Pontus (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Pontus (Πόντος) was an ancient, pre-Olympian sea-god, one of the Greek primordial deities. Pontus was Gaia's son and has no father; according to the Greek poet Hesiod, he was born without coupling, though according to Hyginus, Pontus is the son of Aether and Gaia.

Mythology
For Hesiod, Pontus seems little more than a personification of the sea, ho pontos ("the sea"), by which Hellenes signified the Mediterranean Sea. After the castration of his brother, Uranus, Pontus, with his mother Gaia, fathered Nereus (the Old Man of the Sea), Thaumas (the awe-striking "wonder" of the Sea, embodiment of the sea's dangerous aspects), Phorcys and his sister-consort Ceto, and the "Strong Goddess" Eurybia. With the sea goddess Thalassa (whose own name simply means "sea" but is derived from a Pre-Greek root), he fathered the Telchines and all sea life.

In a Roman sculpture of the 2nd century AD, 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.

Hesiod
"She [Gaia] bore also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontus, without sweet union of love."

- Hesiod, Theogony (130)

"And Sea begat Nereus, the eldest of his children, who is true and lies not: and men call him the Old Man because he is trusty and gentle and does not forget the laws of righteousness, but thinks just and kindly thoughts. And yet again he got great Thaumas and proud Phorcys, being mated with Earth, and fair-cheeked Ceto and Eurybia who has a heart of flint within her."

- Hesiod, Theogony (231–239)

Hyginus
"From Aether and Earth [i.e. Gaia]: Grief, Deceit, Wrath, Lamentation, Falsehood, Oath, Vengeance, Intemperance, Altercation, Forgetfulness, Sloth, Fear, Pride, Incest, Combat, Ocean, Themis, Tartarus, Pontus; and the Titans, Briareus, Gyges, Steropes, Atlas, Hyperion, and Polus, Saturn, Ops, Moneta, Dione; and three Furies – namely, Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone."