Neptune / Poseidon. Neptune is the god of freshwater and the sea in Roman religion.
He is the counterpart of the Greek god Poseidon. In the Greek-influenced tradition, Neptune is the brother of Jupiter and Pluto; the brothers preside over the realms of Heaven, the earthly world, and the Underworld.
Salacia is his wife. Depictions of Neptune in Roman mosaics, especially those of North Africa, are influenced by Hellenistic conventions.
Neptune was likely associated with fresh water springs before the sea. Like Poseidon, Neptune was worshipped by the Romans also as a god of horses, under the name Neptunus Equester, a patron of horse-racing.
The etymology of Latin Neptunus is unclear and disputed. The ancient grammarian Varro derived the name from nuptus i.e. covering, with a more or less explicit allusion to the nuptiae, marriage of Heaven and Earth. By using the comparative approach the Indo-Iranian, Avestan and Irish figures would show common features with the Roman historicised legends about Neptune. A different etymology grounded in the legendary history of Latium and Etruria was proposed by the 19th-century scolars Ludwig Preller, Karl Otfried Müller and Wilhelm Deeke: the name of the Etruscan deity Nethuns or Nethunus would be an adjectival form of the toponym Nepe or Nepete, town of the ager Faliscus near Falerii. The district was traditionally connected to the cult of the god. Messapus and H