Ares

“ Nay, come, at Ares first drive thou thy single-hooved horses, and smite him in close fight, neither have thou awe of furious Ares that raveth here a full-wrought bane, a renegade, that but now spake with me and Hera, and made as though he would fight against the Trojans but give aid to the Argives ”

“ They were sea-nymphs, with the upper part of the body that of a maiden and the lower that of a sea-bird, having wings attached to their shoulders, and were endowed with such wonderful voices, that their sweet songs are said to have lured mariners to destruction.
ARES (Mars) .
Ares, the son of Zeus and Hera, was the god of war, who gloried in strife for its own sake; he loved the tumult and havoc of the battlefield, and delighted in slaughter and extermination; in fact he presents no benevolent aspect which could possibly react favourably upon human life. ”

“ Thus he spake, and Meriones, the peer of swift Ares, quickly bare the spear of bronze from the hut, and went after Idomeneus, with high thoughts of battle. And even as Ares, the bane of men, goes forth into the war, and with him follows his dear son Panic, stark and fearless, that terrifies even the hardy warrior; and these twain leave Thrace, and harness them for fight with the Ephyri, or the great-hearted Phlegyans, yet hearken not to both peoples, but give honour to one only; like these gods did Meriones and Idomeneus, leaders of men, set forth into the fight, harnessed in gleaming bronze. ”

“ Ares is represented as a warlike god, emulous, and covetous of sheep and other things. But in the end they say he was taken in adultery with Aphrodite by the child Eros and Hephaestus and was bound by them. How then can the covetous, the warrior, the bondman and adulterer be a god? ”

“ Ares, exceeding in strength, chariot-rider, golden-helmed, doughty in heart, shield-bearer, Saviour of cities, harnessed in bronze, strong of arm, unwearying, mighty with the spear, O defence of Olympus, father of warlike Victory, ally of Themis, stern governor of the rebellious, leader of righteous men, sceptred King of manliness, who whirl your fiery sphere among the planets in their sevenfold courses through the aether wherein your blazing steeds ever bear you above the third firmament of heaven; hear me, helper of men, giver of dauntless youth! ”

“ ARES, in ancient Greek mythology, the god of war, or rather of battle, son of Zeus and Hera. (For the Roman god, identified with Ares, see Mars.) As contrasted with Athena, who added to her other attributes that of being the goddess of well-conducted military operations, he personifies brute strength and the wild rage of conflict. His delight is in war and bloodshed; he loves fighting for fighting’s sake, and takes the side of the one or the other combatant indifferently, regardless of the justice of the cause. ”

“ Mars (Ares) , [26] the war-god, son of Jupiter and Juno. The meaning of the name Ares is uncertain; the most probable significations are the Slayer, the Avenger, the Curse. The Roman god of war, Mars, is the bright and burning one. Homer, in the Iliad, represents Ares as the insatiable warrior of the heroic age, who, impelled by rage and lust of violence, exults in the noise of battle, revels in the horror of carnage. ”

“ Better, better, better, to believe that Ares fled shrieking and wounded from a mortal man—better to believe in Zeus’s adulteries and Hermes’s thefts—than to believe that gods have never spoken face to face with men! Let me think, lest I go mad, that beings from that unseen world for which I hunger have appeared, and held communion with mankind, such as no reason or sense could doubt—even though those beings were more capricious and baser than ourselves! ”

“ And they would have tarried there and have closed in battle with the Amazons, and would have fought not without bloodshed for the Amazons were not gentle foes and regarded not justice, those dwellers on the Doeantian plain; but grievous insolence and the works of Ares were all their care; for by race they were the daughters of Ares and the nymph Harmonia, who bare to Ares war-loving maids, wedded to him in the glens of the Acmonian wood had not the breezes of Argestes come again from Zeus; and with the wind they left the rounded beach, where the Themiscyreian Amazons were arming for war. ”

