Looks after: War, in its violence
Roman name: Mars
Often shown with: The spear, the helmet, the dog, the vulture.

Ares

Ἄρης

Ares is the god of war as bloodshed and fury. He is the son of Zeus and Hera, and not much liked among the gods.

Family at a glance

Zeus Hera~Phobos~Deimos~Harmonia

Ares is the son of Zeus and Hera. In Homer's Iliad he is surprisingly unpopular: Zeus tells him he is the most hateful of the gods to him, and he is wounded by the mortal Diomedes, with Athena's help, and flees howling to Olympus. His war is the savage kind, as opposed to Athena's strategy.

His best-known story is his affair with Aphrodite, who was married to Hephaestus. In the Odyssey, Helios saw them and told Hephaestus, who made a fine net of bronze and trapped them in bed in front of the other gods, who laughed.

His companions were Phobos (fear) and Deimos (panic), his sons by Aphrodite, along with Harmonia, a daughter, who married Cadmus of Thebes. The Areopagus, the Hill of Ares in Athens, was where the city's court sat, and is said to be named after his trial there for the killing of Poseidon's son.

Worship of Ares in Greece was limited, though important in Sparta. The Romans treated their Mars with far more respect.

In later art and language

The planet Mars is the Roman form of the god. The Areopagus gave the title to the Athenian council and the name Areopagitica to Milton's 1644 pamphlet on freedom of the press.