Father Zeus, is there a man on the whole wide earth
who still informs the gods of all his plans, his schemes?
Don’t you see? Look there – the long-haired Achaeans
have flung that rampart up against their ships,
around it they have dug an enormous deep trench
and never offered the gods a hundred splendid bulls,
but its fame will spread as far as the light of dawn!
And men will forget those ramparts I and Apollo
reared for Troy in the old days –
for the hero Laomedon – we broke our backs with labor.
– Homer
The Iliad, Book 7, lines 516-525. Poseidon complains bitterly to Zeus that the Greeks have built their trench and walls to fortify their ships without making the due sacrifice of a hundred bulls to him. Though he appears more concerned that the fortifications will earn some kind of fame and immortality, while his and Apollo’s ramparts for Troy will be forgotten. Even gods are cursed with fragile egos, it seems!