Ares

Ares (/ˈɛəriːz/; Ancient Greek: Ἄρης, Árēs [árɛːs]) is the Greek god of war and courage. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. The Greeks were generally ambivalent towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for success in war but can also personify sheer brutality and bloodlust, in contrast to his sister, the armored Athena, whose martial functions include military strategy and generalship. An association with Ares endows places, objects, and other deities with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality.

This article is about the ancient Greek god. For other uses, see Ares (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Aries (astrology).

Ares
God of war and courage
Member of the Twelve Olympians
Cast of a Roman statue from Hadrian's Villa, copied from a Greek original. Traditionally identified as Ares or Hermes.
AbodeMount Olympus, temples in mainland Greece, Crete and Asia minor
PlanetMars
SymbolsSword, spear, shield, helmet
DayTuesday (hēméra Áreōs)
Personal information
ParentsZeus and Hera
ConsortLiaisons with Aphrodite and others
Childrenthe Erotes (Eros and Anteros), Phobos, Deimos, Phlegyas, Harmonia, Enyalius, Thrax, Oenomaus, Cycnus, and the Amazons
Equivalents
Roman equivalentMars
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Although Ares' name shows his origins as Mycenaean, his reputation for savagery was thought by some to reflect his likely origins as a Thracian deity. Some cities in Greece and several in Asia Minor held annual festivals to bind and detain him as their protector. In parts of Asia Minor, he was an oracular deity. Still further away from Greece, the Scythians were said to ritually kill one in a hundred prisoners of war as an offering to their equivalent of Ares. The later belief that ancient Spartans had offered human sacrifice to Ares may owe more to mythical prehistory, misunderstandings, and reputation than to reality.

Though there are many literary allusions to Ares' love affairs and children, he has a limited role in Greek mythology. When he does appear, he is often humiliated. In the Trojan War, Aphrodite, protector of Troy, persuades Ares to take the Trojans' side. The Trojans lose, while Ares' sister Athena helps the Greeks to victory. Most famously, when the craftsman-god Hephaestus discovers his wife Aphrodite is having an affair with Ares, he traps the lovers in a net and exposes them to the ridicule of the other gods.

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 virtually indistinguishable.

Names

The etymology of the name Ares is traditionally connected with the Greek word ἀρή (arē), the Ionic form of the Doric ἀρά (ara), "bane, ruin, curse, imprecation".[1] Walter Burkert notes that "Ares is apparently an ancient abstract noun meaning throng of battle, war."[2] R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the name.[3] The earliest attested form of the name is the Mycenaean Greek 𐀀𐀩, a-re, written in the Linear B syllabic script.[4][5][6]

The adjectival epithet, Areios ("warlike") was frequently appended to the names of other gods when they took on a warrior aspect or became involved in warfare: Zeus Areios, Athena Areia, even Aphrodite Areia ("Aphrodite within Ares" or "feminine Ares"), who was warlike, fully armoured and armed, partnered with Athena in Sparta, and represented at Kythira's temple to Aphrodite Urania.[7] In the Iliad, the word ares is used as a common noun synonymous with "battle."[2]

In the Classical period, Ares is given the epithet Enyalios, which seems to appear on the Mycenaean KN V 52 tablet as 𐀁𐀝𐀷𐀪𐀍, e-nu-wa-ri-jo.[8][9] Enyalios was sometimes identified with Ares and sometimes differentiated from him as another war god with separate cult, even in the same town; Burkert describes them as "doubles almost".[10][11]

Cult
Ares, 2nd–3rd century AD, after a Greek bronze original by Alkamenes dated 420 BC,, excavated in 1925 in Rome's Largo di Torre Argentina

In mainland Greece and the Peloponnese, only a few places are known to have had a formal temple and cult of Ares.[12][n 1] Pausanias (2nd century AD) notes an altar to Ares at Olympia,[13] and the moving of a Temple of Ares to the Athenian agora during the reign of Augustus, essentially rededicating it (2 AD) as a Roman temple to the Augustan Mars Ultor.[12] The Areopagus ("mount of Ares"), a natural rock outcrop in Athens, some distance from the Acropolis, was supposedly where Ares was tried and acquitted by the gods for his revenge-killing of Poseidon's son, Halirrhothius, who had raped Ares' daughter Alcippe. Its name was used for the court that met there, mostly to investigate and try potential cases of treason.[14]

Numismatist M. Jessop Price states that Ares "typified the traditional Spartan character", but had no important cult in Sparta;[15] and he never occurs on Spartan coins.[16] Pausanias gives two examples of his cult, both of them conjointly with or "within" a warlike Aphrodite, on the Spartan acropolis.[17] Gonzalez observes, in his 2005 survey of Ares' cults in Asia Minor, that cults to Ares on the Greek mainland may have been more common than some sources assert.[18] Wars between Greek states were endemic; war and warriors provided Ares's tribute, and fed his insatiable appetite for battle.[19]

Ares' attributes are instruments of war: a helmet, shield, and sword or spear.[20] Libanius "makes the apple sacred to Ares", but "offers no further comment", nor connections to any aetiological myth. Apples are one of Aphrodites' sacred or symbolic fruits. Littlewood follows Artemidorus claim that to dream of sour apples presages conflict, and lists Ares alongside Eris and the mythological "Apples of Discord".[21]

Chained statues

Gods were immortal but could be bound and restrained, both in mythic narrative and in cult practice. There was an archaic Spartan statue of Ares in chains in the temple of Enyalios (sometimes regarded as the son of Ares, sometimes as Ares himself), which Pausanias claimed meant that the spirit of war and victory was to be kept in the city.[n 2] The Spartans are known to have ritually bound the images of other deities, including Aphrodite and Artemis (cf Ares and Aphrodite bound by Hephaestus), and in other places there were chained statues of Artemis and Dionysos.[23][24]

