Olympian god of violent war and bloodshed.
Overview
Ares (Greek: Ἄρης, Latinized as Ares) is a major god in Greek myth and one of the Olympian deities. He is best known as the god of violent war, bloodshed, and battle-fury, and he represents the destructive and chaotic side of armed conflict. Even though he is counted among the main Olympian gods, his worship was relatively limited and often uneasy compared to that of other major deities. Ares belongs to the mythic age of the Olympians and appears often in epic and later literary works as the personification of brutal warfare and carnage.
Epithets and Titles
Ares has many epithets that highlight his warlike nature and destructive power. Important Greek epithets include Enyalios, meaning warlike or battle-bringer, which is sometimes treated as a separate but closely related war god; Andreiphontes, meaning man-slaying and stressing his bloodthirsty presence on the battlefield; and Chalkokorustes, meaning bronze-armored, which refers to his war gear. In cult and literature he is often called Ares Enyalios, a title used in different cities to invoke him as a fierce war god. Descriptive titles such as sacker-of-cities, blood-stained, and battle-greedy further show his link with slaughter and devastation. His name is probably related to Greek words for bane, ruin, or curse, which fits his destructive connection with war, though the exact origin of the name is uncertain. These epithets and titles appear in sources such as Homer’s Iliad, the Homeric Hymns, and in various inscriptions and local cult references.
Family and Relationships
In the usual Olympian family tree, Ares is the son of Zeus and Hera. His siblings include Eileithyia, Hebe, Hephaestus, and the war-goddess Enyo. Ares is famously linked with Aphrodite as her consort and lover, even though she is married to Hephaestus; their adulterous relationship appears often in myth. His children include the personifications of fear and terror, Phobos and Deimos, and Harmonia, as well as Eros in some traditions. Other children sometimes said to be his are Adrestia, the Amazons in certain accounts (by mothers such as Otrera), Diomedes of Thrace, the bandit Cycnus, and Ascalaphus in some genealogies. Through these offspring he is tied to various warlike kings, warriors, and the Amazons, especially in Thrace and northern regions.
Ares’ rivals and enemies include Athena, who stands for strategic and just warfare; Heracles, who often defeats him or his children; Poseidon, who clashes with him in the trial over Halirrhothius; and Hephaestus, who publicly shames Ares and Aphrodite. His allies and close companions include Aphrodite, his sons Phobos and Deimos, and the war-goddess Enyo, who often goes with him into battle.
Domains and Powers
Ares rules over the most violent and destructive sides of war. His domains include violent war, bloodshed, battle-fury, slaughter, and the ruin that comes from conflict. He has power over hand-to-hand fighting, siege warfare and city-sacking, the terror and panic that seize fighters, and warlike peoples and warriors, especially those linked with Thrace and other northern regions.
As a patron, he is called on by warriors who want strength and ferocity, by warlike communities and armies, and by certain warrior cults and brotherhoods. His powers include superhuman strength and fighting skill, the ability to stir up rage, courage, and panic in battle, and command over war-spirits such as Phobos and Deimos. As an Olympian he is immortal, heals quickly from wounds, and moves swiftly across battlefields and between Olympus and the mortal world.
However, he is not unbeatable. Other gods and even mortals can wound and humiliate him, as when Diomedes, helped by Athena, drives him from the field. He is often stopped or controlled by Athena’s strategic intelligence and by Zeus’s supreme authority, and he is usually shown as impulsive, reckless, and easy to trick. In later tradition, Ares is linked with the red, warlike planet identified with Mars. He is not an underworld god, but he is connected with death through the slaughter of war rather than through any rule over the dead.
Myths and Narratives
Ares appears throughout the Trojan War stories, in many heroic tales involving figures like Heracles and Theseus, and in local myths from Thrace and northern Greece. In the Iliad, he takes an active role in the Trojan War as a supporter of the Trojans and as the living embodiment of battle-fury. He fights directly on the battlefield, but the mortal Diomedes, aided by Athena, wounds him and drives him off. Ares then returns to Olympus to complain to Zeus. His changing loyalties and sudden interventions show his chaotic and destructive nature.
