Ares is the god of war, but not war guided by strategy, which belongs to Athena: Ares embodies blind violence, fury and the chaos of battle. Son of Zeus and Hera, he was little loved by the Greeks and even by his father, who in the Iliad calls him "the most hateful of the gods". The Romans, by contrast, greatly honoured their Mars, father of Romulus and Remus, who gave his name to the month of March and the red planet.
His character
Ares rushes into battle with his sons Phobos, Fear, and Deimos, Terror, and his sister Eris, Strife. He does not fight for a just cause: he loves war for its own sake. That is why in myths he is often defeated or humiliated.
Main myths
- Ares and Aphrodite: the war god was the lover of Aphrodite, wife of Hephaestus. Helios, the Sun, saw them and told the husband, who forged an invisible, extremely fine net: the lovers were caught in bed and exposed to the laughter of the gods. Their union produced Harmonia, Phobos and Deimos.
- Defeats: in the Trojan War, fighting for the Trojans, he was wounded by the Greek hero Diomedes with Athena's help and fled to Olympus howling; later Athena struck him down with a boulder. The giants Otus and Ephialtes kept him prisoner for thirteen months in a bronze jar until Hermes freed him.
- The Areopagus: in myth Ares was tried by the gods on a hill in Athens for killing a son of Poseidon who had attacked his daughter, and was acquitted. The hill became the Areopagus, "hill of Ares", seat of Athens' oldest court. It lies next to the Acropolis.
His cult
Ares had few temples in Greece. He was honoured above all at Sparta, a warrior city, where a statue of him was kept in chains so that the spirit of war would never leave. In Athens, in the Agora, the foundations of one of his temples survive.
See also the twelve Olympians.