Painted vase representing a Triton (VI century B.C.), Etruscan production based on Greek iconographic patterns, now in the Museo di Villa Giulia, Rome. Triton was a minor god, son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, divinities of the sea, and was represented as a fish in the lower part of his body and as a human in the upper part. His presence on sarcophagi shows his function as guide of the souls of the dead towards the Islands of the Blessed, where the heroes and those who had been selected by the gods were transferred after death.

[Source: http://library.artstor.org/library/]