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'''Ares''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɛər|iː|z}}; {{langx|grc|Ἄρης}}, ''Árēs'' {{IPA|el|árɛːs|}}) is the [[List of Greek deities|Greek god]] of [[war god|war]] and courage. He is one of the [[Twelve Olympians]], and the son of [[Zeus]] and [[Hera]]. The Greeks were ambivalent towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for success in war but can also personify sheer brutality and bloodlust, in contrast to his sister [[Athena]], whose martial functions include military strategy and generalship. An association with Ares endows places, objects, and other deities with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality.
'''Ares''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɛər|iː|z}}; , ''Árēs'' {{IPA|el|árɛːs|}}) is the [[List of Greek deities|Greek god]] of [[war god|war]] and courage. He is one of the [[Twelve Olympians]], and the son of [[Zeus]] and [[Hera]]. The Greeks were ambivalent towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for success in war but can also personify sheer brutality and bloodlust, in contrast to his sister [[Athena]], whose martial functions include military strategy and generalship. An association with Ares endows places, objects, and other deities with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality.


Although Ares' name shows his origins as [[Mycenae]]an, his reputation for savagery was thought by some to reflect his likely origins as a Thracian deity. Some cities in Greece and several in Asia Minor held annual festivals to bind and detain him as their protector. In parts of Asia Minor, he was an oracular deity. Still further away from Greece, the [[Scythians]] were said to ritually kill one in a hundred prisoners of war as an offering to their equivalent of Ares. The later belief that ancient Spartans had offered human sacrifice to Ares may owe more to mythical prehistory, misunderstandings, and reputation than to reality.
Although Ares' name shows his origins as [[Mycenae]]an, his reputation for savagery was thought by some to reflect his likely origins as a Thracian deity. Some cities in Greece and several in Asia Minor held annual festivals to bind and detain him as their protector. In parts of Asia Minor, he was an oracular deity. Still further away from Greece, the [[Scythians]] were said to ritually kill one in a hundred prisoners of war as an offering to their equivalent of Ares. The later belief that ancient Spartans had offered human sacrifice to Ares may owe more to mythical prehistory, misunderstandings, and reputation than to reality.
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Ares' nearest counterpart in Roman religion is [[Mars (mythology)|Mars]], who was given a more important and dignified place in [[Religion in ancient Rome|ancient Roman religion]] as ancestral protector of the Roman people and state. During the [[Hellenization]] of [[Latin literature]], the myths of Ares were [[interpretatio graeca|reinterpreted]] by Roman writers under the name of Mars, and in later [[Western culture|Western art and literature]], the mythology of the two figures became virtually indistinguishable.
Ares' nearest counterpart in Roman religion is [[Mars (mythology)|Mars]], who was given a more important and dignified place in [[Religion in ancient Rome|ancient Roman religion]] as ancestral protector of the Roman people and state. During the [[Hellenization]] of [[Latin literature]], the myths of Ares were [[interpretatio graeca|reinterpreted]] by Roman writers under the name of Mars, and in later [[Western culture|Western art and literature]], the mythology of the two figures became virtually indistinguishable.
==Names==
==Names==
The etymology of the name ''Ares'' is traditionally connected with the [[Greek language|Greek]] word {{lang|grc|ἀρή}} (''arē''), the [[Ionic Greek|Ionic]] form of the [[Doric Greek|Doric]] {{lang|grc|ἀρά}} (''ara''), "bane, ruin, curse, imprecation".<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0073%3Aentry%3Da%29rh%2F ἀρή], Georg Autenrieth, ''A Homeric Dictionary''. {{LSJ|a)ra/|ἀρή|ref}}.</ref> [[Walter Burkert]] notes that "Ares is apparently an ancient abstract noun meaning throng of battle, war."<ref name="Burkert, p. 169">Burkert, [https://archive.org/details/greekreligion0000burk/page/169/mode/2up?view=theater p. 169].</ref> [[Robert S. P. Beekes|R. S. P. Beekes]] has suggested a [[Pre-Greek]] origin of the name.<ref>[[Robert S. P. Beekes|R. S. P. Beekes]], ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, pp. 129–130.</ref> The earliest attested form of the name is the [[Mycenaean language|Mycenaean Greek]] {{lang|gmy|{{script|Linb|𐀀𐀩}}}}, ''a-re'', written in the [[Linear B]] syllabic script.<ref>{{cite journal|title=A-re in the Linear B Tablets and the Continuity of the Cult of Ares in the Historical Period| url=http://www.utexas.edu/research/pasp/publications/pdf/are.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.utexas.edu/research/pasp/publications/pdf/are.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|first=Joannn|last=Gulizio|journal=Journal of Prehistoric Religion|volume=15|pages=32–38}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| last=Raymoure| first=K.A.| url=http://minoan.deaditerranean.com/resources/linear-b-sign-groups/a/a-re/| title=a-re| work=Minoan Linear A & Mycenaean Linear B| publisher=Deaditerranean| year=2012| access-date=2014-03-08| archive-date=2016-03-18| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160318004206/http://minoan.deaditerranean.com/resources/linear-b-sign-groups/a/a-re/| url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.palaeolexicon.com/default.aspx?static=12&wid=346723|title=The Linear B word a-re|website= Palaeolexicon, Word study tool of ancient languages}}</ref>
The etymology of the name ''Ares'' is traditionally connected with the [[Greek language|Greek]] word {{lang|grc|ἀρή}} (''arē''), the [[Ionic Greek|Ionic]] form of the [[Doric Greek|Doric]] {{lang|grc|ἀρά}} (''ara''), "bane, ruin, curse, imprecation".<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0073%3Aentry%3Da%29rh%2F ἀρή], Georg Autenrieth, ''A Homeric Dictionary''. {{LSJ|a)ra/|ἀρή|ref}}.</ref> [[Walter Burkert]] notes that "Ares is apparently an ancient abstract noun meaning throng of battle, war."<ref name="Burkert, p. 169">Burkert, [https://archive.org/details/greekreligion0000burk/page/169/mode/2up?view=theater p. 169].</ref> [[Robert S. P. Beekes|R. S. P. Beekes]] has suggested a [[Pre-Greek]] origin of the name.<ref>[[Robert S. P. Beekes|R. S. P. Beekes]], ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, pp. 129–130.</ref> The earliest attested form of the name is the [[Mycenaean language|Mycenaean Greek]] {{lang|gmy|{{script|Linb|𐀀𐀩}}}}, ''a-re'', written in the [[Linear B]] syllabic script.<ref>{{cite journal|title=A-re in the Linear B Tablets and the Continuity of the Cult of Ares in the Historical Period| url=http://www.utexas.edu/research/pasp/publications/pdf/are.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.utexas.edu/research/pasp/publications/pdf/are.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|first=Joannn|last=Gulizio|journal=Journal of Prehistoric Religion|volume=15|pages=32–38}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| last=Raymoure| first=K.A.| url=http://minoan.deaditerranean.com/resources/linear-b-sign-groups/a/a-re/| title=a-re| work=Minoan Linear A & Mycenaean Linear B| publisher=Deaditerranean| year=2012| access-date=2014-03-08| archive-date=2016-03-18| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160318004206/http://minoan.deaditerranean.com/resources/linear-b-sign-groups/a/a-re/| url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.palaeolexicon.com/default.aspx?static=12&wid=346723|title=The Linear B word a-re|website= Palaeolexicon, Word study tool of ancient languages}}</ref>

