The sea-horse hippocampus is a mythological creature shared by Phoenician and Greek mythology. Hippocamps appear with the first Orientalizing phase of Etruscan civilization: they remain a theme in Etruscan tomb wall-paintings and reliefs, where they are sometimes provided with wings, as they are in the Trevi fountain. Katharine Shepard found in the theme an Etruscan belief in a sea-voyage to the other world.
Homer described Poseidon, who was god of horses (Poseidon Hippios) as well as of the sea, drawn by "brazen-hoofed" horses over the sea's surface, and Apollonius of Rhodes, being consciously archaic in Argonautica, describes the horse of Poseidon emerging from the sea and galloping away across the Libyan sands. In Hellenistic and Roman imagery, however, Poseidon (or Roman Neptune) often drives a sea-chariot drawn by hippocamps. See Oceanus.
Photo: Hippocamp at Antiochia in Pisidia. Pisidia was a region of ancient Asia Minor located north of Lycia, and bordering Caria, Lydia, Phrygia and Pamphylia. Ancient site of Antioch in Pisidia was also known as Antiochia in Phrygia, Land of King Midas. The city lies on a hill with its highest point of 1236 m. approximately 1 km northeast of ... See Antiochia in Pisidia.