Ares

What is Ares the god of?

Ares is the Greek god of war, specifically its violent and chaotic aspects: bloodshed, slaughter, and the frenzy of combat rather than its planning. Homer's Iliad and Hesiod's Theogony both list him among the twelve Olympians, born to Zeus and Hera. His domain also extends to civil disorder and raw courage in battle, distinct from Athena's domain of strategic, disciplined warfare.

Hesiod, Theogony 921-923

How is Ares different from Athena?

Both Ares and Athena preside over war, but ancient sources draw a sharp line between them. Ares represents war's brutal, undisciplined violence: bloodlust, panic, and slaughter without regard to cause. Athena represents strategic, disciplined warfare in service of a just cause. In the Iliad, she fights on the Greek side and wounds Ares herself with a boulder while he fights for Troy, and Greek tradition consistently favored her calculated restraint over his savagery.

Homer, Iliad, Book 21

Why did the other gods dislike Ares?

In Homer's Iliad, Zeus tells Ares to his face that he is the most hateful of all the gods on Olympus, tolerated only because he is Zeus's son. The immediate cause is a wound: the mortal hero Diomedes, aided by Athena, drives a spear into Ares during the Trojan War, and Ares flees to Olympus complaining. Zeus's response reflects a wider pattern in Greek sources: Ares' love of violence for its own sake, without strategy or justice behind it, set him apart from more respected Olympians and made him an outlier even among war deities.

Homer, Iliad, Book 5

Is Ares the same as the Roman god Mars?

Ares and Mars were identified as the same god by the Romans, but their standing differed sharply. Ares was a marginal, largely disliked figure in Greek religion and myth, mentioned in the Iliad mainly to be shamed or wounded. Mars, by contrast, held one of the highest positions in Roman religion, ranked second only to Jupiter, and was honored as the divine father of Romulus and Remus and a guardian of the Roman state. The name changed nothing about the war domain; it changed the god's reputation entirely.

Who were Ares's children?

With Aphrodite, Ares fathered Phobos (Fear) and Deimos (Dread), who accompany him into battle as personified terrors, and Harmonia, goddess of harmony, whose marriage to Cadmus of Thebes later sources treat as cursed by the unlikely union of War and Love. Ares also fathered several mortal sons associated with violence and banditry, including Cycnus, who was eventually killed by Heracles.

Hesiod, Theogony 933-937

Was Ares ever captured or humiliated?

Yes, more than once. Homer's Odyssey tells how Hephaestus caught Ares and Aphrodite together in an unbreakable golden net and displayed them naked before the laughing gods. The Iliad also has the giant twins Otus and Ephialtes, the Aloadae, capture Ares and imprison him in a bronze jar for thirteen months, until Hermes learned of it from the giants' stepmother and freed him, nearly dead from confinement.

Homer, Iliad 5.385-391