Revision as of 13:25, 24 June 2025

Ares
God of war and courage
Member of the Twelve Olympians
Ares Canope Villa Adriana b.jpg
Cast of a Roman statue from Hadrian's Villa, copied from a Greek original. Traditionally identified as Ares or Hermes.
AbodeMount Olympus, temples in mainland Greece, Crete and Asia minor
PlanetMars
SymbolsSword, spear, shield, helmet
DayTuesday (hēméra Áreōs)
Personal information
ParentsZeus and Hera
SiblingsHephaestus, Eileithyia, Hebe and several paternal half-siblings
ConsortAphrodite
Childrenthe Erotes (Eros and Anteros), Phobos, Deimos, Phlegyas, Harmonia, Enyalius, Thrax, Oenomaus, Cycnus, and the Amazons
Roman equivalentMars

Ares (/ˈɛəriːz/; , Árēs el) is the Greek god of war and courage. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. The Greeks were ambivalent towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for success in war but can also personify sheer brutality and bloodlust, in contrast to his sister Athena, whose martial functions include military strategy and generalship. An association with Ares endows places, objects, and other deities with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality.

Although Ares' name shows his origins as Mycenaean, his reputation for savagery was thought by some to reflect his likely origins as a Thracian deity. Some cities in Greece and several in Asia Minor held annual festivals to bind and detain him as their protector. In parts of Asia Minor, he was an oracular deity. Still further away from Greece, the Scythians were said to ritually kill one in a hundred prisoners of war as an offering to their equivalent of Ares. The later belief that ancient Spartans had offered human sacrifice to Ares may owe more to mythical prehistory, misunderstandings, and reputation than to reality.

Although there are many literary allusions to Ares' love affairs and children, he has a limited role in Greek mythology. When he does appear, he is often humiliated. In the Trojan War, Aphrodite, protector of Troy, persuades Ares to take the Trojans' side. The Trojans lose, while Ares' sister Athena helps the Greeks to victory. Most famously, when the craftsman-god Hephaestus discovers his wife Aphrodite is having an affair with Ares, he traps the lovers in a net and exposes them to the ridicule of the other gods.

Ares' nearest counterpart in Roman religion is Mars, who was given a more important and dignified place in ancient Roman religion as ancestral protector of the Roman people and state. During the Hellenization of Latin literature, the myths of Ares were reinterpreted by Roman writers under the name of Mars, and in later Western art and literature, the mythology of the two figures became virtually indistinguishable.

