Ares: Olympian God of War, Violence and Martial Ardor

Mythical Origins of Ares

Ares is the son of Zeus and Hera, and the only one of the great Olympians born from the legitimate marriage of the king of the gods. He embodies war in what it has of slaughter: the fury, the din and the blood, as opposed to war as strategy and defense of the city represented by Athena. The Iliad calls him scourge of mortals and stained with crime, and Zeus himself tells him to his face that he is the most hateful of the gods to him, because he only likes discord, wars and slaughters. That antipathy is significant: the Greeks venerated warrior valor, but distrusted the god who personified it. His cult was scarce in Greece, and found much better accommodation in Rome, where Mars was father of the city and received state honors.

Attributes and Defeats

His emblems are the spear, the helmet, the shield and the chariot; the dog and the vulture, battlefield animals, accompany him. With him go his sons Phobos and Deimos, Panic and Terror, who harness the horses to his chariot, and often Enyo and Discord. But the most striking trait of Ares is that he loses. In the Iliad, Diomedes wounds him with the spear guided by Athena and the god flees to Olympus screaming like ten thousand men; the same Athena later knocks him down with a stone. The giants Otus and Ephialtes kept him locked up for thirteen months in a bronze vessel, and only Hermes freed him. No other Olympian accumulates so many humiliations: he is brute force that always ends up subdued by intelligence.

Aphrodite, Harmonia and the Areopagus

His most famous story is sung by the Odyssey: lover of Aphrodite, wife of Hephaestus, he was surprised by the husband, who forged a net of invisible chains and trapped the two lovers in bed to exhibit them before the gods, who burst into laughter. From that union were born Phobos, Deimos and Harmonia, who would be queen of Thebes: from war and love is born concord, and the city of Thebes sinks its lineage in them. Ares was also father of the Amazons and of a lineage of violent kings, and protected his daughter Alcippe by killing a son of Poseidon who had forced her. For that crime he was judged by the gods on the hill that has since borne his name, the Areopagus, seat of the homicide court of Athens: the first acquittal in Greek mythical history.

Relics

🏺 Spear

🏺 Helmet

Symbology

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Element

Fire

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Number

🎨

Color

Red

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Animals

Dog

Sigils:

Spear

🏷️ Traits

⚡

Powers

💔

Weaknesses

🧠

Behavioral

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Resistances

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📜 Mythologies

📍 Ancient Greece

📅 c. 800-146 BC

Greek mythology developed in Ancient Greece from the Late Bronze Age and reached its most elaborate form during the archaic and classical periods, between the 8th and 4th centuries BCE. It emerged among the Hellenic peoples who inhabited the Greek peninsula, the Aegean islands and the coasts of Asia Minor, and was transmitted mainly through the oral poetry of Homer and Hesiod, as well as local traditions collected in sanctuaries and festivals. Its worldview presents a universe ordered by a hierarchy of divinities that intervene in human and natural affairs, with Olympus as the dwelling of the principal gods and Hades as the destination of the deceased. The central deities include the twelve Olympians, headed by Zeus, god of the sky and sovereign, together with Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes, Demeter and Dionysus. Before them, the Titans, among whom Cronus and Rhea stand out, ruled the cosmos until they were deposed by the Olympians in the Titanomachy. Other important entities are the Muses, the nymphs, the Cyclopes and the Moirai, who embody cosmic forces and destinies. This tradition exerted a lasting influence on the literature, art and thought of Rome, the European Renaissance and subsequent Western culture, supplying motifs, characters and narrative structures that have endured in philosophy, astronomy and the arts to the present day.

Sources

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Theogony

Hesiod · -700

Poem by Hesiod detailing the origin of Greek gods and Titans.

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Iliad

Homero · -800

Homeric epic that presents the Nereids consoling Thetis and participating in funeral rites.

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Pausanias' Description of Greece

Pausanias · ca. 150 CE

Pausanias’ "Description of Greece" (2nd century), a geographical and religious guide to the Greek world. It tours sanctuaries, monuments and local cults, preserving myths, heroes and divinities that would otherwise have been lost.

Frequently asked questions

What differentiates Ares from Atenea if both are gods of the war?

Ares is the battle as carnage: the fury, the din and the blood. Athena is the war as strategy, discipline and defense of the city. Therefore she defeats him every time they face each other, and therefore the Greeks rendered cult to her and distrusted him.

Why does a god of war lose so many times?

It is his most characteristic trait. Diomedes wounds him with the spear guided by Athena and he flees the field giving a howl like that of ten thousand men; she herself knocks him down after a stone throw; and the giants Otus and Ephialtes had him thirteen months locked in a bronze vessel. No other Olympian accumulates so many humiliations: he embodies the brute force that intelligence always ends up subduing.

Who are the children of Ares and Aphrodite?

Phobos and Deimos (Fear and Terror), who harness the horses to his chariot and accompany him to combat, and Harmonia, who came to be queen of Thebes. That from war and love concord is born is one of the most elegant genealogies of Greek myth. The version that makes Eros his son is late: in Hesiod, Eros is a primordial power prior to both.

What is the Areopagus and what relationship does it have with Ares?

It is the hill of Athens where the homicides were judged, and it bears its name because he was judged there. Ares had killed a son of Poseidon who forced his daughter Alcipe; the gods acquitted him. Tradition holds it as the first blood judgment of Greek mythology, and the Athenian court claimed that divine foundation.

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