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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. | |||
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 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 (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. | |||