Either way, Neptune went on to play a key role in assisting Jupiter in usurping Saturn and the rest of the Titans. In alternative versions, Neptune was thrown into the sea by his father as soon as he was born. Saturn was forced to vomit up Neptune and the rest of his siblings in the process of ridding the stone from his digestive system.

He was eventually saved by his mother, who tricked Saturn by offering him a large stone wrapped in swaddling clothes in place of her sixth child, Jupiter. Fearing that his children would one day usurp him, Neptune was swallowed by his father immediately after his birth, as were the rest of his brothers and sisters. Neptune was a son of Ops, the earth mother, and Saturn, the prevailing sky god who ruled over the rest of the Roman pantheon. However, more recent linguistic research has suggested this is not the case, as Neptune was already worshipped by Latins and Italians before the Etruscans had developed Nethuns thus, it is more likely that Nethuns was influenced by Neptune. It was once thought that the Roman conception of Neptune owed a great deal to the Etruscan god Nethuns, who held jurisdiction over wells and later on all bodies of water in that mythological system. when the sibylline books ordered a ceremonial meal (or lectisternium) in his honor to win his good favor, as well as that of a limited number of other Greek figures such as Apollo and Hercules.

His connection with Poseidon was officially sanctioned in 399 B.C.E. Neptune is one of the earliest Roman gods to have been identified with a Greek deity. Rather, Neptune was said to rule exclusively over fresh water. The theonym neptune seems to have derived from the Proto-Indo-European base *(e)nebh- meaning 'moist', which forms the base for the Latin nebula, referring to 'fog, mist, cloud.' Originally Neptune was a god of the ancient Italians, who did not identify him as a sea god, as they recognized no god of the sort. The worship of Neptune, as the Roman version of Poseidon, is another example of cross-cultural assimilation in the ancient world where a great deal of dialogue and syncretism among different civilizations took place-not merely strife and warfare.

Neptune poseidon