Statues of Ares in chains are described in the instructions given by an oracle of the late Hellenistic era to various cities of Pamphylia (in Anatolia) including Syedra, Lycia and Cilicia, places almost perpetually under threat from pirates. Each was told to set up a statue of "bloody, man-slaying Ares" and provide it with an annual festival in which it was ritually bound with iron fetters ("by Dike and Hermes") as if a supplicant for justice, put on trial and offered sacrifice. The oracle promises that "thus will he become a peaceful deity for you, once he has driven the enemy horde far from your country, and he will give rise to prosperity much prayed for." This Ares karpodotes ("giver of Fruits") is well attested in Lycia and Pisidia.[25]

Sacrifices

Like most Greek deities, Ares was given animal sacrifice; in Sparta, after battle, he was given an ox for a victory by stratagem, or a rooster for victory through onslaught.[26][n 3] The usual recipient of sacrifice before battle was Athena. Reports of historic human sacrifice to Ares in an obscure rite known as the Hekatomphonia represent a very long-standing error, repeated through several centuries and well into the modern era.[n 4] The hekatomphonia was an animal sacrifice to Zeus; it could be offered by any warrior who had personally slain one hundred of the enemy.[n 5][27][28] Pausanias reports that in Sparta, each company of youths sacrificed a puppy to Enyalios before engaging in a hand-to-hand "fight without rules" at the Phoebaeum.[n 6][30] The chthonic night-time sacrifice of a dog to Enyalios became assimilated to the cult of Ares.[31] Porphyry claims, without detail, that Apollodorus of Athens (circa second century BC) says the Spartans made human sacrifices to Ares, but this may be a reference to mythic pre-history.[32]

Thrace and Scythia

A Thracian god identified by Herodotus (c. 484 – c. 425 BC) as Ares, through interpretatio Graeca, was one of three otherwise unnamed deities that Thracian commoners were said to worship. Herodotus recognises and names the other two as "Dionysus" and "Artemis", and claims that the Thracian aristocracy exclusively worshiped "Hermes".[33][34] In Herodotus' Histories, the Scythians worship an indigenous form of Greek Ares, who is otherwise unnamed, but ranked beneath Tabiti (whom Herodotus claims as a form of Hestia), Api and Papaios in Scythia's divine hierarchy. His cult object was an iron sword. The "Scythian Ares" was offered blood-sacrifices (or ritual killings) of cattle, horses and "one in every hundred human war-captives", whose blood was used to douse the sword. Statues, and complex platform-altars made of heaped brushwood were devoted to him. This sword-cult, or one very similar, is said to have persisted among the Alans.[35] Some have posited that the "Sword of Mars" in later European history alludes to the Huns having adopted Ares.[36]

Asia Minor

In some parts of Asia Minor, Ares was a prominent oracular deity, something not found in any Hellennic cult to Ares or Roman cult to Mars. Ares was linked in some regions or polities with a local god or cultic hero, and recognised as a higher, more prestigious deity than in mainland Greece. His cults in southern Asia Minor are attested from the 5th century BC and well into the later Roman Imperial era, at 29 different sites, and on over 70 local coin issues.[37] He is sometimes represented on coinage of the region by the "Helmet of Ares" or carrying a spear and a shield, or as a fully armed warrior, sometimes accompanied by a female deity. In what is now western Turkey, the Hellenistic city of Metropolis built a monumental temple to Ares as the city's protector, not before the 3rd century BC. It is now lost, but the names of some of its priests and priestesses survive, along with the temple's likely depictions on coins of the province.[38]

Crete

A sanctuary of Aphrodite was established at Sta Lenika, on Crete, between the cities of Lato and Olus, possibly during the Geometric period. It was rebuilt in the late 2nd century BC as a double-sanctuary to Ares and Aphrodite.[39] Inscriptions record disputes over the ownership of the sanctuary. The names of Ares and Aphrodite appear as witness to sworn oaths, and there is a Victory thanks-offering to Aphrodite, whom Millington believes had capacity as a "warrior-protector acting in the realm of Ares". There were cultic links between the Sta Lenika sanctuary, Knossos and other Cretan states, and perhaps with Argos on the mainland.[40] While the Greek literary and artistic record from both the Archaic and Classical eras connects Ares and Aphrodite as complementary companions and ideal though adulterous lovers, their cult pairing and Aphrodite as warrior-protector is localised to Crete.[41][42]

Aksum

In Africa, Maḥrem, the principal god of the kings of Aksum prior to the 4th century AD, was invoked as Ares in Greek inscriptions. The anonymous king who commissioned the Monumentum Adulitanum in the late 2nd or early 3rd century refers to "my greatest god, Ares, who also begat me, through whom I brought under my sway [various peoples]". The monumental throne celebrating the king's conquests was itself dedicated to Ares.[43] In the early 4th century, the last pagan king of Aksum, Ezana, referred to "the one who brought me forth, the invincible Ares".[44]

Characterisation
The Ares Borghese

Ares was one of the Twelve Olympians in the archaic tradition represented by the Iliad and Odyssey. In Greek literature, Ares often represents the physical or violent and untamed aspect of war and is the personification of sheer brutality and bloodlust ("overwhelming, insatiable in battle, destructive, and man-slaughtering", as Burkert puts it), in contrast to his sister, the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and generalship.[45] An association with Ares endows places and objects with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality;[46] but when Ares does appear in myths, he typically faces humiliation.[47]

In the Iliad, Zeus expresses a recurring Greek revulsion toward the god when Ares returns wounded and complaining from the battlefield at Troy:

Then looking at him darkly Zeus who gathers the clouds spoke to him:
"Do not sit beside me and whine, you double-faced liar.
To me you are the most hateful of all gods who hold Olympus.
Forever quarrelling is dear to your heart, wars and battles.
...
And yet I will not long endure to see you in pain, since
you are my child, and it was to me that your mother bore you.
But were you born of some other god and proved so ruinous
long since you would have been dropped beneath the gods of the bright sky."[48]

This ambivalence is expressed also in the Greeks' association of Ares with the Thracians, whom they regarded as a barbarous and warlike people.[49] Thrace was considered to be Ares's birthplace and his refuge after the affair with Aphrodite was exposed to the general mockery of the other gods.[n 7]

