Ares

In Greek mythology Ares (in ancient Greek Ἄρης, in modern Greek, Ἄρη), son of Zeus and Hera, is the Olympian god of war.

In war he represents the brutality, violence and horrors of battles. As a god of male virility throughout mythology, some thirty female lovers have been counted, with an offspring of around 60 children (including Eros, Harmonia, Phobos, Deimos, the Amazons). Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, was his favorite lover, healer, and ally in war. The Roman equivalent of her is Mars.

Despite being identified as a god of war, he was not always victorious in combat. In fact, he was wounded several times, such as against the demigod Heracles, and especially in his confrontations with his sister Athena, also a warrior divinity, patron saint of strategy and wisdom. His birthplace and true home was situated in the region of the Barbarians and Thracians, north of Hellas, and there he fled when discovered sleeping with Aphrodite, who repeatedly cheated on her husband Hephaestus with the.

In the Trojan War he first fought with one side and then with the other, to compensate for the courage of both sides. His destructive hand was seen even after the ravages caused by plagues and epidemics.This wild and bloodthirsty facet of Ares made him detested by other gods, including his own parents.

"Ares" was also an adjective and epithet in classical times to refer to other gods when they were warrior, violent, or virile: the titles Zeus Areios, Athena Areia, and even Aphrodite Areia were common.

Cult

Ares's name is already attested in the Mycenaean tablets in the form A-re. Despite this, in Greece, at least during the archaic and classical times, he was not one of the gods to whom he worshiped the most, since he was considered to be of barbarian origin.

The worship of Ares in the countries north of Greece indicates that his cult was probably introduced from Thrace. In Scythia, another of his main places of worship, he was worshiped in the form of a sword, with which horses, cattle, and sometimes slaves were sacrificed.

From the geographer Pausanias it is known that in Sparta there was a statue of the chained god, to show that the combative spirit and victory would never leave the inhabitants of the city. In this city puppies of black dogs were sacrificed to him.

In the myth of the Argonauts it was believed that in Colchis, the Golden Fleece hung from an oak tree in a grove sacred to Ares. From there it was believed that the Dioscuri brought to Laconia the ancient statue of Ares that was preserved in the temple of Ares Thareitas, on the way from Sparta to Terapnas.

Also, being considered the father of the Amazons, it was said that they had built an altar dedicated to the god on an island in the Black Sea. This island, on which the Stymphalian birds were believed to dwell, was known as the "island of Ares".

In the Hellenistic period he was greatly worshiped in Macedonia, where one of his most prominent followers, Alexander the Great, came from. From the writings of Pseudo Callisthenes and Plutarch it is possible to specify the rituals that Alexander the Great rendered to him on the eve of battles, which generally consisted of a complex set of rites where libations were related to the Orphic and animal sacrifices.

The temple of Ares that Pausanias saw in the second century in the Agora of Athens (administrative, religious and cultural center), had been transferred and rededicated there during the time of Augustus: in essence it was a temple of Mars, its Roman equivalent. However Pausanias notes that there was a statue of Ares there which was the work of Alcamenes. The Areopagus, the 'hill of Ares' where Paul preached, is situated some distance from the Acropolis and trials were held there from archaic times.

At Olympia there was an altar dedicated to this god. He was also worshiped near Tegea, there called Ares Aphnaeus, and in the city of Tegea itself. Near Thebes there was a fountain consecrated to Ares. At Gerontras (Laconia), he had a temple with a grove where an annual festival was held during which women were not allowed near the temple.

Some late hymns dedicated to Ares are preserved: the Homeric Hymn VIII —which critics attribute to the Neoplatonist Proclus and therefore is from the 5th century AD. C.—​ and the Orphic Hymn LXV, from the Roman imperial era. These hymns invoke Ares, calling him the personification of bravery, tireless strength, king of masculine virility, protector of Olympus and armies, leader of the rebels, of just men, and helper of the weak. These attributes are, in part, different from what the traditional Ares had.

Herodotus relates that the Egyptians worshiped a divinity who is also called Ares.

Symbols and appearance

Ares is usually represented as a young man, with anastole hair (apparently something typical of Hellenic warriors) and with a hairless face and body. The chariot and the burning torch are some of his symbols. Ares rode a chariot drawn by two immortal horses that flew and wore golden bridles. Among the other gods, Ares was depicted with bronze armor, spear, shield, helmet, and sword. Dogs and vultures were sacred to him. and in Italy, among the Picenes, also woodpeckers were sacred birds of Ares. According to the Argonautics, the birds of Ares (Ornithes Areioi) were a flock of birds whose feathers could launch like darts at enemies. He is also identified with the two horns from the myth of the Golden Fleece, the ram of golden wool (as depicted in the zodiacal sign of Aries).

