Pausanias (2nd century AD) notes an altar to Ares at Olympia, 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. In mainland Greece and the Peloponnese, only a few places are known to have had a formal temple and cult of Ares. 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". In the Classical period, Ares is given the epithet Enyalios, which seems to appear on the Mycenaean KN V 52 tablet as □□□□□, e-nu-wa-ri-jo. In the Iliad, the word ares is used as a common noun synonymous with "battle." 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. The earliest attested form of the name is the Mycenaean Greek □□, a-re, written in the Linear B syllabic script. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the name. Walter Burkert notes that "Ares is apparently an ancient abstract noun meaning throng of battle, war." R. ![]() 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". ![]() 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. ![]() 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.Īres' 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. The Trojans lose, while Ares' sister Athena helps the Greeks to victory. In the Trojan War, Aphrodite, protector of Troy, persuades Ares to take the Trojan's side. When he does appear, he is often humiliated. Though there are many literary allusions to Ares' love affairs and children, he has a limited role in Greek mythology. The later belief that ancient Spartans had offered human sacrifice to Ares may owe more to mythical prehistory, misunderstandings, and reputation than to reality. 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. ![]() In parts of Asia Minor, he was an oracular deity. Some cities in Greece and several in Asia Minor held annual festivals to bind and detain him as their protector. An association with Ares endows places, objects, and other deities with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality.Īlthough Ares' name shows his origins as Mycenaean, his reputation for savagery was thought by some to reflect his likely origins as a Thracian deity. He embodies the physical valor necessary for success in war but can also personify sheer brutality and bloodlust, in contrast to his sister, the armored Athena, whose martial functions include military strategy and generalship. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. Ares ( / ˈ ɛər iː z/ Ancient Greek: Ἄρης, Árēs ) is the Greek god of war and courage.
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