![]() For the sake of modesty, the goddesses demurred, but the male gods went to witness the sight. But Hephaestus was not yet satisfied with his revenge - he invited the Olympian gods and goddesses to view the unfortunate pair. At the appropriate time, this net was sprung, and trapped Ares and Aphrodite locked in very private embrace. Hephaestus contrived to catch the couple in the act, and so he fashioned a finely-knitted and nearly invisible net with which to snare the illicit lovers. In the tale sung by the bard in the hall of Alcinous, the Sun-God Helios once spied Ares and Aphrodite enjoying each other secretly in the hall of Hephaestus, and he promptly reported the incident to Aphrodite's Olympian consort. Ares was acquitted, and this event is supposed to have given rise to the name Areopagus (or Hill of Ares), which afterwards became so famous as a court of justice. For this deed, Poseidon summoned Ares to appear before the tribunal of the Olympic gods, which was held upon a hill in Athens. While Eros and Anteros' godly stations favored their godly mother, Adrestia by far preferred to emulate her father, often accompanying him to war.Īres, upon one occasion, incurred the anger of Poseidon by slaying his son Halirrhothios, who had insulted Alcippe, another daughter of the war-god. Their union created the minor gods Eros, Anteros, Phobos, Deimos, Harmonia, and Adrestia. ![]() Heracles slaughtered this abominable monstrosity, engendering the wrath of Ares, whom Heracles wounded.Īres also had a romance with the goddess Aphrodite. There are accounts of a son of Ares, Cycnus (Κύκνος) of Macedonia, who was so murderous that he tried to build a temple with the skulls and the bones of travelers. Though involved in the founding myth of Thebes, he only appeared in a few short chapters within the myths. Then Ares went straight back to battle with a shield in hand. In the Iliad (v.890ff) Ares rode into battle and when he was wounded he went back to Olympus where Zeus healed him, but with angry words. Sacrifice might be made to Ares on the eve of battle to enlist his support. In Sparta, the chthonic night-time sacrifice of a dog to Enyalios became assimilated to the cult of Ares. According to Argonautica (ii.382ff and 1031ff Hyginus, Fabulae 30) the birds of Ares ( Ornithes Areioi) were a flock of feather-dart-dropping birds that guarded the Amazons' shrine of the god on a coastal island in the Black Sea. His keen and sacred birds were the woodpecker, the eagle owl and, especially in the south, the vulture. Among the gods, Ares was recognized by his bronze armor he brandished a spear in battle. Vultures and dogs, both of which prey upon carrion in the battlefield, were sacred to him.Īres had a quadriga – a chariot drawn by four gold-bridled ( Iliad v.352) fire-emitting immortal stallions. In Mycenaean times, inscriptions attest to Enyalios, a name that survived into Classical times as an epithet of Ares. "Ares" remained an adjective and epithet in Classical times, which could be applied to the war-like aspects of other gods: Zeus Areios, Athena Areia, even Aphrodite Areia. His birthplace and true home was placed far off, among the barbarous and warlike Thracians, to whom he withdrew after his affair with Aphrodite was revealed. Although Ares' half-sister Athena was also considered a war deity, her stance was that of strategic warfare, whereas Ares's tended to be one of unpredictable violence. (See also Athena.)Īmong the Hellenes, Ares was always distrusted."You are the most hateful to me of the gods who hold Olympus," Zeus tells him in the Iliad (5.890) "forever strife is dear to you and wars and slaughter". ![]() The Romans identified him as Mars, the god of war and agriculture, whom they had inherited from the Etruscans but, among them, Mars stood in much higher esteem. The reading of his character remains ambiguous, in a late 6th-century funerary inscription from Attica: "Stay and mourn at the tomb of dead Kroisos/ Whom raging Ares destroyed one day, fighting in the foremost ranks" He is an important Olympian god in the epic tradition represented by the Iliad.
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