poseidon by the nations of antiquity within the Historical
Period; they were killed, and cast into the sea from high precipices.
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