A late-6th-century BC funerary inscription from Attica emphasizes the consequences of coming under Ares's sway:

Stay and mourn at the tomb of dead Kroisos
Whom raging Ares destroyed one day, fighting in the foremost ranks.[50]

Hymns
Homeric Hymn 8 to Ares (trans. Evelyn-White) (Greek epic 7th to 4th centuries BC)
Ares, exceeding in strength, chariot-rider, golden-helmed, doughty in heart, shield-bearer, Saviour of cities, harnessed in bronze, strong of arm, unwearying, mighty with the spear, O defence of Olympus, father of warlike Victory, ally of Themis, stern governor of the rebellious, leader of righteous men, sceptred King of manliness, who whirl your fiery sphere among the planets in their sevenfold courses through the aether wherein your blazing steeds ever bear you above the third firmament of heaven; hear me, helper of men, giver of dauntless youth! Shed down a kindly ray from above upon my life, and strength of war, that I may be able to drive away bitter cowardice from my head and crush down the deceitful impulses of my soul. Restrain also the keen fury of my heart which provokes me to tread the ways of blood-curdling strife. Rather, O blessed one, give you me boldness to abide within the harmless laws of peace, avoiding strife and hatred and the violent fiends of death.[51]
Orphic Hymn 65 to Ares (trans. Taylor) (Greek hymns 3rd century BCE to 2nd century CE)
To Ares, Fumigation from Frankincense. Magnanimous, unconquered, boisterous Ares, in darts rejoicing, and in bloody wars; fierce and untamed, whose mighty power can make the strongest walls from their foundations shake: mortal-destroying king, defiled with gore, pleased with war's dreadful and tumultuous roar. Thee human blood, and swords, and spears delight, and the dire ruin of mad savage fight. Stay furious contests, and avenging strife, whose works with woe embitter human life; to lovely Kyrpis [Aphrodite] and to Lyaios [Dionysos] yield, for arms exchange the labours of the field; encourage peace, to gentle works inclined, and give abundance, with benignant mind.

Mythology
The Ludovisi Ares, Roman version of a Greek original c. 320 BC, with 17th-century restorations by Bernini

Birth

He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera.[52]

Argonautica

In the Argonautica, the Golden Fleece hangs in a grove sacred to Ares, until its theft by Jason. The Birds of Ares (Ornithes Areioi) drop feather darts in defense of the Amazons' shrine to Ares, as father of their queen, on a coastal island in the Black Sea.[53]

Founding of Thebes

Ares plays a central role in the founding myth of Thebes, as the progenitor of the water-dragon slain by Cadmus. The dragon's teeth were sown into the ground as if a crop and sprang up as the fully armored autochthonic Spartoi. Cadmus placed himself in the god's service for eight years to atone for killing the dragon.[20] To further propitiate Ares, Cadmus married Harmonia, a daughter of Ares's union with Aphrodite. In this way, Cadmus harmonized all strife and founded the city of Thebes.[2] In reality, Thebes came to dominate Boeotia's great and fertile plain, which in both history and myth was a battleground for competing polities.[54] According to Plutarch, the plain was anciently described as "The dancing-floor of Ares".[55]

Aphrodite

In Homer's Odyssey, in the tale sung by the bard in the hall of Alcinous,[56] the Sun-god Helios once spied Ares and Aphrodite having sex secretly in the hall of Hephaestus, her husband.[57] Helios reported the incident to Hephaestus. Contriving to catch the illicit couple in the act, Hephaestus fashioned a finely-knitted and nearly invisible net with which to snare them. At the appropriate time, this net was sprung, and trapped Ares and Aphrodite locked in very private embrace.[n 8]

But Hephaestus was not satisfied with his revenge, so he invited the Olympian gods and goddesses to view the unfortunate pair. For the sake of modesty, the goddesses demurred, but the male gods went to witness the sight. Some commented on the beauty of Aphrodite, others remarked that they would eagerly trade places with Ares, but all who were present mocked the two. Once the couple was released, the embarrassed Ares returned to his homeland, Thrace, and Aphrodite went to Paphos.[n 8][47]

In a much later interpolated detail, Ares put the young soldier Alectryon, who was Ares companion in drinking and even love-making, by his door to warn them of Helios's arrival as Helios would tell Hephaestus of Aphrodite's infidelity if the two were discovered, but Alectryon fell asleep on guard duty.[58] Helios discovered the two and alerted Hephaestus. The furious Ares turned the sleepy Alectryon into a rooster which now always announces the arrival of the sun in the morning, as a way of apologizing to Ares.[59]

The Chorus of Aeschylus' Suppliants (written 463 BC) refers to Ares as Aphrodite's "mortal-destroying bedfellow". In the Illiad, Ares helps the Trojans because of his affection for their divine protector, Aphrodite; she thus redirects his innate destructive savagery to her own purposes.[41][42]

Giants

In one archaic myth, related only in the Iliad by the goddess Dione to her daughter Aphrodite, two chthonic giants, the Aloadae, named Otus and Ephialtes, bound Ares in chains and imprisoned him in a bronze urn, where he remained for thirteen months, a lunar year. "And that would have been the end of Ares and his appetite for war, if the beautiful Eriboea, the young giants' stepmother, had not told Hermes what they had done," she related.[60] In this, [Burkert] suspects "a festival of licence which is unleashed in the thirteenth month."[61][62] Ares was held screaming and howling in the urn until Hermes rescued him, and Artemis tricked the Aloadae into slaying each other. In Nonnus's Dionysiaca, in the war between Cronus and Zeus, Ares killed an unnamed giant son of Echidna who was allied with Cronus, and described as spitting "horrible poison" and having "snaky" feet.[63]

In the 2nd century AD Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis, when the monstrous Typhon attacked Olympus the gods transformed into animals and fled to Egypt; Ares changed into a fish, the Lepidotus (sacred to the Egyptian war-god Anhur). Liberalis's koine Greek text is a "completely inartistic" epitome of Nicander's now lost Heteroeumena (2nd century BC).[64][65]

