What if Poseidon was the chief deity of the Olympians, not Zeus?

Teriyaki

Teriyaki

I'm a really big mythology buff and love learning about little known pieces of world myths. In a recent video I was interested to learn that Poseidon, not Zeus, was considered the chief deity of Mycenaean Greece, the last vestige of the Bronze Age that lasted roughly from 1750 BC to 1050 BC. While Zeus did exist and was referenced as a sky god and brother to Poseidon, his role in the religion was much less than he later became in the age of Classical Greece. For reasons unknown Zeus got a promotion and became chief among the Olympian Deities.

Maybe this would not impact things in a big way, but what do people think would have happened if Poseidon had remained the chief deity in the Greek pantheon? Besides myths changing, does Poseidon's being the chief deity change any other aspect of world history?
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AltoRegnant

AltoRegnant

It would likely be due to him being an earth god. In myceanean Greece, he was primarily seen as the earth shaker and associated heavily with demeter and persephone, who were underworldly deities at this point. However, from there I am uncertain
 
JaguarCD

JaguarCD

Well, for one, all modern-day Buddhism would at least be slightly different as Buddhism not inspired by the Kushan Empire, which had substantial Greek religion/Buddhist syncretism, doesn't really exist to my knowledge.
 
Metempsychosis

Metempsychosis

Plateosaurus said:
Hades would either be butterflied entirel, or in a different domain then he is IOTL.
Click to expand...
Hades is the name of the place, so it might just survive as an epithet for Chthonic Poseidon, as Zagreus survived as an epithet of Dionysus.

In any case, myths and tales are hard to trace, especially in such mixed regions of the world as Greece.
 
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