Height: 17cm

In Greek, a hippocampos. Hippocampoi were hybrid creatures with the head and foreparts of a horse and the serpentine tail of a fish. In mosaics they were often covered with green scales and had fish-fin manes.

Interesting how this creature combines a terrestrial animal with an aquatic one. The horse represented nobility, freedom, and strength; the fish-tail evoked the mystery and fluidity of the ocean. The hippocampus crosses the boundaries between two worlds...and fits the broader Greek fascination with hybrids (eg centaurs, satyrs) as expressions of transitional spaces and liminality.

The ancient Greeks believed they were a fully matured version of our sea-horse. The Nereids and sea gods such as Triton used the hippocampoi to get about, and Poseidon himself drove a chariot drawn by a team of them.

Hippocampoi appear on the coinage of South Italy, where the Greeks established many colonies, hence the area being called Magna Graecia. Coins from ancient Syracuse, for example, show Athena on the obverse, a hippocampos on the reverse. 

Made in Greece in the workshop of the Lioulias family, with whom It's All Greek is proud to have been working since 2004.