Titles and epithets

One of the most prominent epithets of Ares is that of Enialio (Ἐνυάλιος Enyálios) which may have the meaning of heroic warrior, and such epithet was applied to the ephebes in Athens. The ephebes were the young men who entered military service, and it was a type of heroic cult during their oath. In the Mycenaean Linear B tablets, E-nu-wa-ri-jo already appeared, identified as Enialio. By classical times Enialius had been identified as a hero.

Other epithets of Ares are:

• Brotoloigos (Βροτολοιγός, 'destroyer of men');
• Afrodisíakos (Afrodisiakos, 'encantado por Afrodita')
• Androphontes (Ανδρειφοντης, 'murderer of men');
• Miaiphonos (Μιαιφόνος, 'the voice of men');
• Teikhesiplêtês (Τειχεσιπλήτης, 'wall-raider');
• Maleros (Μαλερός, 'sorcerer, shaman');
• Teritas (Θηρίτας, 'appeased'), by Tero, his nanny and healer.

Mythology

Aphrodite

In the story sung by the poet Demodocus, in the palace of Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians,The sun god Helios once spied Ares and Aphrodite making secret love in the chambers of her husband, Hephaestus, the lame, hunchbacked god of fire. Helios warned Hephaestus about the situation, who got angry and hatched a plan, he made an invisible net, but so strong and resistant that no man (or any god) could break it, that could immobilize anyone to catch the couple, like this who placed this net on the bed, which would act with the rays of dawn. Hephaestus left his house and would return the next day at sunrise. Ares precautiously put Alectrion's guard at the door to warn him of the sunrise (Helios), but the young man fell asleep, and with the first glimmers of the sun the net fell on the lovers. Thus he caught Ares and Aphrodite in the middle of an intimate situation, leaving these immobilized. Hephaestus, furious, called the other gods to witness the adultery. The goddesses did not attend out of modesty. The gods present commented on the beauty of Aphrodite, and that they would have gladly changed the place of Ares, mocking Hephaestus. When the couple was freed, she fled to Paphos, her native island of Cyprus, while Ares took refuge in her native Thrace.Furious, Ares transformed Alectrion into a rooster who would never forget to announce the arrival of the sun in the morning. Neither Aphrodite nor Ares kept his promise, and they met again and again. Such history was represented in sculptures and paintings, especially in the Renaissance. As a result of their love they had at least eight children.

Chained ares

In a myth recounted in the Iliad by the goddess Dione to Aphrodite, two chthonic giants, the alloads Otho and Ephialtes, chained Ares and locked him in a bronze urn for a lunar year. Ares was screaming and howling in the urn for thirteen months, until his brother Hermes rescued him and his sister Artemis tricked the giants into throwing their spears at each other, killing each other. "There the insatiable god of combat would perish, if his stepmother [of the Alóadas], the beautiful Eribea, had not participated in Hermes."​

The Trojan War

In the Iliad, Homer recounts that Ares fought for one side and then the other to reward the courage of both sides: he promised his sister Athena and his mother Hera that he would fight on the side of the Achaeans alongside Achilles, but Aphrodite and Apollo They convinced him to fight with them on the side of Paris and the Trojans.

In the battle, a surprised Diomedes saw Ares fighting on the Trojan side, and ordered his soldiers to retreat. Hera saw the disproportion of the combat and asked Zeus to intervene to remove him from the battlefield. Ares attacked Diomedes with his spear, but Athena deflected the attack. Diomedes answered with the pike and Athena guided the blow in the direction of Ares, who fell wounded, and as he fell, nine or ten thousand men bellowed. He fled to Mount Olympus to have his father Zeus heal his wounds, forcing the Trojans to fall back. Zeus lectured him:

"Looking at him darkly, Zeus, who collects the clouds, spoke to him: -Don't sit next to me and complain, you two-faced liar! To me you are the most hateful of all the gods who uphold Olympus! what do you want for your heart, wars and battles!... And yet, I will not bear long to see you in pain, since you are my child... And for me it was your mother who bored you. But if you were born from someone else God, you turned out so ruinous! It's been a long time since you've been dropped below the gods of the bright sky! "

When Hera mentioned during a conversation with Zeus that Ares' son Ascalaphus had died, Ares burst into tears. He wanted to join the battle on the side of the Achaeans, against Zeus's order that no Olympians were to participate in the war. Athena stopped him, comforted him, and helped him remove his armor.