In the well-known story of his adultery with Aphrodite, Ares secretly has an affair with the goddess, who is married to Hephaestus. Helios informs Hephaestus, who traps the lovers in an unbreakable net and exposes them naked before the assembled gods. The gods laugh at them until Poseidon convinces Hephaestus to let them go after Ares promises compensation.
Another important episode is his binding by the Aloadae, the giant brothers Otus and Ephialtes. They imprison him in a bronze jar for thirteen months until Hermes rescues him. This story shows both his vulnerability and the disruptive strength of the giants.
Ares is also central to the myth of his trial on the Areopagus in Athens. After he kills Halirrhothius, son of Poseidon, for trying to rape his daughter Alcippe, Poseidon demands justice. Ares is tried by a council of gods on a hill that later takes his name and becomes linked with homicide trials in Athenian tradition.
In several myths he clashes with Heracles, often when he tries to avenge the deaths of his warlike children such as Cycnus or Diomedes of Thrace. In these encounters Heracles wounds or defeats him, which highlights the hero’s superiority even over the god of war.
Ares’ main feats include his role in epic poetry as the living image of the horrors and ecstasy of battle, the fathering of warlike personifications such as Phobos and Deimos who fight beside him, and the creation, through the Halirrhothius story, of the mythical model for the Athenian court of the Areopagus. His myths appear in many primary sources, including Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Homeric Hymns, Hesiod’s Theogony, Pausanias’ Description of Greece, Apollodorus’ Library, and works by classical tragedians and later mythographers.
Cult and Worship
The cult of Ares is known from the Archaic Greek period through the Hellenistic and Roman eras, but it is usually less prominent than the cults of many other Olympian gods. He was worshipped in several centers, including Athens, where the Areopagus hill and local shrines were linked with him; Sparta, where he was honored as a patron of warfare; Thebes; Thrace and northern Greek regions; and various city-states that kept local war cults.
Important cult places include the Areopagus in Athens, a sacred hill and judicial site tied in myth to his trial for killing Halirrhothius and used in history as the seat of the homicide court. There were also sanctuaries in Sparta where he was honored in connection with Spartan military life. Festivals and rituals for Ares were often local and war-related, with the god called on before or after battles. The details differ by city and are often poorly recorded.
Rituals included animal sacrifices, especially in war settings before campaigns; dedications of captured arms and armor in his honor; and oaths and vows made by warriors and military leaders. Those who took part in his cult were usually warriors and soldiers, kings and generals, and civic officials in charge of warfare. In later times, Ares was often identified with the Roman god Mars, and this blending affected cult practice in Greek-speaking areas under Roman rule.
Symbolism and Iconography
In art and literature, Ares is usually shown as an adult man in his prime, with a strong, athletic warrior’s body. Archaic and Classical images often show him with a beard, while later works sometimes show him beardless and youthful. In art he is normally armed and armored, standing or striding into battle, or fighting in active combat scenes.
He often appears with Aphrodite, especially in scenes of their affair or in images that set love and war side by side. He may also be shown with Phobos and Deimos or other personified warlike figures. His main symbols and attributes are a crested helmet, spear, shield, sword, and greaves, often forming a full set of bronze armor. In some images he rides or stands by a chariot drawn by war-horses. His signature items are his bronze armor and weapons and his war-chariot, which sum up his martial identity.
Colors and materials linked with him include red and blood-colored imagery, which recall slaughter and battle, and the war metals iron and bronze. Ares appears often in Attic vase painting, especially in scenes with Aphrodite or heroic fights, and classical sculpture usually shows him as an idealized warrior god. This model later influenced Roman images of Mars. Over time, his figure became a visual shorthand for war and martial courage in both ancient and later art.
Sacred Animals and Plants
Ares is linked with several animals that match his ferocity and warlike character. The dog is connected with him in some traditions as an animal of war and bloodshed. The boar, known for its fierceness, is sometimes tied to Ares in a symbolic way. The horse, especially the war-horses that pull his chariot, is another important sacred animal and points to speed and power in battle.
Sacrifices in his honor could include the offering of dogs in certain war-related rites, along with more common sacrificial animals given in martial settings. No specific sacred plants or plant offerings are firmly tied to Ares, but the animals linked with him—especially war-horses, dogs, and boars—highlight his ferocity and swiftness in combat.
