Triton. Triton is a Greek god of the sea, the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, god and goddess of the sea respectively. Triton lived with his parents, in a golden palace on the bottom of the sea. Later he was often depicted as having a conch shell which he would blow like a trumpet. Triton is usually represented as a merman, with the upper body of a human and the tailed lower body of a fish. At some time during the Greek and Roman era, Triton became a generic term for a merman in art and literature. In English literature, Triton is portrayed as the messenger or herald for the god Poseidon. Triton of Lake Tritonis of Ancient Libya is a namesake mythical figure that appeared and aided the Argonauts. Greek deities series Primordial deities. Titans and Olympians. Chthonic deities. Mycenaean deities. Personified concepts. Other deities. Aquatic deities Amphitrite. Ceto. Glaucus. Naiades. Nereides. Nereus. Oceanides. Oceanus. Ophion. Phorcys. Pontus. Poseidon. Proteus. Tethys. Thetis. Triton. v. t. e. Triton was the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite according to Hesiod's Theogony. He was the ruler of the depths of the sea, who is either dreadful or mighty according to the epithet given him by Hesiod. Triton dwelt with his parents in underwater golden palaces. It has been pointed out Poseidon's golden palace was located at Aegae on Euboea in one passage of Homer's Iliad 12.21. Unlike his father Poseidon who is always fully anthropomorphic in ancient art, Triton's lower half is that of a fish, while the top half is presented in a human figure. Triton in later times became associated with possessing a conch shell, which he blew like a trumpet to calm or raise the waves. He was trumpeter and bugler to Oceanos and Poseidon. Its sound was so cacophonous that when loudly blown, it put the giants to flight, who imagined it to be the roar of a dark wild beast. Triton carries a trident in Accius's Medea fragment. Triton is described as sea-hued, according to Ovid his shoulders barnacled with sea-shells. Ovid actually here calls Triton cerulean in color, to choose a cognate rendering to the original language; Ovid also includes Triton among other deities of being this blue color, with green hair, as well describing the steed Triton rides as cerulean. There is also Triton, the god of Lake Tritonis of Ancient Lybia encountered by the Argonauts. This Triton is treated as a separate deity in some references. He had a different parentage, as his father was Poseidon but his mother Europa according to the Greek writers of this episode. This Triton first appeared in the guise of Eurypylus before eventually revealing his divine nature. This local deity has thus been euhemeristically rationalized as then ruler over Libya by Diodorus Siculus. Triton-Eurypylus welcomed the Argonauts with a guest-gift of a clod of earth which was a pledge that the Greeks would be granted the land of Cyrene, Libya in the future. The Argo had been driven ashore in the Syrtes, and Triton guided them through the lake's marshy outlet back to the Mediterranean. One of the works which recounts this adventure is Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica, the first work in written literature that describes a Triton as fish-tailed. In Virgil's Aeneid, book 6, it is told that Triton killed Misenus, son of Aeolus, by drowning him after he challenged the gods to play as well as he did. Herakles wrestling Triton is a common theme in Classical Greek art particularly black-figure pottery, but no literature survives that tells the story. In fewer examples, the Greek pottery depicting apparently the same motif are labeled Nereus or Old Man of the Sea instead, and among these, Nereus' struggle with Herakles is attested in literature. Old Man of the Sea is a generic term applicable to Nereus, who was also frequently depicted as half-fishlike. One explanation is that some vase painters developed the convention of depicting Nereus as a fully human form, so that Triton had to be substituted in the depiction of the sea-monster wrestling Herakles. And Nereus appears as a spectator in some examples of this motif. In the red-figure period, the Triton-Herakles theme became completely outmoded, supplanted by such scenes as Theseus's adventures in Poseidon's golden mansion, embellished with the presence of Triton. Again, extant literature describing the adventure omits any mention of Triton, but placement of Triton in the scene is not implausible. Triton was the father of a daughter named Pallas and foster parent to the goddess Athena, according to Pseudo-Apollodorus's Bibliotheca.