Triton (mythology) Triton (mythology) Triton (; "Tritōn") is a mythological Greek god, the messenger of the sea. He is the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, god and goddess of the sea respectively, and is herald for his father. He is usually represented as a merman which has the upper body of a human and the tail, soft dorsal fin, spiny dorsal fin, anal fin, pelvic fins and caudal fin of a fish, "sea-hued", according to Ovid "his shoulders barnacled with sea-shells". Like his father, Poseidon, he carried a trident. However, Triton's special attribute was a twisted conch shell, on which he blew
Poseidon son, the Cyclops Polyphemus, resulting in Poseidon punishing him with storms, the complete loss of his ship and companions, and a ten-year delay. Poseidon is also the subject of a Homeric hymn. In Plato's "Timaeus" and "Critias", the island of Atlantis was Poseidon's domain. The earliest attested occurrence of the name, written in Linear B, is "Po-se-da-o" or "Po-se-da-wo-ne", which correspond to ("Poseidaōn") and ("Poseidawonos") in Mycenean Greek; in Homeric Greek it appears as ("Poseidaōn"); in Aeolic as ("Poteidaōn"); and in Doric as ("Poteidan"), ("Poteidaōn"), and ("Poteidas"). The form ("Poteidawon") appears in Corinth. A common epithet of Poseidon is "Enosichthon",