Iliad

In Homer's Iliad, Ares has no fixed allegiance. He promises Athena and Hera that he will fight for the Achaeans but Aphrodite persuades him to side with the Trojans. During the war, Diomedes fights Hector and sees Ares fighting on the Trojans' side. Diomedes calls for his soldiers to withdraw.[66] Zeus grants Athena permission to drive Ares from the battlefield. Encouraged by Hera and Athena, Diomedes thrusts with his spear at Ares. Athena drives the spear home, and all sides tremble at Ares's cries. Ares flees to Mount Olympus, forcing the Trojans to fall back.[67] Ares overhears that his son Ascalaphus has been killed and wants to change sides again, rejoining the Achaeans for vengeance, disregarding Zeus's order that no Olympian should join the battle. Athena stops him. Later, when Zeus allows the gods to fight in the war again, Ares attacks Athena to avenge his previous injury. Athena overpowers him by striking him with a boulder.[68]

Attendants

Deimos ("Terror" or "Dread") and Phobos ("Fear") are Ares' companions in war,[69] and according to Hesiod, are also his children by Aphrodite.[70] Eris, the goddess of discord, or Enyo, the goddess of war, bloodshed, and violence, was considered the sister and companion of the violent Ares.[71] In at least one tradition, Enyalius, rather than another name for Ares, was his son by Enyo.[72]

Ares may also be accompanied by Kydoimos, the daemon of the din of battle; the Makhai ("Battles"); the "Hysminai" ("Acts of manslaughter"); Polemos, a minor spirit of war, or only an epithet of Ares, since it has no specific dominion; and Polemos's daughter, Alala, the goddess or personification of the Greek war-cry, whose name Ares uses as his own war-cry. Ares's sister Hebe ("Youth") also draws baths for him.

According to Pausanias, local inhabitants of Therapne, Sparta, recognized Thero, "feral, savage," as a nurse of Ares.[73]

Offspring and affairs
The Areopagus as viewed from the Acropolis.

Though Ares plays a relatively limited role in Greek mythology as represented in literary narratives, his numerous love affairs and abundant offspring are often alluded to.[74] The union of Ares and Aphrodite created the gods Eros, Anteros, Phobos, Deimos, and Harmonia. Other versions include Alcippe as one of his daughters.

Cycnus (Κύκνος) of Macedonia was a son of Ares who tried to build a temple to his father with the skulls and bones of guests and travellers. Heracles fought him and, in one account, killed him. In another account, Ares fought his son's killer but Zeus parted the combatants with a thunderbolt.[75]

Ares had a romantic liaison with Eos, the goddess of the dawn. Aphrodite discovered them, and in anger she cursed Eos with insatiable lust for men.[76]

By a woman named Teirene he had a daughter named Thrassa, who in turn had a daughter named Polyphonte. Polyphonte was cursed by Aphrodite to love and mate with a bear, producing two sons, Agrius and Oreius, who were hubristic toward the gods and had a habit of eating their guests. Zeus sent Hermes to punish them, and he chose to chop off their hands and feet. Since Polyphonte was descended from him, Ares stopped Hermes, and the two brothers came into an agreement to turn Polyphonte's family into birds instead. Oreius became an eagle owl, Agrius a vulture, and Polyphonte a strix, possibly a small owl, certainly a portent of war; Polyphonte's servant prayed not to become a bird of evil omen and Ares and Hermes fulfilled her wish by choosing the woodpecker for her, a good omen for hunters.[77][78]

List of offspring and their mothers

Sometimes poets and dramatists recounted ancient traditions, which varied, and sometimes they invented new details; later scholiasts might draw on either or simply guess.[79][80] Thus while Phobos and Deimos were regularly described as offspring of Ares, others listed here such as Meleager, Sinope and Solymus were sometimes said to be children of Ares and sometimes given other fathers.

The following is a list of Ares' offspring, by various mothers. Beside each offspring, the earliest source to record the parentage is given, along with the century to which the source dates.

