The Pontus

The Pontus is the first manifestation of the divine Sea. As a child of Ge, the Pontus shares with Ouranos the distinction of being fatherless, born from the great mother Ge without benefit of sex. The Sea deity, in this manifestation, is a creative force much like all of the Protogonoi, and he is father to a myriad of creatures, some of who remain part of the mythos. Like Ouranos, Pontus is said to mate with Mother Gaia and in this union brings forth Nereus, Phorkys, Thaumas, Keto, Eurybia, Aigaios, and The Telkhines who were sea daimones who seem to have been associated with the negative aspects of the sea and its many dangers.

With Thalassa, a word that means sea in modern parlance, he is father to all the fish of the sea, which in turn expresses the eventual beneficent aspects of the sea as a fruitful fishing ground for man kind.

As time passes and the pantheon of the Greeks evolves, Pontus and Thalassa are supplanted by the more refined aspects of the sea, Okeanos and Tethys and eventually by Poseidon and Amphitrite.

In a strange twist of fate, Pontus is also the co-father of Aphrodite, who was born from the sea after the testicles of Ouranos are cut from him by Kronos. Perhaps the Greeks were uncomfortable with such a potential interpretation and Aphrodite is named as autogenetic or as Daughter of Zeus and Dione, a word that is but another nme of the goddess herself.

Unlike Okeanos, who is in later myth seen as the world surrounding ocean separate from Poseidon, Pontus essentially disappears from divine contact with the world as much of the Protogonoi except Ge and Eros seem to do.