t was at this time that, in conjunction with
Apollo, he built for Laomedon the walls of Troy.

Poseidon married a sea-nymph named Amphitrite, whom he wooed under the form
of a dolphin. She afterwards became jealous of a beautiful maiden called
Scylla, who was beloved by Poseidon, and in order to revenge herself she
threw some herbs into a well where Scylla was bathing, which had the effect
of metamorphosing her into a monster of terrible aspect, having twelve
feet, six heads with six long necks, and a voice which resembled the bark
of a dog. This awful monster is said to have inhabited a cave at a very
great height in the famous rock which still bears her name,[38] and was
supposed to swoop down from her rocky eminence upon every ship that passed,
and with each of her six heads to secure a victim.

Amphitrite is often represented assisting Poseidon in attaching the
sea-horses to his chariot.

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The Cyclops, who have been already alluded to in the history of Cronus,
were the sons of Poseidon and Amphitrite. They were a wild race of gigantic
growth, similar in their nature to the earth-born Giants, and had only one
eye each in the middle of their foreheads. They led a lawless life,
possessing neither social manners nor fear of the gods, and were the
workmen of Hephaestus, whose workshop was supposed to be in the heart of the
volcanic mountain AEtna.

Here we have another striking instance of the manner in which the Greeks
personified the powers of nature, which they saw in active operation around
them. They beheld with awe, mingled with astonishment, the fire, stones,
and ashes which poured forth from the summit of this and other volcanic
mountains, and, with their vivacity of imagination, found a solution of the
mystery in the supposition, that the god of Fire must be busy at work with
his men in the depths of the earth, and that the mighty flames which they
beheld, issued in this manner from his subterranean forge.

The chief representative of the Cyclops was the man-eating monster
Polyphemus, described by Homer as having been blinded and outwitted at last
by Odysseus. This monster fell in love with a beautiful nymph called
Galatea; but, as may be supposed, his addresses were not acceptable to the
fair maiden, who rejected them in favour of a youth named Acis, upon which
Polyphemus, with his usual barbarity, destroyed the life of his rival by
throwing upon him a gigantic rock. The blood of the murdered Acis, g