Offspring Mother Source Date
Phobos Aphrodite Hes. Theog. 8th cent. BC [81]
Deimos Hes. Theog. 8th cent. BC [81]
Harmonia Hes. Theog. 8th cent. BC [82]
Eros Simonides [83]
Anteros Cic. DND 1st cent. BC [84]
Odomantus Calliope
Mygdon
Edonus
Biston Terpsichore Etym. Mag. 12th cent. AD [85]
Callirrhoe Steph. Byz. 6th cent. AD [86]
Enyalius Enyo [87]
Dragon of Thebes Erinys of Telphusa
Nike No mother mentioned HH 8 [88]
Sinope (possibly) Aegina Schol. Ap. Rhod. [89]
Edonus Callirrhoe Steph. Byz. 6th cent. AD [86]
Odomantus Steph. Byz. 6th cent. AD [86]
Cycnus Cleobula [90]
Pelopia Apollod. 1st/2nd cent. AD [91]
Pyrene Apollod. 1st/2nd cent. AD [92]
Diomedes of Thrace Cyrene Apollod. 1st/2nd cent. AD [93]
Crestone Tzetzes 12th cent. AD [94]
The Amazons Harmonia
Oenomaus Sterope Hyg. Fab. 1st cent. AD [95]
Harpina Diod. Sic. 1st cent. BC [96]
Eurythoe the Danaid Tzetzes 12th cent. AD [97]
Evenus Sterope Ps.-Plutarch [98]
Demonice Apollod. 1st/2nd cent. AD [99]
Thrassa Tereine Ant. Lib. 2nd/3rd cent. AD [77]
Melanippus Triteia Paus. 2nd cent. AD [100]
Aeropus Aerope Paus. 2nd cent. AD [101]
Alcippe Aglauros Apollod. 1st/2nd cent. AD [102]
Meleager Althaea Apollod. 1st/2nd cent. AD [103]
Calydon Astynome [104]
Ascalaphus Astyoche Paus. 2nd cent. AD [105]
Ialmenus Paus. 2nd cent. AD [106]
Parthenopaeus Atalanta Apollod. 1st/2nd cent. AD [107]
Solymus Caldene Etym. Mag. 12th cent. AD [108]
Phlegyas Chryse Paus. 2nd cent. AD [109]
Dotis Apollod. 1st/2nd cent. AD [110]
Pangaeus Critobule Ps.-Plutarch [111]
Molus, Pylus Demonice Apollod. 1st/2nd cent. AD [112]
Thestius Pisidice Ps.-Plutarch [113]
Demonice Apollod. 1st/2nd cent. AD [114]
Stymphelus Dormothea Ps.-Plutarch [115]
Antiope Otrera Hyg. Fab. 1st cent. AD [116]
Hippolyta Hyg. Fab. 1st cent. AD [117]
Melanippe
Penthesilea Apollod. 1st/2nd cent. AD [118]
Sinope Parnassa Eumelus [119]
Lycaon Pyrene [120]
Lycastus Phylonome Ps.-Plutarch [121]
Parrhasius Ps.-Plutarch [122]
Oxylus Protogeneia Apollod. 1st/2nd cent. AD [123]
Bithys Sete [124]
Tmolus Theogone Ps.-Plutarch [125]
Ismarus Thracia [90]
Alcon of Thrace No mother mentioned Hyg. Fab. 1st cent. AD [126]
Chalyps [127]
Cheimarrhoos Schol. Hes., WD [128]
Dryas Apollod. 1st/2nd cent. AD [129]
Hyperbius [130]
Lycus of Libya [131]
Nisos Hyg. Fab. 1st cent. AD [132]
Oeagrus Nonnus 5th cent. AD [133]
Paeon Etym. Mag. 12th cent. AD [85]
Portheus (Porthaon) Ant. Lib. 2nd/3rd cent. AD [134]
Tereus Apollod. 1st/2nd cent. AD [135]

Mars
Johann Heiss, Vulcan surprising Venus and Mars in bed before an assembly of the gods (1679) [136]

The nearest counterpart of Ares among the Roman gods is Mars, a son of Jupiter and Juno, pre-eminent among the Roman army's military gods but originally an agricultural deity.[137] As a father of Romulus, Rome's legendary founder, Mars was given an important and dignified place in ancient Roman religion, as a guardian deity of the entire Roman state and its people. Under the influence of Greek culture, Mars was identified with Ares,[138] but the character and dignity of the two deities differed fundamentally.[139][140] Mars was represented as a means to secure peace, and he was a father (pater) of the Roman people.[141] In one tradition, he fathered Romulus and Remus through his rape of Rhea Silvia. In another, his lover, the goddess Venus, gave birth to Aeneas, the Trojan prince and refugee who "founded" Rome several generations before Romulus.

In the Hellenization of Latin literature, the myths of Ares were reinterpreted by Roman writers under the name of Mars. Greek writers under Roman rule also recorded cult practices and beliefs pertaining to Mars under the name of Ares. Thus in the classical tradition of later Western art and literature, the mythology of the two figures later became virtually indistinguishable.[142]

Renaissance and later depictions

In Renaissance and Neoclassical works of art, Ares's symbols are a spear and helmet, his animal is a dog, and his bird is the vulture. In literary works of these eras, Ares is replaced by the Roman Mars, a romantic emblem of manly valor rather than the cruel and blood-thirsty god of Greek mythology.

Main article: Ares in popular culture

Genealogy
Ares's family tree [143]
UranusGaia
Uranus' genitalsCronusRhea
ZeusHeraPoseidonHadesDemeterHestia
    a[144]
     b[145]
ARESHephaestus
Metis
Athena[146]
Leto
ApolloArtemis
Maia
Hermes
Semele
Dionysus
Dione
    a[147]     b[148]
Aphrodite

See also

Footnotes
  1. Burkert lists temples at or near Troizen, Geronthrai and Halicarnassus. The Oxford Classical Dictionary adds Argos, Megalopolis, Therapne and Tegea in the Peloponnese, Athens and Erythrae, and Cretan sites Cnossus, Lato, Biannos and perhaps Olus.[10]
  2. "Opposite this temple [the temple of Hipposthenes] is an old image of Enyalius in fetters. The idea the Lacedaemonians express by this image is the same as the Athenians express by their Wingless Victory; the former think that Enyalius will never run away from them, being bound in the fetters, while the Athenians think that Victory, having no wings, will always remain where she is".[22]
  3. Hughes is citing Plutarch, Instituta Laconica (trans. Babbit) Loeb, 1931, 25, 238F; "Whenever they overcome their enemies by out-generaling them, they sacrifice a bull to Ares, but when the victory is gained in open conflict, they offer a cock, thus trying to make their leaders habitually not merely fighters but tacticians as well". In The Life of Agesilaus, 33.4: Plutarch claims that the Spartans thought victory was such ordinary work for them, they only sacrificed a rooster in recognition.
  4. Among others, it has been repeated by ancient sources including Apollonius of Athens, Pausanias, Porphyry, Plutarch, Clement of Alexandria and by many modern historians; see Hughes, "Human Sacrifice", 1991, pp.119-122 & notes 145, 146.
  5. In the Protrepticus, Clement of Alexandria writes: "Indeed, Aristomenes the Messenian sacrificed 300 men to Zeus of Ithome...[including] Theopompus the Lacedaemonian (Spartan) king, a noble victim." The rite was supposedly performed three times by Aristomenes: Plutarch did not find it credible that one man could have slaughtered three hundred. The Spartans claimed that Theopompus had only been wounded
  6. "Here each company of youths sacrifices a puppy to Enyalius, holding that the most valiant of tame animals is an acceptable victim to the most valiant of the gods. I know of no other Greeks who are accustomed to sacrifice puppies except the people of Colophon; these too sacrifice a puppy, a black bitch, to the Wayside Goddess (Hecate)".[29]
  7. Homer Odyssey viii. 361; for Ares/Mars and Thrace, see Ovid, Ars Amatoria, book ii.part xi.585, which tells the same tale: "Their captive bodies are, with difficulty, freed, at your plea, Neptune: Venus runs to Paphos: Mars heads for Thrace."; for Ares/Mars and Thrace, see also Statius, Thebaid vii. 42
  8. "Odyssey, 8.295". [In Robert Fagles's translation]: ... and the two lovers, free of the bonds that overwhelmed them so, sprang up and away at once, and the Wargod sped Thrace, while Love with her telltale laughter sped to Paphos ...

