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Ares, in Greek religion, god of war or, more properly, the spirit of battle. Unlike his Roman counterpart, Mars, he was never very popular, and his worship was not extensive in Greece. He represented the distasteful aspects of brutal warfare and slaughter. His fellow gods and even his parents were not fond of him.
Ares is the god of war, one of the Twelve Olympian gods and the son of Zeus and Hera. In literature he represents the violent and physical untamed aspect of war, which is in contrast to Athena who represents military strategy and generalship as the goddess of intelligence. Although Ares embodied the physical aggression necessary for success in ...
- Male
- War
- Ares, Areios
Ares' nearest counterpart in Roman religion is Mars, who was given a more important and dignified place in ancient Roman religion as ancestral protector of the Roman people and state. During the Hellenization of Latin literature , the myths of Ares were reinterpreted by Roman writers under the name of Mars, and in later Western art and literature , the mythology of the two figures became ...
- Ares’ Role
- Ares' Family
- Ares, The Unloved God
- Ares and Aphrodite
- Ares’ Companions and Other Children
- Ares: Myths and Hidden Truths
- Unraveling Ares: War, Passion, and Mythology
- Ares Sources
Greek War God
Quite appropriately, Ares’ name seems to have been an ancient word for battle or war.
Ares' Portrayal and Symbolism
In art, Ares is usually represented wearing a helmet, a shield and either a sword or a spear. He drives a four-horse chariot and is accompanied by dogs or vultures. Sometimes, his sons Deimos and Phobosare also depicted beside him.
Ares' Epithets
Unlike his nobler Roman counterpart Mars, Ares was an unpopular god and never developed beyond the image of a divine battle-frenzy butcher. Consequently, only a few epithets have reached us. Unsurprisingly, few of them are flattering: “the bane of mortals,” “the slayer of men,” “the city-stormer,” “the armor-clattering,” “the arm-bearing.”
Ares was the oldest child of Zeus and Hera, and, according to those who think that Hephaestus was born through parthenogenesis, their only son. Either way, he certainly had two sisters: Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, and Hebe, the goddess of eternal youth.
Battle with Diomedes
Since he was the savage god of senseless war, Ares was almost universally detested. At one point, after Ares is wounded in battle by Diomedes, even Zeus calls him “the most hateful of all the gods,” remarking that if he hadn’t been his son, he would have surely ended up in Tartarus with Cronus and the Titans.
Trojan War
The episode with Diomedes is only one of many in which Ares comes off second-best in his martial encounters. During the Trojan War, Athenaneeds no more than one stone to floor him, after which she spends some time mocking him and bragging of her superiority as a warrior.
Ares Defeats
Heracles defeats Ares not once, but twice – first during the battle of Pylos, and then after killing his son Cycnus. Most humiliatingly, Otus and Ephialtes, the Aloadae, once manage to kidnap Ares and imprison him in a bronze jar for thirteen months. Homer says that if their stepmother Eriboea hadn’t told Hermesabout it, this would have spelled the end of Ares.
Ares had many women, but none of his affairs was as famous as the one he had with Aphrodite. At the time, the goddess of beauty was married to Ares’ brother, Hephaestus, who was told by Helios of his wife’s transgressions. Hephaestus fashioned a delicate, almost invisible, bronze net, which he put on the bed where Ares and Aphrodite were supposed t...
Ares War Companions
Ares can rarely be seen alone on the battlefield. He is typically joined by a bloodthirsty crowd, a number of infernal associates symbolizing the terror of war. His sons Deimos (Panic or Dread) and Phobos (Fear) are almost always beside him. The same holds true for Ares’ “comrade and sister” Eris (Strife) and Enyo (the Sacker of Cities and “sister of war”). Sometimes, Kydoimos appears as well – the personification of the confusion and muddle of battle. Most frighteningly, so do the Keres, the...
Ares and Greek Heroes
Ares was associated with many bellicose heroes in Greek mythology, such as the aforementioned Cycnus or Diomedes of Thrace, whose man-eating mares Heracles was supposed to capture as his eight labor. Probably with his daughter Harmonia, Ares fathered a whole race of warriors: the Amazons. Otrera gave him the most famous four: Hippolyta, Antiope, Melanippe, and Penthesilea. In recent times, Ares' name is used by a number of sports teams like the Greek Football Team Aris Salonika.
It is a common misconception that Ares is a universally hated god. While it is true that he is not as beloved as some other Olympian gods, there were communities in ancient Greece, such as the Spartans, who held Ares in high regard, as they saw him as the embodiment of courage, valor, and military strategy. Another misconception is that Ares is a g...
Throughout our exploration of Ares, the Olympian god of war, we have been captivated by the depths of his raw power and intensity. We've experienced a mix of emotions, from being awed by the sheer force he represents to feeling empathy for the unloved god. In our research, we were particularly struck by the passionate love story between Ares and Ap...
“The Homeric Hymn to Ares” contains some of the very few flattering verses directed at Ares. A large part of the fifth book of the “Iliad” revolves around him and Athena. You can read all about Ares and Aphrodite’s affair and Hephaestus’ subsequent revenge in the eighth book of the “Odyssey.” See Also: Aphrodite, Zeus, Athena, Eros
- Mark Cartwright
- Family Relations. Son of Zeus and Hera, Ares' sisters were Hebe and Eileithyia. Despite being a god, the Greeks considered him from Thrace, perhaps in an attempt to associate him with what they thought of as foreign and war-loving peoples, wholly different from themselves.
- Battle with Hercules. The most popular myth involving Ares was his fight with Hercules. Ares' son Kyknos was infamous for waylaying pilgrims on their way to the oracle at Delphi, and so earned the displeasure of Apollo, who sent Hercules to deal with him.
- The Trojan War. In Homer's version of the Trojan War in the Iliad, Ares supports the Trojans, sometimes even leading them in battle along with Hector. The Iliad shows Ares in a less than positive light and a rather unpopular member of the Greek pantheon.
- Athens & Cult. Ares again upset the harmony of Olympus when he was accused of killing Poseidon's son Halirrhothios near a stream below the Athenian acropolis.
Although important in poetry, Ares was rarely included in worship in Ancient Greece, held few temples and shrines seeming more present in battle rites. His worship was centered in the north, in the region of Thessaly, Thesprotia, and Thrace. Even though he was implicated in the founding myth of Thebes, he appeared in few myths.
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Mar 18, 2023 · The Cult of Ares. In ancient Greece, only a select few locations were known to have a formal temple and cult of Ares, mainly in mainland Greece and the Peloponnese. However, Pausanias, a 2nd-century AD traveler and geographer, noted the presence of an altar dedicated to Ares in Olympia.
