Ares was the God of War, the son of Zeus and Hera, both of whom, Homer says, detested him. Indeed, he is hateful throughout the Iliad, a poem of war. He appears in Greek literature as the wild confusion of strife in battle. Of all the Olympian gods he was the most fierce and terrible, taking pleasure in slaughter and massacre. His sister, Eris, which means discord, and Strife, her son are with him in battle. The Goddess of War, Enyo, in Latin Bellona, walks beside him, and with her are Terror and Trembling and Panic. As they move, the voice of groaning arises behind them and the earth streams with blood.

     The Romans liked Mars better than the Greeks liked Ares. Mars to the Romans seemed to have been primarily an agricultural deity who assumed more warlike functions as the early Romans became increasingly powerful and aggressive. He never was to them the mean whining deity of the Iliad, but magnificent in shining armor, redoubtable, invincible. The warriors of the great Latin heroic poem, the Aeneid, far from rejoicing to escape from him, rejoice when they see that they are to fall "on Mars' field of renown." They "rush on glorious death" and find it "sweet to die in battle." No Roman general went to war without first proceeding to the temple of Mars, to swing the sacred shield and spear, adding the words, "Watch over us, O Mars!" This shield, the ancile, was believed to have fallen from heaven at the time when Numa Pompilius was king of Rome. Both this shield and the sacred spear were preserved in the temple of Mars, under the custody of priests, called Salii.

     Ares figures little in mythology. In one story he is the lover of Aphrodite and held up to the contempt of the Olympians by Aphrodite's husband, Hephaestus; but for the most part he is little more than a symbol of war. He is not a distinct personality, like Hermes or Hera or Apollo.

     He had no cities where he was worshipped. The Greeks said vaguely that he came from Thrace, home of a rude, fierce people in the northeast of Greece.

     Appropriately, his bird was the vulture. The dog as a scavenger of the battlefield was his favorite animal. The attributes of Ares were a spear and a burning torch his priests carried when they advanced to give the sign of battle to opposing armies.

The Olympians main page	Final Olympians Assignment
Zeus (Jupiter) Poseidon (Neptune) Hades (Pluto) Hestia (Vesta) Hera (Juno) Ares (Mars)	Athena (Minerva) Apollo Artemis (Diana) Aphrodite (Venus) Hephaestus (Vulcan) Hermes (Mercury)

ACTIVITIES:
Ares activity

KEY TEST WORDS: (Know the material behind these items.)
Ares, Mars, ancile, spear, vulture, dog, burning torch, Aphrodite, Hephaestus

The Olympians

The Lesser Deities

Footnotes:
Otus and Ephialtes, twin giant sons of Poseidon, bound Ares, stuffed him into a bronze jar, and left him there for thirteen months. Hermes rescued him. Hercules felled Ares four times in the battle for the city of Pylus. Diomedes, a Greek warrior during the Trojan War, urged on by Athena, wounded Ares severely. Ares later took on Athena as an opponent and was flattened with a huge stone.

In works of art Ares is represented as a youthful but very powerful build, armed with helmet, shield, and spear. At other times he is bearded and heavily armed.

SOURCES:
Jane Smith
Edith Hamilton's Mythology
Bulfinch's Mythology
Manual of Mythology by Alexander S. Murray.
Handbook of Classical Mythology, by Edward Tripp.
Homer's Iliad
Virgil's Aeneid