Notes
  1. ἀρή, Georg Autenrieth, A Homeric Dictionary. ἀρή. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project.
  2. Burkert, p. 169.
  3. R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, pp. 129–130.
  4. Gulizio, Joannn. "A-re in the Linear B Tablets and the Continuity of the Cult of Ares in the Historical Period" (PDF). Journal of Prehistoric Religion. 15: 32–38. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09.
  5. Raymoure, K.A. (2012). "a-re". Minoan Linear A & Mycenaean Linear B. Deaditerranean. Archived from the original on 2016-03-18. Retrieved 2014-03-08.
  6. "The Linear B word a-re". Palaeolexicon, Word study tool of ancient languages.
  7. Budin, Stephanie L. (2010). "Aphrodite Enoplion", In Smith, Amy C.; Pickup, Sadie (eds.). Brill's Companion to Aphrodite. Brill's Companions in Classical Studies. Boston, MA: Brill Publishers. pp. 79–116. ISBN 9789047444503.
  8. Chadwick, John (1976). The Mycenaean World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 88. ISBN 0-521-29037-6. At Google Books.
  9. Raymoure, K.A. "e-nu-wa-ri-jo". Minoan Linear A & Mycenaean Linear B. Deaditerranean. Archived from the original on 2021-06-23. Retrieved 2014-03-19. "KN 52 V + 52 bis + 8285 (unknown)". DĀMOS: Database of Mycenaean at Oslo. University of Oslo. Archived from the original on 2014-03-19.
  10. Graf, Fritz (1996). "Ares". In Hornblower & Spawforth (ed.). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Third ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 152. ISBN 019866172X.
  11. Burkert, p. 44
  12. Burkert, p. 170.
  13. Pausanias, 5.15.6.
  14. Berens, E.M.: Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome, page 113. Project Gutenberg, 2007.
  15. Cf. Pausanias, 3.19.7.
  16. Price, M. Jessop. "Greek Imperial Coins: Some Recent Acquisitions by the British Museum." The Numismatic Chronicle, vol. 11, 1971, p. 131. JSTOR 42664547. Accessed 4 Aug. 2021.
  17. Budin, 2010. "Aphrodite Enoplion", pp. 86-116.
  18. Gonzales, Matthew, "The Oracle and Cult of Ares in Asia Minor", Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies, 45, 2005, p. 282; "...Ares was not so neglected by the cities of mainland Greece as many would have us believe"
  19. Millington, Alexander T., War and the Warrior: Functions of Ares in Literature and Cult, University College, London, 2013, pp. 41-44, 230 ff
  20. Roman, L., & Roman, M. (2010). Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman mythology., p. 80, at Google Books
  21. Libanius, Progymnasmata, Model Exercises in Greek Prose Composition and Rhetoric, Translated and with an Introduction and Notes by Craig A. Gibson, 2008, p. 263, particularly note 270: and Littlewood, A. R. “The Symbolism of the Apple in Greek and Roman Literature.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 72 (1968): pp. 161-162. https://doi.org/10.2307/311078.
  22. Pausanias, 3.15.7.
  23. Gonzales, 2005, p. 282
  24. Burkert, p. 92.
  25. Gonzalez, 2005, p. 282
  26. Hughes, Dennis D., Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece, Routledge, 1991, Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003, p. 128, ISBN 0-203-03283-7
  27. Hughes, "Human Sacrifice", 1991, pp.119-122 & notes 145, 146 for a clear account of the error, and how and why it might have been perpetuated
  28. Faraone, Christopher A. "Binding and Burying the Forces of Evil: The Defensive Use of 'Voodoo Dolls' in Ancient Greece." Classical Antiquity, vol. 10, no. 2, 1991, pp. 165–220. JSTOR 25010949. Accessed 18 Aug. 2021
  29. Pausanias, 3.14.10.
  30. Graf, F. "Women, War, and Warlike Divinities." Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik, vol. 55, 1984, p. 252. JSTOR 20184039. Accessed 13 Aug. 2021.
  31. "Ares". academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/9344. Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007-10-10. Retrieved 2017-01-16.
  32. Hughes, Dennis D., Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece, Routledge, 1991, Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003, p. 128, ISBN 0-203-03283-7. Hughes is citing Apollodorus of Athens, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historike, 244 F 125. English translation of Porphyry is in Porphyry. On Abstinence from Killing Animals. p. II.55.
  33. "Herodotus, The Histories, Book 5, chapter 7, section 1". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2021-07-23.
  34. Oppermann, Manfred, Dimittrova, Nora M., religion, Thracian, "Oxford Classical Dictionary, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.5553 ..."Ares suggests the existence of a war-god, Dionysus probably stood for a deity of orgiastic character linked with fertility and vegetation, while Artemis was an embodiment of the major female deity, frequently interpreted as the Great Goddess"...
  35. Sulimirski, T. (1985). "The Scyths" in: Fisher, W. B. (Ed.) The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 2: The Median and Achaemenian Periods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-20091-1. pp. 158–159. Sulimirski is citing Herodotus, Book IV, 71-73, for the account of sacrifice to Ares.
  36. Geary, Patrick J. (1994). "Chapter 3. Germanic Tradition and Royal Ideology in the Ninth Century: The Visio Karoli Magni". Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages. Cornell University Press. p. 63. ISBN 978-0-8014-8098-0.
  37. Gonzales, 2005, pp.263, 271, 280-283.