Names

The etymology of the name Ares is traditionally connected with the Greek word ἀρή (arē), the Ionic form of the Doric ἀρά (ara), "bane, ruin, curse, imprecation".[1] Walter Burkert notes that "Ares is apparently an ancient abstract noun meaning throng of battle, war."[2] R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the name.[3] The earliest attested form of the name is the Mycenaean Greek 𐀀𐀩, a-re, written in the Linear B syllabic script.[4][5][6]

The adjectival epithet, Areios ("warlike") was frequently appended to the names of other gods when they took on a warrior aspect or became involved in warfare: Zeus Areios, Athena Areia, even Aphrodite Areia ("Aphrodite within Ares" or "feminine Ares"), who was warlike, fully armoured and armed, partnered with Athena in Sparta, and represented at Kythira's temple to Aphrodite Urania.[7] In the Iliad, the word ares is used as a common noun synonymous with "battle".[2]

In the Classical period, Ares is given the epithet Enyalios, which seems to appear on the Mycenaean KN V 52 tablet as 𐀁𐀝𐀷𐀪𐀍, e-nu-wa-ri-jo.[8][9] Enyalios was sometimes identified with Ares and sometimes differentiated from him as another war god with separate cult, even in the same town; Burkert describes them as "doubles almost".[10][11]

Epithets

Source:[12]

  • aatos or atos polemoio, insatiate at war.[13]
  • alloprosallos, leaning first to one side, then to the other.
  • andreifontēs, man-slaying.
  • apotimos, dishonoured by Sophocles.
  • brotoloigos, plague of man.
  • enyalios, warlike.[14]
  • Thēritas, at Sparta. Laconic form of Thersites, audacious.[15]
  • mainomenos, malignant.
  • miaifonos, blood-stained
  • tykton kakon, complete evil.[16]

Cult

Ares, 2nd–3rd century AD, after a Greek bronze original by Alkamenes dated 420 BC,[citation needed] excavated in 1925 in Rome's Largo di Torre Argentina

In mainland Greece and the Peloponnese, only a few places are known to have had a formal temple and cult of Ares.[17][n 1] Pausanias (2nd century AD) notes an altar to Ares at Olympia,[18] and the moving of a Temple of Ares to the Athenian agora during the reign of Augustus, essentially rededicating it (2 AD) as a Roman temple to the Augustan Mars Ultor.[17] The Areopagus ("mount of Ares"), a natural rock outcrop in Athens, some distance from the Acropolis, was supposedly where Ares was tried and acquitted by the gods for his revenge-killing of Poseidon's son, Halirrhothius, who had raped Ares' daughter Alcippe. Its name was used for the court that met there, mostly to investigate and try potential cases of treason.[19]

  1. ↑ ἀρή, Georg Autenrieth, A Homeric Dictionary. ἀρή. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Burkert, p. 169.
  3. ↑ R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, pp. 129–130.
  4. ↑ Gulizio, Joannn. "A-re in the Linear B Tablets and the Continuity of the Cult of Ares in the Historical Period" (PDF). Journal of Prehistoric Religion. 15: 32–38. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09.
  5. ↑ Raymoure, K.A. (2012). "a-re". Minoan Linear A & Mycenaean Linear B. Deaditerranean. Archived from the original on 2016-03-18. Retrieved 2014-03-08.
  6. ↑ "The Linear B word a-re". Palaeolexicon, Word study tool of ancient languages.
  7. ↑ Budin, Stephanie L. (2010). "Aphrodite Enoplion", In Smith, Amy C.; Pickup, Sadie (eds.). Brill's Companion to Aphrodite. Brill's Companions in Classical Studies. Boston, MA: Brill Publishers. pp. 79–116. ISBN 9789047444503.
  8. ↑ Chadwick, John (1976). The Mycenaean World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 88. ISBN 0-521-29037-6. At Google Books.
  9. ↑ Raymoure, K.A. "e-nu-wa-ri-jo". Minoan Linear A & Mycenaean Linear B. Deaditerranean. Archived from the original on 2021-06-23. Retrieved 2014-03-19. "KN 52 V + 52 bis + 8285 (unknown)". DĀMOS: Database of Mycenaean at Oslo. University of Oslo. Archived from the original on 2014-03-19.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Graf, Fritz (1996). "Ares". In Hornblower & Spawforth (ed.). The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Third ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 152. ISBN 019866172X.
  11. ↑ Burkert, p. 44
  12. ↑ Nilsson Vol I, p. 517–519
  13. ↑ Liddel Scott
  14. ↑ Liddel Scott
  15. ↑ Liddel Scott
  16. ↑ Liddell Scott
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Burkert, p. 170.
  18. ↑ Pausanias, 5.15.6.
  19. ↑ Berens, E.M.: Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome, page 113. Project Gutenberg, 2007.


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