Sacred Objects and Attributes
Sacred objects dedicated to Ares often included trophies and captured weapons displayed after victories, as well as war standards and shields set aside to him in thanks or in hope of his favor. Ritual tools in his cult could be weapons and armor used symbolically in war rites, which reinforced his identity as the god of battle.
Among the weapons tied to him are the spear and sword, and his armor includes a bronze helmet, shield, and a full bronze panoply. These items, especially his bronze armor and weapons, stand for the brutal, close-quarters style of warfare he represents. No separate mythic artifacts beyond his usual war gear are specifically listed in the surviving traditions summarized here.
Sanctuaries and Cult Sites
Ares’ best-known sanctuary is the Areopagus, or Hill of Ares, in Athens, a rocky hill west of the Acropolis that served as both a sacred place and a judicial area. In myth it is the site of his trial for killing Halirrhothius, and in historical times it was the meeting place of the Athenian homicide court.
Other local shrines and altars to Ares were found across Greece and Thrace, including a sanctuary in Sparta linked with the city’s military cult, known mainly from later literary accounts. Many smaller altars and shrines stood near training grounds, city walls, or army mustering points, showing his close link with military life.
Archaeological evidence for his worship includes scattered dedications and inscriptions to Ares from different Greek sites, along with architectural remains and finds connected with martial offerings and dedications.
Interpretations and Reception
Ancient writers often saw Ares as a force that was necessary but dangerous. He stands for the destructive, uncontrolled side of war rather than its strategic, civic, or defensive aspects. He is often set against Athena, who represents intelligent planning, civic order, and just warfare.
Philosophical and allegorical authors, including Stoics and others, sometimes treated Ares as the personification of human anger and the urge toward conflict. Later moralizing writers used him as a symbol of uncontrolled aggression and the dangers of war. In comparative mythology, Ares is often placed beside Near Eastern war gods and the Roman Mars, though the Greek god is usually shown as more negative and less closely tied to civic identity than Mars.
Early Christian writers pointed to Ares as an example of pagan praise of violence and moral disorder. Modern scholarship often stresses the relative weakness and limited reach of his cult when compared with his striking presence in epic poetry, and often focuses on his role as a contrast to Athena and as the personification of the horrors of war. In later art and literature, Ares often blends with Mars, and the more positive, protective traits of the Roman god are sometimes projected back onto the Greek figure.
Roman Equivalents
The Roman equivalent of Ares is Mars, and he was commonly identified with Mars through interpretatio Romana. Roman names and epithets for this god include Mars, Mars Gradivus, and Mars Ultor. Ares and Mars share a basic identity as war gods, but there are important differences in their worship and characters.
Mars was a central state god in Rome, linked not only with war but also with agriculture, civic identity, and the founding of Rome. He held a more honorable and protective place in Roman religion than the often negatively portrayed Ares did in Greece. During the Roman imperial period, Greek-speaking regions often worshipped Mars and Ares in blended forms that mixed traits of both gods. Information about Mars and his link to Ares appears in sources such as Livy’s History of Rome, Ovid’s Fasti, and many Roman inscriptions and records of state cult.
Modern Legacy
In modern times, Ares continues to appear in many kinds of culture. He shows up as a recurring character in novels, comics, and fantasy works that draw on Greek mythology, and he is often adapted in role-playing games and video games as a powerful war god or antagonist. In literature, Ares often stands for the brutality of war and the personification of conflict, and he appears in modern retellings of the Trojan War and other myths aimed at both adults and younger readers.
Visual and performing arts also make use of his figure. He appears in neoclassical painting and sculpture, often shaped by the iconography of the Roman Mars, and he features in modern stage and screen versions of Greek myths. In popular culture, Ares is regularly used in comics and superhero franchises as a villain or ambiguous war god, and he is referenced in television series, films, and animated works inspired by Greek mythology.
Some modern polytheist and neopagan practitioners call on Ares as a god of courage, protection, and martial discipline, though these practices are varied and not standardized. His name and image are also used today as symbols of strength or aggression, including in references to the red planet Mars in astronomy and mythology, and as names or emblems for military equipment, sports teams, and commercial brands.