Ares
Sign in to saveAres (; , Árēs ) is the Greek god of war and courage. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. Many 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.
AI overview
Ares is the Greek god of war and courage, one of the twelve most important deities in ancient Greek religion and the son of Zeus and Hera. He represents both the physical bravery needed in battle and the brutal violence of war itself, which is why the ancient Greeks had mixed feelings about him—especially compared to his sister Athena, who represented the strategic and leadership aspects of warfare instead.
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Key facts
- Deity.spouse
- Aphrodite
- Deity.type
- Greek
- Deity.name
- Ares
- Deity.image
- Ares Canope Villa Adriana b.jpg
- Deity.caption
- Cast of a Roman statue from Hadrian's Villa, copied from a Greek original. Traditionally identified as Ares or Hermes.
- Deity.god_of
- God of war and courage
- Deity.member_of
- the Twelve Olympians
- Deity.abode
- Mount Olympus, temples in mainland Greece, Crete and Asia minor
- Deity.symbols
- Sword, spear, shield, helmet
- Deity.parents
- Zeus and Hera
- Deity.siblings
- Hephaestus, Eileithyia, Hebe and several paternal half-siblings
- Deity.children
Article
28 sectionsContents
- Names
- Epithets
- Cult
- Chained statues
- Sacrifices
- Thrace and Scythia
- Asia Minor
- Crete
- Aksum
- Characterisation
- Mythology
- Birth
- Argonautica
- Founding of Thebes
- Aphrodite
- Giants
- ''Iliad''
- Attendants
- Offspring and affairs
- List of offspring and their mothers
- Mars
- Renaissance and later depictions
- In popular culture
- Genealogy
- See also
- Footnotes
- Notes
- References
Ares (; , Árēs ) is the Greek god of war and courage. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. Many 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's name shows his origins as Mycenaean, 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.