Later, when Zeus allowed the gods to take an active part in the mortal war, Ares confronted Athena, but ended up wounded again when she hit him with a stone, covering seven yugadas with her prone body.

Helpers

One of his main advisers is Themis, an important goddess of justice and the correct order of things.

In battles, Deimos and Phobos are two of his children with Aphrodite and also respectively the spirits of terror and fear, who accompanied him in battles, like his sister Eris. Another companion of Ares was Enío, goddess of bloodshed and violence. By way of etymological construction, the word phobia comes from Phobos. They have an appointment in astronomy, which has given these names to his sons, Phobos and Deimos, to name the two satellites of the planet Mars (where Ares was so called in Rome).

Ares's presence was also reinforced by Cidoimos, the demon of the riot of battles, as well as the Macas (Battles), the Hisminas (Disputes), Polemos (a lesser spirit of war, probably an epithet for Ares, as had no specific domain) and his daughter, Alala, the goddess-personification of the Greek war cry, whose name was used by Ares as his own war cry. In the Iliad it is also described that another of his sisters, Hebe, prepares his bath and then dresses him.

The foundation of Thebes

Ares is also present in the founding myth of Thebes: Cadmus killed the dragon that guarded the source of Ares —and which some said was the son of this god— which was in Boeotia, in the place where Thebes was later built. Then, on the advice of Athena, he planted the dragon's teeth, from which sprouted as if a crop grew a race of warriors, the espartos. To placate Ares, Cadmus served Ares for a year and then took Harmonia, his daughter by Aphrodite, as his wife.

Other myths

• In Typhon's contest with Zeus, Ares was forced, along with the other gods, to flee to Egypt, where he metamorphosed into a fish.
• Ares gave Hippolyta the belt which was later taken from her by Heracles.
• In some versions it was said that when Aphrodite loved Adonis, a jealous Ares transformed himself into a boar and killed his rival or sent the boar to kill him.
• According to a tradition, Ares killed Halirrotio, son of Poseidon, when he tried to rape Alcipe, his daughter with Agraulo. Poseidon demanded of Zeus that Ares be punished, for which he was put on trial: the first murder trial in history. The other Olympians voted that he should be acquitted. It is believed that this event gave rise to the name "Areopagus".
• There are stories of a son of Ares, Cycnus, who was so bloodthirsty that he tried to build a temple with the skulls and bones of the travelers he murdered. Heracles killed him, incurring the wrath of Ares, whom he also defeated, forcing him to return to Olympus.

Consorts and offspring

Ares is perhaps one of the gods who has left the most descendants among the twelve Olympians. As a patron of male virility, there are at least forty lovers and about 60 children, many of whom are eponyms of mythical cities, such as Amazonas. listed below.

Lover	Son
Aphrodite	phobos
Deimos
Harmony
Eros
Anteros (part of the Erotes)
Himero (part of the Erotes)
Aerope	Airport
aglaurus	Alcipe
Altea	Turkey
Anchiroe	Siton
Astioque	Ascálafo
Yalmeno
Asinoma	Calidon
Atalanta	Parthenopean
Caldene	Solimnos
callirrhea	biston(possibly his grandson, son of a pawn)
Odomanto
Critobula	Pangaeus​
Cyrene	Diomedes of Thrace
Crestona​
Chick(possibly son of Pirene)
demon	Eveno
Testing
Molos, eponym of Molossians
Hair
Sleep	stinphelos
Dotis or Crisis	Flegias
Euritoe	-
Done	-
enio	of Enial
Eris	Cidomios
Eos	-
Erinias	Dragon of Thebes (founding myth)
You know(one of the hesperides)	Euritión(pastor of the winner of Gerion)
Esterope o Harpina	oenomaus
Philonoma	lycasto
Parrasio
Harmonia (a nymph)​	Amazonas
Otrera(the first queen of the amazons)
Leodoce​	-
Nerio(Roman mythology)	-
Otrera, amazon queen	hippolyta
Antiope
Melanipe
Pentecost, queen of the amazon
Parnassus	synope
Protogenia	Oxilo
Pelopia	-
persephone	-
Rea silvia or Illia	Romulus and Remus (Roman mythology)
Sete, Reso's sister	Bythis, eponym of Bithyae, tribe of Thrace
Tanagra	-
Tirine	Route
Theogona	Tmolo
Tritea	Melanipo
unknown mother	Calibe, from Calibes​
Drias
Thracian Falcon
Hyperbius
Keimaros
Lyco of Libya
They didn't
Pawn (perhaps Biston's father)
partahon
Eagro
Strain
stymphalus birds