“ Then the stout hearted son of Zeus let him be, and himself watched for the onset of man-slaying Ares: fiercely he stared, like a lion who has come upon a body and full eagerly rips the hide with his strong claws and takes away the sweet life with all speed: his dark heart is filled with rage and his eyes glare fiercely, while he tears up the earth with his paws and lashes his Hanks and shoulders with his tail so that no one dares to face him and go near to give battle. ”

“ Among the Trojan ranks was Ares, and among the Greeks Athené, and with her Fear, and Flight, and Strife that never grows weary, sister and comrade of Ares. Mean is her stature at the first, but in the end she holds her head to heaven, while she walks with her feet upon the earth. ”

“ From the point of view of the painter, there is little to say about the Grecian Ares. He has not a single good trait in legend or story, and we know nothing of his presumed personal form beyond the military externals. It is difficult to understand how such a god came to be included among the deities of a civilized race. Of what service could be prayer when it is addressed to a blatant, bloodstained, genius of the brutal side of war, without feeling or pity, and apparently so wanting in intelligence that he has to leave the direction of battles to a goddess? ”

“ Now do you wish me to bring forward a still greater proof that the founder of our city was sent down to earth, not by Ares alone, though perhaps some noble daemon with the character of Ares did take part in the fashioning of his mortal body, even he who is said to have visited Silvia760 when she was carrying water for the bath of the goddess,761 but the whole truth is that the soul of the god Quirinus762 came down to earth from Helios; for we must, I think, believe the sacred tradition. ”

“ Stirred by Apollo, Ares himself came to the aid of the Trojans, inspiring Sarpedon the Lycian to hearten his comrades, who were shortly gladdened by the return of Aeneas whom Apollo had healed. At the sight of Ares and Apollo fighting for Troy Hera and Athena came down to battle for the Greeks; they found Diomedes on the skirts of the host, cooling the wound Pandarus had inflicted. Entering his chariot by his side, Athena fired him to meet Ares and drive him wounded back to Olympus, where he found but little compassion from Zeus. The two goddesses then left the mortals to fight it out. ”

“ For Ares, lord of strife,
Who doth the swaying scales of battle hold,
War’s money-changer, giving dust for gold,
Sends back, to hearts that held them dear,
Scant ash of warriors, wept with many a tear,
Light to the hand, but heavy to the soul;
Yea, fills the light urn full
With what survived the flame—
Death’s dusty measure of a hero’s frame! ”

“ For against brave men I bear no grudge, such as ye yourselves tell me of him who bears sway in Hellas. And the trial of your courage and might shall be a contest which I myself can compass with my hands, deadly though it be. Two bulls with feet of bronze I have that pasture on the plain of Ares, breathing forth flame from their jaws; them do I yoke and drive over the stubborn field of Ares, four plough-gates ”

“ Wherefore content ye yourselves with whatsoever evil thing he sendeth upon each. Even now I deem that sorrow hath been wrought for Ares, seeing that his son, dearest of men to him, hath perished in battle, even Ascalaphus, whom mighty Ares declareth to be his own. ”

“ His attributes were the spear and the burning torch, symbolical of the devastation caused by war (in ancient times the hurling of a torch was the signal for the commencement of hostilities) . The animals sacred to him were the dog and the vulture.
The worship of Ares being less general throughout Greece than that of the gods of peace, the number of statues of him is small; those of Ares-Mars, among the Romans, are more frequent. ”

“ He also appears in many other groups, with Aphrodite, in marble and on engraved gems of Roman times. But before this grouping had recommended itself to the Romans, with their legend of Mars and Rhea Silvia, the Greek Ares had again become under Macedonian influence a bearded, armed and powerful god.
Authorities.—H.D. Müller, Ares (1848) , H.W. Stoll, Über die ursprungliche Bedeutung des A. und der Athene (1881) ; F.A. Voigt, “Beiträge zur Mythologie des Ares und Athena” in Leipziger Studien, iv. 1881 ”

“ An occasional Aretas and Arete are the chief recorded namesakes of Ares, presiding god of the Areopagus as he was; and thence may have come the Italian Aretino, and an Areta, who appears in Cornwall. Aphrodite seems to have hardly one derived from her name, which is explained as the Foam Sprung. [26]
26. ”

