in Pagan worship, the god of the sea, was the son of Saturn and Vesta or Ops, and the Neptune, brother of Jupiter and Pluto. He assisted Jupiter in his expeditions; on which that god, when he arrived at the supreme power, assigned him the sea and the islands for his empire. He was, however, expelled from heaven with Apollo for conspiring against Jupiter, when they were both employed by Laomedon king of Phrygia in building the walls of Troy; but that prince dismissing Neptune without a reward, he sent a sea monster to lay waste the country, on which he was obliged to expose his daughter Hecate. He is said to have been the first inventor of horsemanship and chariot racing; on which account Mithridates king of Pontus threw chariots drawn by four horses into the sea in honour of this god; and the Romans instituted horse races in the circus at his festival, during which all other horses left working, and the mules were adorned with wreaths of flowers.

In a contest with Minerva he produced a horse by striking the earth with his trident; and on another occasion, in a trial of skill with Minerva and Vulcan, produced a bull, whence that animal was sacrificed to him. His favourite wife was Amphitrite, whom he long courted in vain, till sending a dolphin to intercede for him, he met with success; on which he rewarded the dolphin by placing him among the stars. He had also two other wives, one of whom was called Salacia from the salt water; the other Venilia from the ebbing and flowing of the tides. He had likewise many concubines, by whom he had a great number of children. He is represented with black hair, with a garment of an azure or sea green; holding his trident in his hand, and seated in a large shell drawn by sea horses; attended by the sea gods Palemon, Glaucus, and Phorcys, and the sea goddesses Thetis, Melita, and Panopæa, and a long train of tritons and sea nymphs.

This deity was known in Egypt by the name of Canobus or Cunopus, and was worshipped as the numen aquarum or spirit of the Nile. His emblem was the figure of certain vases or pitchers, with which the Egyptians filtrated the water of their sacred river, in order to purify and render it fit for use. From the mouth of each of these vases, which were charged with hieroglyphics, arose the head and sometimes the head and hands, of a man or woman. Such are the emblems which still remain of the Egyptian Neptune or Canobus; and it was by this emblem that the tutelar god of Egypt vanquished the god of Chaldea in the ridiculous manner mentioned by Ruffinus in his Ecclesiastical History.

"The Chaldeans (says he) who adored the fire, cap. 26, carried their god into various countries that he might try his strength in contests with other gods. He vanquished, as we may easily conceive, the images made of gold, silver, brass, and wood, &c. by reducing them to ashes; and thus the worship of fire was everywhere established. The priest of Canobus, unwilling, as became him, to admit the superiority of strange gods, contrived to make his god vanquish the god of Chaldea in a pitched battle. The vases which were worshipped as the emblems of Canobus being used for filtering the waters of the Nile, were of course perforated on all sides with very small holes. This faithful priest having stopped all the holes in one of these..." these with wax, and painted the vase of different colours for a reason which the reader will admit to be a good one, filled it up with water, and fitted to its mouth the head of an idol. This emblem of Canobus was then placed in a small fire brought by the Chaldeans as the emblem of their god; and thus the gods of Egypt and Chaldea were forced into battle. The contest, however, was of short duration. The heat melting the wax made way for the water to run out, which quickly extinguished the fire; and thus Canobus vanquished the god of the Chaldeans." Ridiculous as this story is, it is perfectly suitable to the genius of Paganism, and the mean artifices of the Pagan priesthood; but we suspect that the historian laboured under one mistake, and substituted the Chaldeans instead of the Persians. See Polytheism.