  38. Millington, A.T. (2013) "Iyarri at the Interface: The Origins of Ares" in A. Mouton, I. Rutherford, & I. Yakubovich (eds.) Luwian Identities: Culture, Language and Religion Between Anatolia and the Aegean (Leiden) pp.555-557
  39. Martha W. Baldwin Bowsky. "Portrait of a Polis: Lato Pros Kamara (Crete) in the Late Second Century B. C." Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, vol. 58, no. 3, The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1989, pp. 331–47, https://doi.org/10.2307/148222
  40. This refers to a double-temple to Aphrodite and Ares reported by Pausanias. Its cult practises are unknown. See Fusco, U. (2017). The Sanctuary of Aphrodite and Ares (Paus. 2.25.1) in the Periurban Area of Argos and Temples with a Double Cella in Greece. Tekmeria, 13, 97-124. doi:https://doi.org/10.12681/tekmeria.1073.
  41. Millington, Alexander T., "Iyarri at the Interface: The Origins of Ares" in A. Mouton, I. Rutherford, & I. Yakubovich (eds.) Luwian Identities: Culture, Language and Religion Between Anatolia and the Aegean (Leiden) 2013, pp.555-557
  42. Millington, Alexander T., War and the Warrior: Functions of Ares in Literature and Cult, University College, London, 2013, pp. 101-105
  43. Glen Bowersock, The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam (Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 45, 47–48.
  44. Bowersock, Throne of Adulis, p. 69.
  45. Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (Blackwell, 1985, 2004 reprint, originally published 1977 in German), pp. 141; William Hansen, Classical Mythology: A Guide to the Mythical World of the Greeks and Romans (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 113.
  46. Hansen, Classical Mythology, pp. 114–115.
  47. Hansen, Classical Mythology, pp. 113–114.
  48. Iliad, Book 5, lines 798–891, 895–898 in the translation of Richmond Lattimore.
  49. Iliad 13.301; Ovid, Ars Amatoria, II.10.
  50. Athens, NM 3851 quoted in Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works, Introduction: I. "The Sources"
  51. Homeric Hymn to Ares.
  52. Hesiod, Theogony 921 (Loeb Classical Library numbering); Iliad, 5.890–896. By contrast, Ares's Roman counterpart Mars was born from Juno alone, according to Ovid (Fasti 5.229–260).
  53. Argonautica (ii.382ff and 1031ff; Hyginus, Fabulae 30.
  54. Marchand, Fabienne, and Beck, Hans,The Dancing Floor of Ares: Local Conflict and Regional Violence in Central Greece, Ancient History Bulletin, Supplemental Volume 1 (2020) ISSN 0835-3638
  55. Plutarch, Marcellus, 21.2
  56. Odyssey 8.300
  57. In the Iliad, the wife of Hephaestus is Charis, "Grace," as noted by Burkert, p. 168.
  58. Gallagher, David (2009-01-01). Avian and Serpentine. Brill Rodopi. ISBN 978-90-420-2709-1.
  59. Lucian, Gallus 3, see also scholiast on Aristophanes, Birds 835; Eustathius, Ad Odysseam 1.300; Ausonius, 26.2.27; Libanius, Progymnasmata 2.26.
  60. Iliad 5.385–391.
  61. Burkert, p. 169
  62. Faraone, "Binding and Burying", 1991, pp. 166–220
  63. Nonnus, Dionysiaca 18.274–288 (II pp. 82, 83).
  64. Myers, Sarah, University of Michigan, reviewing Celoria's translation in Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 1994 (on-line text).
  65. Francis Celoria points out that in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Venus [Aphrodite's Roman equivalent], hides herself as a fish. See Celoria, Francis, Antoninus Liberalis, The Metamorphoses of Antoninus Liberalis, A Translation with a Commentary, 1992, pp. 87, 186, eBook Published 24 October 2018, London, Routledge, DOI https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315812755
  66. Iliad 5.830–834, 5.590–605, 21.410–414.
  67. Iliad 5.711–769, 5.780–834, 5.855–864.
  68. Iliad 15.110–128, 20.20–29, 21.391–408.
  69. Iliad 4.436f, and 13.299f Hesiod's Shield of Heracles 191, 460; Quintus Smyrnaeus, 10.51, etc.
  70. Hesiod, Theogony 934f.
  71. Wolfe, Jessica (2005). "Spenser, Homer, and the mythography of strife". Renaissance Quarterly. 58 (4): 1220–1288. doi:10.1353/ren.2008.0987. S2CID 161655379 – via Gale General Reference Center.
  72. Eustathius on Homer, 944
  73. Pausanias, 3.19.7–8.
  74. Hansen, Classical Mythology, pp. 113–114; Burkert, p. 169.
  75. Apollodorus, 2.5.11, 2.7.7.
  76. Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.4.4
  77. Antoninus Liberalis, 21.
  78. Liberalis credits the Greek writer Boios' Ornithogonia (now lost) as his source; Oliphant, Samuel Grant (1913). "The Story of the Strix: Ancient". Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association. The Johns Hopkins University Press. 44: 133–149. doi:10.2307/282549. JSTOR 28254.
  79. Bremmer, Jan N. (1996). "mythology". In Hornblower & Spawforth (ed.). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Third ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 1018–1020. ISBN 019866172X.
  80. Reeve, Michael D. (1996). "scholia". In Hornblower & Spawforth (ed.). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Third ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 1368. ISBN 019866172X.
  81. Hesiod, Theogony 934; Hard, p. 169.
  82. Hesiod, Theogony 934–7; Hard, p. 169; Grimal, s.v. Ares, pp. 52–53; Scholia on Homer, Iliad 2.494, [= Hellanicus fr. 51a Fowler, pp. 179–181]; Gantz, p. 468.
  83. Simonides, fr. 24 Diehls [= fr. PMG 575]; Gantz, p. 3; Hard, p. 196; Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Eros; Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. Ares, pp. 103–104.