“ That is the critical problem.
The “Ares” depicts the war-god as a youth. This is a fourth-century variation from the robust, bearded, and fully armed type of an earlier period. Ares is pondering fresh feats of arms. Or may be, as the Roman [Pg 72] copyist suggests by the introduction of the tiny Eros, he is solving some deep amatory problem set him by Aphrodite. At first sight the “Ares” seems to be by a sculptor who has imbibed some of the spirit of both Scopas and Praxiteles. The sentiment strikes us as Praxitelean, the expression rather suggests Scopas. ”

“ For this deed, Poseidon summoned Ares to appear before the tribunal of the Olympic gods, which was held upon a hill in Athens. 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. In the Gigantomachia, Ares was defeated by the Aloidæ, the two giant-sons of Poseidon, who put him in chains, and kept him in prison for thirteen months.
Ares is represented as a man of youthful appearance; his tall muscular form combines great strength with wonderful agility. ”

“ In the wars among the early Greeks men fell upon one another with the violence of wild animals.
The Greeks with their ready gift for personification conceived of this spirit of warfare as a supernatural being acting on human lives. He was called Ares, the god whose special delight was to incite the fierce passions of men. ”

“ But that a divine nature should be in want or be destroyed by lightning is impossible.
And again they bring forward another as a god, and they call him Ares. And they say that he is a warrior, and jealous, and covets sheep and things which are not his. And he makes gain by his arms. And they say that at length he committed adultery with Aphrodite, and was caught by the little boy Eros and by Hephaistos the husband of Aphrodite. But it is impossible that a god should be a warrior or bound or an adulterer. ”

“ Then Aeetes arrayed his breast in the stiff corslet which Ares gave him when he had slain Phlegraean Mimas with his own hands; and upon his head he placed a golden helmet with four plumes, gleaming like the sun's round light when he first rises from Ocean. And he wielded his shield of many hides, and his spear, terrible, resistless; none of the heroes could have withstood its shock now that they had left behind Heracles far away, who alone could have met it in battle. For the king his well-fashioned chariot of swift steeds was held near at hand by Phaethon, for him to mount ”

“ Through the machinations of Hera and Athene he is overcome by human heroes, the poet's feeling being, possibly, contempt for the mere savage fighter; in fact, Ares in the Iliad is, from our point of view, hardly a respectable character—he violates his promise, and when wounded cries out like a hurt child. But as war-god he was widely revered in Greece; in Thebes especially he was honored as one of the great gods. Hesiod makes him the son of Zeus and Hera,1337 but he never attains moral or other dignity; in the popular cult he remained, probably, merely the patron of war. ”

“ In this last aspect he was one of the chief gods of the Thracians, amongst whom his home was placed even in the time of Homer. In Scythia an old iron sword served as the symbol of the god, to which yearly sacrifices of cattle and horses were made, and in earlier times (as apparently also at Sparta) human victims, selected from prisoners of war, were offered. Thus Ares developed into the god of war, in which character he made his way into Greece. ”

“ Ares, in the few instances in which he appears on vases, is generally in a subordinate position; he is a spectator at the birth of Athena [407] ; and appears twice on the François vase, at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, and again in an attitude of shame and humility, to indicate the part he played in the story of Hephaistos and Hera; of his combat with the former god mention has already been made (p. 16) . In the Gigantomachia his opponent is Mimas, with whom he also appears in single combat [408] ; and he aids his son Kyknos against Herakles and Athena. ”

“ Ares is the typical Greek fully-armed warrior, bearded, with helmet, short chiton, cuirass, and greaves, sword, spear, and shield; but is not otherwise to be distinguished. Hermes, as the messenger of the gods, appears in appropriate costume of chlamys and petasos (the Greek travelling-hat) , and carrying the caduceus or herald’s staff; he usually wears high boots, and on the earlier vases a short chiton in addition. He is occasionally winged, but it is more usual to find the wings attached to his petasos or boots. On B.F. vases he is always bearded, but not after the sixth century. ”