Ares: Difference between revisions
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==Ares in cult== |
==Ares in cult== |
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Although important in poetry, Ares was only rarely the recipient of [[Cult (religion)|cult worship]] in ancient Greece, save at [[Sparta]], where he was propitiated before battle, and in the founding myth of [[Thebes, Greece|Thebes]], and he appeared in few myths (Burkert 1985, p.169). At Sparta there was a statue of the god in chains, to show that the spirit of war and victory was never to leave the city. At Sparta young dogs and even humans were sacrificed to him. The temple to Ares in the agora of [[Athens]] that [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] saw in the second century AD had only been moved and rededicated there during the time of [[Augustus]]; in essence it was a Roman temple to Mars. The [[Areopagus]], the "hill of Ares" where [[Paul of Tarsus|Paul]] preached, is sited at some distance from the Acropolis; from archaic times it was a site of trials. Its connection with Ares, perhaps based on a false etymology, may be purely [[etiological]]. |
Although important in poetry, Ares was only rarely the recipient of [[Cult (religion)|cult worship]] in ancient Greece, save at [[Sparta]], where he was propitiated before battle, and in the founding myth of [[Thebes, Greece|Thebes]], and he appeared in few myths (Burkert 1985, p.169). At Sparta there was a statue of the god in chains, to show that the spirit of war and victory was never to leave the city. At Sparta young dogs and even humans were sacrificed to him. The temple to Ares in the agora of [[Athens]] that [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] saw in the second century AD had only been moved and rededicated there during the time of [[Augustus]]; in essence it was a Roman temple to Mars. The [[Areopagus]], the "hill of Ares" where [[Paul of Tarsus|Paul]] preached, is sited at some distance from the Acropolis; from archaic times it was a site of trials. Its connection with Ares, perhaps based on a false etymology, may be purely [[etiological]]. |
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==Ares' symbols== |
==Ares' symbols== |
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Revision as of 22:08, 25 September 2006
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In Greek mythology, Ares ("battle strife"; in Greek, Άρης)[1] is the Olympian god of war and son of Zeus (king of the gods) and Hera. The Romans identified Mars, the god of war (whom they had inherited from the Etruscans) with Hellenic Ares, but among them, Mars stood in much higher esteem. Among the Hellenes, Ares was always mistrusted[2]: his birthplace and true home was placed far off, among the barbarous and warlike Thracians (Iliad 13.301; Ovid); to Thrace he withdrew after he was discovered on a couch with Aphrodite.(Odyssey 8.361). Though Ares' half-sister Athena was also considered to be a war deity, Athena's stance was that of strategic warfare while Ares' tended to be that of war for the sake of it.
"Ares" remained an adjective and epithet in Classical times: Zeus Areios, Athena Areia, even Aphrodite Areaia.[3] In Mycenaean times, inscriptions attest to Enyalios, a name that survived into Classical times as an epithet of Ares.
Ares in cult
Although important in poetry, Ares was only rarely the recipient of cult worship in ancient Greece, save at Sparta, where he was propitiated before battle, and in the founding myth of Thebes, and he appeared in few myths (Burkert 1985, p.169). At Sparta there was a statue of the god in chains, to show that the spirit of war and victory was never to leave the city. At Sparta young dogs and even humans were sacrificed to him. The temple to Ares in the agora of Athens that Pausanias saw in the second century AD had only been moved and rededicated there during the time of Augustus; in essence it was a Roman temple to Mars. The Areopagus, the "hill of Ares" where Paul preached, is sited at some distance from the Acropolis; from archaic times it was a site of trials. Its connection with Ares, perhaps based on a false etymology, may be purely etiological.
Ares' symbols
Ares had a quadriga drawn by four gold-bridled (Iliad v.352) fire-breathing immortal stallions. Among the gods, Ares was recognized by his brazen armour; he brandished a spear in battle. His sacred birds were the barn owl, woodpecker, and especially the vulture. 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 favourite animal was the dog and black puppies were sacrificed to him in Sparta.
In classical Greek art his usual attributes were a crested helm and spear. In sculpture he often appears naked with only these two attributes. Occasionally he was shown with a small poisonous serpent coiled around his arm or the symbol of the snake emblazoned on his shield.
Attendants
Deimos and Phobos were his children by Aphrodite and were the spirit of terror and fear. "The sister and companion of murderous Ares" was Eris, goddess of discord/strife (Iliad, iv). The presence of Ares was accompanied by Kydoimos, the very spirit (daemon) of the din of battle.
The founding of Thebes
One of the many roles of Ares that was sited in mainland Greece itself was in the founding myth of Thebes: Ares was the progenitor of the water-dragon slain by Cadmus. From the dragon's teeth sown as if a crop arose a race of fighting men, the descendents of Ares. To propitiate Ares, Cadmus took as a bride Harmonia, daughter of Ares' union with Aphrodite, thus harmonizing all strife and founding the city of Thebes.
Hymns to Ares
Among the "Homeric Hymns", a "Hymn to Ares" has been transmitted in the manuscripts, although scholars have argued that it was written in Late Antiquity.[4] Even so, apart from sacrifices to him made by commanders of armies in the field, Ares was venerated most often in conjunction with other gods; for example, he shared a temple with Aphrodite at Thebes. Besides Aphrodite, the adjective areios, areia is applied to other gods in their warlike aspect. In the Iliad "Ares" is as often embodied in a battle formula connoting rough strife as he is personified as a bronze-armoured god: he is repeatedly contrasted with Athena, to his disadvantage. To Athena is reserved the one glorious aspect of war, Nike, "victory".[5] At Athens, the Areopagus, a hill near the Acropolis, is equally the "Hill of Ares" and simply the "Battle Hill".