  84. Cicero, De Natura Deorum 3.59; Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Anteros.
  85. Etymologicum Magnum, 179.59 (p. 179).
  86. Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v. Bistonia (pp. 352, 353).
  87. Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Enyalius.
  88. Homeric Hymn to Ares (8), 4.
  89. Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2.946
  90. Murray, John (1833). A Classical Manual, being a Mythological, Historical and Geographical Commentary on Pope's Homer, and Dryden's Aeneid of Virgil with a Copious Index. Albemarle Street, London. pp. 70.
  91. Apollodorus, 2.7.7.
  92. Apollodorus, 2.5.11.
  93. Apollodorus, 2.5.8.
  94. Tzetzes on Lycophron, Alexandra 499: Thrace was said to have been called Crestone after her.
  95. Hyginus, Fabulae 84; Hyginus, De Astronomica, 2.21.5; Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Oenomaus.
  96. Pausanias, 5.22.6; Diodorus Siculus, 4.73.1; Gantz, p. 232.
  97. Tzetzes on Lycophron, Alexandra 157.
  98. Pseudo-Plutarch, Parallela minora 40.
  99. Apollodorus, 1.7.7.
  100. Pausanias, 7.22.8; Smith, s.v. Melanippus (4).
  101. Pausanias, 8.44.8; Tripp, s.v. Ares; Smith, s.v. Aphneius.
  102. Apollodorus, 3.14.2; Peck, s.v. Ares.
  103. Gantz, p. 328; Apollodorus, 1.8.2; Hyginus, Fabulae 14.3.
  104. Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Calydon (2).
  105. Brill's New Pauly, s.vv. Ascalaphus (2), Pausanias, 9.37.7.
  106. Brill's New Pauly, Ialmenus; Grimal, s.v. Ialmenus, p. 224; Pausanias, 9.37.7.
  107. Gantz, p. 336; Apollodorus, 3.9.2.
  108. Etymologicum Magnum, 721.43–44 (p. 654); Grimal, s.v. Solymus, p. 424.
  109. Pausanias, 9.36.1; Hard, p. 560; Grimal, s.v. Phlegyas, pp. 367–368.
  110. Apollodorus, 3.5.5; Hard, p. 560; Grimal, s.v. Phlegyas, pp. 367–368.
  111. Pseudo-Plutarch, On Rivers, 3.2.
  112. Apollodorus, 1.7.7; Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Thestius.
  113. Pseudo-Plutarch, On Rivers, 22.1.
  114. Apollodorus, 1.7.7; Hard, p. 413; Grimal, s.v. Thestius, p. 452; Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Thestius.
  115. Pseudo-Plutarch, On Rivers 19.1.
  116. Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Antiope (2); Hyginus, Fabulae 30.
  117. Hyginus, Fabulae 30.
  118. Apollodorus, E.5.1; Hyginus, Fabulae 112.
  119. Scholia on Apollonius of Rhodes, 2.946–54c [= Eumelus, fr. 29 West, pp. 246, 247].
  120. Grimal, s.v. Lycaon (3), p. 263.
  121. Pseudo-Plutarch, Parallela minora 36; Grimal, s.vv. Lycastus (2), Parrhasius.
  122. Pseudo-Plutarch, Parallela minora 36; Grimal, s.vv. Lycastus (2), Parrhasius.
  123. Apollodorus, 1.7.7; Grimal, s.v. Oxylus (1); Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Oxylus (1).
  124. eponym of the Thracian tribe of Bithyae in Stephanus of Byzantium, Ethnica s.v. Bithyai
  125. Pseudo-Plutarch, On Rivers, 7.5.
  126. Hyginus, Fabulae 173.
  127. eponym of the Chalybes in Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, 2. 373.
  128. Scholia on Hesiod, Works and Days 1, p. 28.
  129. Apollodorus, 1.8.2; Grimal, s.v. Dryas, p. 142.
  130. Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 7.57.
  131. Pseudo-Plutarch, Greek and Roman Parallel Stories, 23.
  132. Hyginus, Fabulae 198, 242; Tripp, s.v. Nisus.
  133. Nonnus, Dionysiaca XIII.428.
  134. Antoninus Liberalis, 2.
  135. Apollodorus, 3.14.8; Hard, p. 169.
  136. The scene in which Ares and Aphrodite are entrapped by Hephaestus' net (Homer, Odyssey VIII: 166-365) is also in Ovid's Latin language Metamorphoses IV: 171-189
  137. Beard, Mary, North, John A., Price, Simon R. F., Religions of Rome: A History (Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 47–48
  138. Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia, The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215.
  139. Kurt A. Raaflaub, War and Peace in the Ancient World (Blackwell, 2007), p. 15.
  140. Paul Rehak and John G. Younger, Imperium and Cosmos: Augustus and the Northern Campus Martius (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), pp. 11–12.
  141. Isidore of Seville calls Mars Romanae gentis auctorem, the originator or founder of the Roman people as a gens (Etymologiae 5.33.5).
  142. The scene in which Ares and Aphrodite are entrapped by Hephaestus' net (Homer, Odyssey VIII: 166-365 is also in Ovid's Latin language Metamorphoses IV: 171-189
  143. This chart is based upon Hesiod's Theogony, unless otherwise noted.
  144. According to Homer, Iliad 1.570–579, 14.338, Odyssey 8.312, Hephaestus was apparently the son of Hera and Zeus, see Gantz, p. 74.
  145. According to Hesiod, Theogony 927–929, Hephaestus was produced by Hera alone, with no father, see Gantz, p. 74.
  146. According to Hesiod, Theogony 886–890, of Zeus' children by his seven wives, Athena was the first to be conceived, but the last to be born; Zeus impregnated Metis then swallowed her, later Zeus himself gave birth to Athena "from his head", see Gantz, pp. 51–52, 83–84.
  147. According to Hesiod, Theogony 183–200, Aphrodite was born from Uranus' severed genitals, see Gantz, pp. 99–100.
  148. According to Homer, Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus (Iliad 3.374, 20.105; Odyssey 8.308, 320) and Dione (Iliad 5.370–71), see Gantz, pp. 99–100.

References
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