Ares the son of Zeus

In Greek mythology, Ares is the son of Zeus (king of the gods) and Hera. Though often incorrectly referred to as the Olympian god of war, he is more accurately the god of savage war, or bloodlust. The Romans identified him as Mars, the Roman 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. His birthplace and true home was placed far off, among the barbarous and warlike Thracians (Iliad 13.301; Ovid). And he withdrew to Thrace 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 the unpredictable violence of war.

"Ares" remained an adjective and epithet in Classical times: Zeus Areios, Athena Areia, even Aphrodite Areia. In Mycenaean times, inscriptions attest to Enyalios, a name that survived into Classical times as an epithet of Ares. Vultures and dogs are sacred to him.

Ares in the myths
In the myth sung by the bard in the hall of Alcinous (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, but all mocked the two. Once the couple were loosed, Ares, embarrassed, sped away to his homeland, Thrace.

In a much later interpolated detail, Ares put the youth Alectryon by his door to warn them of Helios' arrival, as Helios would tell Hephaestus of Aphrodite's infidelity if the two were discovered, but Alectryon fell asleep. Helios discovered the two and alerted Hephaestus. Ares was furious and turned Alectryon into a rooster, which now never forgets to announce the arrival of the sun in the morning.


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." 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 (Iliad V.699). 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 and his cries made Achaeans and Trojans alike tremble. Athena then drove the spear into Ares's body, who bellowed in pain and fled to Mt. Olympus, forcing the Trojans to fall back (XXI.391). Later when Zeus allows the gods to fight in the war again, Ares tries to fight Athena to avenge himself for his previous injury, but is once again badly injured when she tosses a huge boulder on him.