Consorts and Children
There are accounts of a son of Ares, Cycnus (Kýknos) of Macedonia, who was so murderous that he attempted to build a temple with the skulls and the bones of travellers. Heracles slaughtered this abominable monstrosity, engendering the wrath of Ares, whom the hero wounded (Apollodorus 2.114).
Other consorts and children of Ares include:
- Aglaulus
- Aphrodite
- Cyrene
- Harpina (or Sterope, according to some accounts)
- Otrera
- Pyrene
- Astyoche
- Ascalaphus and Ialmenus
- Bistonis
- Rhea Silvia (Roman mythology)
- Unknown mothers
Ares in the myths
Ares and Aphrodite
In the myth sung by the bard in the hall of Alicinous (Odyssey viii.300ff) the Sun-God, Helios, once spied Ares and Aphrodite enjoying each other secretly in the hall of Hephaestus and how he promptly reported the incident to Aphrodite's Olympian consort. Hephaestus contrived to catch the couple "in the act", and so he fashioned a net with which to snare the illicit lovers. At the appropriate time, this net was sprung, and trapped Ares and Aphrodite locked in very private embrace. But Hephaestus was not yet satisfied with his revenge - he invited the Olympian gods and goddesses to view the unfortunate pair. For the sake of modesty, the goddesses demurred, but the male gods went to witness the sight. Some commented on the beauty of Aphrodite, others remarked that they would eagerly trade places with Ares, all mocked the two. Once the couple were loosed, Ares sped away to his homeland, Thrace. (In a much later interpolated detail, Ares put the youth Alectryon by his door to guard them, but Alectryon fell asleep. Ares turned Alectryon into a rooster, which never forgets to announce the arrival of the sun in the morning.)
Murder Trial
By Ares, Aglaulus gave birth to Alcippe. When Alcippe was grown, Halirrhotios, son of Poseidon, tried to rape her. Ares loved his daughter and to protect her, he killed Halirrhotios. Poseidon loved his son, too, so he went to Zeus and demanded that Ares be punished. The other Olympians voted that Ares be acquitted. This shows how much the god loathed and despised Ares.
Ares and the giants
In one archaic myth, related in the Iliad by the goddess Dione to her daughter Aphrodite, two chthonic giants, the Aloadae, Otus and Ephialtes, threw Ares into chains and put him in a bronze urn, where he remained for thirteen months, a lunar year. "And that would have been the end of Ares and his appetite for war, if the beautiful Eriboea, the young giants' stepmother, had not told Hermes what they had done," she related (Iliad 5.385–391). "In this one suspects a festival of licence which is unleashed in the thirteenth month."[6] Ares remained screaming and howling in the urn until Hermes rescued him and Artemis tricked the Aloadae into slaying each other.
The Iliad
In The Iliad, Homer represented Ares as having no fixed allegiances nor respect for Themis, the right ordering of things: he promised Athena and Hera that he would fight on the side of the Achaeans, but Aphrodite was able to persuade Ares to side with the Trojans. During the war, Diomedes fought with Hector and saw Ares fighting on the Trojans' side. Diomedes called for his soldiers to fall back slowly. Hera, Ares's mother, saw his interference and asked Zeus, his father, for permission to drive Ares away from the battlefield. Hera encouraged Diomedes to attack Ares, so he threw a spear at Ares. Athena then drove the spear into Ares's body, who bellowed in pain and fled to Mt. Olympus, forcing the Trojans to fall back
Ares in the Renaissance
In Renaissance and Neoclassical works of art, Ares' symbols are a spear and helmet, his animal is the dog, and his bird is the vulture. In literary works of these eras, Ares appears as cruel, aggressive, and blood-thirsty, reviled by both gods and humans, much as he was in the ancient Greek myths.
References
- Robert Graves, The Greek Myths rev. ed. 1960. 19:"Ares natures and deeds" et passim
- Karl Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks 1951.
- Walter Burkert, Greek Religion 1958 2.12 et passim
- Burkert, Walter, 1985. Greek Religion (Cambridge: Harvard University Press)
- Kerenyi, Carl, 1951. Gods of the Greeks (London:Thames & Hudson)
Notes
- ^ The reading often remains ambiguous, as in a late sixth-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" (Athens, NM 3851) quoted in Andrew Stewart, One Hundred Greek Sculptors: Their Careers and Extant Works, Introduction: I. "The Sources"
- ^ "You are the most hateful to me of the gods who hold Olympus," Zeus tells him in Iliad( 5.890); "forever strife is dear to you and wars and slaughter".
- ^ Burkert (1985). Greek Religion. p. 169.
- ^ Burkert, 415n15
- ^ Burkert (1985). Greek Religion. p. 169.
- ^ Burkert (1985). Greek Religion. p. 169.
Popular Culture
- A popular reference to Ares is Ares (Hercules and Xena), played by Kevin Smith (actor). The story line sticks loosely to the myth, but not completely.
- Ares is the main villain in the Sony Playstation 2 game God of War. Kratos, the main character, seeks revenge on Ares for having been made his slave and tricked into killing his family.
- Ares is the Final Villain in the game Spartan: Total Warrior. The Spartan, the main character, is confronted by Ares in the ruins of The Colloseum. In this version of the story, Ares and Aphrodite are discovered by her hand-maid, The Spartan's mother.
See also
External links
- Theoi Project, Ares information on Ares from classical literature, images from Greek and Roman art.
- Greek Mythology Link, Ares summary of Ares in myth